Brown, Dale - Independent 04

by Storming Heaven (v1. 1)

  “That is the truth, Mr. Lake, it certainly is,” the manager said, relieved that the sale would actually go through. Lake motioned to Fell, who told the inspectors to go back to work.

  “I will direct my bank to cut another check for you—it’ll take an extra day, I’m sure you understand.”

  “I certainly do, Mr. Lake,” the manager said, practically kissing Lake’s hand in gratitude. “And I sincerely apologize for my behavior. I’m very, very sorry . . .”

  “I’d like nothing more to be said about it,” Lake said, adding a touch of his command voice into his request. “My clients appreciate discretion as well as efficiency. There will be questions about why the transaction is to be delayed an extra day, and that’ll have to be handled.”

  “You can count on me, Mr. Lake,” the manager said. “Don’t worry about a thing.” Just then the sedan pulled up to them, and a tall, good-looking man a bit older than Lake emerged. His plain dark-gray suit coat was unbuttoned, revealing a plain white shirt and plain dark-blue tie with diagonal red stripes. The sun was hot and merciless already that morning, but the man kept the jacket on. “Excuse me, Mr. Fennelli, but how do I get out of here? I’m lost already.” “Easy enough, Agent Lassen,” the facility manager said, pointing southwest. “Just head for the gap between the big hangars out there, you’ll see the front gate. Be sure to watch out for planes taxiing around.”

  “Got it,” Lassen said. It was obvious that Lassen didn’t need any assistance getting off the airport. He looked at Lake, and the investor could practically see the marshal going through the mental exercise taught to all law enforcement officers that would imprint a man’s face on their memories for years. He held out a hand toward Lake: “Hi. Tim Lassen—how’re you doing?”

  “Harold Lake, Marshal Lassen,” Lake responded, shaking Lassen’s hand. “My associate, Ted Fell.” They shook hands. “Mr. Fennelli tells me you’re a federal marshal,” Lake said. He motioned to the expanse of high desert and rocky mountains surrounding Mojave Airport. “Seems like the perfect setting for a marshal, like the Old West. All you need is a horse and a big six-gun.”

  Lassen chuckled easily and genuinely enough, but his eyes never left Lake’s. He said, “Actually, you’re pretty close, Mr. Lake,” Lassen said. “This area used to be one of the roughest and toughest in the country. Claim jumpers, fugitives on the run from justice, hijackers, bank robbers ... terrorists ... the scum of the earth always seemed to congregate around this area, as if the desert would protect them from the law ... This your plane, Mr. Lake? It’s Italian, isn’t it?”

  The federal agent eased into the questioning even more smoothly and naturally than Lake had expected. Lake responded, “No, it’s not my plane. I know very little about planes, actually.”

  “Your plane, Mr. Fell?” Lassen asked, turning toward Lake’s assistant, who thought himself completely out of the conversation.

  “No,” Fell replied much too hastily, too nervously. “Actually, I hate airplanes. I have to practically be sedated into unconsciousness before takeoff.”

  “It’s a beauty,” Lassen said. “I don’t know too much about them, either, but of course the job lately has introduced me to lots of different kinds.”

  “You’re investigating the terrorist Cazaux,” Lake said knowingly. “The lunatic who isn’t satisfied with blowing up one plane—he’s got to blow up the entire terminal.” “Exactly,” Lassen said. “This kind of plane, as you might know, is just like the one Cazaux might use—big, relatively inexpensive, heavy payload, designed to drop things out the back. This is a fire-bomber, right?”

  “A water-bomber, to be exact,” Lake corrected him. “And yes, it is Italian. It is used all over the world for firefighting, military transport, even civilian and commercial passengers. So how’s the investigation going? You going to catch that bastard yet?”

  “Oh, I think Cazaux will either slip away out of the country, do something really stupid and get himself caught, or one of his soldiers will rat him out for money or to 'make a deal with prosecutors,” Lassen said matter-of-factly.

  “You sound pretty sure of this,” Lake observed, trying to act disinterested.

  “I wish I could say that most crimes are solved by expert, meticulous investigation by wise, insightful, observant agents, but in fact most crimes get solved because the bad guy screws up ... or someone very close to him turns him in.” He paused, his eyes affixing on Lake, and the New York investor felt the first prickle of perspiration on the back of his neck.

  “Most criminals, Mr. Lake, are dishonest, egotistical, greedy slimeballs,” Lassen explained. “Many of the people that psychopaths like Henri Cazaux surround themselves with are also slimeballs, but they’re usually smarter. These guys are not quite as violent or psychopathic as their boss—they’re usually motivated by greed, not by the thrill of killing or some voice inside their head telling them to kill. They are cowed by the psychopathic leader into following him, even when the killing grows beyond anything anyone could imagine.

  “But sooner or later it appears that the leader is getting too far out of control, and the smart underling realizes that he’d better cut and run and make a deal with the authorities before everyone lands in prison for life plus two hundred years—or dead. The smart underling turns in the psychopath, gets a reduced sentence or maybe even put in a Witness Protection Program, and thanks his lucky stars he saw the light before it was too late ... I’m sorry, I’ve been chatting on here. What is it you do, Mr. Lake?”

  At first Lake acted as if he didn’t hear the federal agent’s question—and in fact he hadn’t, because he was too stunned by what Lassen had said. He had precisely described the dilemma Lake was in.

  Cazaux was getting more and more violent every day, urging his troops to take more chances, go to any lengths to carry out his orders. Lake had been looking for his chance to scrape together enough cash to disappear to a ranch in Brazil or Thailand, but it seemed Cazaux was always around, watching him, ordering him around. This trip was exactly a case in point: Lake knew nothing about doing prepurchase inspections on cargo planes, but Cazaux had him come out here anyway instead of just staying in his office and monitoring their ever-growing portfolio of options contracts. They were making ten, sometimes fifteen million dollars a day from their series of investments, and it required careful study and analysis to keep it all going. But Cazaux ordered him out here, and now he was being confronted by a fed from Sacramento, a damned fed who seemed to see right through him.

  “I’m a smart underling,” Lake finally responded with an easy smile, “and I work for a broker who can really terrorize a tiramisu or an apricot flambe if he sets his mind to it. I’m going to turn him over to Jenny Craig any day now.”

  The ploy thankfully worked—everyone laughed, and Lassen finally disengaged his piercing gaze, laughed loudly, and shook a finger at Lake as if to say, Okay, okay, okay, you got me. “Hey, have a great day, everyone, I’ve got a long drive back to Sacramento ahead of me. Nice to meet all of you. Thanks again, Mr. Fennelli.” He shook hands with Lake and Fell and headed back to his car, casually studying the G222 as he did. He finally took off his jacket just before getting into the sedan, and Lake noticed he seemed to wear no gun.

  A pencil-pusher, Lake guessed, pressed into field service in Hell’s half-acre in Mojave because the feds were stretched so thin. “Seems like a nice guy,” Lake said to Fennelli as the fed departed.

  “That’s the most I’ve heard him say the whole time he’s been here, about four days now,” Fennelli replied. “Pokes around here and there, flies off, shows up again a couple days later, never asks for anything, pokes around some more, flies off again. That’s his Cheyenne over there.”

  That made Lake relax a bit—the guy really did seem like nothing but a pencil-pusher, not a real investigator. But as soon as Lake took some comfort in that thought, his mind went on the alert again. Lassen was a deputy U.S. Marshal—that was not a ceremonial or political post. Lake wished he had ta
ken more time to study the fed better. He was going to have Fell check him out.

  “I’ll be returning to Los Angeles this afternoon,” Lake told Fennelli. “My staff will conclude the transaction.”

  ‘'Yes, Mr. Lake.” Fennelli said. He extended a hand to Lake; he did not accept it. “Everything will be ready for your ferry crews. If there’s anything else you require, please let me—”

  “All I require, Mr. Fennelli, is for you to do your job.” Lake said, “and to leave the sleuthing to Deputy Marshal Lassen there.”

  “Of course, Mr. Lake,” Fennelli said contritely. He led Lake and Fell back to the Range-Rover. He started heading back toward the flight-line offices where his customer’s Leaijet was parked, then did a sudden one-eighty turn and headed back down the flight line. “I’m sorry, Mr. Lake, I almost forgot.” Fennelli said. “You’ll be wanting to see your other plane. I'm sure.” Lake really didn't care to see it, but he said nothing as Fennelli sped down the row' of airliners. It did not take long to reach it. “Here we are. It looks like they’re farther along the prepurchase inspection on this one.”

  Lake found his legs and hands shaky as he stepped out of the-Land-Rover and looked up at the huge aircraft before them. He glanced at Ted Fell, and he wras just as whitefaced and nervous as his boss.

  This had to be some kind of joke, Lake thought bitterly. Henri Cazaux had issued his order that he wanted this plane, and Lake had found him one right away without really asking why he w-anted it. Now, seeing it like this, Lake understood exactly w'hy Cazaux wanted it.

  It w as a Boeing 747-200F freighter, still in Nippon Cargo Airlines livery, although the markings on the vertical stabilizer from its former owner had already been painted over in bright white. The aircraft was a cargo-carrying version of the 747 airliner, with a huge nose loading door hinged at the top just below the flight deck, which opens out and up. like a huge sun visor. Almost two hundred thousand pounds of cargo could be rolled into the cavernous cargo bay through the front or through large side doors. “It’s a beauty, all right,'’ Fennelli was saying. “JA8167 is one of the earlier models, built in 1980. Relatively low-cycle airframe, treated fairly well in over ten years of service although it’s had its share of short fields and tropical weather. It’s still got its RB211 engines, so its max payload is about ten percent less than if it had JT9Ds or CF6s, but it’s got its quiet kits installed and it’s fully certified for Stage Three noise level operations, so you can fly it anywhere. You got yourself one fine bargain. Who’s going to do the paint job on it?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The paint work,” Fennelli said. “Your ferry crew indicated that its first stop is the paint and mod shop. Where are you taking it? You know, we do a really fine job of configuring your bird to your exact specifications. Since you’re a customer, of course, we can offer you a substantial discount. Nobody does a better paint job on large aircraft like Mojave. Please consider it, Mr. Lake.”

  Damn flyboys, Lake cursed silently. The stupid bastards that Cazaux and Townsend were digging out of the woodwork to fly these missions had real big mouths. The modifications and paint job were going to be done at one of four facilities already hired to do the job—Little Rock, Arkansas; Salina, Kansas; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; or Newark, New Jersey, depending on which had all the necessary personnel, equipment, and cargo ready to go, and which was under the least surveillance by the authorities. Fennelli would obviously want the job badly, so he might try to contact some of the names in the application to ask them directly. Lake had sewn up most of those traps so Fennelli might not get anywhere—but then again, he might if he tried hard enough.

  “I’m afraid that’s up to the buyer, Mr. Fennelli, and he hasn’t confided in me about his plans for the airplanes,” Lake said. “But I will certainly pass along your offer.”

  Lake couldn’t have been more relieved to get on the , Learjet and head back toward Los Angeles.

  “Ted, get on the damned phone and contact the ferry 1 crews,” Lake ordered. “Tell them that if they don’t keep their mouths shut from now on, I will personally see to it that Cazaux deals with them. Then I want—”

  “Harold, it’s not a good idea to use the Flitephone for something like that,” Fell interrupted. “The phone on the airplane has to go through a UHF radio station before it hooks into the landline phone system. It’s worse than a cellular phone system—everybody with a thirty-dollar scanner can listen in.”

  “We’re still using the secure phone system and the dead- drop line, aren’t we?”

  “Yes, but I’m not so sure how well it works over an ARINC network.” The scrambled phone system was a simple but usually very effective analog voice-scrambling system that would protect against unauthorized recording and casual surveillance; the dead-drop line was an 800 number that tied into the local and long-distance phone lines so all calls made would appear to go only to the 800 number, not to any particular phone or person. Fell knew that sometimes calls from the plane were not scrambled, or could not be descrambled on the other end, because of the properties of the additional Aeronautical Radio, Inc., radio link.

  “The damned system cost well over a thousand dollars a month to operate—it better work,” Lake said. “I need the bank to cut a replacement check for Fennelli, and I want to make sure the taps on Universal’s branch offices and to Worthington Enterprises brokerage are in place—if Fennelli tries to contact them directly, I need to know about it. Get on it, Ted, right now. ”

  Lassen, in a Piper Cheyenne II turboprop plane shuttling northward to visit another airport, was undoing another button of his shirt to try to get a bit cooler when his transportable phone insistently beeped at him. He plugged his headset into the unit, pressed the green sync button, and waited until the scramble-synchronization circuits between the caller and his unit agreed and allowed the call to connect. When it did a few seconds later, he heard a tone and responded, “Sweeper.”

  “Sweeper, this is Peepshow,” came the reply. “Peepshow” was the tactical mission commander aboard an RC-12K Guardrail communications and intelligence aircraft. Because cellular and radio communications were difficult to maintain so far out away from large cities, federal agents involved in special investigations in remote areas often set up communications relays, which allowed them to maintain constant contact. One such communications relay system was the U.S. Army’s Guardrail system, which was a modified Beech Super King Air turboprop plane loaded with communications and signals intelligence equipment. Along with providing a secure, efficient communications link, Guardrail could also eavesdrop on radio, TV, cellular, telephone, and data communications for a hundred miles in any direction, and could break in on conversations or broadcast on civil channels or frequencies. “We got some information on your subject.”

  “Stand by one.” Lassen pulled out a personal digital assistant computer, created a new note file, and readied his electronic stencil. “Go ahead.”

  “Your target filed an IFR flight plan direct Santa Monica Airport,” the tactical mission commander reported. “Normal air traffic control communications. We monitored three separate radiotelephone calls via ARINC Mojave to a WATS number. Do you need the number? Over.”

  “Let me guess,” Lassen said, retrieving another note file from the PDA and reading off an 800 number.

  “The same,” Peepshow responded. “The conversation was scrambled, but the ARINC transmission was garbled and they had to repeat the password sequence several times. Finally, your target ordered the WATS operator to turn off the scrambler so he could log on to the service. We copied the ID number and password.” Peepshow passed Harold Lake’s service ID number and password to Lassen. It would - probably not do too much good—Lake would undoubtedly change the password at his first opportunity. “We copied several phone numbers, account numbers, and what appear to be code names before they scrambled the transmission again.” The tactical mission commander passed that information to Lassen. “In addition, we got a good analysis of the
scrambler algorithm routine as they shut it off and then turned it back on again, so we can probably give you their scrambler’s algorithm to plug into your descrambler once we get back on the ground. That’s about all. Over.”

  “Great work, Peepshow,” Lassen said. “Sweeper out.” Well, it didn’t prove too much, but it was a start. Using blind phone drops was not illegal—blind or dead drops prevented someone from knowing what number was called— although it looked very suspicious. It was going to take time to check out all these names, and he had six other airports between Mojave and Reno to check out. He decided to transmit his notes from the PDA via his radiotelephone back to his office in Sacramento so his staff could get to work on it; using Guardrail, the task took only a few moments.

  Harold Lake and Ted Fell were two new names in this investigation, so this trip may not have been a total bust. Two guys from New York who admitted not knowing that much about planes, traveling all the way out to Mojave, California, to buy two very large transport planes. It might take a warrant for Fennelli to give him any information on Lake, his company, his financial institutions, and the persons he worked for. With a little push and some carefully veiled threats, Lassen was sure that Fennelli would easily roll on Lake or anybody else and hand over the files on Lake. But if Fennelli was smart and called in his attorney, Lassen would get into hot water with the U.S. Attorney, that avenue of information would snap shut, and, if he was dirty, Lake would disappear.

  More pieces to the puzzle, Lassen thought—a little patience and determination, and eventually the pieces of this puzzle would start fitting together. Harold Lake was being evasive, and Lassen’s instincts told him Lake was dirty. Meanwhile, there were still a thousand more pieces of the puzzle to examine.

  PART 4

  Atlantic City International Airport That Night