“You’re prohibited from talking with the media.”
“If the Air Force tries to court-martial me for what happened last night, Chuck, I’m spilling my guts,” Vincenti said angrily. “I’m not bullshitting you. I’ve got a copy of the HUD tape, and I’ll give it to every TV and radio station I can think of.”
“What the hell’s with you, Al?” Gaspar exclaimed, his voice serious now, searching his friend’s face with a definite edge of concern — Vincenti usually was not evasive or secretive at all. Claiming he had an engine malfunction, Vincenti had landed all the way back at Fresno Air Terminal instead of at Beale Air Force Base, as he had been directed to do. Although Fresno was closer and was his home station, he had plenty of gas to make it to Beale as he was ordered. As the F-16 pilots do every mission, Vincenti pulled his own mission videotapes, and he had his videotape in his possession when he was met by a representative of Fourth Air Force’s Judge Advocate General’s office about two hours later. The JAG officer confiscated the videotape, supervised a blood-and-urine test, and escorted Vincenti here to Beale Air Force Base, where the accident investigation board was going to be held. Theoretically, Vincenti had time to work on the videotape, doctor it, and duplicate it before someone finally ordered him to surrender it to the judge advocate. Gaspar didn’t think he really did all those things — Vincenti had always been a team player — but there was no doubt that Vincenti was pissed enough to do anything right about now.
“I’m sorry about Linda’s death,” Gaspar said softly.
Vincenti swallowed hard, nodded, and let his anger wash away, to be replaced by an empty numbness. Linda McKenzie never got full man-seat separation after ejecting from her Falcon on the runway at McClellan. She was still in the ejection seat, with only a partial parachute, when it hit the ground at over one hundred miles an hour. She mercifully died of her horrible injuries after several hours of emergency surgery.
“That’s not your fault, and I understand the pain you’re feeling, and the pain you felt last night,” Gaspar went on. “But now you’re breaking with the program, Rattler. You’re abandoning the Force, abandoning your uniform, abandoning your responsibilities.”
“Don’t give me that crap, Chuck,” Vincenti retorted. “All I see around here is brass rushing to cover their butts. Linda and I did the shitty job we were assigned the best we could. They should have never tried to capture that mother- fucking terrorist, especially knowing he had all those explosives on board. And sure as hell they should have never herded him over Sacramento or allowed him to get anywhere near San Francisco. We should’ve either blown his ass away or let him go.”
“I’m not arguing with you, Al, and I’m not going to second-guess the brass,” Gaspar said. “All I’m trying to do is get the facts.”
“This is not a debriefing, Chuck. This is not a ‘lessons learned’ session. This is not even an accident investigation. You don’t want my observations or opinions, and you don’t care about the facts because everyone’s already made up their minds about who’s to blame. This is a fucking inquisition. Everyone’s looking at me and Linda as to why we allowed it to happen, why we let Cazaux fly over Mather and SFO and drop those explosives, why we let Cazaux kill so many persons on the ground. I will tell you right now, bub, I’m not going to allow it. If I’m still getting the third degree, I’ll clam up, get an attorney, refuse to talk, take the Fifth, get immunity from prosecution, and screw you and screw the Air Force and the entire federal government. I owe my wingman my full support, even if she’s not here, and goddammit, I’m going to give it. Now, how do you want to play it from here on out, Chuck?”
“Okay, Al, I’ll add my endorsement over your signature, recommending no disciplinary action and immediate return to flight status — for all the good it’ll do,” Gaspar said. “I think you’re right, chum — the feds want heads to roll because Cazaux got away — and you’ve been elected. The new director of the FBI herself, Lani ‘Trigger’ Wilkes, is coming here in a few hours to begin the investigation and to do the press conference at the airport.”
“Great,” Vincenti muttered. Lani Wilkes, the new director of the FBI, had been given the nickname “Trigger” for two reasons — her stand on strict gun control, favoring not just an all-out ban on private purchases of handguns but complete nationwide confiscation of all guns with more than five rounds in them, and because of her hair-trigger temper, first seen during her Senate confirmation hearings and in many courtrooms, press conferences, and congressional hearings since. “Chuck, you might as well just pass my report along to the FBI without your signature. Wilkes is a tough liberal bitch. She’ll accuse everyone involved in this thing as being a bunch of screw-ups, tell the press how evil and out of control the military is, then talk about how society, or guns, or the military, has messed up the youth of the country, or some such horseshit. There’s no use fighting her.”
“Hey, I don’t report to Wilkes, Al,” said Gaspar.
“I know, but the press and the White House love her, and if she makes you an enemy, she’ll bury you alive,” Vincenti said. “The further you steer clear of her, the better.”
“Well, the wing king wants us to go with him to her press conference at the airport, so I’m going,” Gaspar said resignedly. “The press is having a field day with the air traffic controller tapes of you threatening Cazaux and chasing him through the San Francisco Class B airspace. The press thinks you goaded Cazaux into blowing up his plane over SFO.”
“That’s horseshit, Chuck,” Vincenti interjected. “Cazaux had no intention of surrendering or safely jettisoning any of those explosives — he jettisoned a palletful of military gear and kept the pallet of explosives on board. His target was either to ram an airliner in midair or bomb SFO, whichever he could do before getting shot down.”
“The press and the government don’t see it that way, Al,” Gaspar said. “Anyway, you’re in the hot seat now. If you have any friends in very, very high places, I suggest you call them in.”
“Fuck it,” Vincenti said bitterly. “If they want my wings, they can have ’em. But I’ll tell you something, Chuck— Henri Cazaux is not going to dive underground now. He blew up Mather Jetport on purpose, not by accident, and I think the motherfucker enjoyed watching the fireworks. When he found out I was on his tail, he went right for the next big airfield he could find — San Francisco International. The bastard’s going to go after more big airfields, Chuck. I know it. If you have a chance to tell Lani Wilkes that, tell her.”
“Forget about Cazaux and Wilkes now, Al,” Gaspar said. “Let’s deal with your problems. My group commander hat is off now, the recorder is off, my fellow fighter pilot hat is on, and it’s just you and me. I’m not trying to coach you here — you had better tell the truth during the accident investigation board or your ass is grass — but I want to go over your statement and the sortie chronology minute by minute. Don’t leave out a thing.”
But as Vincenti started talking, the onus of what he had said started to make an impression on Charles Gaspar — and he realized that Vincenti was right. He too had a feeling that Henri Cazaux would be back, and that no airport in the United States was safe any longer.
The phone in Gaspar’s office rang, and he snatched it up irritably: “I thought I told you no calls, Sergeant.”
“Sorry, sir, but I just got a call from base operations,” the group commander’s clerk said. “VIP aircraft inbound, and they just released the plane’s passenger list.” The clerk told him the plane’s lone passenger, and Vincenti saw Gaspar’s mouth drop open in surprise. “He wants to meet with you and Colonel Vincenti right away at base ops.”