“Then why in hell did we lose a Patriot site, Admiral?” Kestrel said. “There were a hundred soldiers at that site out there at Alliance.”
“You got the guy who attacked them, Will. There was no way we could know unknown 19 was a terrorist. He had a proper flight plan, followed the proper procedures.”
“Then what are we doing here, Admiral?” Kestrel shouted, whipping off his headset and shooting to his feet before Hardcastle. “We can’t stop anyone who wants to come in. That Westfall flight is doing everything completely wrong!” He pointed to his radarscreen, his eyes bulging in anger. “He’s still doing everything wrong, and he’s getting away scot-free.”
“We gotta deal with that, Will.”
“Are you saying I should blow away that Westfall flight?”
“I’m not saying that, either,” Hardcastle replied. “Your job is to protect your assigned airports from aerial assault.”
“Well, I obviously failed at that.”
“If one plane screws up and gets away, and a terrorist is allowed to attack, then it’s the system that’s failed, not you,” A1 Vincenti interjected. “You’re doing everything you can.”
“Sir, I need you on headsets,” the senior director interjected. Hardcastle could see real, serious stress etched on that man’s face — the pressure was on early in the game, and it showed no signs of letting up at all. “We’ve got another unknown, over Houston-Hobby, declaring an emergency.”
“Shit!” Kestrel exclaimed, slipping wearily into his seat and donning his headset once again. “Admiral, I don’t know what the answer is. But this is not going to work. It is just not going to fucking work.”
Near Bedminster, New Jersey
That Evening
The television was on, and CNN was giving its hourly wrap-up of the hunt for Henri Cazaux. Jo Ann Vega shivered with excitement as she saw pictures of the aftermath of the latest attack, a cargo plane shot down north of Fort Worth, Texas, after it had dropped several cluster bombs on an Army Patriot missile site. Military commentators were now talking about the capabilities of the Patriot missile, assuring everyone that the advanced surface-to-air missile could easily defend its assigned airports.
She rose from her leather sofa and walked toward the windows, which looked out through the front of the house past the four-acre, tree-lined front lawn, and shook her head while she thought of the commentator’s words. No one, she thought, was safe from Henri Cazaux. Even a Patriot missile could not stop him. Only Henri Cazaux himself could stop the killing.
Looking out the third-story window through the driving rain, Jo Ann Vega could see the guards in the front of the mansion, who had been sullenly pacing back and forth around the grounds through the warm summer rain, suddenly snap to attention. Cigarette butts went flying and submachine guns appeared from under long coats back up to carry-arms position. A few minutes later, a big one-ton dually six-passenger extended cab pickup truck zoomed around through the trees at the edge of the grassy front lawn and down the gravel driveway toward the mansion, stopping about fifty yards from the front door. While one guard covered the driver and another covered the passenger cab, a third guard shined a flashlight inside the front passenger side, checking IDs.
The truck was allowed to pass, parking just underneath the breezeway that covered the front entryway. A man she had never seen before emerged from the back of the truck, stood out on the lawn as he finished his cigarette. As he tossed it away, he looked up and saw Vega standing in the window, watching him. Their eyes locked for several moments before he pulled up his raincoat collar and headed inside.
Vega began to quiver, and she reached for a pack of cigarettes. Empty. She shivered again, and she felt as cold and as sweaty as if she was out there in the humidity and rain with the guards.
Henri was home. Good…
She had evacuated her home in Newburgh, New York, several days ago, right after the attack on Memphis. As they had expected, Newburgh and Stewart International had become a major supply depot for the effort to stop Henri Cazaux, with dozens of flights of C-5 Galaxy, C-141 Star- lifter, and C-17 Globemaster transports bringing soldiers and air defense missile batteries into Stewart and trucking them to New York City and airports in Connecticut. Stewart International was also the southeastern New York headquarters of the New York State Police, with the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms setting up shop at the Army barracks at Stewart as well, so clearly it was no longer practical for Cazaux to visit her there.
Vega now occupied the entire third floor of the spacious mansion, with luxurious furniture, a little galley, a fully equipped entertainment center, and plenty of windows to watch the deer and other animals scamper across the property. Her new bedroom was almost as large as her entire storefront apartment in Newburgh had been. It was a lovely, peaceful, tranquil… prison. She had no company and was not allowed any guests. Her meals were brought to her by guards, who patrolled the hallways and who would periodically enter her room, even her bathroom, unannounced, to check on her. The guards never spoke to her, hardly ever looked at her, even when they would burst in on her in the shower or dressing in front of the mirror. Of course, she had no phone. She had no one she desired to call, but it effectively sealed her isolation.
She was allowed to have all her astrological books, charts, cards, runes, and even had a new computer with her charting software installed on it, so she spent a lot of time doing Henri’s charts and readings, mapping out the progress of his campaign of terror, and writing what amounted to a script, a Book of Revelations, about how his private war would turn out. There was no doubt that his strength was growing each and every day. Every life, every existence could of course take a number of different paths, and Jo Ann tried to search each of the strongest and best- defined paths that her Henri would most likely take each day. They all went in the same direction — horrible death. Henri’s death was clear, but his was not the only soul that she saw feel the pain of vengeful, wicked, bloodthirsty death. She saw thousands of tortured souls crying into the mists of the future, thousands of souls painfully ripped from this life and thrust into the next like hair being pulled from the skin by the roots.
But even more horrible than that was of a nation torn apart by a desperate, cold-blooded act of hatred by Henri Cazaux, an incredible act of destruction that would change millions of lives…
“Hello, Jo Ann.”
Vega whirled around and saw him. Jesus, he was as silent as a snake. His hair, brown and curly with a hint of gray around the temples, was growing back with astounding speed, so fast that he appeared a completely different person. He seemed thinner, but that only helped to accentuate his wiry, muscular frame and lean, cheetah-like profile. He wore a sports coat over a black T-shirt, which he removed as soon as he entered her room.
“Henri,” she greeted him, suddenly short of breath both by being startled by him and by the excitement of seeing him again. “It’s good to see you.”
“You look good, Jo Ann,” Cazaux said casually. His words made her heart flutter. They were the most caring words he had ever said to her. He stepped toward her, his eyes roaming her body momentarily, and then he said in French, “pi va, Jo Ann. How have you been?”
“pi va bien, merci, Henri,” she replied. “I’m lonely without you, Henri. I wish you would stay with me, but—” “You have already seen otherwise,” Cazaux finished for her. “You know the forces that drive me, Jo Ann. You know that the power that is the instrument of my revenge is stronger than both of us. I have come so that you can tell me more about my future.”