Brown, Dale - Independent 04 (45 page)

 
          
Patriot
engagements were always done in pairs for maximum effectiveness ...

 
          
Aboard Airtech 75-D

 
          
“Man
oh man, did you
see
that?” the
copilot of Cazaux’s plane shouted gleefully. The pallet of four cluster bomb
units they had just dropped on the Patriot missile site at Alliance Airport was
doing an unbelievable job. The exploding cluster bombs made the sun-dried brown
earth west of the runway look as if it were boiling, with tiny flashes of
yellow fire erupting in a large area the size of two full city blocks. Then,
one of those tiny explosions would hit next to one of the upraised Patriot
launchers, and the whole unit would disappear in a huge explosion that would
rock their little transport plane. After one such explosion, one Patriot
missile cooked off, and the two terrorists could see it spinning along the
ground in wide arcs until it skipped across the runway and plowed into a group
of buildings in the northern part of the airport, causing another huge
explosion and fire. “Hey, go around once more. I gotta see this again.”

 
          
“No
sweat, man,” the totally relaxed pilot murmured, starting a right turn back
toward the airport so he could give the copilot a better look out the right
cockpit windows. “Hey, that was fun.” He rolled out momentarily, checking
outside, then looked over to his copilot and said lazily, “It was nice flyin’
with ya, bud.”

 
          
“Say
what?” The pilot pointed out the left cockpit window with his thumb. On the
horizon, they could see a white line suddenly appear from the ground, speeding
skyward out of sight. He squinted, trying to look up at its origin, but it was
too high up and moving too fast to see. “What in the hell’s th—”

           
Launcher number one was set at a
fixed 60-degree up angle, and it was pointed far to the northwest, well away
from the eastbound aircraft, but Patriot didn’t need to be pointed directly at
its quarry at launch. The missile quickly adjusted course, sending a white
streak of smoke across the early-morning Texas sky. It climbed to fifteen
thousand feet in less than three seconds before starting its terminal dive.
Traveling at over twice the speed of sound, it took only six seconds for the
first missile to find its target. After the hit, the Patriot engagement radar
locked on to the biggest piece of the stricken aircraft, the aft half of the
fuselage, and that’s what it steered the second missile into—but one missile
was all that was needed.

 
          
“Splash
unknown 19,” Connor reported in a monotone, detached voice. The plane—he wasn’t
even sure what kind of plane it was or how many persons were aboard—was
destroyed, clean, simple, and quick. Radar return one moment, the next moment
nothing. Connor felt horribly tense, almost nauseated. All their actions were
precisely like the simulator sessions they constantly ran—the little Patriot missile
“football” symbols racing across the screen, the dotted lines showing the
missile’s track intersecting with the target’s track, the “coffin” symbol
around the target as the computed time of intercept ran out and as the radar
tried to determine if the target was still flying. But, of course, this was no
simulation. “Set HOLD FIRE all units,” he murmured, his voice barely audible
over the whir of the van’s air conditioning units, “and let’s get a status
report.”

 
          
Aboard Tiger 90

 
          
It
was an eerie feeling on the AWACS radar plane at that moment. In the Weapons
and Surveillance sections, most of the controllers were busy with their own
sectors and were not aware that a Patriot missile had just destroyed an
aircraft near Fort Worth, Texas. But the Senior Director and Major Kestrel, the
Mission Crew Commander, simply wore blank expressions as they stared straight
ahead at their scopes. The other controllers and technicians that had
participated in the shootdown were on their feet, silently looking over toward
Kestrel. Most of them had helped kill things before for real—but they had been
SCUD missiles over Saudi Arabia or Israel, or drones over the Gulf of Mexico or
Pacific Ocean during live-fire exercises, never a manned aircraft flying over
America.

 
          
“Get
me a status on all Tiger units,” Kestrel said, forcing as much steel into his
voice as he could. “Verify all units acknowledging HOLD FIRE.” He could see the
status of all his assigned air and ground air defense systems himself, but he
wanted to hear it for himself, direct from the unit operators and commanders,
to reassure him that he was back in control and that no one else would die
unless he gave the command.

 
          
“MCC,
unknown 18 is still looking for clearance to Oklahoma City ...”

 
          
“I
want that bastard on the ground at Meacham,” Kestrel ordered. “I want both
Tango X-Ray-311 units to intercept unknown 18, and if they have to blow out his
windscreen or shoot off an engine, I want that sonofabitch on the ground
immediately. I want federal agents to arrest the crew.”

 
          
“It’s
being done, Will,” Ian Hardcastle replied. “Marshals Service agents and the FBI
are on the way.” He had been speaking on a headset to Marshals Service agents
on the ground at Dallas-Fort Worth as the incident was occurring.

 
          
“Major..
. there was nothing you could do,” Hardcastle said. Hardcastle could see the
pain and the anger in Kestrel’s face. These men were professional soldiers,
trained to defend their country, yet killing was not part of their nature. It
was even more difficult because it was so easy, so detached, so remote—say a
word, and seconds later, men die and a very large air machine is destroyed.

           
“You did everything right, and you
exercised proper judgment.”

 
          
“Then
why in hell did we lose a Patriot site, Admiral?” Kestrel said. “There were a
hundred soldiers at that site out there at Alliance.”

 
          
“You
got the guy who attacked them, Will. There was no way we could know unknown 19
was a terrorist. He had a proper flight plan, followed the proper procedures.”

 
          
“Then
what are we doing here, Admiral?” Kestrel shouted, whipping off his headset and
shooting to his feet before Hardcastle. “We can’t stop anyone who wants to come
in. That Westfall flight is doing everything completely wrong!” He pointed to
his radarscreen, his eyes bulging in anger. “He’s
still
doing everything wrong, and he’s getting away scot-free.”

 
          
“We
gotta deal with that, Will.”

 
          
“Are
you saying I should blow away that Westfall flight?”

 
          
“I’m
not saying that, either,” Hardcastle replied. “Your job is to protect your
assigned airports from aerial assault.”

 
          
“Well,
I obviously failed at that.”

 
          
“If
one plane screws up and gets away, and a terrorist is allowed to attack, then
it’s the system that’s failed, not you,” A1 Vincenti interjected. “You’re doing
everything you can.”

 
          
“Sir,
I need you on headsets,” the senior director interjected. Hardcastle could see
real, serious stress etched on that man’s face—the pressure was on early in the
game, and it showed no signs of letting up at all. “We’ve got another unknown,
over Houston-Hobby, declaring an emergency.”

 
          
“Shit!”
Kestrel exclaimed, slipping wearily into his seat and donning his headset once
again. “Admiral, I don’t know what the answer is. But this is not going to
work. It is just not going to fucking work.”

 
 
          
Near Bedminster, New Jersey That Evening

           
The television was on, and CNN was
giving its hourly wrap-up of the hunt for Henri Cazaux. Jo Ann Vega shivered
with excitement as she saw pictures of the aftermath of the latest attack, a
cargo plane shot down north of Fort Worth, Texas, after it had dropped several
cluster bombs on an Army Patriot missile site. Military commentators were now
talking about the capabilities of the Patriot missile, assuring everyone that
the advanced surface-to-air missile could easily defend its assigned airports.

 
          
She
rose from her leather sofa and walked toward the windows, which looked out
through the front of the house past the four-acre, tree-lined front lawn, and
shook her head while she thought of the commentator’s words. No one, she
thought, was safe from Henri Cazaux. Even a Patriot missile could not stop him.
Only Henri Cazaux himself could stop the killing.

 
          
Looking
out the third-story window through the driving rain, Jo Ann Vega could see the
guards in the front of the mansion, who had been sullenly pacing back and forth
around the grounds through the warm summer rain, suddenly snap to attention.
Cigarette butts went flying and submachine guns appeared from under long coats
back up to carry-arms position. A few minutes later, a big one-ton dually
six-passenger extended cab pickup truck zoomed around through the trees at the
edge of the grassy front lawn and down the gravel driveway toward the mansion,
stopping about fifty yards from the front door. While one guard covered the
driver and another covered the passenger cab, a third guard shined a flashlight
inside the front passenger side, checking IDs.

 
          
The
truck was allowed to pass, parking just underneath the breezeway that covered
the front entryway. A man she had never seen before emerged from the back of
the truck, stood out on the lawn as he finished his cigarette. As he tossed it
away, he looked up and saw Vega standing in the window, watching him. Their
eyes locked for several moments before he pulled up his raincoat collar and
headed inside.

 
          
Vega
began to quiver, and she reached for a pack of cigarettes. Empty. She shivered
again, and she felt as cold and as sweaty as if she was out there in the
humidity and rain with the guards.

 
          
Henri
was home. Good .. .

 
          
She
had evacuated her home in Newburgh, New York, several days ago, right after the
attack on Memphis. As they had expected, Newburgh and Stewart International had
become a major supply depot for the effort to stop Henri Cazaux, with dozens of
flights of C-5 Galaxy, C-141 Star- lifter, and C-17 Globemaster transports
bringing soldiers and air defense missile batteries into Stewart and trucking
them to New York City and airports in Connecticut. Stewart International was
also the southeastern New York headquarters of the New York State Police, with
the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms setting up shop at the
Army barracks at Stewart as well, so clearly it was no longer practical for
Cazaux to visit her there.

 
          
Vega
now occupied the entire third floor of the spacious mansion, with luxurious
furniture, a little galley, a fully equipped entertainment center, and plenty
of windows to watch the deer and other animals scamper across the property. Her
new bedroom was almost as large as her entire storefront apartment in Newburgh
had been. It was a lovely, peaceful, tranquil.. . prison. She had no company
and was not allowed any guests. Her meals were brought to her by guards, who
patrolled the hallways and who would periodically enter her room, even her
bathroom, unannounced, to check on her. The guards never spoke to her, hardly
ever looked at her, even when they would burst in on her in the shower or
dressing in front of the mirror. Of course, she had no phone. She had no one
she desired to call, but it effectively sealed her isolation.

 
          
She
was allowed to have all her astrological books, charts, cards, runes, and even
had a new computer with her charting software installed on it, so she spent a
lot of time doing Henri’s charts and readings, mapping out the progress of his
campaign of terror, and writing what amounted to a script, a Book of
Revelations, about how his private war would turn out. There was no doubt that
his strength was growing each and every day. Every life, every existence could
of course take a number of different paths, and Jo Ann tried to search each of
the strongest and best- defined paths that her Henri would most likely take
each day. They all went in the same direction—horrible death. Henri’s death was
clear, but his was not the only soul that she saw feel the pain of vengeful,
wicked, bloodthirsty death. She saw thousands of tortured souls crying into the
mists of the future, thousands of souls painfully ripped from this life and
thrust into the next like hair being pulled from the skin by the roots.