The joggers angled over away from the Washington Monument, about fifty yards or so away from the Avenger, near a small information kiosk… then suddenly stopped, both of them, and put their duffel bags down.
“What’s the problem, man?” one of the joggers shouted. “What’s going on?”
Kelly shouted, “Leave those bags on the ground and raise your—” But he was interrupted by a terrific explosion that rolled across The Mall. A bright yellow fire was burning, somewhere near the Capitol.
“—712, you read me?” Lathrop radioed. “Wood, man, answer up… — 712, you read me? What’s that fire…?” But Lathrop knew what it was — it was the burning hulk of the Avenger stationed west of the Capitol. Someone was picking off all the air defense units around the Capital, one by one…
… and now they were attacking here. The two joggers had leaped behind the information kiosk, out of sight of the Avenger crew — and suddenly a burst of automatic gunfire erupted, sweeping across Lathrop’s Avenger. The D.C. Police car that was speeding toward them slammed on its brakes, and another burst of automatic gunfire sprayed it with bullets. Kelly ran behind the Avenger and returned fire with his M-16, chopping holes in the fiberglass kiosk. The D.C. Police cruiser was getting chopped up badly — they had some heavy firepower…
Lathrop closed his canopy and swung his turret westward toward the kiosk. Machine-gun fire peppered the polycarbonate canopy, and 9-millimeter bullet holes dented it, but thankfully did not penetrate. One of the joggers bolted toward the police cruiser, firing on the run. Lathrop tracked him with ease in his infrared scanner window, flicked his arm switch to GUNS, hit the ENABLE button on the left turret control, and squeezed the trigger on the right turret grip. From only about two hundred feet away, the Avenger’s .50-caliber heavy machine gun — designed to blow fifty- thousand-pound aircraft out of the sky a mile away — chopped the first jogger up into several large chunks in less than a second. Lathrop immediately swung the turret back around and reacquired the kiosk, ready to blow the shit out of it as well…
… but the second jogger had pulled out a LAWS (Lightweight Antitank Weapon System) rocket from his duffel bag, aimed and fired, and from less than two hundred feet away he could not miss. It seemed as if the rocket was headed straight for the space between Lathrop’s eyes. He felt an incredible blast rock his eight-thousand-pound vehicle and saw a bright flash of light, and then he saw and felt nothing…
Hoover FBI Building
That Same Time
It was the closest thing to an interrogation any of them had ever been subjected to. Deborah Harley, Ian Hardcastle, and the Deputy U.S. Marshal of the United States, William Landers, along with several Marshals Service agents and U.S. Navy pilots had been questioned in the Director’s conference room for the past nine hours on the CV-22 raid at Cazaux’s estate in Bedminster, and the attempted intercept of Harold Lake and Ted Fell in Newburgh. They had been subjected to “tag-team” questioning by a small army of investigators — asked to draw detailed maps of their route of flight and movements in the mansion once the attack was under way, describe all of their communications routines, and provide exhaustive records of everything concerning the mission, from where they bought fuel for the PAVE HAMMER tilt-rotor aircraft to a full list of all the weapons used.
Finally, Judge Lani Wilkes, the Director of the FBI, came to visit the group. While staffers and other witnesses had been shuffling in and out all day retrieving records that the FBI requested, Harley and Hardcastle had been there the entire time, and they were stiff and tired as they got to their feet when Wilkes entered the conference room. “Good evening, Agent Harley, Admiral Hardcastle,” she greeted them. “I appreciate your assisting the Bureau in preparing our report to the Justice Department and the White House. I’m told you’ve been here since early this afternoon.”
. “You know damn well we’ve been here all day,” Hardcastle snapped angrily. He had ditched his coat and tie long ago and had changed into a short-sleeve shirt and comfortable loafers* Harley was in a business suit but had removed her jacket — she still looked as calm and fresh as she did when she began the marathon “debriefing” session.
“Something wrong, Admiral?” Wilkes asked sweetly.
“We should have been allowed to submit our reports on the incident first before all this began,” Hardcastle said. “I think it would’ve been more efficient to take our report and then fill in the details later. We’re essentially duplicating our reports and being kept here like prisoners. We should—”
“Admiral, I’ve been FBI Director for three years, and I’ve been involved in thousands of criminal and interagency investigations in my thirty years of law enforcement,” Wilkes interrupted crisply, “so I think I know a thing or two about how to conduct an investigation and how to take a report. Frankly, judging by your actions in the raid on the Bedminster estate, I question whether you have any idea on proper or legal law-enforcement actions. Do us both a favor, Admiral, and let the Bureau do its job — for a change.” She surveyed the room, noticing empty drink cups and sandwich boxes in the trash cans. “I see you’re being taken care of here. This shouldn’t take too much longer. I’m sure you agree that it’s better if we just get this whole thing over with.”
“Judge Wilkes, do you still think the body recovered at the mansion was Henri Cazaux?” Harley asked, a hint of annoyance in her voice.
Wilkes narrowed her eyes in irritation at the question. “I’m sorry,” Wilkes replied icily, “but I can’t talk about an ongoing investigation with you, Agent Harley.”
“She’s as much a part of the investigation as you are, Judge Wilkes,” Hardcastle announced. “Perhaps much more so.”
“Just because you flagrantly disregarded Justice Department policy and procedures and shot up a nest of terrorists doesn’t give you a need-to-know,” Wilkes hissed. “If we weren’t talking about Henri Cazaux, I’d see to it that you had your stars yanked, you and Deputy U.S. Marshal Landers. You don’t seem to care or realize that you interfered with the biggest Bureau investigation since the World Trade Center bombing. However, I will say that the cannon you used to kill him and the eleven other persons inside the place really did a good job in obscuring their features and making identification more difficult—”
“So this whole interrogation is your way of getting back at us, right, Judge Wilkes?” Landers asked, refusing to be cowed by the Director of the FBI or anyone else. “You don’t have to lock us up — just ‘debrief us for the next six weeks until the press is done raking us over the coals for the ‘brutal’ attack on the estate and the ‘incompetent’ way we handled Harold Lake’s capture.”
“Deputy Landers, all these little problems you’ve encountered have nothing to do with me — you caused them all, you and Admiral Hardcastle’s damn-the-torpedoes, full- speed-ahead and attack-dog solutions to every problem that crops up,” Wilkes said. “You interfered with an FBI investigation, and I’ve got to clean up your mess. Congress is going to question us next week on what happened, and I’m going to be ready, and frankly, if you’re inconvenienced by this, I don’t really care. Now, I’ve asked for your cooperation. If you refuse to give it, I’ll have no choice but to schedule a deposition and compel you to attend.”