Dale Brown - Storming Heaven

by Storming Heaven [lit]

  Instead of turning left back to course, Cazaux made another unexpected bank to the right, hoping to catch their pursuers. But the darkness was absolute--not even the stars were shining anymore.

  Cazaux eased the L-600 back on course, then accomplished another fast turning maneuver.

  "I don't see them anymore," Taddele "Stork" Korhonen said cross-cockpit to Cazaux.

  "The light has disappeared." "They obviously discovered their error," Cazaux said. "Whoever it was, they could be heading back to base." "Or they could be right on our butts," Jefferson "Krull" Jones observed. "What are you gonna do, man?" "I need not do anything," Cazaux said. "We will either die when they open fire on us or we will be allowed to continue. But I don't think they have the stomach for a fight. They will follow us and try to capture us when we land." "So you got something planned for them at the landing zone, Captain?" Krull asked.

  "That will be a surprise, Krull," Cazaux said. "Right now, I want you to--" Suddenly a flash of blue-orange light erupted just a few feet away from the right side of the LET L-600, and the loud, unmistakable brrrr! of a high-speed, heavy-caliber cannon could be heard over the roar of the engines. They saw another tongue of fire flash, causing a stroboscopic effect that froze the L's right propellers; then, an impossibly bright white searchlight flashed directly into Cazaux's face. All three men on the flight deck of the L-600 were instantly blinded. The searchlight began to blink in rapid flashes of three, followed by a pause, then another group of three flashes, a pause, then a third group of three--the ICAO (international Civil Aviation Organization) signal that an armed interceptor aircraft is following you.

  "Attention on the aircraft under my searchlight, this is the United States Air Force," a female voice came over the radio on the emergency GUARD channel. "You are surrounded by two armed U.s. military fighter aircraft.

  By order of the U.s. Department of the Treasury and the U.s.justice Department, immediately turn right to a heading of two-four-zero and lower your landing gear. If you do not comply, you will be fired upon.

  Acknowledge immediately. Over." "They were on our tail the whole time!" the Stork yelled. He instinctively tried to bank away from the F-16 that was so close to his front windscreen, but Cazaux held the controls firm.

  "What do we do?

  What should we do?" "Get a grip, Stork," Cazaux ordered, pushing the Ethiopian's hands away from the control yoke. He quickly shut off the aircraft's transponder, the radio device that transmitted standard identification and tracking data to FAA air traffic control--no use in trying to pretend they were a regular flight anymore. "We are not going to surrender to the authorities. Never! I will not give them the satisfaction." The cannon on the F-16 flashed again near the right windscreen, and the searchlight pierced the darkness of the L's cockpit.

  Cazaux's eyes had just gotten readjusted to the darkness, and the hot white light was painful this time.

  "Attention on the L-600, this is your last warning." "No!" Cazaux shouted. "Fuck you, bitch!" "Lower your landing gear immediately!" the female voice shouted once again on the GUARD radio channel. "This is your final warning!" "Look out!" Korhonen shouted. The glare of the F's searchlight revealed how close they were getting to the mountains ahead-they could see position and anticollision lights. They had been forcing him lower and lower toward the rising terrain, he realized. He would be forced to use more power, and more fuel, to climb over the terrain, or be diverted left or right around it. Every minute he wasted on these unplanned maneuvers was another minute farther from his objective.

  "Bastards! was Cazaux shouted. "You want me, you take me--but I will take you to hell with me!" And at that, Cazaux threw the LET L-600 into a steep right turn into the F-16 fighter.

  Not surprisingly, the F-16 effortlessly dodged away--his maneuver was totally expected.

  They were toying with him, Cazaux realized, a very real cat-and-mouse game. That hard turn probably cost him his scheduled landing in Mexico. If Cazaux was correct about their position, he knew that the terrain was rising much faster to the left, and a turn in that direction might be fatal. He had no choice--he had to turn right and climb.

  "You are not going to make it to your destination, mister!" the female Air Force pilot radioed. "Federal agents are in helicopters all the way from here to the Mexican border waiting to pick you up when you land, and there are more fighters and radar planes on their way to track you, so flying low won't help you. Your best option is to follow me and surrender." Korhonen and jones were staring at Cazaux, worried. The powerful searchlight on the F-16 revealed every tension line, every quivering muscle in the terrorist's face. For the first time, they saw real despair in that face, like a wild animal caught in a trap. "What you gonna do, Captain?" Jones asked him.

  "What can I do? I need time to think!" Cazaux snapped. "I try to tell myself that they will not open fire, that they will not shoot this plane down, but I am not so sure now. It'd be too easy for them to make a convenient "mistake," and this countryside is sparse enough that they wouldn't endanger anyone if they send this plane crashing into the ground. I need time to think." He paused for a few moments, his fingers nervously massaging the well-worn horns of the control yoke; then he turned the LET L-600 farther right, pulled off a notch of power and, to the Stork's surprise, lowered the landing gear and turned on all the exterior lights.

  "What are you doing, Captain?" the Stork shouted over the roar of the gear in the slipstream.

  "I am buying time, Stork," Cazaux said.

  "With the gear down, their fingers will stay off the cannon trigger--I hope. Keep this plane headed toward Sacramento or Stockton--any population center you can see. The longer we stay over populated areas, the less likely they will shoot." "Fly a heading of three-zero-zero for Mather Jetport," the female Air Force pilot radioed. Mather Jetport was a former Air Force base that had been taken over by the county of Sacramento and turned into a commercial cargo and airliner maintenance facility.

  It had a long two-mile-long runway and was an Air National Guard helicopter gunship base.

  They would have plenty of firepower support to help capture Cazaux and secure the cargo plane.

  "You have two F-16 fighters on you now, both within one mile. Do not deviate from course unless instructed. Do you understand? Over." Cazaux keyed the microphone button: "Mais oui, mademoiselle.

  I understand. I do not know why you are doing this. You obviously have confused me with someone else. I have done nothing wrong.

  But I will follow your instructions. Can you activate your position lights, mademoiselle?

  I cannot see you." "I have visual contact on you just fine," the Air Force pilot replied.

  "Stay off this frequency unless instructed to reply." It was the reply he was hoping for: "Mr.

  Krull, in the second pallet, gray metal case, a pair of night-vision goggles. Get them quickly." On the radio, Cazaux continued: "Obviously you accuse me of doing something so wrong as to threaten to shoot me down--I think a relatively minor crime such as talking too much cannot be any worse," Cazaux said, using his best, most urbane, most lighthearted voice.

  "You sound like a very young and pretty woman, mademoiselle.

  Plesed at the response--Cazaux did not expect one. He pulled back another notch of power and lowered five degrees of flaps-- not enough to be noticed by the fighter, but enough so he could safely slow down another ten to twenty knots. As he fed in some elevator trim to maintain altitude see how slow the F-16 fighter can fly, shall we?" "I got "em," he heard Krull say behind him. The "goggles" were actually older NVG-3 model monocular night-vision scopes, bulky and heavy, with a separate battery pack and a head mounting harness kit.

  "Plug them in, search out the windows for the fighter on our right wing," Cazaux said. "Tell me the approximate angle of attack of the fighter." "The what?" "Tell me how high the fighter's nose is from the horizon, and whether she has deployed flaps--the control surfaces on the front and back edges of the wings. Do it." It took a long time
for Krull to figure out how to use the night vision goggles and to study the F-16 fighter beside them. In that time, Cazaux had slowed the LET down to below 160 knots and had fed in ten degrees of flaps. They were also much closer to the central part of the Sacramento Valley, with the city lights of central California's megalopolis stretching from Modesto to the south all the way up to Marysville to the north, and the bright glow of San Francisco to the west, visible to them. In a few minutes they would be flying over the Route 99 corridor, a two-hundred-mile-long string of cities and towns with over two million residents. Cazaux felt safe from attack by the Air Force fighter now--they would probably kill hundreds of persons on the ground if they were shot down.

  "You still have not told me your name, mademoiselle" Cazaux said on the radio. "You know we shall never meet, so indulge me this simple pleasure." "Stay off the frequency," the female Air Force pilot replied angrily.

  The terrorist smiled--he could easily hear the tension in the woman's voice. At only one hundred and sixty knots, the F-16 must be getting extremely difficult to control.

  "I can't tell shit, man," Krull said as he came back into the cockpit and knelt beside the pilots" seats. "I can see the tail thingamabobs mavin' like crazy." "The horizontal tail surfaces." "What-the-fuck-ever. I think I see the front part of the wings curled downwards a bit.

  I can't see nothin' else." "What about the landing gear? Did you see the wheels down?" "Oh, yeah, man, I saw them. They was down." "Good." Cazaux didn't know much about the F-16 Fighting Falcon, but he did know that they must be close to its approach speed.

  At the very least, the F-16 pilots would have their hands full trying to keep up with the slow-flying L-600--and if he was lucky, they wouldn't be able to keep up, and they'd be forced to break off the intercept or turn it over to someone else. Either way might provide an opportunity to escape.

  "Lead, go ahead and accelerate out," Vincenti radioed to McKenzie on the command channel. He was one thousand feet above the LET L-600 cargo plane, in a tight orbit over Cazaux and McKenzie. Since he put his landing gear down, Cazaux's airspeed had bled off to the point where he could no longer safely shadow the target, so he had to orbit.

  Soon, McKenzie would have no choice but to orbit as well--the sooner she transitioned to an orbit, the better.

  "I've got a lock on him. Transition to your racetrack." McKenzie wasn't listening.

  With her landing gear down, her leading-edge and trailing-edge flaps extended, and the flight control system in takeoffstland, the angle-of-attack indexers were beginning to hit the stops, and the lowspeed warning tone would intermittently sound, which meant she had to take her hand off the throttle to silence the horn. Flying at such low airspeeds was common for landing, but she wasn't accustomed to doing it in level flight, at night, flying close to a strange aircraft that had already tried to turn into her. But she didn't want to break off the intercept--Henri Cazaux wasn't going to get the satisfaction of watching her fly away.

  "Lead, you copy?" Vincenti radioed to her again.

  "Clean up and I'll take over. Transition to radar pursuit." "I got it, Also," she radioed back. But she didn't have it, and couldn't keep it, and she knew it.

  When pursuing a slow-speed target like this, the normal procedure was to begin a racetrack pattern around the target, keeping the speed up in safe limits. A racetrack was dangerous at night, since radar contact could not be maintained on the wingman while in the racetrack, and Vincenti had no night vision goggles.

  But she had no choice. The low-speed warning tone came on for the seventh time. The target had slowed down below 150 knots, and there was no way McKenzie could hold that speed in an F-16.

  "Correction. Lead's entering the racetrack.

  Two, you have the intercept.

  Break. SIERRA PETE, this is Foxtrot Romeo flight, the target has decelerated--we are transitioning to radar pursuit." "Two's in," Vincenti replied. McKenzie smoothly advanced the throttle to military power, raised the landing gear before passing 80 percent power, and began a right turn away from the LET L-600.

  "The fighter's leavin' to was Jones crowed.

  "Landin " gear's up.

  ..

  it's turnin" away!" "They won't be leaving, only setting up an orbit over us so they can keep us in sight and keep their airspeed up," Cazaux said. "But they'll give us some breathing room now, and the lower airspeed gives us some more time." "To do what, man?" Jones asked. "We still got two jets on our tail, and sure as shit they're callin' their buddies to help out.

  With the gear hangin', we'll be runnin' on fumes in an hour." "I know all that, Mr. Krull," Cazaux said in exasperation.

  "Shut up and let me think." He didn't have much time to think, because soon the line of lights along the Route 99 corridor reached its largest expanse at the capital city of Sacramento. There were four major airports around Sacramento, all surrounded by housing subdivisions, offices, and light-industrial facilities; Mather Jetport was the largest airport east of the city.

  Already the rotating beacon and runway lights were visible--they were less than thirty miles out, about fifteen minutes from touchdown.

  Their flight path was taking them northwest bound toward Highway 50, a busy freeway linking Sacramento with the Sierra Nevada foothills; once reaching that freeway, a turn to the west would put them on a five-mile final approach to Mather Jetport. The lights of the sprawling city were breathtaking, but Cazaux hardly noticed them--all he saw was his plane surrounded by federal agents, a shootout, an explosion, a fireball.

  ..

  Explosion.

  Fireball.

  He certainly had enough ingredients on board to create plenty of very big explosions and fireballs. "Take the aircraft," he told the Stork as he unfastened his lap and shoulder belts.

  "Do whatever they say, follow any vectors they give you, until I give the word." "We are landing?" the Stork asked incredulously.

  "We will land ?" "Not unless they shoot out the engines, Stork, and then they will still have a fight on their hands. Mr.

  Krull, give your night-vision goggles to Stork and follow me." He stepped out of his seat and hurried There was not much room, and the two men had difficulty squeezing themselves between the cargo on the pallets and the cold aluminum aircraft fuselage. Krull thought he couldn't make the tight squeeze, but as if by magic he sucked it all in when it came time to squeeze around the forward pallet--he didn't want one unnecessary bit of clothing or skin to touch the crates of high explosives stacked atop that pallet. Krull didn't have any fear of those explosives when they were on the ground or being loaded, but now up there in the air, being swayed and bounced around, it seemed as if they were tiny thin eggshells waiting to.

  "Grab two cases of grenades from that pallet and bring them to me, Mr. Krull," Cazaux shouted over the roar of the engines.

  Krull's eyes widened in absolute horror.

  "Say what... ?" "Damn it, stop stalling! Loosen those straps and bring two crates of grenades back here on the double." Loosening the cargo netting and withdrawing those two cases was one of the most terrifying things Krull had ever done--all he could see was the Styrofoam-shrouded canister of P.e.t.n in the center of the pallet.

  Every inch he moved the two grenade cases meant loosening the white foam blocks, and in his mind's eye he could visualize the explosive crystals sloshing around, the molecular heat building, the blinding flash of light as the unstable chemicals exploded, detonating the rest of the explosives they carried, then destroying the aircraft in a big jet fuel fireball. His own strength amazed him--he held one thirty-pound case of grenades securely in one hand while maneuvering other crates and bags around to fill the gap and secure the P.e.t.n canister, while keeping his balance against the occasional turbulence and swaying. Cazaux offered him no help except to take the first crate of grenades and begin working.

  When Krull brought the second case of grenades back to Cazaux, he couldn't believe what the terrorist was doing--he had released all of the missiles an
d was placing the grenades in between the missile coffins, with the safety pins removed and the arming handles held in place--barely-by the loosened crates! "What the fuck are you doin," man?" Krull shouted.

  "Doing a little creative mine-laying, Mr.

  Krull," Cazaux said, wearing a twisted smile.

  "I am going to attack the law enforcement officers on the airport below us." "You gonna what?" "The Stinger missile motors will explode, but they need a booster," Cazaux said calmly. "The grenades will do, but I don't have time to rig up a contact fuse. But if we push this pallet outside while we're above one hundred and twenty-eight feet aboveground, the grenades will explode before the pallet hits the ground. The results should be most rewarding." "You're really fuckin" crazy, man." But Cazaux ignored him. He put on a headset and clicked open the intercom button: "Stork, I want you to make a normal approach to the runway they designate. Let me know when we're one mile from the runway. Just before touchdown I want you to maneuver over the vehicles that will undoubtedly be parked on the side of the runway.