“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.