Brown, Dale - Independent 04 Read online

  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 locati
on, 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.”