“I don’t know that the forces that propel you are too strong to be overcome, Henri,” Vega interrupted. “I’ve seen many of your futures. You are vulnerable now.” “Vulnerable? How?”
“The forces of good are organizing against you,” Vega said. “There is weakness among your troops. Their resolve is not as strong as yours. You must use your power to keep all those around you in line.”
“I have seen to that,” Cazaux said with a smile. “You shall see.”
“Good,” Vega said. She averted her eyes slightly, as if embarrassed to tell all. Cazaux reached out and grasped her arm, wordlessly ordering her to continue: “The master, he is concerned about your targets,” the woman said. “These small airports, this emphasis on these little companies.”
“I don’t understand, Jo Ann.”
“The dark master has given you an enormous gift, Henri,” Vega said. “Eternal life, power beyond any mortal, the vision, the strength — and you waste it on whatever this stockbroker tells you to attack.”
“He has chosen his targets carefully,” Cazaux said. “I don’t understand all that he does, but the money he earns for us is far beyond anything I’ve ever seen before in my life.”
“Do you think the dark master cares about how much money you make, Henri?” Vega asked. “He has given you a gift much more precious than money. Are you going to waste it on earning a few more dollars?”
“Then what?” Cazaux asked. “You’re my adviser! Tell me!”
She stared at him, said nothing, then they both diverted their attention to the television. A group of men and women were standing in front of the White House for an impromptu press conference: “Henri Cazaux is a menace to American society, and I think it’s time the White House and the Pentagon take off the kid gloves and get serious about stopping this bastard,” the man in the lead said. He was identified by a caption as former Vice President Kevin Martindale. He continued, “So far the White House has put a gag order on their plans on how to deal with this crisis, which claimed thirty-one more victims this morning near Dallas. The American people deserve to be told how the Administration is responding to the crisis.”
“There,” Vega said. “That is your target.”
“What? Those men? I agree they should be executed, but I don’t—”
“I and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are calling for a bipartisan Senate hearing on the terrorist crisis that is paralyzing our country,” another person, identified as Senator Georgette Heyerdahl, said. “What we are demanding is a full-scale military-led manhunt for Henri Cazaux.” “A manhunt!” Cazaux laughed. “Those idiots are incapable of mounting a manhunt for a child, let alone a group of trained soldiers.”
“Congress will enact legislation authorizing full military participation in the hunt for Cazaux,” Heyerdahl continued. “We are asking that the President federalize the National Guard to assist law enforcement agencies to patrol the airports, protect the air defense units, fly along on scheduled commercial flights, and assist in the FBI investigation.” The image shifted to shots of soldiers with Stinger shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles, and then to an aerial shot of the White House.
“There,” Vega said, a smile coming to her full red lips. “That is your target.” Cazaux was staring with complete surprise at the aerial view of the White House and of the Capitol Mall.
The White House? The Capitol? But… But, of course…
“Yes,” he breathed, his chest tightening in anticipation. “Yes, that’s it. No more airports, no more little business run by nobodies.”
Oh yes, he was going to be unstoppable.
“The attack on Dallas-Fort Worth Airport was a complete failure,” Cazaux said later to his assembled staff officers. Almost everyone except Tomas Ysidro remained perfectly still in case any movement might be noticed by their angry commander. He tossed a plastic bag onto the circular glass coffee table before them. “I will not tolerate any more failures from this staff. Is that clear?”
The plastic bag landed on the table with a gut-wrenching splut! and flopped open, but no one dared to touch it — no one except Ysidro, who was sick enough to do just about anything anyone could possibly imagine. Under Cazaux’s stem gaze, Ysidro held the bag up, examined its contents, smiled at Cazaux and nodded approvingly, then reached in and pulled a black, sticky blob out of the bag by a long rubbery tube.
“This belonged to Georges Lechamps, the butthead who hired those two dope-smoking pilots for the Dallas mission, eh, Henri?” Ysidro said, holding the thing up and twirling the tube as if he were carefully studying the thing, although he was really looking to see everyone else’s reaction. Cazaux said nothing, but watched as everyone stared in horror at the squishy black blob that Ysidro was handling and examining. “Well, I guess ol’ Georges’ heart really wasn’t in his work!” Ysidro laughed, letting the now-recognizable mass drop back into the bag.
That was enough for Harold Lake’s assistant, Ted Fell — he barely made it out of the dining room before vomiting in a bathroom off the billiard room down the hall. Harold Lake felt equally as nauseated, but he was glad he could control his stomach, because Cazaux and Ysidro watched Fell run out of the room with utter disgust and disdain.
“I’ll agree, Lechamps paid too much and got two worthless pilots to fly that mission,” Gregory Townsend said, quickly ignoring the blood-filled bag of gore on the table in front of him. “But the mission was important because it pointed out the military’s defense setup. Our field people report that our Airtech was destroyed by a Patriot missile fired from Carswell Air Force Base while the Airtech was less than a thousand feet aboveground. That was a shot from about fifteen miles away; a double missile launch, as I believe all Patriot attacks are done. That tells us that the Patriot missiles alone have extraordinary capability.
“What we learned about the other near-engagement was important as well. The Army let that first unidentified 727 fly right to five miles outside Dallas-Fort Worth Airport and still did not engage — at cruise speeds, that’s less than forty-five seconds to a bomb-release point. Our people saw two F-16 fighters scramble from the Dallas Naval Air Station, and those fighters did not engage either. At least one and possibly several Hawk antiair batteries were within range, and possibly even an Avenger Stinger mobile unit, and yet no one fired on the unidentified 727.”
“You can believe that will not be the case the next time,” one of the other staff officers said.
“The next target will have to be saturated for any attack to be successful,” Townsend summarized. “Multiple aircraft, multiple axes of attack. Follow the flight plan as best as possible, then strike as close as possible to the aerodrome. As we saw with the very first unidentified-aircraft alert in Dallas, the mobile air defense units and the fighters escorting the suspect are not in a favorable position to attack the suspect once he’s on the ground — they still track him, to some extent, but they assume he is not a hostile target when his wheels actually touch ground. We can use that fact to our advantage. Of course, timing and speed are essential.”
“The problem is getting pilots to fly these missions,” Ysidro said. “The money ain’t attracting ’em anymore, Henri — everyone knows it’s a one-way trip.”
“That’s not a problem,” Townsend said confidently. “We have a system that can fly any of our planes by remote control now.”
“It ain’t gonna fucking work, Townie,” Ysidro said. “Just find some cocky slug pilot who wants the money. Stupid pilots will do anything.”