“Take it easy, boss…” Fell tried.
The phone on Lake’s desk rang — the onslaught of inquiries that Fell was expecting was now beginning. “Tell whoever it is to fuck off,” Lake hissed, returning to his desk and resuming staring blankly out the window. Fell answered the phone, leaving instructions that Lake not be disturbed and that he would handle all calls himself. “Get out, Ted,” he told his assistant from behind his chair. Fell was going to stay despite his boss’s obvious anger, but when Lake appeared to be looking over the loan papers and getting back to work, he relaxed a bit and departed.
The bombing of San Francisco International by some crazed lunatic gunrunner may have been a random, completely unforeseen event, even an accident. But one thing Harold Lake knew for sure was that it could very easily happen again. Yes, a lunatic was behind it…
… and Lake, like the rest of the world, knew who he was.
Options trading was not the only kind of trading Harold Lake did. Some of the “institutions” he worked with were not listed on Standard and Poor’s or Dun & Bradstreet, and some of the CEOs and investors who paid him generous commissions and maintained fat accounts with him were not in any issue of Who’s Who unless that publication had a version on underworld figures. His biggest secret client was none other than Henri Cazaux, the one responsible for the financial mess Lake was in right now. Lake had never planned on getting involved with men of this caliber. He was far too vain and far too much of a self-preservationist to risk dying at their displeasure. But back in 1987, after being fired from Universal Equity and trying to strike out on his own, Lake kept getting approached by smugglers, hoods, and eventually bigger fish like New York-area mob bosses. They could smell a hungry, smart manipulator of cash, but Lake did all he could to resist their overtures. Until the market crash of 1987. It was then that Harold Lake, fully exposed in all his investments, took a nosedive and lost millions overnight. After that, needing quick cash in a hurry, Lake began to see the appeal of laundering money. He made a few contacts, and before he knew it, drug money was reinforcing his investments. Lake stayed solvent and slowly began to get completely immersed in the science of laundering money. In 1991 Henry Cazaux stepped in and demanded Lake handle all of his accounts. It was an offer, as the saying goes, that Lake couldn’t refuse. Unless, of course, he wanted a bullet in the head.
Cazaux was different from your typical sociopath. He was power-hungry, and a megalomaniac, and definitely psychotic, and very smart. Each of his various identities all over the world lived in completely legal surroundings, with proper books, properly filed tax returns, and proper documentation. True, only a small percentage of his total net worth was ever reported, but the funds and the persons that existed aboveground were squeaky clean, thanks to Harold Lake and others like him in other countries. He had to track down the sonofabitch and tell him to crawl back into his Mexico hideout, right fucking now, or his source of legitimate, laundered money was going to dry up.
The first thing Harold Lake did was pick up the phone and dial a tollfree number that connected him to a private voice-mail system that was untraceable either to himself or to his calling party. In case someone tried to trace the call, they’d reach a computer with two thousand names and addresses, and if investigators showed up to try to track down the names, they could be erased from computer memory in seconds. In turn, the voice-mail system connected him to a private paging service, again untraceable. Lake entered just three numbers on the pager—911—then hung up.
He then looked over the loan paperwork. Fell had placed Post-It Notes on several important or critical areas of the contract that he had changed or that required special consideration, but his final recommendation was to sign. Reluctantly, Lake did so, adding the words “I hope you choke on it” under the signature line. He then punched his intercom button to Fell’s office: “The loan papers are ready, Ted. Come get the fuckers.”
Just then he heard a faint beep coming from a desk drawer. He opened the drawer and retrieved his Apple Newton PDA (personal digital assistant), a handheld computer about the size of a paperback book. The PDA had a built-in wireless network system that allowed him to receive packet digital messages anywhere in the world, communicate directly with other computers, or send or receive faxes. He activated the PDA and called up the messaging system, entering a password to access the secret message area. The message read simply, OWL’S NEST, RIGHT NOW.
Stunned, he all but leaped to his feet, then put on a jacket, slipped the PDA computer into his jacket pocket, and left the office via the back door as fast as he could.
Beale Air Force Base, Yuba City, California
That Same Time
Colonel Charles Gaspar, operations group commander of the 144th Fighter Wing (California Air National Guard), asked, “You’re standing there telling me that you’re sticking with this cockamamie story, Vincenti?” The tall, slightly balding officer got to his feet, circled his desk, and stood face to face with Lieutenant Colonel A1 Vincenti. The veteran Vincenti defiantly followed Gaspar’s movements with his head and eyes while remaining at attention, which angered Gaspar even more. The men were of equal height, but Gaspar was several years younger than Vincenti, and even though he was of higher rank, he couldn’t intimidate the older veteran fighter pilot. Gaspar had less than half of Vincenti’s flying hours, and the adage that Vincenti had forgotten more than Gaspar had ever known held true — and everyone there knew it.
“Call me on it, Chuck,” Vincenti replied hotly. “Try to refute any of it. You’ll lose.”
“Don’t challenge me, Al,” Gaspar said angrily. “Don’t even bother trying. They don’t need me to help throw you to the dogs — you’ve done that all by yourself. The FBI has taken over this case, and the first head they want is yours. So you better straighten out your attitude.”
Gaspar took a deep breath. It was important for Vincenti to stick to his story — if he couldn’t make Gaspar, his longtime friend and wingman, believe his story, no one else was going to believe it either. “You maintain that your last order was to pursue Cazaux, that you believed that the order to land at Beale meant land only when your fuel condition warranted or if you could not reestablish contact with Cazaux. Is that correct, Al?”
“That’s what I wrote in my report.”
“The controller’s tape says otherwise.”
“My gun camera tape shows that I acknowledge the order to pursue.”
“Played side by side, the tapes don’t jive, Al,” Gaspar said. Although military aircraft did not have cockpit voice recorders, the F-16’s heads-up display system used a color videotape system to record gun camera video. The system, which also recorded radio and intercom conversations and copied flight and aircraft performance data like an airliner’s inflight data recorder “black box,” was often used by the pilots to record significant events inflight as well. “We hear you acknowledging orders that we never hear on the radio. It looks like the tape’s been doctored, or that you simply fake receiving orders to pursue.”
“So now I’m being accused of falsifying orders?” Vincenti asked. “Looks like I’m being set up to take the fall for this entire incident. Henri Cazaux blows up two airports and kills hundreds of persons, and I’m to blame. Wonder how the media would react to this?”