Brown, Dale - Independent 04

by Storming Heaven (v1. 1)

  “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 movin’ 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 trail- ing-edge flaps extended, and the flight control system in takeoff/land, the angle-of-attack indexers were beginning to hit the stops, and the low-speed 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, Al,” 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’!” 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 north- westbound 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 aft.

  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 PETN 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 ey
e 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 PETN 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 cargo straps on the entire pallet of Stinger missiles and 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. Then I want you to go to full throttle and climb over them. When we pass two hundred feet, signal me. Do you understand?” Cazaux didn’t wait for a response—they would have only one shot at this, so either Korhonen would do it or he wouldn’t. “After that maneuver, I want you to fly as low as you can go westbound. Stay over the interstate and keep the power up. Low altitude and speed is the only protection we’ll have when they come after us.”

  Linda McKenzie had never felt such an overwhelming sense of accomplishment as she did that night as they approached Mather Jetport. They had just assisted in the capture of one of the world’s most wanted terrorists—and she led the intercept! Her minor switch slipup at the beginning of the intercept would certainly be forgotten. In fact, this seemed to be having a better result than a covert Special-9 intercept would have had.

  The feds and the cops were certainly out in force to put the suspect on ice. Both sides of Mather’s two-mile-long runway were choked with flashing lights, and more were pouring onto the former military base—the entire parking ramp in front of the old base-operations building was bumper-to-bumper emergency vehicles. Streets were being cordoned off all around the facility. The five-mile exclusion zone around Mather had been breached years ago, but residential sprawl had not yet totally closed in on the base, so the area around the airport was only sparsely dotted with residences.

  “You’re cleared to land on two-two left, Cazaux,” McKenzie radioed to the L-600. “Stop straight ahead on the runway and don’t try to turn off.”

  “I understand,” a strange voice replied. It wasn’t Cazaux—probably the copilot. Could Cazaux have escaped? Once they went to radar tracking instead of visual tracking, someone could have parachuted from the aircraft without their noticing. Capturing the plane and the weapons on board was good, but Cazaux himself was the big prize.

  “Henri Cazaux, this is Special Agent Fortuna of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, U.S. Treasury Department,” a voice cut in on the channel. “I’m the on-scene, commander. We are tracking you with Stinger missiles and helicopter gunships. If you try to evade capture, we are authorized to open fire on your aircraft. Do you understand, Cazaux?”

  “Russ? Is that you? Ca va bien, mon ami?” a thick, French- accented voice came on over the channel. “How is America’s famous Nazi storm trooper doing?” It was Henri Cazaux’s voice—he was still on the plane. This was going to be one sweet evening, McKenzie thought.

  “You wouldn’t be so cheerful if you knew how many guns and missiles we got on you right now, Henri,” Fortuna radioed back. “Make a nice pretty landing. You’re on the news from coast to coast.”

  “I would not want any of your gunners’ fingers to twitch on the triggers, Russell,” Cazaux said. “Would you please ask them to lower their weapons? I have decided to surrender—I will take my chances with the American justice system.”

  “You might as well get used to the sight of guns pointed at you, Cazaux,” Fortuna said, “because that’s what you’re going to see every waking minute of your life from now on. Now get off my radio frequency and do as you’re ordered. We’ve got this entire area closed off, and we’ve got the green light to blow your ass out of the sky. Don’t screw it up.”

  “It will be good to see you again too, mon ami. ” Cazaux laughed.

  They were now less than two miles from the runway. McKenzie had made the decision to stay with the cargo plane for the entire approach, flying to the left and slightly behind the L-600—and she kept her 20-millimeter cannon armed and the pipper within a few mils of Cazaux’s plane. If given the signal, she could squeeze off a one-second burst that would certainly shear off the L-600’s left engine nacelle and propeller and send the cargo plane spiraling into the ground, away from the more populated areas of the town of Rancho Cordova north of the airfield and into the vacant tracts of land to the south. She was not sure where Vincenti was, but she assumed he would keep both aircraft in sight at all times and be ready to assist, track, or attack if something went wrong.

  “Keep it coming, Cazaux,” Fortuna radioed again. “Keep that airspeed down—and if we hear the power come up on those engines, that’ll be our signal to open fire.”

  “I understand, Russ,” Cazaux radioed. He switched quickly to intercom: “Stork—how far?”

  “One mile now, sir.”

  Cazaux hit a switch on the aft cargo-bay bulkhead, and the cargo ramp began to lower and the upper ramp door began to retract upward into the cargo bay. The electrically actuated upper door was fully raised in just a few seconds; the ramp, powered by large hydraulic arms, took considerably longer. “Get on the front of that pallet, Mr. Krull,” Cazaux said, wearing an evil grin, “and stand by on that last toucari clamp.”

  Krull had just barely made his way forward to the front of the pallet when he heard the engines rapidly spooling up to full power. “Get ready!” Cazaux shouted. He switched to the comm channel on the intercom and shouted into the microphone, “Russell, my friend, hold out your hands and close your eyes—I’m going to give you a big surprise!” then dropped the microphone and grasped a bulkhead handhold.

  At that instant, the cargo plane heeled sharply upward. Korhonen’s timing was perfect: when Cazaux looked out of the open cargo doors, all he saw was dozens of emergency vehicles clustered near the intersection of the main runway and the large midfield taxiway.

  “Now!” Cazaux shouted. “Release!”

  Krull pulled on the clamp lever, but nothing happened— it was jammed. He struggled with it, but the steeply angled deck had pulled the straps tight, and the curled toucan clamp would not budge. “It ain’t goin’, man!” Krull shouted.

  But Cazaux was already moving. Struggling against the steeply sloped deck, Cazaux reached across the pallet, his large switchblade knife in his hands, and cut the remaining strap. The pallet did not need a push by anyone—sliding on the rollers embedded in the floor of the self-loading cargo hold, the pallet picked up speed rapidly and actually seemed to fly for several feet before it disappeared from view.

  Just as McKenzie thought it was all coming to an end, when she could fly her F-16 back to Fresno and receive the
warm congratulations of her friends and commanders, all hell broke loose.

  The LET L-600 heeled sharply right just a few feet from the ground, right over the biggest cluster of emergency vehicles lining the north side of the runway. The move took her by surprise—she was concentrating more on lining up with the south edge of the runway and keeping the Fighting Falcon in control as she followed the L-600 down the glide path. She applied right stick to follow, but the fighter wallowed and started to sink, and she goosed the power back up to 80 percent. Her next responsibility was to get the gun- sight back on target, but at her present speed and angle of attack, that was impossible. Then the L-600 went into a steep climb, passing virtually directly in front of the pipper. “Control, this is Foxtrot Romeo Two, do I have permission to fire?” she radioed.

  “No!” a frantic voice shouted. “Don’t fire! Hold your fire!” But McKenzie realized that the voice didn’t identify himself, and it could be anyone giving that order—even Cazaux himself. She brought the landing gear handle up, then put the aux flap switch to extend, which would keep the trailing-edge flaps down while the gear was up and allow her to fly slower and stay in control.

  “Control, do you want Foxtrot Romeo to attack? The target appears to be evading—do I have permission to attack?”