He had a brief sensation of intense heat on the back of his head before his body, and the rest of the LET L-600 cargo plane, was blasted apart by the sheer force of over two tons of high-explosives detonating at once.
Damn it, Vincenti cursed, he knew Cazaux was going to pull something like this. Shit! It was the same act he pulled with McKenzie: beg for surrender, then turn, attack, and run. Well, he wasn't going to get away with it. He was determined to kill Henri Cazaux.
Vincenti had bluffed a bit about how far away he was and about carrying missiles, but he wasn't bluffing about wanting to see Cazaux dead.
That was real.
Unfortunately, he wasn't in the best position to attack.
When Cazaux turned away from San Francisco International, Vincenti found himself relaxing, momentarily confident that he'd won--and then he found himself high and fast, unable to stay with Cazaux's slow-flying cargo plane without burying the nose and risking a crash into San Francisco Bay. He had no choice but to pull the throttle to idle, pop speedbrakes, and widen his turn beyond radar lock-on. Cazaux had turned his lights on when he dumped the cargo overboard--Vincenti did not believe for a moment that Cazaux had willingly dumped all his deadly cargo--so it was easy to keep him in sight as he closed in on him.
But when Cazaux tightened his turn, shut off his lights, and headed back for San Francisco International again, Vincenti found himself ten seconds out of position and without a solid contact. He reacquired Cazaux's plane a few seconds later, but by then Cazaux was over the airport at high speed. Just as Vincenti put his gun pipper on the radar return and got an IN RANGE readout on his heads-up display, the cargo plane's nose began to pitch up, and.
And then the LET L-600 disappeared in an immense blinding ball of fire.
Vincenti had a brief glimpse of a small flash of light inside the cargo bay, like a flashbulb or the muzzle blast of a rifle, followed immediately by a huge explosion that completely obscured the main airport terminal and effectively blinded the veteran fighter pilot.
Vincenti shoved in full military power, retracted speedbrakes, pulled the nose of his F-16 A.d.f up, fed in afterburner power, and climbed away from the fireball. He had no way of knowing in what direction he was headed or what his airspeed was, but altitude was life right now.
When Vincenti's vision cleared a few moments later, he leveled off and set up an orbit over San Francisco International. He couldn't believe the carnage. The flaming wreckage of the L-600 had hit the central terminal, showering the control tower and the entire western half of the terminal with fire and debris. The entire multistory central terminal looked as if it was on fire, just seconds after the impact.
The wreckage had spread across the center of the circular terminal, engulfing hundreds of cars and buses in the inner departure and arrival rea. The impact pattern formed a gigantic fiery teardrop covering several hundred feet, all the way across the inner-terminal circle to the south terminal. Burning aircraft at the gates were setting other nearby planes on fire with incredible speed, like a candle flame being passed from person to person by touching wicks.
Soon Vincenti could count about a dozen planes on fire near the impact point. Several explosions could be seen through the dense jet-fuel smoke, with great mushrooms of fire billowing into the sky very close to Vincenti's altitude over the airport.
And then he saw it, plainly illuminated by the intense fire below--a parachute, less than half a mile away and no more than a few hundred feet below his altitude.
Incredibly, someone had bailed out of that cargo plane seconds before it exploded.
Henri Cazaux! Without thinking, Vincenti turned toward the rapidly falling white dot, nearly going inverted to keep the parachute in sight.
Cazaux obviously heard the fighter fly nearby, could probably see the position and anticollision lights, because the "chute started falling even faster.
Cazaux had grabbed the two right risers of his parachute and pulled them down, spilling air out the left side of his canopy, increasing his descent rate, and sending him into a wide, violent left spin.
Vincenti didn't know if it was planned or not, but Cazaux was too late.
The intense fire at the terminal, less than a thousand feet away, was buoying his parachute up in the ain-he was a sitting duck.
Vincenti had to shove his fighter's nose to the ground to get lined up... and just as he did line up his shot, a rescue or news helicopter popped up in the middle of his H.u.d, less than two hundred feet away.
He had to bank hard left and pull to miss the helicopter, and he lost sight of Cazaux immediately. By the time Vincenti could roll out and look for Cazaux's 'chute, the terrorist was on the ground and moving.
Vincenti had a brief thought about trying a strafing run, but now the entire area near the crash site was choked with rescue aircraft and vehicles. Flying down into that melee would be very dangerous. He could do nothing else but climb above the San Francisco Class B airspace and head back to Beale Air Force Base, and the inquisition that he knew would face him there.
The two crewmen from the Coast Guard Air Station just north of San Francisco International Airport couldn't believe their eyes as they watched the medium cargo plane plow into the central terminal --it looked like the aftermath of an oil-refinery explosion or a replay of a successful bomb strike during the Persian Gulf War.
They heard the low-flying cargo plane as it buzzed their hangar, and they saw it explode and crash into the terminal as they watched.
The entire airport seemed to be waist-deep in fire so hot that it could be felt from inside their pickup truck nearly a half-mile away.
But even the explosion and devastation itself were nothing compared to their surprise as a lone parachutist dropped into the grassy field bordering the airport's outer security fence. "Jesus Christ.
did that guy jump out of that cargo plane?" one of the Coast Guardsmen asked.
"He's gotta be the luckiest sonofabitch in the world," the other said.
"He got out of the plane in time, and he missed that fence by inches.
He looks pretty bad." They drove over, found the man lying faceup in the grass, just a few feet from the security fence. One seaman went over to him while the other set to work deflating the parachute so it wouldn't drag him into the bay. "Hey, Todd," the first seaman shouted over the roar of the nearby explosions and fire, "we got a radio in the--" The second seaman couldn't hear his buddy over the sounds of sheer devastation at the airport.
A few fire trucks from the Coast Guard base were racing toward the terminal, but they were too far away and moving too fast to flag down. "Say again, Will?" No reply.
He managed to collapse the billowing parachute, then turned to his partner: "What did you say?" His buddy Will was lying on the ground just a few feet away, the entire top of his head blown off.
The parachutist was standing beside the second seaman, a gun pointed at his face. He saw a bright flash of light and barely registered a loud bang.l, then nothing.
Henri Cazaux unbuckled his parachute harness, rolled up the parachute, and threw it into the storage area behind the seat of the pickup truck so it wouldn't be easily spotted. He then collected the Coast Guardsmen's ID cards, found a jacket and cap that fit him, and started up the pickup truck. He followed the line of emergency vehicles heading toward San Francisco International via the parallel taxiways.
Then, when he saw it was clear, he drove away off the airport.
He was challenged once by an airport security guard who enlisted his help in trying to control traffic as thousands of persons tried to flee the carnage. The security guard was shot in the face as well.
Henri Cazaux's killing spree did not stop at San Francisco Airport. He killed two more persons, stole two more cars, made his way undetected through central California, then risked taking an early morning plane from Stockton to Phoenix. Sensing that federal marshals and sec the plane, Cazaux told the flight attendants he had lost some jewelry under the seats, waited until
the airliner cleaning service workers arrived at the plane, executed two workers and slipped away out the rear exit dressed in their overalls and using their ID badges.
A few hours after sunrise, after stealing another car, he was safely across the border in Nogales.
Shortly after that he could be in one of his many hideouts in Mexico, safe from all but a determined paramilitary assault--but he did not want to stop. Each time, the vision of his cargo plane crashing into San Francisco International's central terminal flashed in his mind, and he smiled a sort of twisted, pathological smile. He knew he wanted to see that kind of pure destruction again very, very soon. It was one way to get even with the U.s. Air Force, the Marshals, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the entire United States fucking government. There was so much the Americans had to pay for: torture, false imprisonment, rape, assault, robbery, perjury --those were just the least of their crimes against Henri Cazaux over the years. And as those years went by, Cazaux could add murder, conspiracy, malicious prosecution, and numerous additional counts of perjury and contempt of court.
And Cazaux knew the United States would never be formally charged and tried for any of these crimes, so he would issue the punishment himself. Cazaux's justice was in his heart, his mind, his weapons, and his aircraft.
The Americans had worked to almost put him out of business, permanently. That was going to end. America had yet to feel the fury of a full-scale attack by Henri Cazaux. Now it was time. Cazaux wanted to see America bleed, and attacking its most important and yet most terrifying institution --its air traffic and air travel system-was going to be the way to do it. It was so easy, and yet it was going to be so devastating.
It had been a long time since Henri Cazaux had been in an American commercial airport terminal--international terrorists rarely travel by commercial air unless speed is a necessity--and what he saw surprised him. No one, he thought, would consider spending one second longer than necessary in a bus station, or taxi stand, or train station, but modern airports seemed to cater to travelers who obviously spent a great deal of time there. Even relatively small Phoenix-Sky Harbor International Airport had fancy restaurants, video arcades, bookstores, hotels, an art museum, meeting and exercise rooms, even a small amusement park with putt-putt golf and miniature movie theaters right on the airport premises. While Cazaux was busy moving from one restroom to another every fifteen minutes until his flight was called, trying to stay incognito, he noticed people that seemed to hang around, enjoying themselves like tourists. It was crazy.
... but what an inviting target. This place was packed!
There were dozens of planes parked at the gates, with thousands of persons choking the terminal. One bomb in the center of this place could kill hundreds, injure hundreds, destroy perhaps billions of dollars of airplanes and property. But it would take a thousand pounds of explosives, maybe more, to do the kind of damage he needed to do, and he couldn't truck that much nitro all the way into the heart of the terminal.
... but he could drop the explosives on the terminal, just like he did at Mather Jetport and San Francisco International. The Americans had no defense against an aerial assault.
Yes, there were air defense fighters, but they were only a few units scattered around the periphery of the country. The FBI, perhaps even the military, would eventually crack down on all unidentified or unauthorized flights, but it would take many days to shut down America's enormous air traffic system, and once shut down it would surely crush the American way of life. Until then, he could take an incredible toll on these mindless Americans.
Three attacks, all in less than a week, and he was certain that America would fall to its knees.
It would take lots of planning, and money, and that meant a trip back east, to his American headquarters in New Jersey--the Owl's Nest-- to meet with his senior staff to plan the operations. But more importantly, he needed to know if his dreams of destroying America from within was possible. Again, the answer was in the east, in Newburgh, New York.
Only one person could advise him on how to proceed, and he needed to see her as soon as possible.
Cazaux remained in his Mexican stronghold in Nogales long enough to disguise himself, effortlessly aging thirty years with simple makeup and posture techniques, then used his forged American passport and boarded a flight from Nogales to Albuquerque. Security was loose and there was no sign of pursuit, and booking a flight to Chicago and beyond was easy. No one gave the bent, alcoholic, emaciated-looking old man more than a passing glance as he boarded the next plane.
New York City August 1995 When his executive assistant found Harold G. Lake, the first thought he had was, My God, he's going to jump.
The sealed high-rise windows designed to keep the heat and the odor and the noises of Manhattan out were triplepaned tempered glass, so, of course, it wasn't possible for Lake to jump (from here at least) unless he had a sledgehammer hidden in his closet. But it was the way Lake looked that worried Ted Fell, Harold Lake's attorney, executive assistant, and--if anyone could properly be so categorized--friend and confidant, Harold Lake. He was a brooder even on his best days, and he could be depressing most days.
Today, the tall, dark, slim entrepreneur, investor, and Wall Street trader looked like a dog left out in the rain all night.
"Got those letters of intent ready for your signature," Fell reported.
"I see no problems at all with the debt restructuring.
The next few weeks should be okay. We're in the clear." Fell set a small pile of papers on Lake's desk, the only item on the expansive and empty marble and mahogany desk that looked out of place. Lake continued to stare out the huge picture window of his downtown Park Avenue office into the gray steamy overcast. It was already 80 degrees in the city, and threatening to hit 90-plus with 90-plus-percent humidity--one might actually be cool and comfortable standing Ollt on a forty-first-story ledge right now, thought wyly.
"You got my notes there on top, but I got a few minutes to talk about the deal if you--" "Who did the deal?" Lake asked. When Fell hesitated that extra moment, Lake replied for him: "Universal. Shit.
What'd you get?" His voice was uncharacteristically uneven, with a trace of his native New Jersey accent mixed in, even after years of trying to excuse it.
"Universal Equity offered us ten-point-one percent," Fell said quickly.
Lake irritably rubbed his eyes, moved toward the papers as if to confirm what Fell said was true, then sat back in his high-backed black leather chair and continued to stare out the window.
The president and founder of Universal Equity Services, Limited, based in Glasgow, Scotland, was Brennan Mcsorley, one of the world's richest men, owner of the largest nonpublic investment group in the world.
Mcsorley had his fingers in hundreds of different pies all over the world, everything from oil and gas to banking to shipping to computers.
He and Lake, Mcsorley's one-time disciple, had done business many times in the past, although their version of "business" nowadays was akin to calling the U.s. Civil War a "disagreement." Mcsorley was like a giant stallion to Lake's horsefly-Lake could i maybe even cause him to stumble or lose control, but Lake was small potatoes next to Brennan Mcsorley.
"If I say no to him now, I'm screwed and he knows it." Lake looked at Fell with an accusing glare. "You agreed to his terms?" "You have final authority, boss, so you can say no to the deal," Fell responded, "but it's what you wanted, right? A done deal, in time to pay the account and retain your shares." "You fucking agreed to pay Brennan Mcsorley ten-point-one percent, Ted?" "No one else gave you the time of day, Harold.
You needed eighteen million dollars by close of business today. If I had even three days, I could get that for you at eight-point-five. Mcsorley said yes right away, and I had to move." "Maybe you moved a bit too fast." "You may not like Mcsorley, boss, but he went to the mat for you this time," Fell said. "The money is in escrow, ready to go.
Mcsorley personally guaranteed the loan, boss,
he showed up at the bank himself to sign the papers." "He'd like nothing better than to see me default, the prick," Lake said gloomily.
"He'd take great pleasure in seeing me file for bankruptcy or selling my assets. He'd be first in line to screw me in bankruptcy court.
He probably showed up at the bank to conduct a news conference, to announce to the whole world what a loser I am.
was Fell elected to stay silent, but he reminded himself that Harold G. Lake knew a lot about screwing someone, whether it was in court, in the market, or just about any imaginable business or social setting.
Along with many other talents, Lake was one of the world's premier options traders. His business was enticing other investors to write option deals to buy or sell their stock. Lake had many ways to sniff out stocks that might come into play--lack of publicity, no returned phone calls, lots of unusual stock trading activity by company officers, even when, where, and how the officers went on vacation.
Dale Brown - Storming Heaven Page 12