Storming Heaven

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 in 1987. 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 bom with. The face was ruggedly handsome, with bright, quick green eyes, a masculine, oft-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 “above-ground” 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 FA A 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 Motorlet engine, some other miscellaneous spare parts, and even a ferry pilot. The LET 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-600’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-600’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 antiair missiles stacked aboard, with nine cases to go. Nine coffinshaped cases each held two Stinger missiles, preloaded into disposable fiberglass launch tubes, and four cylindrical “bean can” battery units. The other three cases held two launcher grip/sight 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, the Army Special Investigations Unit, and the FBI 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 tetrani- trate, or PETN, the primary component of detonating cord and used as a booster in large demolition charges. For the flight, the crystalline PETN 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 Fahrenheit. PETN was the most sensitive of the primary 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-600’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 holddown 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 crate lid that would clearly not be aligned if the 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 chest, 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 clear — 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. “I ain’t paying you nuthin,’ man,” he said. “You got your own damned plane, man, you can get me in.”

“Just stick the nigger in with the rest of the baggage,” one of the other loaders suggested with a laugh.

A stern glare from the Belgian mercenary silenced the loader. “You will need a passport for some of our destinations,” Cazaux said, “and it costs a lot to get a good document.” He shrugged. “Part of the price of doing business.”

The anger rising in the black man’s chest was enough to raise the air temperature in the hangar several degrees.

“Trust me,” Cazaux said reassuringly.

The guy finally relented, handing Cazaux the money and hopping aboard the L-600. The others were hustling toward the side hangar door as fast as they could. They were sure the big black guy was going to turn up dead in a very short period of time, like as soon as he closed the hangar doors.

“You are the one they called Krull?” Cazaux asked the one remaining loader.

“Yeah,” the black man replied.

“Is that your real name?”

The man hesitated, but only for a second: “Hell no, Captain. And I’ll bet you ain’t no captain, either.”

Cazaux knew the man’s real name was Jefferson Jones, that he was just paroled from a Florida state penitentiary, serving three of seven years for armed robbery, and that he had a common-law wife and two kids. An arrest for dealing drugs, no conviction, and an arrest for selling guns, again no conviction. A small-time hood, dabbling in crime and so far not demonstrating any real aptitude for it. Cazaux’s sources described this one as a good worker, good with a gun, more intelligent than most foot soldiers, a quick temper when provoked but otherwise quiet. “Good answer, my friend,” Cazaux said. “I saw your dossier.”

“Say what?” Big eyes growing wide with surprise.

“Your records. I know you are telling the truth. Lying to me is fatal, I assure you.”

“You’re the boss,” Krull said. “I ain’t lying to you.”

“Very well.” Cazaux knew that Jones had used a variety of weapons in his years as an armed thug, and Cazaux had chosen him, whether Krull knew it or not, over all the other hirelings as a possible recruit. “You begin work immediately. Open those hangar doors, close them after we taxi clear, hop aboard, then close this door like so.” Cazaux showed him how to close and latch the large rear cargo door, and Krull left to see to the hangar door. He had no trouble opening the manually operated steel doors, and soon the warm California night air was seeping into the hangar. Time to get moving.

“Prepare to start engines,” Cazaux shouted forward to the Stork. “I want taxi clearance right now. Report our position on the field as the Avgroup cargo terminal, not this location. Let’s go.” He bent to make one last check of the cargo straps before heading up to the cockpit.

Aboard an Army UH-60 Assault Helicopter That Same Time

The image on the nine-inch color monitor wavered as the helicopter passed by some electrical transmission lines, but the picture steadied as soon as they were clear. “I didn’t hear you that time, Marshal Lassen,” Federal District Court Judge Joseph Wyman, Eastern District of California, said. “Repeat what you just said.”

“Your Honor, I said that because Henri Cazaux is extremely dangerous, I must be granted extraordinary latitude for this capture,” Chief Deputy Marshal Timothy Lassen said into the videophone, a suitcase-sized unit strapped into the UH-60 Black Hawk’s helicopter seat across from Lassen. Lassen, age forty-eight, was the number-two man in charge of the Sacramento office of the U.S. Marshals Service, Eastern District of California. He was speaking on a secure voice/video/data microwave link to the federal courthouse in Sacramento while speeding southward only one thousand feet above ground toward Chico Municipal Airport. Lassen’s lean frame was now artificially beefed out with a thick Kevlar body armor vest over a loose-fitting black flight suit, recently purchased from a mail-order catalog for this particular mission; a black vest with the words U.S. MARSHAL in green covered the bulletproof vest. His boots were scuffed-out survivors of the Marshals Service Academy Training Course at Quantico, Virginia, and used since then only for duck hunting. He wore a plain black baseball cap backwards and a headset to speak on the videophone over the roar of the helicopter’s twin turboshaft engines.

Judge Wyman had been summoned to his desk at midnight to issue an arrest and search warrant for Lassen’s operation. Even distorted by the scrambled microwave linkup and the occasional interference, it was obvious that the judge was not happy. “ ‘Latitude’ is one thing, Deputy,” Wyman said irritably, “but your warrant justification reads like something out of the frontier West.”

“I think that’s a slight exaggeration, Your Honor.”

The videophone system was full duplex, like a regular telephone, but it would not easily tolerate interruptions— Lassen’s interjection went unheard: “I’ll buy a no-knock and use of military transport aircraft for the raid, Deputy, but the gunship is out.”

“Your Honor… Your Honor, excuse me,” Lassen said, repeating himself to successfully interrupt the judge, “Henri Cazaux is the number-one fugitive on our most-wanted list, with fifty-seven federal warrants issued for him to date. He is an internationally known terrorist and arms dealer. He’s the biggest gunrunner in southwestern Europe, his efficiency and ruthlessness is putting the Italian Mafia to shame in southern Europe, and now he’s in the United States, where he’s been connected to several attacks against military arsenals. He has stolen everything from Band-Aids to glide bombs, and he knows how to use them all — he’s ex-Belgian Special Forces and an accomplished pilot. He has the Marshals, the FBI, ATF, and the state police outgunned in every category. We have to use military air just to even the odds.”

Judge Wyman shook his head at the videophone unit’s camera lens on his desk and continued: “Use of deadly force? Use of military aircraft and weapons? Dead or alive? What is this, a vendetta? I will not sign a ‘dead or alive’ warrant, Deputy.”

“Your Honor, Cazaux is known to have killed four federal officers this year,” Lassen said. “He hasn’t used anything smaller than an M-16 or AK-47 infantry rifle on any of his victims, and one marshal was believed to be killed by a direct hit by a forty-millimeter grenade, a weapon used for punching holes in walls and bunkers. We identified the dead agent by recovering one of his fingers that had been blown nearly a hundred yards away.”

It was the judge’s turn to interrupt — Lassen stopped talking when he saw Wyman talking, and the judge’s stern voice came through as soon as Lassen stopped talking: “… have to remind me of any of that, Deputy,” Wyman said, “and I’m very familiar with an M206 grenade launcher and its effects, thank you. I fully understand how dangerous Henri Cazaux is. But the objective of a warrant issued by this court is to grant legal permission to arrest a fugitive suspect, not carry out an assault — or an execution.”

“I assure you, Your Honor, my objective is to capture Cazaux and bring him to trial,” Lassen said. “But I cannot accomplish this mission safely without substantial firepower. Cazaux is a killer, Your Honor. He has demonstrated that he will fight it out, kill any law-enforcement agents nearby, use the weapons he smuggles for his own defense, even kill his own workers, rather than be captured. He’s like a raccoon caught in a trap, Your Honor, except he won’t hesitate to chew off someone else’s leg to escape. I need extraordinary powers if I’m to try to apprehend him. If I don’t get them, I will not send my men in.”

“Don’t you give me ultimatums, Deputy Lassen,” Wyman said angrily.

“I’m trying to emphasize how dangerous Henri Cazaux is, Your Honor,” Lassen continued quickly. “I attached an FBI psychological profile. Cazaux was imprisoned and abused by GIs when he was a child, and he turned to violence ever—”

“Say again, Deputy Lassen?” Wyman interrupted. “I thought Cazaux had never been in prison?”

“As a minor, he was caught on a U.S. Air Force cruise missile base in Belgium, selling hashish to U.S. security policemen,” Lassen explained. “He was turned over to the Belgian authorities, but not before being imprisoned and repeatedly raped by the guards for two days. I heard they even shoved nightsticks up him. And he was only fifteen years old. He kills foreign servicemen on sight, Judge — he always Tias. I think he’ll target my SOG troops the same—” “I understand what you’re telling me, Deputy,” Wyman interrupted, “but even though he may seem like one, I want him brought to justice, not killed like a rabid dog. Don’t ask this court for the power of life and death, then refuse to carry out your duties if you don’t get it. You want my signature on a warrant, mister, you follow by my rules.

“I’m deleting the ‘dead or alive’ condition — you will bring Cazaux and his men in alive, or you will explain to me and the Attorney General of the United States why you failed to do so, and I assure you, Deputy, your career and where you spend the night — at home, or in a federal prison cell — will hang on your response. And you may use any military aircraft to transport your agents and for observation, but they may not approach closer than five hundred meters from the suspects, and they may not use their weapons unless fired upon by the suspects. Now, are you going to abide by my orders, Deputy Lassen?”

He had no choice. Wyman was the most cold-blooded of the federal judges and magistrates in the District, and if he had objections to any aspect of a warrant, it was best not to argue. The way was still clear to do whatever it might take to put Cazaux out of business, but an unwarranted death would mean the end of Lassen’s career. It might be worth a twenty-year career for the chance to end Cazaux’s miserable life, but playing by the rules was important to Timothy Lassen. Carrying a gun, a badge, and a federal warrant made a man pretty big in some people’s eyes, and it was easy to start believing that justice was whatever you chose to make it, especially with sociopathic killers like Cazaux. Lassen was determined not to let his Constitutionally mandated power corrupt him. Lassen was also determined not to fuck up his career at this point, no matter who they were pursuing. Tall, with an athletically lean frame and dark hair and brown eyes, Timothy Lassen had been with the Marshals Service since 1970, and had several assignments in both California and Oregon. For eight of those years (from 1980 to 1988) he had served in the Special Operations Group (SOG). He was the SOG deputy commander from 1988 to 1990 and then reassigned to the Sacramento office as Deputy U.S. Marshal in 1991. “Yes, Your Honor,” Lassen replied.

“Good. I want Cazaux as bad as you do, Lassen, but you’ve got to do this one by the book or the circuit court will put us both out of business.” Wyman raised his right hand, and in the passenger section of the Black Hawk helicopter, Lassen did likewise. “Do you swear,” Wyman recited, “that all the information in these warrants are the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and do you swear to abide by the regulations and restrictions contained herein and execute these warrants to the best of your ability?”

“I swear, Your Honor.”

Wyman signed three documents and handed them to an assistant, who unclipped the pages and sent the pages one by one into a fax machine connected to the same secure communications link. Seconds later, the warrants appeared in the plain-paper fax machine on board the Black Hawk assault helicopter. A recent Supreme Court decision ruled that the faxed copy of a warrant sent via a secure datalink was as good as the original. “I’ll be standing by here in case you need me, Lassen. I’m with you all the way.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Lassen said.

“My clerk tells me that Judge Seymour signed a series of warrants for ATF the same time period,” Wyman said. ATF, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, a division of the Department of the Treasury, was involved with the regulation of restricted, high-value goods such as liquor and weapons. “Since I wasn’t briefed on their involvement, I assume you’re not working with ATF on this one.”

“I didn’t know ATF was involved, Your Honor,” Lassen said. “We got the information that Cazaux had surfaced only a few hours ago. Can you give me any details on the warrant, sir? Is Agent Fortuna in charge?”

“Your old friend,” Wyman said with a wry smile — the sarcasm in his voice came through loud and clear, even via the wavering secure datalink. “I see you have your Kevlar on — I think you’ll need it, and not just against Cazaux.”

“I’d better try to raise Fortuna on the secure phone, then, Your Honor,” Lassen said. “Thanks again for your help.”

“I have a feeling the shooting is going to start long before you encounter Cazaux,” Wyman said, trying to interject a bit of humor into what promised to be a very humorless scene coming up. “Good luck.” The encrypted datalink buzzed when Wyman hung up, then beeped to indicate the channel was autochecked for security and was clear.

Lassen keyed in a user address key into the transceiver’s keypad, listened for the autocheck tone again, and waited. Seconds later, he heard a cryptic “Tiger One, go.”

Even on an ultrasecure microwave datalink that was virtually untraceable and eavesdrop-proof, Special Agent Russell V. Fortuna still liked using his old Vietnam Recondo code name. “This is Sweeper One, on channel seventeen- bravo,” Lassen replied. Although he disliked using all this code crap, he knew Fortuna would not respond, especially during an operation, unless he used his code name and confirmed the secure datalink channel in use. “What’s your location and status, Russ? Over.”

There was a slight pause, and Lassen could easily envision Fortuna, dressed in his Star Wars semirigid body armor that made him look like an Imperial storm trooper from the movie, shaking his armored head in complete exasperation. “Lassen, what the fuck do you want?” Fortuna finally said. “You may have just blown this operation. You ever hear of communications security?”

“We’re on a secure datalink, Russ. Get off it. I need to know your status. Are you moving against Fugitive Number One? Over.”

“Jesus, Lassen, why don’t you just get on the PA and tell the creeps we’re coming?” There was another short pause, then: “Yeah, we’re ten minutes out. We zeroed in on his operation at Chico, and we’re moving in. Since we didn’t have time to coordinate this strike, do me a favor, get hold of the administrator of the airport and the sheriffs department, and cordon off the airport. Stay on the outside until I give you the word. Over.”

“Russ, we’ve got word that Cazaux has got heavy weapons and high explosives at his location, enough to take out half the airport. SOG is about fifteen minutes out, and we’ve got some Apaches and Black Hawk assault helicopters from the California Air National Guard with us. We’ll back you up.”

“Assault helicopters? Are you nuts?” Fortuna asked. “Cazaux will start shooting the minute he hears one of those things overhead. Keep them away from the airport. Who the hell gave you a warrant authorizing attack helicopters, anyway? Are you going to seal off the airport for me or not?”

“Affirmative, Russ, I’ll take care of that,” Lassen said, pointing to the VHF radio and motioning for the chief of the Special Operations Group, Deputy Marshal Kelly Peltier, to make the initial calls for him. SOG was the Marshals Service’s assault and special weapons team, organized to capture the most violent and heavily armed fugitives. “But hold off on your operation until we get closer, and brief me on your plan of attack.”

“I don’t have time for that shit,” Fortuna snapped. “You can monitor our tactical frequency if you want, but do not, I repeat, do not overfly the airport. We might mistake your choppers as one of Cazaux’s escorts and take a shot at it.”

Special Agent Fortuna was director of the southeast district of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Ex-Marine Corps, all-around weapons expert, and a human dynamo, as gung-ho as any man in the Treasury Department, Fortuna was an expert in small-unit assault tactics— at least in his own mind. He relied on the elements of shock and surprise to overwhelm the bad guys. However, the shock and devastation of his attacks, in Lassen’s view, made up for a lot of sloppy investigative work. Judges gave him warrants regularly because he got results. Lassen liked to gather his deputies, surround a suspect, and wait him out. Although these standoffs took time and manpower, this substantially reduced the risk to his deputies. Fortuna liked to form a strike team, plan an assault, and attack head-on at night with heavy weapons blazing. The result was usually a lot of wounded agents and dead suspects, but the shooting was over long before the TV camera crews arrived. Because of this fundamental difference in tactical style, the two organizations sometimes moved without coordinating with the other.

“Jesus, Fortuna’s gonna play Rambo again,” Lassen said on the helicopter’s intercom so the pilots and the rest of the crew could hear. “Paul, you better plan on setting down on the far side of the runway opposite the action, off-loading the crew, then evacuating the area,” Lassen told his pilot. To his SOG strike team leader he said, “Kel, get on the phone to the chief of the Oakland Flight Service Station and have them issue an emergency airspace restriction in a five-mile radius of the airport. I’ll be the point of contact in charge of placing the restriction. If you hit any delays after nine minutes from now, just get on VHF GUARD on 121.5 and UHF GUARD on 243.0 and broadcast the warning in the blind for all aircraft to avoid the airport. Christ, what a mess.”

“The TV stations will pick up the news if I broadcast on the GUARD channel, Tim.”

“I’m not worried about that — I’m worried about Fortuna taking a shot at us or at some commercial job who wants to land,” Lassen said. “Do it.”

Chico Municipal Airport, California That Same Time

“Chico ground, LET Victor Mike Two Juliett, ready to taxi from Avgroup Airport Services with information uniform,” Cazaux radioed.

“LET Victor Mike Two Juliett, Chico ground, taxi to runway one-three left via alpha taxiway, wind one-eight- zero at one-three,” came the response from ground control.

“LET Two Juliett,” Cazaux replied.

Russ Fortuna, sitting in the front of the “six-pack” pickup truck, lowered the handheld VHF radio and turned to his deputy strike leader beside him. “Right on time and right where he’s supposed to be,” he said. The six-passenger pickup truck they were riding in cut a comer and sped toward an open gate guarded by an ATF agent and a sheriffs deputy. The three ATF agents sitting in the back of the truck clattered as their armored shoulders bumped against each other. The semirigid Kevlar armor they wore resembled a hockey player’s pads, with thick face, neck, arm, torso, groin, and leg plates that would protect them against heavy machine-gun fire with reasonable mobility. Their helmets were one-piece bulletproof Kevlar shells with built-in microphones, headphones, and flip-up night-vision goggles, powered by a lithium battery pack mounted on the back of the helmet. They wore thickly padded ALICE vests over the armor, with spare ammunition magazines, flash- bang grenades, and .45 caliber automatic pistols in black nylon holsters. The agents carried no handcuffs or restraining devices — this was a hard-target assault all the way. If the suspects weren’t restrained by the sight of pistols and assault rifles, they were going to be suppressed by a bullet in the head. Their main weapons were Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns with flash suppressors; the driver of the truck would man a .50 caliber heavy sniper rifle with a 30x nightscope that was big enough to destroy an aircraft engine with one shot.

Once through the gate, the truck headed along rows of small-aircraft hangars on their right. A high-wing Cessna was taxiing toward them, flashing its landing light, and the driver of the truck turned on emergency flashers to warn the plane’s pilot to stay away. Another truck, an eight- passenger van with smoked windows, was directly behind them, loaded with six more ATF agents in full ballistic armor and combat gear. This van, and another one heading across the airport to encircle Cazaux, each carried six fully equipped agents.

“Give me a rundown of the location.”

The deputy strike leader opened an airport guide to the paper-clipped pages. “Avgroup Airport Services is the large parking area southeast of the control tower, closest to the departure end of runway thirteen left,” he replied. “One large hangar east, one more southeast, one more north. Pretty open otherwise. From the northwest gate, we’ll have to come in from the north between this hangar and the tower. That way we can cut off his taxi route.”

“But he could use the parallel runway instead of the longer one, right? We should cover both runways.”

“Runway thirteen right is only three thousand feet,” the deputy strike leader said. “The LET L-600 needs a good five thousand feet even for a best-angle takeoff, and more if Cazaux’s got it loaded down with fuel and cargo. In addition, he’s got a strong crosswind — that’ll cut down his takeoff capability even more. I think he’ll have to take the long runway.”

“All the same, I want unit three to go around east of the tower, down taxiway delta, and take up a position on the east side of runway one-three right in this intersection,” Fortuna said. “That way he can cover the departure end of runway thirteen right and block the long runway if we need to.”

“That’ll only leave two units on Cazaux,” the deputy strike leader said. “The airport’s pretty big — if he rabbits, we might lose him. If they got choppers, we might want to bring the Marshals in on this after all.”

“It’s too late to bring them in now,” Fortuna decided. “Once we get Cazaux’s plane stopped, we’ll have the Marshals move in, but I want to move into position before anyone else appears in the line of fire.” The deputy strike leader got on the tactical radio to issue his instructions.

The intersection up ahead near the control tower appeared deserted, with no aircraft or vehicle movement at all. Floodlights were on around and inside the Avgroup Aviation Services hangar. Cazaux’s plane was just visible, taxiing away from the front of the hangar. Fortuna clicked on his radio: “I’ve got the plane in sight. I’m moving in.”

“Unit one, this is two,” the driver in Fortuna’s van radioed. “I’ve got five individuals walking west along the taxiway away from the Avgroup hangar. Some of the people are definitely suspects. They’re carrying packages, but I can’t tell what they might be. I don’t see any weapons or radios. I can take them with two of the security team and position the others to flank the target and block him from the west.”

“Do it,” Fortuna radioed.

Two ATF agents dismounted from the van and silently trotted into position, taking cover near some parked airplanes. The five men practically walked right up to them, never noticing them or the van just a few dozen yards in front of them in the darkness. As soon as the driver of the van saw the five men’s hands go up — they were carrying small bundles, and through their night-vision goggles they could clearly see they were bundles of cash — the van sped forward to take up its position to surround Cazaux’s plane.

“Drop those packages,” one of the ATF agents shouted. “Now!” The bundles of money spilled from their hands and hit the ground — and then the whole world seemed to erupt in a flash of light and a huge ear-shattering explosion.

“I told them to count the money,” Henri Cazaux mused as he put the tiny remote detonator transmitter in his flight bag beside his seat. Off in the distance, they could see a truck burning brightly alongside the Avgroup Aviation Services hangar. Krull, squatting between the pilots’ seats to watch the takeoff, stared out the forward windscreen in horror. “Joining my outfit is looking like a better idea all the time, isn’t it, Mr. Krull?”

“No shit… Captain,” he responded. The Stork grinned, showing the newcomer his few remaining tobacco-stained teeth. Cazaux turned off the telescopic nightscope he had been using to monitor the ATF agents’ approach, then handed it to Krull, who placed it carefully into a padded case. “I never did care for them white boys anyway. Fuck ’em.”

“You work hard and keep your mouth shut, Mr. Krull,” Cazaux said, shoving the throttles forward and picking up speed along the north terminal buildings, “and we will enjoy a long and profitable relationship. I don’t care what color your skin is. Cross me, inform on me, or speak to anyone about my operation or myself, and you’ll be crow food too. That I promise.”

“I get the message.”

“Aircraft on taxiway bravo near the tower, this is Chico ground, hold your position and acknowledge. Orders from the sheriffs department. Say your call sign,” the ground controller radioed.

“Checklists, Stork, checklists,” Cazaux shouted crosscockpit. He reached across the cockpit and flipped on the engine ignition switches — if the engines faltered during takeoff, leaving the igniters on would help to restart them quickly. “Mr. Krull, your job is to watch this indicator. When it hits sixty, punch this button to start the stopwatch. You will count down precisely twelve seconds and give me a warning beginning five seconds before the sweep hand reaches twelve seconds, using the words ‘ready, ready,’ then ‘now’ in a loud voice when the clock reads twelve seconds. Do you understand?”

“What the hell for, man?”

“I told you, keep your mouth shut and pay attention, Mr. Krull, and you’ll do fine in my organization,” Cazaux said. “Do you understand what I just told you?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it.”

“Very good. This is an acceleration test, Mr. Krull. You see, we’re not going to take the long runway — we’re taking the short runway, one-three right. The twelve seconds is our safety margin — we have twelve seconds to go from sixty knots to one-twenty. If we don’t do it, we won’t take off. Simple enough.”

“Then we better make it, man,” Krull said, “because whoever’s chasin’ us ain’t gonna be too happy about us set- tin’ off a stick of dynamite in their faces.”

“True enough. Oh — hit that button for me right there, if you would.” Krull reached over to a small aluminum box mounted atop the glareshield above the instrument panel, took a look at Cazaux, who was busy with the checklists, and at the Stork, who was grinning with complete mirth at him. Krull hit the button…

… and a ring of volcanoes appeared to erupt all around them, with huge thick geysers of fire shooting into the sky, obscuring the buildings on the east ramp near the control tower. One by one, private airplanes and crop dusters were sent spinning into the air by the explosions. The explosions were set in precise patterns, causing a rippling effect across the airport — as soon as the L-600 taxied past a spot, the explosions would cut off the taxiway and obscure them with fire and smoke. “Jesus Christ, what in hell…?”

“It is so pitifully easy to set explosives on airports in America,” Cazaux said. “Offer to wash a windshield or paint a few stripes on the ground, and pilots in this country will let you do anything you want around their planes. But I am disappointed — only about half of my detonators are going off. I think I’ll have a talk with those Mexican dealers. They owe me a refund.” Krull felt as if he was in some kind of hellish nightmare — the airport was systematically being destroyed all around them, and Henri Cazaux was chatting on about business matters as if the explosions were just the twinkling of fireflies. Krull saw one explosion erupt under the control tower, but the darkness and smoke obscured his view and he couldn’t see if the concrete and steel structure hit the earth.

“Rather like setting up dominoes in a row and watching to see if the pattern completes itself, no?” Cazaux asked Krull. “You cannot help but watch. The disaster is magnetic.”

Sixty seconds ago, Special Agent Russell Fortuna was in command of three trucks filled with seventeen heavily armed ATF agents — now, two trucks had disappeared in balloons of fire, and his own truck was abandoned and they were taking cover behind it. Like a freight train out of control, the six agents were helpless as the columns of fire erupted all around them. A small single-engine Cessna with a Playboy bunny painted on the tail disappeared in a flash of light and an ear-splitting sound only twenty yards away, shattering the windshield in the truck and blowing out two tires. Two agents were dazed, one finding blood oozing from a ruptured eardrum in one ear. All the rest appeared unhurt — four out of a strike team of eighteen. Aftermath of a typical Henri Cazaux ambush.

“Team two, check in… team two, check in,” Fortuna tried on the portable radio. Nothing. ‘Team three…” He didn’t try team three anymore, because he saw those poor bastards get blown away when the booby traps Cazaux’s thugs were carrying went up. “Damn it, somebody answer me!”

“Russ, this is Tim,” Chief Deputy Marshal Lassen radioed. “I’ve been monitoring your frequency. What’s your situation?”

“The target booby-trapped this entire airport,” Fortuna replied. “No reply from my two support units.” He was not about to say on an open frequency, scrambled or not, that both his assault trucks had been blown sky-high. “Suspect is taxiing to the northwest for takeoff on runway one-three left. What’s your position?”

“We’re five minutes out, Russ,” Lassen replied. “We’ll try to block the runways.”

Lassen’s three-helicopter SOG team was less than five minutes out — they were close enough to see the burning aircraft, like large bonfires, dotting the darkness around the airport. The runway lights, taxiway lights, and tower rotating beacon were all out. The flight crew of the Black Hawk had to lower night-vision goggles in place to find the airport. The moving shape of the large cargo plane was now visible, moving rapidly down the inner taxiway. Only a few dozen yards and Cazaux would be at the end of runway one-three left, lined up for takeoff. “I want one Black Hawk in the middle of one-three left,” Lassen radioed to his other helicopters, “and the Apache hovering at the southeast end to cover. We’ll fly overhead and take one-three right in case he tries to use the shorter runway. I want—”

Suddenly a bright flash of light erupted on the ground ahead of them, and a streak of light arced out across the sky, heading right for them. Lassen’s Black Hawk banked hard left, away from the second Black Hawk, which was flying along in formation on their right. The streak disappeared immediately, and Lassen was about to ask what it was when a brilliant burst of light flashed off to their right. The second helicopter was illuminated by an orange-blue sheet of fire on its left side. “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” the pilot of the second Black Hawk radioed. “Hunter Two has taken some ground fire. One engine on fire, losing oil pressure. We’re going down!”

“Hunter One, this is Wasp,” the pilot of the Apache attack helicopter radioed. “I have a vehicle at the spot where that missile came from. Three men. They appear to have another man-portable missile and are preparing to fire. Request permission to engage.”

Lassen didn’t hesitate — he had run this very scenario in his head a dozen times since putting the request for the AH- 64 Apache helicopter into the California Air National Guard. His warrant, signed by Judge Wyman, specifically said that he could not use the Apache’s weapons unless they were under attack — well, they were definitely under attack. “Request granted, Wasp,” Lassen radioed immediately. “Clear to fire.”

He was about to ask his pilot where the Apache was, but he found out himself a moment later as several bursts of rocket fire flashed just a few yards away, the strobe light-like flashes freezing the rotors of the deadly Apache gunship. The Apache launched at least two missiles, and both hit the same spot on the ground ahead, creating a mushroom of fire. Lassen saw a swirl of light on the ground, jumping and looping and cartwheeling in the air like a comet gone crazy — an unfired Stinger or Redeye missile round cooking off, he guessed.

“Target suppressed, two secondary explosions, target destroyed,” the Apache pilot reported.

“Good shooting, Wasp,” Lassen radioed. ‘Take the end of runway one-three left, keep the suspect aircraft in sight, and attempt to block its taxi path.”

“Wasp copies.” But a moment later, the pilot came back: “Hunter, this is Wasp, suspect aircraft is lined up on runway one-three right, repeat, one-three right, and he appears to be on his takeoff roll. Am I clear to fire?”

Lassen put his night-vision goggles back in place and searched the airport, now less than a mile away. Sure enough, Cazaux had decided not to taxi all the way to the long runway — he was on the short runway and already starting his takeoff run. It would be impossible to block his path now. But he could still stop him — the Apache gunship had a 20-millimeter cannon that could shred Cazaux’s plane in two seconds, plus at least two more wire-guided TOW (Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire-guided) missiles that would rid the earth of Henri Cazaux once and for all. One word from him, and Cazaux would be a flaming hole in the earth.

“Hunter, this is Wasp, am I clear to engage? Over.”

Henri Cazaux had killed a handful of ATF agents that night alone, plus killed or injured his deputy marshals on the second helicopter, plus any unlucky civilians who were on that airport when Cazaux decided to destroy it to cover his escape. Add all those souls to the list of his victims in the past several years. And those were only the ones Cazaux himself had killed that were known to the Justice Department — he was undoubtedly responsible for hundreds, perhaps thousands of other deaths because of his gun-smuggling and terrorist activities.

Henri Cazaux deserved to die.

Unfortunately, Chief Deputy Marshal Timothy Lassen didn’t have the legal or moral authority to kill him. Would Judge Wyman or any other federal judge throw the book at him for putting a TOW missile into Cazaux’s filthy hide? Probably not, Lassen decided…

“Hunter, the target is reaching my max tracking speed. I need authority to shoot. Am I clear to engage?”

… but his own conscience would prosecute him, find him guilty of selling himself out, and sentence him to a life of remorse and guilt for betraying his badge, his sworn oath, and himself.

“Negative,” Lassen said on the radio. “Do not engage, repeat, do not engage. Stay clear of the suspect aircraft, tail him as long as you can, report his position. Hunter out.”

Cazaux taxied the LET to the end of runway 13 Right, rapidly performing last-second checklist items as he aligned himself with the runway centerline. Then he stomped hard on the brakes and held them. The Stork was intently watching the engine instruments as Cazaux pushed the throttles up. The LET rumbled and rattled like a freight train out of control as the two sets of engine needles began to move. They heard a few loud coughs and bangs from the engines, and out the comer of an eye Krull could see long tongues of flame occasionally bursting from the exhausts and lighting up the tarmac.

“Attention aircraft on runway one-three right, warning, shut down your engines immediately.”

The Stork yelled something and pointed to one of the instruments, but Cazaux shook his head. Krull saw several gauges with their needles in the red arcs, but Cazaux was ignoring them all. It seemed to take forever, but finally the power needle made it up past 90 percent, and Cazaux released the brakes. The Stork kept his hand on the throttles to make sure they were full forward, jabbering away unintelligibly about something. The engines still didn’t sound right, were obviously not putting out full power yet.

“Hey, Captain,” Krull said, “this looks bad.”

“Sixty knots… now!” Cazaux shouted. Krull hit the stopwatch. “Just be quiet and give me a countdown.”

“Five seconds!” Krull shouted. It looked as if the airspeed needle had barely moved. “Eight seconds…” The needle was just over ninety knots, bouncing back and forth wildly in its case. “Ready, ready… now! ”

Cazaux did nothing but continue to watch the instruments, both hands on the yoke, feet dancing on the rudder pedals, trying to keep the plane on the centerline.

“I said twelve seconds, Cazaux, twelve seconds! We’re only at one-ten. Aren’t you going to abort the takeoff?” “Not likely,” Cazaux said. He waited until the runway end-identifier lights had flashed under the nose, then hauled back on the control yoke with all his might. The nose of the LET L-600 hung in the air precariously. The Stork’s eyes were wide with fear as the white chevrons of the runway overrun area became visible — and then the cargo plane lifted off. But it was as if the Belgian mercenary wanted to commit suicide, because he immediately pushed the control yoke away from his body, forcing the nose of the LET DOWN.

“What the hell are you doin’?”

“Shut up, goddammit!” Cazaux shouted. “We lifted off the runway in ground effect — we aren’t at flying speed yet.” His eyes were glued to the airspeed and vertical-speed indicators. Airspeed was pegged at one-ten, still ten knots below flying speed. Krull could do nothing but watch the trees at the departure end of the runway get closer and closer by the second. A lighted windsock whizzed by, the orange, cone-shaped flag not far below eye level. They were still too low.

“Pull up!” Krull shouted. “We’re gonna hit!”

Cazaux watched, and in a few seconds the airspeed indicator crept up to one-twenty and the vertical speed indicator nudged upwards. As soon as it did, Cazaux raised the landing-gear handle. The cockpit occupants heard a loud swiissssh! outside the windows as the tops of a stand of trees were chewed apart by the propellers. Krull could see the lights of homes atop the nearby hills getting larger and larger by the second. But as soon as the red landing gear warning lights were out, Krull felt pressure on the bottom of his feet, the LET behaved more like an airplane and less like a ballistic sausage, and the homes disappeared safely under the nose — close enough to rattle the windows, but there was no impact.

“Jesus… man, I thought we were goners,” Krull exhaled. “You either crazy or you got big brass balls. What was all that bullshit about acceleration timing? I thought you said you were gonna abort the damn takeoff.”

“Mr. Krull, there is only one thing worse than dying in a massive fireball in Chico, California, and not making the delivery as promised,” Cazaux said as he slowly, incrementally raised the flaps, carefully watching the airspeed to make sure it didn’t decay, “and that is surrendering to the police or to the military. I will never surrender. They will have to take my bullet-riddled body away before I will give up, and I will take as many with me as possible before I go. If I’m awake I will try to escape, because capture is worse than death to me. I was in a prison once. It will never happen again.”

“Well, you crazy motherfucker, you did it,” Krull said with undisguised glee and relief. “Those pricks ain’t gonna catch us now.” The Stork looked at Krull with wide, white, disbelieving eyes, then began to laugh loud enough to be heard over the thunder of the LET’S turboprops. “What’s this brother laughin’ at?”

“He’s laughing because we’re not out of danger yet, Mr. Krull,” Cazaux said. “If the authorities want me as badly as I think they do, they have one more card they can play.”

Southwest Air Defense Sector Operations Command Center (SOCC) March AFB, Riverside, California

The night crew had just finished a grueling three-hour-long exercise in which a flight of ten Sukhoi-25 attack bombers from Mexico had tried to penetrate the air defense screen around the United States and bomb the Coast Guard base at San Diego and the U.S. Customs base at March Air Force Base so all drug smugglers could enter the United States easier. They had gotten that idea from a series of actual attacks a group of Cuban terrorists had made a few years back, when sophisticated drug cartels used military weapons to protect their drug shipments from American interdiction forces. That was good for about a dozen different air defense scenarios built into the computer system at the Southwest Air Defense Sector.

Lieutenant Colonel John Berrell, the Senior Director on the floor that evening, made the last few remarks in his shift exercise critique sheet. Overall, it was a very good exercise. His shift was young and inexperienced, but they performed well. There were usually no instructors around at night, so every console operator had to be on his toes and be prepared to carry his or her load alone. A few coordination items had been missed by overzealous operators in one of the Weapons Control Teams who thought they knew their procedures down cold and didn’t use their checklists. The plastic-covered pages in the red folders before each operator had been built over decades of experience and covered every known contingency in the air defense game. It was almost guaranteed to keep the operators out of trouble when the fur started flying.

His crew had accomplished the most important aspect of the job: detect, track, and identify.

Berrell clicked on his master intercom button: “Ops to all stations, well done.” No use pointing out the ones that screwed up — they still had a long night ahead of them, and he wanted everyone’s mind clear and sharp. “Run your postexercise checklists and check your switches are back in real-world mode. Repeat, check switches back in real- world mode.” Several years ago in Europe, an American air defense unit had been running a computer simulation in which a large stream of Soviet bombers invaded West Germany. The exercise was a success and the computer-generated bad guys driven off — unfortunately, after the exercise, one operator forgot to turn off the simulation. An hour later, the “second wave” of Soviet bombers “appeared” on radar, and the panicked operator scrambled dozens of very real, very expensive American, West German, Belgian, Norwegian, and Danish fighters against the phantom bombers before someone realized it was not happening.

Those were the good of days, Berrell thought. Before the sweeping world political changes in 1991 and 1992, air defense units were the spearhead of national defense and deterrence. Radar constantly sweeping the horizon, young faces staring at green cathode ray tube radarscopes, picking out the enemy from within the friendly targets; determined, daring men sitting by their planes ready to launch at a moment’s notice to track down and destroy any intruder. Before 1992, before the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the threat was deadly real. A Soviet Backfire bomber that appeared on radar five hundred miles off the coast was already in position to launch a large AS-12 nuclear cruise missile — one such missile could destroy Washington, D.C., or any major city on the eastern seaboard.

Now, in 1994, the Soviet Union was gone; the Russian long-range bomber threat was nonexistent. The Russians were still flying their heavy bombers, but now they were selling rides to wealthy Westerners in mock bomb runs out in Nevada, for God’s sake! The air defense forces of the United States had been cut down to only eighteen locations across the contiguous United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. With only two alert aircraft per location, that meant a total of thirty-six aircraft were defending approximately forty million cubic miles of airspace. True, many countries, including Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, still had bombers and cruise missiles aimed at the United States, but the real day-to-day threat had all but disappeared. Air defense had all but gone away as a mission.

America still had a need to protect and patrol its borders and maintain the capability to hunt down and identify intruders, but now the intruders were terrorists, hijackers, criminals, drug smugglers, and lawbreakers. In order to prove to the world that the United States was not becoming lax about national defense and readiness, it was important for America to demonstrate its capability to patrol its frontiers. The remaining air defense units were clustered in the south and the southeast instead of the north so that the fighters could better cover the Mexican and Caribbean regions, where drug smugglers, illegal alien movements, and fugitive flights were clustered.

Berrell was busy reviewing the postexercise checklist cleanup and working on the after-action critique when the deputy sector commander, Navy Captain Francine Tell man, came over and sat beside him. As part of NORAD, the North American Air Defense Command, the individual air defense sectors were under joint services command, representing all the branches of the U.S. military as well as the air defense forces of Canada. Tellman, a twenty-year Navy veteran of air traffic control and air defense operations, was the Navy’s representative at the Southwest sector. The fifty-two-year-old Navy veteran was not due to come on duty for another three or four hours, but it was typical of her to come in early when a big exercise or some other unusual event was underway. Divorced twice and currently unattached, the sector was the big part of her life now. “Evening, John,” she said to Berrell. “How did the Ham- merheads-7 surge exercise go?”

“It went fine, Francine. I need to schedule George on WCT three for a refresher on checklist discipline — he missed a couple coordination calls. Other than that…” The phone rang at Berrell’s console — the flashing button was the direct line between the sector and the chief of the Oakland Air Route Traffic Control Center. Oakland ARTCC, or Oakland Center, was one of the busiest and most diverse air traffic regions in the world, covering northern and central California and Nevada. “Southwest Air Defense Sector, Senior Director, Lieutenant Colonel Berrell.”

“John, this is Mike Leahy,” the deputy director of Oakland Center replied. “I just got a call from a Special Agent Fortuna of ATF. They have a fugitive smuggling suspect that just launched out of Chico Airport, and they’re asking for assistance. He’s south westbound, not squawking. His ID code is seven-delta-four-zero-four.”

“Sure, Mike,” Berrell replied. “Stand by one.” Berrell put Leahy on hold and turned to his SD tech, Master Sergeant Thomas Bidwell. It was not unusual at all to get calls like that from the FA A — that’s what the hot line was for — but to get it directly from the deputy director of the Center was a bit unusual. ‘Tom, Oakland Center has a recent fugitive departure from Chico airport, ID number seven-delta-four-zero-four. Zero in on him for us. Don’t make him a pending yet, just an item of interest. Request for support from ATF.”

“Yes, sir,” Bidwell replied. He opened his checklist to the proper page, logged the time of the request in the correct block, and passed the information to the Surveillance and Identification sections — since this was a target already over land, and the Sector Operations Command Center usually only tracked targets penetrating the air defense identification zones, Bidwell had to get his technicians to break out the new target from the hundreds of others on the scope and display it to each section. On the phone, Berrell said, “Mike, I got your slimeball on radar. Do you want to make him a pending or just monitor him for you?”

“Monitor him for now,” Leahy said. “I don’t know what Treasury wants to do. You might want to get your flyboys up out of bed and thinking about heading toward their jets, though.”

“Is this an exercise, Mike?”

“ ’Fraid not, Colonel,” Leahy said. “The pilot of this one is apparently some hotshot gun smuggler. The suspect killed some ATF agents at Chico a few minutes ago. He’s got several tons of explosives on board his plane.”

Berrell rose out of his seat, pointed to an extra phone for Tellman to listen in on the call, and rang a small desk-clerk bell on top of his console with a slap of his left hand. Serious shit was going down. Technicians who were chatting and taking a breather hurried to their stations and began scanning their instruments. “What kind of plane is it, Mike?” Berrell asked.

“A Czechoslovakian LET L-600,” Leahy replied after retrieving some notes. “Twin-turboprop medium transport. Gross weight about thirty thousand pounds, payload with full fuel about six thousand.”

“What kind of explosives is he carrying?”

“You name it,” Leahy replied. “Ammunition, demolition stuff, pyrotechnics. Suspect might be connected with a National Guard armory heist a few years ago. You heard of the name Henri Cazaux before?”

“Oh, shit,” Berrell said, cursing under his breath. Had the world heard about Carlos the Jackal? The IRA? Abu Nidal? “I understand,” Berrell said. “Stand by one.” Fuck, he thought, this one’s going to happen. A night intercept, over a heavily populated area, with dangerous fugitives and someone like Cazaux on board. Berrell never wanted to see his sector’s pilots or anyone on the ground put in harm’s way, but if there was a way to gun down Henri Cazaux, Berrell wanted to do it.

Berrell turned to his SD technician, but Bidwell had been listening in and was ready with the information Berrell wanted: “Sir, I recommend we put Fresno in battle stations,” he said. “I’m betting he’ll make a run for Mexico, but we’ll have to wait and see. A cargo plane like an L-600 has plenty of legs — he can go either to Canada or Mexico. But I’ll put my money on Mexico.”

Sergeant Bidwell was seldom wrong — in fact, Berrell couldn’t recall when one of his predictions was off the mark. Bidwell was always tuned toward economizing their forces — predicting the flight path of the target and putting the closest interceptors on the target. But Berrell had a feeling that the Treasury Department and ATF weren’t going to care about economy on this one. They wanted every throttle jockey in the Air Force ready to jump the bastard that killed their agents. Cazaux was supposed to be as wily as he was psychotic, and Berrell didn’t want anyone in his sector to drop the ball if they had a chance to catch him. “All the same, get Kingsley and March suited up, too,” Berrell said. “I got a feeling Treasury or the ATF won’t want to let this guy go as long as he’s within radar range of the States. Let’s get Northwest sector geared up in case this turns out to be a relay marathon, too.” The Oakland Center phone rang again. “Senior Director Berrell.”

“We just got word from the Treasury Department,” Leahy said. “They want you to intercept the target, accomplish a covert shadow, and stand by for further instructions. It sounds like Treasury is leaning toward an intercept and force-down. Treasury would like to try to force him away from populated areas if possible, and then attempt to force him down at a less populated airport or over water.”

“Mike, I have Captain Tellman, the deputy sector commander, on the line. Repeat what you just said.” The FAA Center deputy repeated his message. “Mike, we need to talk to Justice and Treasury right away and straighten those boys out,” Tellman said, “because you know we don’t have any procedures for trying to force an aircraft down.”

“You can’t fire some shots across his bow, crowd him a little on one side to make him turn?”

“You been watching too much TV. We have no procedures for anything like that, and I wouldn’t want to freelance something like that at night over populated areas with a terrorist like Cazaux at the controls of a plane full of explosives. The potential for disaster is too high, especially compared with the option of just letting him go and shadowing him. But even if Air Combat Command approved a maneuver like that, I don’t think it would work. If the target doesn’t comply with visual, light, or radio signals to follow or turn, we either shadow him or shoot him down. Period. Our procedures say we can’t get any closer than searchlight range of a known armed aircraft, and I’m sure as hell not going to have them try to turn a plane loaded with explosives — especially one piloted by an operator like Cazaux.” “All right, Captain, I hear you,” Leahy said. “I’m just passing on this ATF agent’s requests. Obviously he doesn’t know your procedures, and he thinks you’ll do whatever he asks because of his dead agents. We’ll have to conference- call this one with Justice. What’s your recommendation?” “I’d gladly give the order to blow this scumbag out of the sky,” Berrell said, “but your best option is to have us do a covert shadow on the target, find out where he goes. Does ATF know his destination?”

“I don’t think so,” Leahy replied. “He’s filed a VFR flight plan to Mesa, Arizona, but I don’t think anyone expects him to land there.”

“If he goes away from the mainland, then we can talk about trying some heroics, if you want to catch him so bad — and I think we’d all like to bring that bastard down,” Berrell suggested. “But if he stays over U.S. soil, I recommend a covert shadow. My fighters can follow him easily, and with our night-vision gear, Cazaux won’t even know he’s being tailed by an F-16 Fighting Falcon. Have ATF agents leapfrog after us in jets or helicopters, land when he lands, then nail him.”

“Stand by, Colonel, and I’ll pass that along to Treasury,” Leahy said. The reply did not take long: “ATF didn’t see anything wrong with just putting a missile into him,” Leahy said, “but the Treasury Department okayed the shadow. They’ll be putting the official request for support through channels, but I’m authorized to request assistance now.”

“You got it, Mike. I concur and agree. Stand by.” He turned to Captain Tellman, who had been listening in on a companion phone at Berrell’s console. “What do you think, Francine?”

“Well, I’m with the covert ID and shadow also,” the Navy captain replied. “What’s his track?”

Berrell checked the radar once again. “Still heading southeast, away from San Francisco Class B airspace,” he said. “Class B airspace,” what was once called a Terminal Control Area, was the high-density air traffic airspace over San Francisco airport, the fifth-busiest airport in the United States. The target was approaching the “upside-down wedding cake” of the class B airspace, so technically he was clear, but San Francisco International averaged one landing and one departure every sixty seconds all day long, and the target with fighters in pursuit was definitely going to mess up air traffic if he decided to veer back toward San Francisco.

“I agree with Sergeant Bidwell, except I think we ought to move on the target as soon as possible in case he heads for the Sierras and we lose him,” Tellman said. “Scramble Fresno, put Kingsley at battle stations, and suit up March. We should also get the alert AW ACS airborne from Tinker in case he tries to hide in the mountains.” The Air Force E-3 Sentry AW ACS (Airborne Warning and Communications System) was a radar plane designed to look down and track aircraft at all altitudes from long range — if their target made it over the Sierra Nevada Mountains before a fighter found it, ground-based radars could lose it. ‘Til get on the horn to the commander.”

“Roger,” Berrell said. He opened his checklist binder, got out his grease pencil, then turned to Sergeant Bidwell and said, “Okay, Tom, make the target a Special-9, covert ID and covert shadow.”

“Yes, sir,” Bidwell said. He opened up his own checklist, filled out the first few squares, then announced over the building-wide intercom, “Attention in the facility, attention in the facility, target ID number seven-delta-four-zero-four, designate a Special-9, repeat, Special-9 covert intercept, stand by for active alert scramble Fresno. All duty controllers report to your stations. All duty controllers report to your stations.”

“SD, this is the WAO, we have positive contact on target ID seven-delta-four-zero-four, confirm ID.” The WAO, or Weapons Assignment Officer, was the overall supervisor of the section of the command center that controlled the fighters from takeoff to landing and monitored the entire intercept.

“Target ID seven-delta-four-zero-four, confirmed, WAO, you have the intercept.”

“Roger, SD, WAO has the intercept,” the senior Weapons Assignment Officer replied. He made an entry in his checklist log, then turned to the WAT, or weapons assignment technician, seated next to him. “Active alert scramble, Fresno, hold for confirmation. Put WCT One on this one.”

“Copy, sir,” the WAT replied. He checked the status readout of the four Weapons Control Teams (WCT) on his panel to be sure the team the Assignment Officer wanted was free and were ready to go to work. The WCT, consisting of one Weapons Director and a Weapons Technician, would be the persons in contact with the interceptor throughout its mission. WCT One was the most experienced of the young shift on that night. The WAT clicked open his intercom after seeing that all four WCTs were ready to go: “WCT One, your target ID is seven-delta-four- zero-four, a Special-9 covert intercept, repeat, Special-9 covert intercept. Clear for active air scramble Fresno.” “WCT One copies all,” the Weapons Director of Control Team One responded. “We have the intercept. All stations, this is WCT One, stand by for active alert scramble Fresno, target ID seven-delta-four-zero-four.”

The weapons technician opened his checklist to the proper page, cleared his throat, then ran his hand along a row of switches guarded by clear plastic covers, selected the one marked FRESNO, opened the cover, and stopped. “Sir, I have Fresno, active alert scramble. Ready.”

The Weapons Director checked to be sure that the technician had his finger on the right button, then tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at the button, and the communications technician pressed the button. Silently, he said, Sorry to get you up like this, boys, apologizing to the crews up in Fresno for what he knew was going to be a rude awakening.

Interceptor Alert Facility, 94th Fighter Squadron (California Air National Guard) Fresno Air Terminal, California

The Navy called it “channel fever,” describing the excitement of the last full night at sea before pulling into port.

Back in the days of the Strategic Air Command, when most alert units changed over on Thursdays, it was called “Woody Wednesday,” describing the almost unbearable anticipation most crewmen felt about going home and greeting the wife or girlfriend after seven days on ’round-the-clock alert. Whatever it was called, the feeling was the same — you were so excited about getting off alert and going home that you stayed up late, ate every piece of food in sight, watched every movie available, played poker all night, and generally burned yourself out.

Major Linda McKenzie, one of the two F-16A ADF (Air Defense Fighter) pilots on duty at Fresno Air Terminal in central California, pushed herself away from the all-night poker game table at ten-thirty P.M. Channel fever was not too bad here at Fresno — alert was only three days, and families spent a lot of time with the crews at the alert facility. The anticipation was still real, however, and it usually manifested itself as an all-night poker game, attended by every available crewman at the facility. McKenzie had been playing for the past five hours, and she had finally gotten to the point where the need for sleep was numbing the excitement of getting off alert. “I’m out,” she said after the last hand had finished. She steeled herself for the simultaneous moans of disappointment from the crew chiefs and security guards around the table, gave everyone a tired and slightly irritated smile, then reached out to scoop up the small pile of coins and dollar bills on the table before her.

“C’mon, Linda, one more hand,” her flight leader, Lieutenant Colonel A1 “Rattler” Vincenti, pleaded. But even he could not stifle a yawn. Vincenti was a longtime veteran of air defense, flying with the 194th Fighter Squadron “Black Griffins” since 1978. He was a veteran command pilot with over seven thousand hours’ flying time, all in tactical fighters.

“Hey, I’m on a three-hop to Seattle in thirteen hours. You get to sleep in. Don’t give me this bull.” Like many Air National Guard pilots, McKenzie was an airline pilot, a first officer with American Airlines based out of San Francisco. Because of monthly flight duty day restrictions, the airlines gave each Guardsman plenty of time to spend on UTA, unit training assembly.

“Is this the same person who threatened to emasculate us all if we got up and left the game last week?” one of the crew chiefs asked. “Little bit different if you’re winning, isn’t it, Linda?”

“Damn right it is,” McKenzie said. “I’m outta here. See you clowns in the morning.” She traded in coins for bills, stuffed her winning into her left breast pocket, and headed for her quarters.

Once there, Linda McKenzie got undressed, taking the unusual risk of piling her clothes and survival gear in a heap rather than laying it out so she could easily find it all and dress quickly. The last scramble exercise was early that morning, which meant the odds of getting another one in the middle of the night on the night before changeover were slim, so she decided to risk a quick shower. No luxuriating in the shower while on alert — get in, get clean, and get out — but she was relaxed as she did so, confident that there would be no interruptions. Her shower took less than five minutes.

Perfect timing.

She heard voices in the hallway, then the door next to hers open. Wrapping a towel around herself, she peeked out her door just as A1 Vincenti was closing his. “Al? Come here a second.” He stepped over to her, and when he was in range she grasped the front of his flight suit and pulled him into her room.

“Linda, what in hell are you—” But he was interrupted as she wrapped her arms around him and gave him a kiss. He resisted at first, then relented. That only spurred her on, and she held him in her grasp even longer. She finally released him, but began kissing his neck and unzipping his flight suit. “Linda, it’s late.”

“Nobody will hear us, Al. The game will go on for another hour at least, and the crew chiefs all like to sleep in front of the TV.”

“Linda, I’m not going to do anything with you,” he said. His flight suit zipper was down to the top of his G-suit waistband, and she was reaching for the zippers on the sides of the device. He was not helping her, but he was not stopping her either. “Linda…”

“You don’t have to do anything,” McKenzie said in a whisper. “I’m doing the driving on this trip.” She stepped back from him, removed her towel, grasped his hands, and brought them to her breasts.

“Linda, this isn’t a good idea.”

“I won’t argue with that,” McKenzie said with a teasing smile, “but I should tell you, Colonel, that you have more animal sex appeal in your little finger than most guys half your age have in their entire bodies.”

“That include your husband Carl?”

“I’m referring to my husband Carl.” McKenzie laughed, running her hands inside his flight suit against his chest.

“You think just because I made a stupid mistake by screwing you at SENTRY EAGLE in Klamath Falls last summer that I think this is right or justified? I’m not going to sleep with you, Linda.”

Suddenly, the PA system blared, “For the alert force, for the alert force, active air scramble, active air scramble! All crews report to your combat stations! ” and an impossibly loud klaxon split the late-night quiet. Vincenti was zipped and out the door in seconds, leaving McKenzie cursing as she hurried to get into her flight suit and G-suit.

Al Vincenti had a fleeting vision of McKenzie’s flowing, wet red hair and big, round, firm breasts floating in his mind’s eye as he made the dash to his plane, but the thought quickly disappeared as he automatically ran down the alert scramble checklists and procedures in his head. She was nothing more than a wingman to him now, his backup, someone to watch his rear quadrant as they hunted down whatever was out there. Vincenti sprinted for the alert hangar. His crew chief, who had just come around a corner, had no chance to catch up. Vincenti reached the hangar first.

On the wall to the right of the small entry door were two large handles. Vincenti yelled, “Hangar doors coming open!” and pulled both handles down. The handles unlocked two sets of huge counterweights, whose weight began swinging both the front and rear hangar doors open. His backpack parachute was in a rack near the hangar door handles. Vincenti stepped into the parachute harness and fastened the crotch and chest clips, leaving the straps loose so he could run up the ladder and into his F-16 ADF Fighting Falcon fighter jet. Gloves went on, sleeves rolled down, zippers zipped, and collars turned up as Vincenti trotted toward his fighter.

Six steps up the ladder and a quick leap into the cockpit, and Lieutenant Colonel Al Vincenti was in his office and ready for work.

As soon as his helmet was on and fastened, he flipped the MAIN PWR switch to BATT, the JFS (Jet Fuel Starter) switch to START 1, cracked the throttle on the left side of the cockpit from its cutoff detent forward a bit to give the engine a good shot of gas, then moved it back into idle when the rpms reached 15 percent.

Sixty seconds later, the engine was at idle power and his crew chief had his seat belt, parachute, and G-suit hoses connected and tightened. The GPS system was feeding navigation information to the inertial navigation set, and he performed a flight control system and emergency power system check. He made a quick flight control check by moving the control stick in a circle, or “stirring the pot,” and his crew chief was standing in front of the hangar, ready to marshal him forward. He saw Major Linda McKenzie running past his open hangar door, carrying her boots and wearing nothing on her feet but white athletic socks, still zipping her G-suit zippers. She flashed her middle finger at him as she sprinted by.

“Should’ve showed me your tits after you put your gear on, Linda,” Vincenti said, chuckling. He completed his checklists, flipping through the radios as he waited for McKenzie to start engines and check in. His VHF radio, secondary UHF radio, and HF radios were set to the GUARD emergency frequencies, but there was dead silence. The silence meant that this was going to be a covert intercept — they were going to try to approach the unidentified aircraft without being detected.

Vincenti unstowed a canvas box from behind his ejection seat, opened it, and checked the contents. It was a set of AN/NVG-11 night-vision goggles which clipped onto his flight helmet and would provide near daytime-like vision with just a few ground lights, moonlight, or even starlight.

Vincenti saw McKenzie’s crew chief trot out to his marshaling position outside the hangar, and a second later he saw her fighter’s taxi light flash on and off, so he clicked on the microphone of his primary radio: “Foxtrot Romeo flight, check.”

“Two,” McKenzie replied breathlessly from exertion and excitement. “Foxtrot Romeo” was their unit call sign for their three-day tour; interceptor call signs were always a combination of two letters and a two-digit number, changed regularly by North American Air Defense Command.

“Fresno ground, Foxtrot Romeo flight ready to taxi, active air scramble.”

“Foxtrot Romeo flight, Fresno ground, taxi runway three-two, wind calm, altimeter three-zero-zero-six.” The traffic signal on the fence changed from a flashing red to green, Vincenti flipped the flight control/nav function knob to NAV, armed his ejection seat, turned on the taxi light and released brakes, received final clearance from his crew chief, and shot out of the alert hangar, snapping a return salute and a thumbs-up to his crew chief. As soon as he was on the throat leading to the end of the runway, he radioed, “Foxtrot Romeo flight, button two, go.”

“Two.”

He switched to the tower frequency: “Foxtrot Romeo flight, check.”

“Two.”

“Fresno tower, Foxtrot Romeo flight, active alert scramble.”

“Foxtrot Romeo flight, Fresno tower, wind calm, runway three-two, cleared for takeoff, contact Fresno Approach.” “Foxtrot Romeo flight cleared for takeoff, Foxtrot Romeo flight, button three, go.”

“Two.”

Vincenti switched to the next preset channel, checked in McKenzie; then: “Fresno Approach, Foxtrot Romeo flight of two, takeoff roll Fresno, active air scramble.”

“Foxtrot Romeo flight, Fresno Approach, air scramble departure, climb unrestricted, contact Oakland Center passing ten thousand.”

“Foxtrot Romeo flight, wilco.” Without stopping or looking for McKenzie, he taxied quickly to the runway, lined up, gave his control stick one more experimental “stir,” moved the throttle to military power, twisted the throttle grip, and shoved it forward to full afterburner. At seventy knots he clicked off nosewheel steering, at ninety knots he rotated the nose to liftoff attitude, and at one hundred and twenty knots the F-16 Fighting Falcon lifted into the sky. He immediately lowered the nose to build up airspeed, retracted landing gear, made sure the trailing-edge flaps were up, accelerated to two hundred and fifty knots, then pulled the nose skyward. By the time he was over the end of the runway, he was two thousand feet above the ground. At four hundred and fifty knots he pulled the throttle out of afterburner and into military power, then clicked on his radio: “Foxtrot Romeo flight, button four, go.”

“Two.”

He switched radio frequencies. By that time he was passing ten thousand feet. “Foxtrot Romeo flight, check.”

“Two.”

“Oakland Center, Foxtrot Romeo flight of two with you out of ten thousand, active alert scramble.”

“Foxtrot Romeo flight, radar contact seven miles northwest of Fresno Air Terminal passing ten thousand feet, have your wingman squawk standby, cleared to tactical control frequency.”

“Foxtrot Romeo flight, squawk standby, button five, go.”

“Two.”

On March Air Force Base’s SIERRA PETE’s frequency now, Vincenti checked in McKenzie, then: “SIERRA PETE, Foxtrot Romeo flight is with you, passing sixteen thousand.”

“Foxtrot Romeo flight, radar contact, check noses cold, turn left heading three-zero-zero, climb and maintain angels two-four block two-five.”

“Copy, heading three-zero-zero, climbing to two-four block two-five, Foxtrot Romeo flight, check.” Vincenti had to push the nose down to level off at twenty-four thousand feet — usually he was sent to thirty thousand feet or higher. He quickly accomplished his “After Takeoff’ and “Level- Off’ checklists, checking his oxygen, cabin pressurization, fuel feed, and all gauges and switches, especially checking that the arming switches for the 20-millimeter cannon were off — that was the “noses cold” check. The external tanks were empty, and he was already feeding from his wing tanks — about two hours of fuel remaining.

“Two’s in the green, twenty point nine, nose is cold,” McKenzie reported after her cockpit checks were completed, including her fuel and weapons status with her report.

“Copy. Lead’s in the green with nineteen, nose is cold.”

“Roger, Foxtrot Romeo flight, copy you are in the green and noses cold,” the Weapons Control Technician at March Air Force Base, call sign SIERRA PETE, replied. “Your bogey is now at your eleven o’clock, one hundred and fifty miles, a Czechoslovakian L-600 cargo plane at six thousand feet and climbing. These are vectors for a Special-9 intercept.”

“Foxtrot Romeo copies,” Vincenti replied. Pretty good guess, he thought, congratulating himself — a Special-9 intercept was a covert shadow, where the SOCC controller would put him on a one-mile rear-quartering vector on the bogey. From there, he would use his night-vision goggles to close in on the bogey. If they needed a tail number or other such positive identification, they could close in more — Vincenti had flown as close as ten meters to another plane, in total darkness, without the other plane ever knowing he was there — but normally they would stay within fifty to one hundred meters of the target and shadow him while the brass on the ground figured out what to do. “Foxtrot Romeo flight, take spacing and configure for Special- 9.”

“Two.” McKenzie would now move out to about five miles in trail, keeping her flight leader locked on radar, and put on and test her night-vision goggles. Vincenti turned off all the cockpit and external lights, reached into the canvas case for the AN/NVG-11 goggles, slid them into place entirely by feel, and snapped them into the slot on his helmet.

But when Vincenti lowered the goggles into place, all he got was black. He flipped the on-off switch, made sure they were turned on, and looked for the telltale green spot of light behind the lenses. Nothing. The battery was in place, and they were tested and replaced after every use and at the beginning of every three-day shift. These were dead. He clicked open his mike button in frustration: “Hey, Two,” Vincenti radioed to McKenzie, “did you check your NVGs yet?”

“Affirmative,” McKenzie replied. “They’re in the green.”

“My NVGs are bent. You got the lead and the intercept.”

“Roger that, Rattler.” The excitement in McKenzie’s voice was obvious. Except during exercises or when McKenzie was paired with a less experienced wingman, Vincenti was always the flight lead and always did the intercepts. “Take the bottom of the block, I got the top, and I got the radios. Take spacing. I have the lead.”

“Roger, you have the lead,” Vincenti replied, descending to twenty-four thousand feet and pulling power back to 80 percent. He tuned up his radar, preparing to lock on to her when she passed by.

“Foxtrot Romeo, your bogey is at eleven o’clock, ninety miles, turn right heading three-three-zero, maintain angels twenty,” the weapons controller at SIERRA PETE directed.

McKenzie acknowledged the call. She had pushed the power up to nearly full military power, anxious to get the intercept going, and Vincenti had to hit the afterburner to catch up once her fighter passed by and assumed the lead.

“Foxtrot Romeo, your bogey is heading southwestbound, altitude nine thousand five hundred, airspeed two-two-five knots, squawking VFR, call when tied on.”

That was the “setup” call, probably the last radio call before the F-16’s AN/APG-66 radar would pick up the target, helping to get the pilots oriented. Once the radar locked on and the proper target identified, the fire control computer would present steering cues on the HUD, or heads-up display, a transparent electronic screen in front of the pilot that allowed the pilot to read flight, radar, and weapon information without looking down into the cockpit.

McKenzie’s radar was picking up several air targets at altitudes between five and twenty thousand feet, but there were not many aircraft flying around at eleven o’clock at night. About two minutes later, at a range of about forty miles, McKenzie locked on to an aircraft that met the last reported radar track information perfectly: “SIERRA PETE, Foxtrot Romeo has radar contact on a bogey at thirty-eight miles, angels nine-point-five, bearing zero-one- zero.”

“Foxtrot Romeo, that’s your bogey.”

“Roger. Foxtrot Romeo is judy, request clearance for the Special-9.”

“Foxtrot Romeo, this is SIERRA PETE, you are cleared for Special-9 procedures.”

“Foxtrot Romeo copies,” McKenzie said, the excitement spilling over in her voice. Vincenti had to smile to himself. This was certainly not McKenzie’s first intercept, or even her first night intercept, but it was one of her most important. He remembered his first no-shit real-world night intercept well, a Chinese airliner suspected of being a spy plane that was “drifting off course” and trying to fly over the Alameda Naval Base near Oakland. That was over fifteen years ago.

That was just one of the things Vincenti remembered in what had been, for him, a pretty good career. He got into flying back in the 1960s, after receiving his bachelor of arts degree in political science from West Virginia State University in 1967. He’d attended college on a football scholarship. The typical jock. But unlike a lot of jocks who went on to illustrious jobs like selling cars and getting flabby, Vincenti was unable to avoid the draft and ended up in Officer Candidate School, where he received a commission and attended pilot training in 1968. He flew 113 missions in Vietnam in the F-100 Super Sabre fighter-bomber and the F-4D Phantom II fighter-bomber from 1969 to 1973, as well as holding command positions in various tactical units.

Vincenti went on to the Air Command and Staff College upon returning from Vietnam and joined tactical and training units in New Jersey and Arizona, but was later involuntarily separated from the active-duty Air Force, after his second divorce. He got a position with the California Air National Guard in 1978. Except for a brief deployment to Germany in 1986 and 1987, Vincenti had been flying F- 106s, F-4Ds, and F-16 fighters from the Fresno Air Terminal for seventeen years.

And speaking of flying… his mind immediately returned to the situation at hand. In this intercept, McKenzie still had to remember her procedures and not get caught up in the excitement. Vincenti checked a plastic-covered decoder device strapped to his left leg, sliding a yellow plastic marker to the fifth row of characters, then keyed his mike button: “SIERRA PETE, Foxtrot Romeo flight, authenticate echo-echo.”

“SIERRA PETE authenticates india,” came the reply. It was the correct reply. All intercept instructions that might place a fighter within close proximity of another aircraft in a potentially unsafe manner had to be authenticated, whether or not weapons were expected to be employed, using the daily authenticator cards issued to every pilot. Hopefully, this one omission was going to be the last one for Linda McKenzie tonight, Vincenti thought ruefully. Well, that’s what wingmen were for — back up the leader at all times.

Unfortunately, there was one switch McKenzie did forget.

On a normal intercept, the 150,000-candlepower identification light on the left side of the nose was used to illuminate the target — on a Special-9 covert intercept, the light was supposed to be out. The large, bright beam, twice as bright as an airliner’s landing lights, was on full bright as McKenzie made her approach toward the target, and, because it was a crystal-clear night and he was flying five miles behind and to his leader’s right side, Vincenti didn’t notice the light was on.

It was the Stork who saw it first, high and far off in the distance, to the right rear of the LET L-600 and almost blocked from view by the right wing and engine nacelle. The horizon was dark, and the single, unblinking light was like a laser beam aimed right at them. He grasped Cazaux’s right sleeve and pointed. The Belgian mercenary had to get up out of his seat to get a glimpse of the light. “I see it,” Cazaux acknowledged. It was hard to judge distances at night, but the brightness of the light could mean that the aircraft, if it was an airliner, was pretty far off in both distance and altitude.

But it wasn’t an airliner — Cazaux knew it right away.

It was moving fast and turning with them, not crossing their path. It was intercepting them, no doubt about it. “Puta, Stork,” he said, “they found us already, the fuckers. I think they zeroed the Air Force in on us.”

The Stork pointed to the San Francisco sectional chart and chattered away in a strange mixture of Ethiopian, English, and Spanish.

“Relax. There is nothing they can do to us.”

“Say what?” Jefferson “Krull” Jones asked, staring out the windows with eyes so wide that the whites could be seen in the dark cockpit. “There’s an Air Force jet out there? Is it gonna gun us down?”

“Relax,” Cazaux said casually. “I have been intercepted dozens of times by the American Customs Service, the Coast Guard, and the Drug Enforcement Agency — even an Army helicopter. I have never been fired upon. I do not think they have the authority to kill anyone in peacetime without due process.”

“Was that before or after you blew up a bunch of cops and an entire airport, my man?” Krull asked. “Maybe this might be the time they let those flyboys ‘accidentally’ let a few missiles fly.” Krull motioned out the cockpit windscreen to the inky blackness of eastern California and the Sierra Nevada mountain range ahead. “Looks pretty black out there, Captain. A pretty good place to splash a bunch of gunrunners.”

“Shut the fuck up. You don’t know a damn thing.” The big black hoodlum had vocalized Cazaux’s own fear — this time, after so many close calls and so much death, the authorities might want Henri Cazaux out of the way for good. There was no one better to do it than the U.S. Air Force. Who would mourn his loss or condemn the United States for such an act? He had enemies all over the world, of every religion and nationality. The only ones to be sorry might be the bounty hunters who would be cheated out of the reward money.

No, he was not sure that the fighters would not open fire.

He thought about their route of flight. To try to stay away from ground radar, Cazaux had chosen to fly on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevadas, as low as he dared to go. The sectional aeronautical charts gave maximum elevation figures for each thirty-by-thirty-mile block of land, and he would simply add five hundred feet to each quadrangle elevation — that would put his plane well below radar coverage but safely above the terrain. But that wouldn’t faze an airborne radar, such as from a fighter. Without extensive jamming equipment or fancy flying, Cazaux had no hope of trying to break a radar lock. If ordered to fire, the fighters would have a clear shot — and flying along the Califomia- Nevada border, the area was desolate enough so as not to threaten citizens on the ground. They could simply pick their moment, and shoot.

‘They will not open fire on us,” Cazaux decided. “This is America, and they are the military — the military is forbidden to actively get involved in law-enforcement activities, except to assist in surveillance and to provide transportation. They cannot act as judge, jury, and executioner. Period.”

“I sure hope you’re right, Captain,” Jones said, sitting back into the spot he had picked out in a comer of the cockpit. “And if you ain’t, I don’t want to know about it. I just hope it’s over fast.”

When the target’s altitude dipped below the hemispheric altitude for his direction of flight, Vincenti became concerned. When his altitude dipped below the IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) minimum safe altitude in this area, he was more concerned — and when it drifted to within a few hundred feet of the rapidly rising terrain ahead, Vincenti was positive that they had been discovered. A quick S-tum to McKenzie’s portside confirmed it: her big ID light was on full bright. The target must’ve seen the light and was attempting to descend into the mountainous terrain ahead.

Their Special-9 covert intercept was blown. Well, no use in embarrassing McKenzie. Vincenti keyed his mike button: “Foxtrot Romeo, station check.”

“I’ll make the call when I’m ready, Two, just stand by.”

“Foxtrot Romeo lead, I recommend a station check. I’m complete.”

“Later, Al. Stand by.”

She wasn’t taking the hint. He had no choice: “Lead, I’m on your left wing. Check your damn switches!”

The ID light went out immediately this time — Vincenti could almost feel her exasperation at her mistake, now that she realized what the target was doing and why. A few moments later, just as Vincenti was worrying about whether or not she was going to do something about the new development, he heard McKenzie on the command radio. “SIERRA PETE, this is Foxtrot Romeo. I believe the target aircraft got a visual on us. He has descended very close to the terrain in this area. Request further instructions.” The weapons controller replied with a simple “Stand by, Foxtrot Romeo,” and McKenzie and Vincenti were left with their thoughts and doubts as they closed in on the target.

“How in hell did they see the fighters closing in on them in the middle of the night?” Charles Lofstrom, Deputy Director and Chief of Operations for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, thundered over the phone. In the fifteen minutes since the F-16 fighters had been scrambled against Cazaux, the BATF, the Marshals Service, the Air Force, and the FAA were on a conference call, and Colonel Berrell had just finished briefing the conference members on the status of the chase. “I’ve worked with night intercepts before — done properly, the pursuer can close to within a few dozen yards without the suspect realizing a thing.”

“It doesn’t matter how it happened — it happened,” U.S. Marshal Collins Baxter of the Eastern District of California interjected. “The problem is, the possibility exists that Cazaux knows he’s being tailed.”

“Let’s shoot the bastard down, then,” Agent Lofstrom said irritably. “I can get a warrant.”

“We can't shoot him down, and that’s that,” Captain Tellman said. “I thought this was explained to you, Lofstrom.”

“I know what you said, Captain, but I also know that I got a federal judge that will give me a warrant ordering you to take all necessary actions to stop Cazaux from escaping.” “A federal judge can’t compel the Air Force to do anything, especially kill someone. If such a warrant existed, and if you asked me to follow its instructions, I would turn it over to my superior officer for evaluation, who I’m sure would turn it over to his superior… you get my drift, Lofstrom? I suggest you try a different approach.”

Tellman’s statement of the obvious infuriated Lofstrom, but he decided that trying a different approach might not be a bad idea: “I don’t mean shoot him down, as in terminate him,” Lofstrom said. “What I meant was, scare him. Fire across his flight path, something like that.”

“Agent Lofstrom, as I explained to you earlier, the only way our pilots are authorized to fire their weapons is to kill someone,” Tellman said, shaking her head in exasperation. “We don’t try to scare anyone by spraying the skies with twenty-millimeter shells.”

“You do it in the Navy — you know, a shot across the bow.”

“Only when we know precisely and absolutely that no one is in the way when the shell splashes down,” Tellman explained. “Racing across north-central California at three hundred miles an hour and ten thousand feet in the air, there’s no way of knowing who’s under those rounds. And this would be done at night, at close quarters. We can’t take the risk.”

“You can’t take the risk? What about my agents? What about the innocent victims at that airport? Christ, it’s not Santa Claus we’re chasing!” Lofstrom exclaimed. “Lady, Henri Cazaux is probably responsible for killing more human beings in the past three years than your precious Navy has since Vietnam.”

“All the same, Lofstrom,” Tellman said, “I won’t put my forces in a situation where they may have to do that. Law enforcement should have gotten the suspect on the ground, alive. My interceptors can’t do the job for you in the air.” “Then the suspect gets away with murder,” Lofstrom said angrily, “and I won’t allow that to happen. Six of my best agents died tonight, Captain Tellman, and I want Cazaux to pay for what he did. Your planes are in a position to do that — and I want some action!”

“Look, this argument is getting us nowhere,” Timothy Lassen said via his portable scrambled phone from the parking ramp at Chico Airport, where his Black Hawk helicopter had set down — the open ramp was the only part of the airport not substantially damaged. “We’ve got the Air Force interceptors trailing the suspect, and he’s got to come down sometime. It’s doubtful if he has the fuel reserves to make it all the way into Mexico, but if he does, let’s get DEA and the State Department on the horn and get permission to do a joint capture. We set up a helicopter relay for his route of flight, and we keep the Air Force fighters on the suspect’s tail, augmented with Customs trackers and anyone else that can help. We send the helicopters down to recover the guns if he tries to drop them, and we’ll know his exact location if he tries to land.”

“We don’t have time for that,” Lofstrom said. “It takes time to set up a relay system, and days to coordinate with the Mexican government for law-enforcement support.” “Cazaux will be airborne for at least two, and more likely three hours,” Lassen said. “I’ve already got the California Air National Guard alerted, and I’ve got access to all the helicopter support I need. We can get permission for the choppers to cross state lines.”

“So how in hell are your choppers in California going to chase down a fixed-wing flying over Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico?” Lofstrom asked. “Unless they’re right in Cazaux’s flight path, they won’t be able to catch up, even if they launched right this second. We’ve got to get Cazaux turned away from Mexico if we want any chance of nailing him — and the best thing we’ve got right now is the Air Force. Those pilots have got to turn Cazaux westbound. Even if he just slows him down or gets him to make a few turns or descend, it’ll disorient him and may give us a chance to surround him. If he tries to fight out of the trap, we can legally blast him out of the sky and be done with all this nonsense,” Lofstrom said to Tellman. “So how about it, Captain? Can your hotshot pilots force Cazaux to turn or descend? You say your pilots can’t safely fire a few shots across his bow — I say they can. Crowd him so he’s forced to turn away…?”

“We don’t have procedures for any of that, Agent Lofstrom,” Tellman replied. She thought about it for a moment, checking the aircraft’s position, then: “However, at the target’s present position, I think our crews may be able to safely fire their cannon without endangering themselves, the suspect, or anyone on the ground. I can pitch the idea to NORAD and Air Combat Command and get a response in a few minutes.”

“Now you’re talking, lady,” Lofstrom said on the scrambled phone link. “Lassen, get your choppers airborne and spread out across his flight path. If this works, he’ll be forced to head westbound and eat up more fuel, and we can nail him in California.”

“Agent Lofstrom, the suspect is carrying a planeload of explosives, and I think the last thing you want to do is steer him over any populated areas,” Agent Lassen radioed in. “I recommend either getting him to land at an isolated airfield in the Sierras or shooting him down over the Sierras. If he flies over Sacramento, or Stockton, or San Jose, or San Francisco, there’s no telling what he might do.”

“I agree,” Captain Tellman said. “Tactically, keeping him over sparsely populated areas is better because it gives our pilots more options.”

“Listen, I’m all in favor of seeing the man blown out of the sky,” Lofstrom said. “I’ll throw a fucking party for you if you do it. But just letting him orbit over the Sierras, hoping he’ll dump his cargo, or forcing him to crash-land in the Sierras, means he’ll have a chance to get away. It’ll take a half a day to send our search teams up into the hills to be ready to pick him up — there’s no time for that. Cazaux’s an expert in mountain survival — he could survive for weeks up there. Have the fighters corral him into the hands of our choppers and SOG units in the valley. In case he jumps I’ll get State working on a cross-border or joint capture with Mexico — the taco-crunchers owe Cazaux plenty over the years. You know, I think we got the bastard now.”

Cazaux completed a steep right bank as the Stork searched out the cockpit windows in the direction of the turn. Krull searched out the windows in the entry door for any sign of pursuit. 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 brrrrrr! 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-600’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-600’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-16’s searchlight revealed how close they were getting to the mountains ahead — they could see the tops of trees in the glare of the fighter’s 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!” 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. Please tell me your name. Over.” There was no 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 at the slower airspeed, he said cross-cockpit, “Let’s 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 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 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 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?”

“Linda, this is Al,” she heard on the interplane frequency, “break left! ”

She could hear Vincenti’s sudden warning, but she didn’t dare try to look down into the cockpit to change radios— she was less than three hundred yards from the L-600. She had a momentary thought about turning — an order to “break” was not just a turn, it was a command to get the hell out of there. Instead, she stayed lined up on the left wing of the L-600 and said on the command channel, “I’m staying on the target! Control, what are your instructions? Do you want me to attack? Control, respond…

McKenzie caught a glimpse of a bright flash of light off to her right, but it was near the ground and she assumed it was one of the emergency vehicles’ rotating lights or a photographer’s flash.

Then she saw a huge ripple of lights erupt all around her jet, heard a thunderous bang! and felt a gigantic ramming force smack her F-16’s fuselage.

The thirteen grenades shoved between the cases of Stinger missiles exploded well before the pallet hit the ground, which only served to increase the devastation. The chain reaction created by the exploding grenades was quick and furious — the shrapnel from the grenades tore through the battery unit cases, blowing apart the high-pressure nitrogen-gas canisters, rupturing the battery cells, cooking off the chemicals and spraying superheated chemicals inside the missile coffins. The rocket motors went next. Normally they would slowly bum inside their cases, but the shock and hot chemicals caused them to explode instead. Some of the missiles did cook off, sending white-hot spears of fire into nearby buildings and vehicles. The fragmenting pallet erupted into a blossom of fire when it hit the emergency vehicles on the ground, throwing petals of fire and explosive Stinger warheads out in all directions. The Stinger missiles seemed to have eyes, or active seeker heads — it seemed as if every one of the missiles that cooked off slammed right into a building or vehicle.

“Oh, shit. was all Jefferson Jones could say as he and Cazaux watched the maddening scene unfold below them. It was like watching a fireworks show’s finale from above — the big explosion, followed by numerous smaller explosions, then ripple after ripple of side explosions, and then the twinkling of burning debris scattered all across the airfield.

“That… was… magnificent,” Cazaux muttered. “That was… incredible. Absolutely incredible…

As the L-600 began to level off, then point earthward to regain speed and begin evading pursuit, Krull moved aft and began motoring the ramp and upper cargo doors closed.

Cazaux stumbled around on the right side of the cargo bay, leaning against the second pallet. He then eyed the forward pallet, the one containing the real explosives.

“Move that second pallet aft to the edge of the ramp,” he told Krull as he located the microphone, “and help me move that third pallet aft. I am going to deliver that last pallet on a target that no one will forget for a very long time.” He clicked open the mike: “Stork, do exactly as I say, and your navigation had better be dead on.”

The large MASTER CAUTION light on the left eyebrow panel came on, along with the HYD/OIL PRESS warning light on the right eyebrow panel. It seemed as if the entire caution-light panel was illuminated — ELEC SYS, CADC, STBY GAINS, FUEL HOT, those were the biggies — and the oil and hydraulic pressure gauges were bouncing all over the place.

It was time to jump out, she decided.

She had never even come close to ejecting out of any aircraft before, not in ten years of flying the F-16. Air Force training always said, “Don’t hesitate. Trust your equipment,” and she was perfectly willing and ready to do so. McKenzie reached for her ejection seat lever and…

“Linda! This is Al! How do you hear? It looks like you’ve been fragged, but there is no fire, repeat, negative fire. How do you hear? Over?”

She was surprised to hear Vincenti on the radio — she had assumed, incorrectly, that everything in her stricken ship was out. She moved the throttle — no response, with FTIT and fuel flow in the red but rpms below idle power. She moved the stick — aha, the controls were stiff but responding. Emergency power unit had turned on automatically. She raised the nose, and the jet responded by climbing. If nothing else, she was able to trade airspeed for altitude and get a little higher before ejecting, but she had a few seconds to try to work the problem.

McKenzie took her hands off the ejection lever and back on the stick and throttle, then started to work on her caution-light analysis. The engine was stalled from a massive disruption of airflow through the engine, so she immediately pulled the throttle to idle, waited a few excruciating seconds as the airspeed bled off below safe engine-restart speed, then slowly advanced the throttle again. Just as she was convinced the engine was not going to come back, the rpms eased from 55 percent to 65 percent and the fan-turbine inlet temperatures subsided out of the red zone. Quickly but carefully she advanced the throttle, and the rpms responded. Airspeed climbed above 170 knots. She was safely flying again.

She set the throttles to 80 percent and, one by one, began working on the other malfunctions. As soon as she could, she tried to reset the generators with the ELEC CAUTION RESET button — no go, it kept on tripping off. She placed the emergency power unit to ON, and checked the power-distribution lights. With only the emergency power unit providing power to the essential bus, she had the barest minimum equipment running — but she was still flying. Only the UHF radio on the interplane frequency was operating — that’s how she could still hear Vincenti. “Al, how do you hear me?”

“Fine, Linda,” Vincenti said. “Roll out of your turn and get your nose down. I’ve got you at five thousand feet. How’s your controllability? Check your engines.”

“I cleared a stall, and I’ve got partial generators and EPU on line,” McKenzie said. She straightened her F-16’s wings and found the controls very sluggish. “Looks like I lost my hydraulics — the EPU is the only hydraulics and power I got left.” The EPU, or emergency power unit, used bleed air from the engine or hydrazine to power a simple power unit that supplied backup hydraulic and electrical power for about fifteen minutes. “System A pressure is good, and my essential bus is energized. What the hell happened?”

“Cazaux,” Vincenti replied simply. “He dropped something out the back end, a bomb or something. I can still see explosions. Just hold your heading. I’ll come around on your left side. Hang tight, we’ll be OK. Let’s start a slow climb to ten thousand and start working out what we got. What’s your fuel state?”

“I can’t tell — gauge is inop,” McKenzie said. “Fuel low and fuel hot lights came on right away, and I think one of my wing tanks is gone.”

“That’s confirmed, you lost one. You still got your right tank, and it’s pretty beat-up,” Vincenti said as he checked out McKenzie’s fighter with his ID searchlight. “I don’t think it’ll do a normal jettison because of the damage, so you’re going to have to land with it.”

It took Vincenti a few minutes to fly around McKenzie’s jet and look her over. In that time, they had climbed up to ten thousand feet over the sparsely settled ranches and farms south of Sacramento. “I see lots of damage to your underside, Linda. You may or may not get a good landing gear. What do you think, Linda? How does she feel to you?”

McKenzie knew what that question meant: did she want to eject or did she want to try for a landing? “I’m not jumping out of this plane, Al,” McKenzie said. “Lead me over to McClellan.” McClellan Air Force Base, just north of Sacramento, was a large military aircraft maintenance depot with lots of runways and crash equipment — McKenzie was going to need all the help she could get.

It was only twenty miles across the top of the city of Sacramento to get to McClellan, but for McKenzie it was the longest flight of her entire life. Her approach speed when starting her descent into McClellan’s north-south runway was 220 knots, much faster than normal, and it was nearly impossible to maintain it without considerable control problems. Several times the engine did not respond to throttle movements. “Better get ready for a flameout landing, Linda,” Vincenti told her. “We’re looking for two hundred knots landing speed — it’s gonna happen fast.”

“Just lost the engine, Al,” McKenzie said. Her voice was wooden, as if she were talking inside a bucket.

Vincenti knew that calm wouldn’t last too long. The toughest fighter pilots in the world get high, squeaky voices when their air machines start to crap out on them. “Okay, Linda, forget it,” Vincenti said. “We’re committed for a flameout approach. Check your JFS switch on START 2. Turn off your FUEL MASTER switch.”

“Got it… negative JFS RUN light, Al.”

“Okay, forget it. Turn the starter off — we’ll try it again in a minute or so. We’re six miles out.” They were surrounded by the city of Sacramento, a vast shimmering expanse of lights below them. McClellan was dead ahead, its rotating beacon and runway lights plainly visible. They had it made, but they still had a long way to go. “Check your air source knob on RAM and your defog lever forward. Keep your touchdown point eleven to seventeen degrees below the horizon. Stand by on the gear.”

“I’m ready, Al.” Her glide path was steady, right on Vincenti’s left wing. Her jet was a heavy toy glider right now. Actually, “glider” was a misnomer for the F-16 Fighting Falcon — with its short supercritical wings, the F-16 made a lousy glider. But as long as you had airspeed and a working EPU, though, a flameout landing was very doable. Her HUD, or heads-up display, was still operable, and the flight-path pipper was directly on the end of the runway— all she had to do was keep the pipper on the touchdown point and maneuver the fighter to keep the pipper within 11 to 17 of the horizon. So far it was going smoothly.

“Five miles, Linda, lower the gear when you’re ready.”

“Coming down.” She pressed the gear-permission button and tried to move the gear lever downward — nothing. “Gear handle won’t move,” she radioed. She hit the DN LOCK REL button, which mechanically allows the handle to be lowered — and she got no safe gear indications. “No green lights, Al.”

“I see your right gear, and a partial nose gear,” Vincenti said. “Cycle the gear handle.”

McKenzie raised the gear handle, waited a few seconds, pressed the DN LOCK REL button, and lowered the handle. “Did it,” she radioed. “No red light, no green lights.”

“Four miles out. Use alternate extension. Watch your airspeed, Linda, you’re sinking. Drop your nose a bit.”

“Copy.” She made the proper attitude correction. Three miles out — and the left landing gear came into view. “What’s it look like, Al?”

“I got two main gear, no nose gear,” he said. “Your nose gear might come down below 190. Let’s go to thirteen AO A and get ready for touchdown. Try your JFS to START 2 once more, and secure your throttle. Glide path looks good, and you’re cleared to land. Nice job, Linda. Little bit more nose up, you’re at eleven AOA.”

“She starts to get squirrelly below two hundred,” McKenzie said. “I want to keep my speed up until I’m over the threshold.”

“Okay, but remember you might not have all your brakes, and you have no speedbrakes,” Vincenti said. “Use aerodynamic braking all you can, and use every inch of the runway. Go get ’em, babe.”

“Thanks, Al,” McKenzie said; then she added, “We should’ve done it, Al, you know that, don’t you? It would’ve been sooo good.”

Leave it to Linda McKenzie to think about sex just seconds before making a 220-mile-per-hour flameout approach in the dark to a strange airfield in a damaged F-16 fighter, Vincenti thought grimly.

He did not reply, because there was no time. With Vincenti flying just a few feet above the right edge of the runway, McKenzie hit the pavement, traveling at 210 knots.

… and the worst-case scenario happened.

The nose gear never came down, but McKenzie held the fighter’s nose high in the air to let the jet’s fuselage create enough drag to slow down. A stream of fire trucks began their chase after her down the runway. Suddenly, Vincenti saw a flash of light — sparks caused by the damaged right fuel tank separating from the wing and dragging the runway. The fighter’s nose slammed hard into the runway, then began to spin clockwise. Fire erupted in the engine compartment and right wing — and then McKenzie ejected. Vincenti caught a glimpse of two full bums of her seat’s ejection motors before he passed the runway and began his climbout.

“Foxtrot Romeo Zero One, this is McClellan Tower, say your intentions.”

Vincenti knew the runways would be closed at McClellan and Mather, the two large military-capable airports in Sacramento. Metro Airport was just a few miles away— they might send him there, although the Air Force didn’t like to send armed combat aircraft to civil airports. Beale and Travis Air Force Bases were both less than fifty miles away, and he had plenty of fuel to make it all the way back to Fresno Air Terminal. He wanted to see Linda, wanted to stay with his flying partner. No doubt they’d be convening an accident board, and as the original flight leader and close chase plane he’d be the star witness.

Screw ’em, Vincent thought angrily. He jammed the throttle to MIL power and keyed the radio button: “Tower, Foxtrot Romeo-01 requesting handoff to Approach and vectors to the suspect aircraft that just overflew Mather.”

“Roger, Foxtrot Romeo, stand by.” The wait did not last long: “Foxtrot Romeo-01, your control requests you land at Beale as soon as possible. You can contact Sacramento Approach on one-one-nine point one.”

Vincenti turned his aircraft south westbound, not northbound, and began searching the skies with radar for a target.

“Foxtrot Romeo-01, did you copy? You are requested to land at Beale. Over.”

Vincenti cut off the tower controller’s insistent orders by tuning the radio to Sacramento Approach Control’s western sector frequency. “Sacramento Approach, Foxtrot Romeo- 01 with you climbing to six thousand, active air scramble, requesting vectors to the suspect aircraft that overflew Mather, over.”

“Foxtrot Romeo-01, Sacramento Approach, roger, last reported position of your target is at one o’clock, approximately fifty-three miles, altitude unknown. You are leaving my airspace, contact Travis Approach on one-two-seven point one-five.”

That wasn’t much of a vector, but it was enough. A minute later Vincenti picked up a low-flying aircraft thirty- two miles to the west, at the foot of the coastal mountains between Sacramento and San Francisco, traveling at two hundred knots at only a few hundred feet above the terrain.

That had to be Cazaux.

He was trying to sneak away under local radar, avoiding the TRACON (Terminal Radar Approach Control) center near Travis Air Force Base. “Travis Approach, Foxtrot Romeo-01 requesting clearance to intercept the aircraft at my twelve o’clock, thirty-one miles, with a three-hundred- knot closure rate. Over.”

Henri Cazaux’s characteristically ice-cold heart started to pump superheated lava through his veins as he listened in on the exchange between the Air Force fighter and the civilian radar controllers: “Foxtrot Romeo-01, Travis Approach, maintain two-fifty maximum airspeed, stay clear of Travis class D airspace, and stand by on your request.”

“The wingman is after us,” Cazaux said to the Stork. “I thought they’d both land after the bitch was hit.” He shrugged. “I was wrong.”

“He was ordered to land,” the Stork said incredulously. “He was ordered to land! Why is he disobeying orders?”

“Revenge,” Cazaux said simply. “Something I know all about. And this fighter jock, he smells revenge. This pilot is the real leader, not the other. She was the inexperienced one. This one… will not let us live. He will try to kill us.”

“Oh, great!” Jones moaned. “You mean that Air Force jet’s gonna flame us? What the hell we gonna do?”

“Foxtrot Romeo-01, Travis Approach, sir, reduce speed and do not exceed two-five-zero knots indicated, do you copy?” they heard once again on the radio. “Reduce speed now… leaving my airspace, Foxtrot Romeo-01, contact Bay Approach on one-two-seven point zero. How do you copy, Foxtrot Romeo-01?”

“He ain’t answerin’ back,” Jones said. “What’s he doin’?”

Cazaux switched the radio to the same frequency, which was the terminal radar controller for the dozens of major airports in the San Francisco Bay Area. Still no response, no check-in. “This man, he is no longer taking orders from either his superiors or the federal aviation authorities,” Cazaux said. “He is going to pursue us until… the end game.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Jones shouted.

“It means he’s a renegade, you idiot. He will put a two- second burst of cannon fire into this aircraft, whether or not he receives orders to the contrary,” Cazaux said calmly. “That will be approximately one hundred depleted uranium shells about twice the size of your thumb, weighing approximately one pound, hitting us with supersonic force. He will blow this plane apart as easily as a baby bursting a soap bubble… get it?”

His eyes scanned out the window to the south, toward San Francisco, Oakland, Alameda Naval Air Station, Hayward, and San Jose — the San Francisco Bay region, busy even late at night. The landing lights of dozens of aircraft filled the skies. Like gigantic strings of Christmas lights, the airliners formed long sparking lines of light in the sky, strung out for nearly a hundred miles in all directions, all sequenced to land at their various air terminals. Finally Cazaux said, “That way,” and moved the control yoke hard left and pushed, descending even farther toward the dark, light-sparkled earth below.

“What now, man?”

“We cannot escape the pilot who pursues us,” Cazaux said. “So perhaps we can force him to retreat — if he will.”

“How you gonna do that?” But Krull soon realized how. In just a few minutes, the answer was obvious — they were heading right for San Francisco International Airport, the locus of the greatest number of those strings of light in the sky.

He was heading directly into the airspace of one of the busiest airports in the United States.

“Oh, shit… you’re gonna fly into the middle of all that?”

“It is the ultimate game of chicken,” Cazaux said with a grin on his face, “the ultimate game of Russian roulette.” He changed his radio frequency to Bay Approach, listening in as the busy controllers vectored aircraft for landings into Oakland, Martinez, Alameda, Hayward, and San Francisco International. They were already approaching the northern shore of San Pablo Bay, with the city of Vallejo on their left and the dark forested expanse of Marin County on their right, illuminated by the lights of small communities along Highway 101. Soon they were over San Pablo Bay at one thousand feet, traveling three miles per minute through the wispy fog and haze.

“Cactus Niner-Seventy-Three, traffic alert, pop-up target, ten o’clock, three miles, no altitude readout,” they heard the controller at Bay Approach call to another aircraft.

“Nine-Seventy-Three, searching, no joy,” the pilot of the Southwest Airlines commuter, a Boeing 737 airliner out of Oakland International, responded. The pilot sounded bored. Spurious radar targets caused by birds, fog, smog, or high humidity were common in this area. At night, airplanes had their lights on, and if it didn’t have lights on, it wasn’t an airplane. After all, who wanted to hit another plane in midair?

“There he is,” Cazaux said, pointing out the window, high and slightly to the right. The aircraft could not be identified as to type, but there was no missing it — it was ablaze in landing, recognition, position, and anticollision lights. The turbofan-powered airliner was much faster than Cazaux’s L-600, but he had the cutoff angle. Cazaux pulled back on the yoke and turned left, putting the LET L-600 directly on an intercept course, climbing above three thousand feet.

“Niner-Seven-Three, Bay Approach, traffic appears to be maneuvering, now at eleven o’clock, two miles.”

“Nine-Seventy-Three, still searching, no joy,” came the reply.

“He cannot see us,” Cazaux said. He reached down and flicked on his landing lights. “How about now?”

“Nine-Seventy-Three has contact on the traffic,” the commuter pilot radioed. “Say his altitude again?”

“Still no Mode C on your traffic,” the air traffic controller responded. “You should be passing in front of him.” “Not so fast,” Cazaux said. He turned farther left to increase the cutoff angle, maintaining his climb rate. “How about now?”

“Collision alert, Cactus Niner-Seven-Three, turn thirty degrees right immediately!” the air traffic controller shouted over the radio. The commuter plane’s lights altered shape as the plane turned. Cazaux laughed as he imagined what the occupants on board that red-eye flight were experiencing — heads banging off shoulders and windows, necks creaking in pain, coffee splashing, flight attendants scrambling for balance.

“That bastard turned right into me!” the pilot of the commuter plane shouted, forgetting proper radio discipline. “Bay Approach, be advised, that guy turned right into me. I want his tail number and controller tapes!”

“Roger, Cactus Niner-Seven-Three, I have your request, contact Bay Approach now on one-three-five point four. Break. Aircraft on the three-zero-zero degree radial, twelve DME fix from Oakland VOR, be advised, you are entering San Francisco Class B and Oakland Class C airspace without a clearance, and you have entered the thirty-mile Mode C veil without a Mode C readout. Remain clear of Class B and C airspace and contact Bay Approach on one-two- seven point zero. Acknowledge.”

Henri Cazaux laughed. “Oh, this is perfect, perfect!” he cackled.

“We coulda gotten killed, you crazy motherfucker,” Krull said, shaking his head.

“Mr. Krull, our death warrants were signed the second I heard that Air Force pilot’s voice on the radio,” Cazaux said, stone-serious. “He wants revenge, and he is willing to ruin his career in order to get it. We are fighting for our lives.” Then, just as quickly as it had gone away, the broad smile was back. “And if I am fortunate, I will take a few American citizens out with me before we die.”

With that, he turned the LET L-600 back toward San Francisco and began another descent, aiming right for the international airport itself.

“Foxtrot Romeo-01, radar contact, ten miles southwest of Travis Air Force Base,” the military air defense controller SIERRA PETE reported. Through a massive communications and radar relay network, military controllers from southern California could talk to and track on radar all military interceptors anywhere. “You should have been relayed instructions for landing at Beale, sir. Are you experiencing difficulty?”

“Negative, SIERRA FETE,” Vincenti replied. “Who’s the senior director tonight? John? Marie?”

“This is Colonel Berrell, Al,” John Berrell responded, cutting in on the Weapon Control Team channel. “I’m the SD, and Bravo is on the floor as well.” Bravo was the code name for the deputy director of the Southwest Air Defense Sector, Navy Captain Francine Tellman. “What in hell are you doing? I ordered you to land at Beale for a debriefing.”

“John, I want permission to engage Cazaux’s plane over the bay,” Vincenti said.

“Say again, Foxtrot Romeo?”

“You heard me, John,” Vincenti said in a calm, even voice. “Cazaux’s driving directly at San Francisco International. He’s flying right into the path of the arriving and departing traffic — he made one airliner almost do a backflip trying to avoid a midair. I believe he’s got another load of explosives on board that cargo plane, and that he’s going to drop them somewhere — on the city, on the airport, I don’t know where. I’ve got a judy on him, about thirteen miles north of SFO. He crosses the Bay Bridge into San Francisco Bay in about one minute. I want permission to bring him down as soon as he crosses the Bay Bridge. Over.”

“Al, I can’t upchannel that,” Berrell said. “I know how much you want Cazaux…”

There was silence for a moment; then, a woman’s voice came on the channel: “Foxtrot Romeo-01, this is Bravo.” Vincenti recognized Francine Tellman’s cutting, no-nonsense voice immediately. “I’m ordering you to land at Beale Air Force Base immediately. Acknowledge and comply. Over.”

“If you want Henri Cazaux, Francine, I can take him. Just give me permission.”

“You’ve got your orders, Foxtrot Romeo-01. Comply with them or I’ll court-martial you the minute you step off that plane. And you had better start using proper radio procedures.”

“Francine,” Vincenti said, ignoring her last request, “he tried to ram an airliner, and now he’s headed right for the stream of arrivals into SFO.”

“I can see that, Vincenti, we’re tracking him as well,” Tellman said. Obviously she gave up trying to use proper radio discipline as well. “I also know that you 've violated almost as many federal air regulations as Cazaux has. Bay and Travis TRACON and Oakland Center are screaming bloody murder about you blasting through their airspace. Now get the hell out of there and land at Beale.” There was a slight pause, then she added, “Please. ”

Vincenti alternately loosened and tightened his grip on the control stick. This was the turning point, he thought. He was still outside San Francisco Class B airspace, and he could easily climb above eight thousand feet to get above the airspace to stay legal. If Cazaux tried something, he’d still be in a position to act. He considered doing the old “radio-out” routine — go radio-out, squawk emergency, then turn everything back on when Cazaux was safely away from traffic — and as long as he stuck to his story they’d have to believe him. But either way, Henri Cazaux would be getting away with murder. “I can’t do it, Francine,” Vincenti said.

“Cut the crap, Vincenti,” Tellman hissed angrily. “Stay out of the Class B airspace. That’s an order. Don’t trash a long and successful career because of Cazaux. You did your job. Break off your pursuit, now. If there’s another incident because of you busting into B airspace, I won’t be able to keep you out of Leavenworth.”

Vincenti swore loudly into his oxygen mask. Cazaux was about twenty miles ahead of him, flying just north of Treasure Island. In less than a minute he’d be over the San Francisco Bay Bridge. He could turn right and be over the city of San Francisco in another minute, or over the Golden Gate Bridge in three minutes; or continue straight ahead for four minutes and be over San Francisco International Airport. It was like watching a tornado move across a prairie, not knowing which way it was going to go, praying it would go one way but not the other.

“Vincenti… Al,” Tellman tried once more, “break off your pursuit, now. ”

“Damn you all to hell, ” Vincenti muttered as he shoved in full afterburner and pulled the nose skyward. In sixty seconds, he was level at eighty-five hundred feet, above the San Francisco Class B airspace and on the proper hemispheric altitude for his direction of flight. He was flying above the city of Richmond and barreling toward Oakland when Cazaux crossed the Bay Bridge, heading directly for San Francisco. On his backup VHF radio, he called, “Bay Approach, Foxtrot Romeo-01 on one-two-seven point zero, F-16 active air intercept, level eight thousand five hundred, ten miles north of Oakland VOR, requesting Class B clearance, vectors to intercept unidentified aircraft crossing west of the Bay Bridge, and requesting speed to four-zero-zero knots, over.”

“Foxtrot Romeo-01, Bay Approach, unable your request,” the air traffic controller responded. “I don’t show you as an active air intercept — I’ll have to check with your air defense sector people. Squawk four-three-zero-zero, maintain present course and altitude, remain clear of San Francisco Class B airspace. Break. United Three-Seventy- Two, turn left heading one-five-zero and slow to your approach speed for separation. Amflight Two-Zero-Niner- Niner, keep your speed up, sir, traffic at your seven o’clock, three miles, an unidentified aircraft, altitude unknown…”

The stress in the controller’s voice was painfully obvious, and Vincenti knew why. As soon as he heard a break, Cazaux interjected, “Approach, my target is that unidentified aircraft, and I’ve got him tied on radar. Let me intercept him and I’ll try to get him out of your arrival pattern, over.”

“Several aircraft talking at once, everyone please shut up and listen,” the irritated controller said. “Foxtrot Romeo-01, I said unable, maintain your present course and stay clear of the Class B airspace. Delta Fourteen, turn left heading two-zero-zero, descend to five thousand, vectors for VOR runway one-niner left arrival. United Eight-Twenty- Two, descend and maintain six thousand…”

It was impossible to cut through the rapid-fire controller’s instructions. Vincenti thought about doing a rapid descent and dropping right on Cazaux’s tail, but now it was far too dangerous — the closer Cazaux was to San Francisco International, the more aircraft he was mixing around, and the harder it would be to stay away from the traffic.

Well, he had done at least part of what he was ordered to do — stop the pursuit — but he wasn’t ready to give up on Henri Cazaux. Vincenti still had an hour of fuel to bum, ₍and plenty of suitable bases nearby to choose from. Better wait up here, clear of all the traffic and confusion, and watch to see what the maniac Cazaux had in mind.

On his backup radio — no use in listening to Francine, Tellman and the rest of the Southwest Air Defense Sector yell at him — he switched over to San Francisco Tower and set up an orbit above the Class B airspace so he could watch Cazaux on radar. He felt completely useless, orbiting thousands of feet above his prey, but there was absolutely nothing he could do except listen to the horrible tragedy un- I fold below him.

“Unidentified aircraft over the port of San Francisco, this is San Francisco Tower on GUARD,” the frantic tower controller radioed on the VHF emergency frequency. “You have entered Oakland Class C airspace without proper radio callup, and you are on course to enter San Francisco Class B airspace without a clearance. There are numerous aircraft departing San Francisco at your twelve o’clock position.”

The controller tried a different tactic: he decided to assume that the pilot of the aircraft was in trouble — perhaps it was the wife flying after her husband had a heart attack, or a kid had stolen a plane to go for a joyride and was aiming for the biggest airport he could see. No use trying to threaten him or her — better to offer plenty of options while protecting the airspace and the legitimate aircraft already in it.

“You must execute a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and fly away from San Francisco because there are a lot of very big airliners in your vicinity and you could get hurt,” the controller said, trying hard to control his anxiety and anger. “If you can hear me, it is important that you turn around and head back towards the north bay or toward Sacramento, right now. You don’t have to reply, just turn away from San Francisco until we can get some of these planes out of your way, and then we can help you get oriented… TWA Five-Eighty-One, roger, report the outer marker… Unidentified aircraft flying over the Seagram’s sign heading towards San Francisco Airport, you must turn away right now… American Three-Seventy-Two, traffic alert, two o’clock, altitude unknown, NORDO aircraft in Class B airspace, stay with me until you’re clear and be prepared to maneuver… Delta Four-Twenty-Two, I can’t give you that, we’ve got NORDO VFR traffic in the area, unless you declare an emergency I’m going to have to send you back to FAITH intersection for the ILS…”

Vincenti dropped his oxygen mask in absolute frustration. The air traffic situation around San Francisco and Oakland was going haywire, all because of one madman.

He had to do something!

He refastened his mask and keyed his mike: “San Francisco Tower, Foxtrot Romeo-01, over the Bay Bridge at eight thousand five hundred, be advised that VFR NORDO aircraft is at one thousand feet. He is a LET L-600 cargo plane piloted by a suspected terrorist. I strongly suggest you hold all departures on the ground, divert all arrivals, and let me take care of the bastard. Over.”

The radios were completely, utterly silent after that — it was as if all the air had been sucked out of the San Francisco Bay area. The word “terrorist” had that effect on people, and now his reign of terror was being felt here, now.

Finally, after what seemed like a very long time, the tower controller radioed, “Roger, Foxtrot Romeo-01, San Francisco Tower copies, stand by.” It was not the same “stand by” issued by the other controllers, which in effect meant “don’t bother me”—this “stand by” meant “wait while I clear a path for you.” “United Twelve-Oh-Four, cancel takeoff clearance. Delta Five-Niner-Eight, hold your position. TWA Five-Eighty-One, go around, contact Bay Approach. Delta Fourteen, go around, stay with me until advised. Attention all aircraft, emergency air traffic operations in effect, expect delays. Amflight Two-Zero-Niner- Niner, clear to land, keep your speed up on final and land past the intersection of runway one-niner right. Foxtrot Romeo-01, you are radar contact, one-one miles north of the San Francisco VOR at eight thousand five hundred, what are your intentions?”

“Foxtrot Romeo-01 requesting emergency descent through Class B airspace at five-zero-zero knots and MARSA operations with the suspect aircraft,” Vincenti replied. “MARSA” stood for “military accepts responsibility for separation of aircraft,” and although it usually applied only to military formation flights or aerial refueling, Vincenti wanted to use it to intercept Cazaux.

“Roger, Foxtrot Romeo-01,” the tower controller said. Although air traffic control tower controllers rarely issued clearances other than “cleared for takeoff’ and “cleared to land,” this was obviously an unusual and dangerous situation. “You are cleared to descend through Class B airspace at your most expeditious airspeed to the block surface to two thousand feet within five nautical mile radius of San Francisco VOR, and you are cleared MARSA with the NORDO aircraft. Stay on this frequency.”

“Roger,” Vincenti replied — just before he pulled hard on his control stick in a tight loop. When he emerged from the loop, he was just south of the Bay Bridge in a fifteen-thousand-foot-per-minute descent, heading “down the ramp” right at San Francisco International Airport. There were very few aircraft on his radarscope, and only one aircraft near San Francisco International was not transmitting any air traffic transponder codes — that had to be Cazaux. “Foxtrot Romeo-01 is tied on radar and accepts MARSA with unidentified aircraft,” Vincenti radioed. “I suggest you get on the radio and try to get Oakland to keep its planes on the ground, too. I don’t think it’ll be safe for any other planes to be flying around over San Francisco Bay right about now.”

“Say that last transmission again, Foxtrot Romeo- 01…?” San Francisco Tower called. But there was no reply.

Taddele Korhonen, at the controls of the LET L-600, had pushed the throttles up to full power, and they were skimming across the top of the piers, docks, and warehouses of the Port of San Francisco, west and south of the Bay Bridge. “Why the hell we flyin’ so low to the city?” Jefferson “Krull” Jones asked. He and Henri Cazaux were in the cargo bay of the L-600, removing some of the packets of money and cocaine from the second pallet. “You gonna drop all those explosives on San Francisco, too?”

“Of course not,” Cazaux replied. “The loss of the Stinger missiles was regrettable and will dearly affect my business, but all is not lost if I can salvage the explosives and ammunition. Besides, we are still flying. As long as we’re airborne, there is hope.”

Suddenly, the chatter on the air traffic control channel seemed to cease. The quiet caught Cazaux’s attention as easily as a loud gunshot. Then he heard, “Roger, Foxtrot Romeo-01, San Francisco Tower copies, stand by… United Twelve-Oh-Four, cancel takeoff clearance. Delta Five-Niner-Eight, hold your position. TWA Five- Eighty-One, go around, contact Bay Approach…”

“What the hell is goin’ on?” Jones asked. “Sounds like they’re clearin’ everybody out.”

“That is exactly what they’re doing,” Cazaux said. “But why?”

“Attention all aircraft, emergency air traffic operations in effect, expect delays. Amflight Two-Zero-Niner-Niner, clear to land, keep your speed up on final and land past the intersection of runway one-niner right. Foxtrot Romeo-01, you are radar contact, one-one miles north of the San Francisco VOR at eight thousand five hundred, what are your intentions?”

“Foxtrot Romeo-01 requesting emergency descent through Class B airspace at five-zero-zero knots and MARSA operations with the suspect aircraft,” came the reply.

“Foxtrot Romeo Zero One… that’s the damn fighter again!” Jones said. “Man, he’s back on our tail!”

“They will never give him a clearance to descend at five hundred knots through dense airspace like this,” Cazaux said. “Impossible.”

“Roger, Foxtrot Romeo-01, you are cleared to descend through Class B airspace at your most expeditious airspeed to the block surface to two thousand feet within five nautical mile radius of San Francisco VOR, and you are cleared MARSA with the NORDO aircraft. Stay on this frequency.”

“Jesus, they just gave him carte blanche,” Cazaux said, stunned. “A tower controller is not authorized to give such a clearance!”

“Well, he just did it,” Jones sneered. “And now he’s gonna be gunnin’ for our asses. What the hell we gonna do now?”

Cazaux looked like a balloon that was pricked with a pin and was slowly losing air.

For the first time, Jones saw real depression, real defeat in his face. He stared out the open end of the L-600 as if he could see the F-16 diving down on them, could see the cannon muzzle flashing, could see the heavy 20-millimeter shells peppering him and his plane. “We can surrender, man,” Jones continued. “Tell him we give up. It’s better than dyin,’ man.”

“I will never give up!” Cazaux said emphatically. “I will never surrender!” He went over to the intercom panel and hit the mike button: “Stork, fly over San Francisco International Airport, right over the terminal buildings.” The L-600 banked left and descended in response. Cazaux switched the intercom switch to the VHF radio: “Attention, F-16 fighter, this is Henri Cazaux. I have several thousand pounds of explosives on board this aircraft, and I will release them on San Francisco International Airport unless you depart this area.”

“You’ll be dead long before you reach the airport, Cazaux,” a voice said over the frequency. “I show you two minutes to the airport, and I’m in missile range right now.” Vincenti hoped the bluff would work — he wasn’t carrying any missiles at all, and he wouldn’t be in optimum gun range for another thirty to forty seconds. “Jettison the explosives right now, into the bay, and then fly away from the airport straight down the bay. After that, I’ll direct you to make a turn over the bay north, and we’ll land at Alameda Naval Air Station.”

To Jones, Cazaux shouted, “Get that second pallet ready to drop.” On the radio, he asked, “How do I know you will not kill me after I do all that you order?”

“I’m not giving you any guarantees, you sonofabitch, except this — if I don’t see your course altered away from land, you’ll be dead in three seconds. What’s it going to be?”

“Very well, I am dumping the explosives overboard right now. Do not fire your missiles.” He motioned to Krull, and he and the big loader pushed the second pallet of military gear out the cargo ramp, just a few hundred yards east of Fullers Point, north of the airport. Cazaux then picked up the microphone and switched to intercom: “Stork, decrease speed and execute a turn back to the north… and then turn directly towards San Francisco International again and go to full throttle.” Back on VHF: “All right, I have done as you asked. I have dropped the explosives, and I am turning north. Hold your fire. I broadcast my surrender to all who can hear my voice on this frequency. I am surrendering to the United States Air Force, for assurances that I will not be fired upon. You are all my witnesses in case there is a so- called unfortunate accident.”

“You gonna do it?” Jones shouted over the windblast and the roar of the engines through the open cargo ramp. “You gonna drop the last pallet on San Francisco International? Holy shit! He’ll put a missile up our asses for sure… Jesus, mother of god…”

“If he had missiles, he would have killed us long ago,” Cazaux decided. “He has only guns, like the first fighter. I believe he will wait until we fly down the center of San Francisco Bay, then open fire. I am hoping he cannot follow us if we slow down and turn. No one threatens me and gets away with it.” He dropped the microphone, then went over to a rack with several backpack-style parachutes and pulled one off. “We’ll drop the explosives on San Francisco International, then parachute to safety. The Stork will put the plane on autopilot and join us.”

“We’re not dropping anything,” Jones said. As Cazaux began fastening his parachute harness, Jones reached down and pulled a small automatic pistol from an ankle holster. “Hold your hands straight out from your sides and turn around.”

“What is this?” Cazaux asked, a trace of amusement in his eyes.

“U.S. Marshal, Cazaux,” Jones said. He retrieved a wallet from a back pocket, flipped it open to reveal a five- pointed star, and tucked the wallet in his belt. “You’re under arrest, motherfucker. I said turn around.”

“If you fire that gun in here, Marshal Jones, you will blow us all to hell.”

“It would be worth it to watch you die, Cazaux,” Jones said. “Step away from there, across the plane, facing the wall. Move.” As Cazaux moved slowly in front of the third pallet toward the left side of the cargo bay, Jones reached the intercom panel: “Stork, this is Jones. Don’t turn back towards San Francisco. Fly north down the middle of the bay. I’m a federal marshal, and you’re under arrest. If you turn towards land, I’ll—”

Suddenly the LET L-600 seemed as if it flipped completely upside down. Korhonen had thrown the plane into a steep left bank, causing Jones to lose his balance for just a few seconds — but that was more than enough time for Cazaux. With incredible speed, Cazaux knelt under Jones’s first bullet, withdrew a Walther PPK automatic pistol from his right boot, dodged a second shot fired at him by throwing himself aft toward the open cargo ramp, then opened fire on Jones. He missed his intended target — Jones’s heart — but he managed several shots into the big man’s chest and one in the head. The undercover U.S. marshal fired several more shots at Cazaux before he dropped, still fighting even as he was dying.

“I have got to get out of this damned business. The authorities are practically in bed with me.” Cazaux tried to clear his head and get to his feet. One bullet had hit him in the left leg, creasing across his calf and ankle. Walking on it was difficult, but he ignored the burning pain, made his way forward and said to Korhonen, “Good job, Stork. I knew I could depend on you. You’re one of the few in my organization I can trust.”

“Thank you, sir,” the Stork said, showing two grimy rows of teeth. “I am getting a fluctuating oil pressure on the number two engine, sir. I think one of your shots hit the right engine. We have perhaps ten minutes’ time before I have to shut down. What are your orders?”

“One last act of revenge, and we will get out of this place, take the money, and go into hiding in Mexico,” Cazaux said. He pointed at San Francisco International and said, “Fly right over the main terminal building, Stork. Dive right for it, then pitch up at the last moment. I will get the pallet ready to drop. After that, fly her south along the coast at medium altitude, set the autopilot, and we’ll bail out together. We will make our way to the central valley and make contact with our Mexican agents. Thank you again, old friend.” He clasped Korhonen on the shoulder once again, then returned to the cargo bay.

But it wasn’t going to happen, Cazaux realized. Jones’s body was lying across the rear deck, directly in the path of the one remaining pallet, blocking the cargo ramp opening, and as hard as he tried, he couldn’t move the three- hundred-plus-pound corpse. The explosives weren’t going anywhere.

He shrugged, checked that his PPK was secure in its boot holster, stuffed a few bundles of cash into his fatigue shirt, tightened up his parachute straps, and hefted two of the remaining hand grenades. “Thanks again, Stork,” he said to no one. “You were a good pilot.” He then popped the safety pins off the grenades, tossed them atop the last pallet filled with explosives, and ran out the open cargo ramp, pulling his parachute D-ring as he cleared the ramp.

Taddele Korhonen was well above redline on both engines and at the plane’s structural redline as he careened through three hundred feet, aiming right for the main commercial terminal at San Francisco International — what was the worry about overstressing the plane, he reasoned, when they were apparently going to ditch it? Coming in from the northeast, he was lined up with runways 19L and 19R and offset a bit to the north. The taxiways on the X-shaped airport were dotted with airliners waiting to depart, and the entire circular main terminal building was choked with airliners and service trucks. As the center of the largest part of the main terminal building almost touched the cargo plane’s nose, the Stork clicked twice on the intercom to let his master know they had arrived, then began to pull up into a steep climb…

The first explosion did not seem too loud, and since Korhonen was concentrating on the pullout, he ignored it.

Then his ears registered a second loud bang! and then another explosion a hundred times louder and more powerful.

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 ADF 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 area. 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 air — 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 HUD, 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! 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 security patrols would be screening everyone coming off 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 be£n 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 modem 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 choiring 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 were 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.