Dale Brown - Storming Heaven

by Storming Heaven [lit]

  "Phil, my mission was to get drugs off the street by cutting off the supply lines into America," Hardcastle insisted. "We did that.

  We were successful. No one can doubt that." "I think we're here because we all doubt, Admiral," Donahue said, rolling his eyes.

  "What we have now are borders that are wide open to invasion of all kinds," Hardcastle warned. "No Border Security Force. A downsized Border Patrol, Custom Service, and Coast Guard.

  Back then, I could call on four Air National Guard fighter units for help-now there is just one.

  A hurricane took care of one unit--Congress killed the other two. Ladies and gentlemen, we have only twenty air defense units in all of North America--yes, twenty. That's about forty planes ready right now to stop an intruder." "What intruders are you talking about, Admiral?" Donahue asked.

  "The Russians? The Chinese? The North Koreans? Who wants to take on the United States these days? Aren't you being just a bit.

  paranoid?" "Phil, we proved in Operation Desert Storm and the fall of the Soviet Union that no nation can beat the United States in a conventional military conflict," Hardcastle said. "But we have no defense whatsoever against unconventional conflicts.

  Terrorists are better armed, more mobile, and more sophisticated than ever. How do we respond to the threat? We cut funding for defense, security, and counterterrorist programs." "Admiral, I've got some real threats to America's security to tell you about," Donahue blasted back. "We've got forty million Americans with no health insurance and over a million homeless Americans--men, women hundred Americans gunning each other down per day, and we've got fifty thousand Americans rotting in overcrowded prisons, getting no help for their drug addictions and violent, dysfunctional upbringing.

  In an era when we can't take care of the people living on the street outside this building, here you are, collecting a generous pension from the Coast Guard as well as a very generous stipend from the conservative Project 2000 Task Force, asking for funding for programs to stop these shadowy bogeymen that no one has heard of and that don't directly affect anyone's lives." "Tell that to the fifteen thousand people working in the World Trade Center back in 1993, or to the one hundred thousand people affected by the 1994 terrorist mortar attacks on Heathrow Airport," Hardcastle snapped. "Ladies and gentlemen, America is becoming a target for terrorism because we're allowing ourselves to become a target. And I'm no longer just referring to a hijacker or kidnapper or letter-bomber or gang warfare--I'm talking about a campaign of terror against America, on the scale that nations in Europe and the Middle East have experienced for decades. We need a military--and more importantly, an administration in the White House--ready to deal with the dangers before they impact the lives of millions of Americans." "You're talking about isolated incidents of fanatics, or of terrorist attacks overseas between factions that have been fighting for years," Donahue said dismissively. "I don't see the connection." "Ladies and gentlemen, what if I told you that there are over three thousand known terrorist groups operating in the United States right now?" Hardcastle interjected. "What if I told you that over three hundred pounds of enriched plutonium, enough for thirty nuclear weapons, is reported as missing every year? The United States had three long-range radar systems patrolling the skies four years ago.

  Now we have one, and that one operates only forty hours a week.

  We sent a hundred Patriot air defense units to Saudi Arabia last year--any guesses as to how many Patriots we have operating in the United States?

  That's right, zero. The sky is filled with unidentified aircraft." "Your point is... ?" "What I'm saying is that we as Americans shouldn't allow our defenses to slide like this," Hardcastle said. "Everyone thinks, "There's no threat, why spend the money to prevent something that may never happen?" I'm telling you, based on all my years in the field of border security and national defense, that the threat exists.

  I'm not talking about Saddam Hussein invading Washington--I'm talking about drug smugglers owning American banks, arms merchants shipping black-market weapons on our highways and through our airspace, and government buildings open to direct assault from relatively low-tech, easily concealable terrorists. We don't have to put up with it." "Yeah," a young college-age caller said. "I heard you got fired because of alcoholism and because of getting stressed-out from your time in Vietnam and family problems and all. Frankly, old man, I don't think you got what it takes to go around tellin' the President how to run the military." There was a smattering of applause from the audience.

  "Making assumptions without all the facts is like trying to shoot a gun without bullets, son," Hardcastle said. "First of all, it's true: I suffered from a stress disorder brought on by my years in Vietnam and by alcohol. I've never shied away from admitting my faults. But I've also got almost thirty years of military service, most of it dealing with the difficulties this country faces when we fail to enforce our sovereignty and protect our borders. More importantly, I'm an American, and I've got something to say about how our country's being defended. I've got the facts and I've got the experience, so I know what I'm talking about. Question is, who's willing to listen?" There was another round of applause, this time a little louder than before.

  "Not me, man," the caller said. "I think you're crazy," and he hung up.

  "And we'll be right back," Donahue said. The music rose, and they cut away for another commercial.

  Chico Municipal Airport, California 2108 hours, PT, August 1995 Get your butts in gear," Henri Cazaux ordered, swinging the AK-47 assault rifle on its sling from behind his back, holding it high so everyone in the hangar could clearly see it. He noisily jacked the cocking lever back, allowing a cartridge to spin through the air. The spinning brass glinting against the overhead lights made heads jerk all around the hangar. The sound of the cartridge hitting the polished concrete floor seemed as loud as if he had pulled the trigger. "Move, or I'll end your miserable lives right now." Cazaux was perfectly capable of threatening any one of the burly workers before him even without the antiquated Soviet-made assault rifle. Born in the Netherlands of French and English parents who were residing in Belgium, Cazaux was a former commando in the elite First Para, the "Red Berets," of the Belgian Army. During his youth he was in and out of trouble.

  At age fifteen he was caught smuggling drugs into the U.s. Army barracks near Antwerp, Belgium; he was incarcerated and abused by U.s.

  Army soldiers for two days before his identity was established and he was turned over to Belgian authorities. At that time he was offered a choice between a sentence of ten years in the Belgian Army or ten years in prison.

  He enlisted. He had some expeditionary assignments in Africa and Asia, but got in trouble with the authorities, again, and spent two years in a Belgian stockade until he was given a dishonorable discharge then He entered the drug trade in Germany, graduating to black market weapon sales, mercenary activities, and terrorism.

  His shaved head, tanned to a deep leathery brown by years in innumerable jungles, desert training camps, and killing grounds, revealed scores of scratches, dents, and blemishes that he hadn't obviously been born with. The face was ruggedly handsome, with bright, quick green eyes, a masculine, often-broken nose, prominent cheekbones, and a thin mouth that clamped down hard on the stub of a cheroot. His baggy flight suit could not hide a well-muscled body.

  Thick forearms and deeply callused hands gripped the AK-47 as if it weighed only a few ounces. He could have been a model for a cologne or cigarette ad, except for the scars and punctures, most never properly sutured or dressed, that spoiled an otherwise photo-perfect physique.

  The ex-Belgian Special Forces warrior kept his body tense and his eyes darting to any face that might dare to turn on him, but inwardly Cazaux relaxed.

  Cazaux had been an infantry soldier for almost all of his adult life.

  That was his profession, but his first love was flying.

  Basic fixed and rotary-wing pilot training was standard for most Belgian Special Forces cadre, and
Cazaux found he had a real aptitude for it.

  Once out of the Special Forces and into the dark world of the professional soldier, le mercenaire, he became a pilot who could handle a gun and who knew explosives, assault tactics, and the other arcane arts of killing--a very valuable commodity. Cazaux held an American Federal Aviation Administration commercial pilot's license, kept current as part of his "aboveground" life, but he had thousands of hours in hundreds of different aircraft, with landings all over the world that would never see the inside of any pilot's logbook or FAA computer database.

  The plane was almost loaded; they would be airborne in less than a half-hour. The workers were just about finished loading three narrow wooden pallets aboard the rear cargo ramp of a Czechoslovakian-made LET L-600 twin-turboprop transport. The L-600 was one of the thousands of old aircraft bought on the open market after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when anyone could get an old Soviet military transport, spare engines and parts, and even experienced pilots for a song. This thirty-year-old bird had been purchased from a Greek broker for only five hundred thousand dollars, including a spare Motor let engine, some other miscellaneous spare parts, and even a ferry pilot. The jet was in good condition--unlike the ferry pilot, who was an old alcoholic ex-Romanian Air Force colonel who flew this beast from Prague to the United States. The Romanian was overheard discussing his boss, Cazaux, with some bar bimbo one night--a fatal error in judgment.

  Henri Cazaux used the old fart and his new American girlfriend as a moving target when he was zeroing in a new sniper rifle several weeks ago, then buried them both under five thousand tons of gravel at a quarry near Oakland. Cazaux was in the weapons business, and the first standing order for all of his employees was strict secrecy.

  Henri Cazaux was the LET L's one and only pilot, as well as its loadmaster, engineer, crew chief, and security officer. Cazaux entrusted the duties of copilot to a young Cuban-trained Ethiopian pilot named Taddele Korhonen, whom Cazaux called "the Stork," because of his very tall, thin body and his ability to sit still for an incredible length of time. Cazaux had even seen Korhonen standing on one leg once, like some large dark swamp bird.

  Satisfied that the six loaders were sufficiently cowed and working as hard as they could, Cazaux stepped through the L's forward port doorway into the cargo bay to inspect the goods. He had just a few inches to squeeze through between the fuselage and the three cargo pallets that occupied the bay--no fat boys on this crew-and Cazaux had to be careful to step over the thick canvas anchor straps securing each pallet to the deck.

  The cargo hold smelled like gun oil and machined metal, like sulfur and gunpowder, like terror and death --and money, of course.

  Lots of money.

  The first pallet was just forward of the cargo ramp, and it held the big prize, a cargo worth more than the aircraft that carried them and probably all the humans nearby--three "coffins" of Stinger shoulder-fired heat-seeking anti-air missiles stacked aboard, with nine cases to go. Nine coffin-shaped cases each held two Stinger missiles, preloaded inffdisposable fiberglass launch tubes, and four cylindrical "bean can" battery units. The other three cases held two launcher gripstsight assemblies and four battery units. The missiles had been stolen from a National Guard unit in Tennessee shortly after the unit returned from Desert Storm, and scattered in various hiding places across the country while the sales deals were cut.

  Cazaux had managed to stay well ahead of the authorities as long as the missiles were hidden and off the market. But as soon as the missiles came out of hiding--which meant hiring loaders, truckers, middlemen, guards, and bankers--the U.s.

  Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agency, were howling at his heels. Cazaux was certain there was an informant in his operation, and he would ferret him or her out soon.

  Killing the informant would be his pleasure.

  The next forward wooden pallet contained shipment crates of various military field items, ranging from fatigues and boots to U.s. Army MRES (meals Ready-to-Eat, or more popularly known as Meals Rejected by Everyone), from medical supplies to tents, from power generators to five-pound bundles of cash worth at least two thousand dollars a bundle. When it came time to bribe a customs official in Mexico, the Bahamas, Bermuda, or at the cargo's destination in Haiti, just one discreet toss, and the plane, five pounds lighter, would be on its way within moments. Each bundle of cash was worth about ten times what a Haitian Customs officer legitimately earned in a year, and Cazaux rarely encountered anyone who would turn down a bribe.

  The third pallet, secured closest to the front of the cargo bay, held the really nasty stuff--almost five thousand pounds of ammunition, high explosives, detonators, claymore mines, demolition gear, and primacord.

  Most of the stuff was stable and fairly safe to ship, except for the stuff in the center of the pallet, surrounded by Styrofoam shock absorbers--five hundred pounds of pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or P.e.t.n, the primary component of detonating cord and used as a booster in large demolition charges. For the flight, the crystalline P.e.t.n was mixed with water to form a gray sludge, then packed in cases surrounded by wet sponges to keep it cool and protect it from shock--it had a detonation temperature of only 350 degrees military explosives, almost as bad as nitroglycerin--the friction of two crystals rubbing against each other could be enough to set it off.

  The explosives-laden pallet was placed toward the front of the plane to keep it closer to the L's center of pressure, where aerodynamic forces were more balanced--no use whipping the pallet around unnecessarily. Cazaux was not the best pilot in the world, but he had not lost a shipment of weapons yet in over ten years.

  Although his copilot, the Stork, always checked the security of each hold down strap in his cargo bay several times before and during each flight, Cazaux himself triple-checked the security of all the straps on the third pallet, then double-checked the security of the middle pallet.

  A few moments later, one of the beefy loaders came up to the entry hatch nearest Cazaux.

  "All cargo loaded aboard as ordered," he reported.

  Cazaux maneuvered his way aft to the third pallet and inspected the Stinger coffins. He had placed an almost invisible pencil line on each lids had been opened--none had been touched.

  Cazaux made a few tugs on the straps and several hard pushes on the stacks of crates and found them secure. He reached over to the second pallet and extracted three packets of cash.

  "Good job, gentlemen," Cazaux said. "Your work here is finished. That buys your silence as well as rewards you for your labor. See to it that silence remains golden." The loader's eyes flashed with delight when he saw the bundles, but they just as quickly blinked in surprise when a large switchblade stiletto suddenly appeared in Cazaux's hand out of nowhere.

  Cazaux's eyes registered the loader's surprised expression, and his handsome face smiled, if only for a brief moment. Then he dropped the packets into the loader's arms and drew the stiletto's razor-sharp edge across one of the packets. The loader's greedy hold on the money packets allowed waves of one-hundred-dollar bills to ooze out of the incision. "Count it," Cazaux said casually as he folded the switchblade and instantly returned it to whatever secret place he had drawn it from.

  "Not necessary, sir," the loader said breathlessly, turning to leave.

  Cazaux looked a bit perturbed at first, then shrugged and nodded as if silently acknowledging the man's offhanded compliment.

  "Call on us anytime, sir." "I could use some men like you in my operation," Cazaux said to the back of the man's head.

  "Join my team now, and you'll make that much cash, and more, on every mission." The loaders stopped, looking at each other-- obviously none of them wanted to accept, but they were afraid of the consequences of saying no to Henri Cazaux. But one black man turned toward Cazaux.

  "Yo, man, I'll take it, right here." The other loaders, all white, looked relieved that the lone black had left them.

  The black guy was big, with beefy shoulders and arms and a broad, massive ch
est, but with a bit of a roll of fat around his middle and a spread in his ass, like a veteran truck driver, a played-out boxer, or an ex-artillery loader turned couch potato.

  His eyes were clear, with no hint of dullness from drugs or too much alcohol, although the flabby waist and chest said this guy downed at least a case of beer a week.

  "Do you have a passport?" Cazaux asked him.

  "Uh-uh... Captain," the loader said in a dark, cave-deep voice.

  "It will cost you one thousand dollars, in advance," Cazaux said.

  He extended his hands toward the bundles of cash held by the head loader, motioning for the man to toss him the money.

  "That ain't the deal," the head loader said. "We split the money later." But Cazaux hefted the AK-47--NOT aiming it at them, but the threat was clean-and the loader counted out a thousand dollars in one-hundred-American-dollar bills from the sliced-open packet and handed it to the black man.

  "Work hard, and it will be returned to you with substantial interest," Cazaux said, holding out his hand.

  The black man scowled at Cazaux, clutching the cash in his big hands.