“The phone call was made from Lake’s private office in Manhattan,” Hardcastle said. “I turned the information over to Judge Wilkes and the FBI before I came out here. As usual, I haven’t heard a thing. What about other aircraft that Lake and Fell purchased, Agent Lassen? Have you kept track of them?”
“Unfortunately, I dropped the aircraft line when they checked out in my initial investigation,” Lassen replied. “When I matched Lake with the Fort Worth plane, I tried going back to pick up their trails. One I found — it’s one of the smaller bizjets, going through an avionics refit up in Newburgh. So far I haven’t found the rest yet. They still might be legitimate.”
“And they might not,” Hardcastle said. “We’ve got to find those planes.”
“Newburgh might be the place to start,” Lassen said eagerly. “Maybe we can take one of your awesome birds up there. They’re surely a couple of mean-looking choppers.”
“Sounds good,” Hardcastle said. He had his aide Marc Sheehan radio for a CV-22 PAVE HAMMER to pick them up on the hastily prepared helipad on the front lawn. While Sheehan was on the radio, he received another message and gave it to Hardcastle, who turned to Lassen and Harley and said, “Guess what, guys? Judge Wilkes herself is on the way. She wants everyone to stop what they’re doing and wait until her and her team check in on the scene.”
“Well, I think things have just ground to a halt here,” Lassen said. “FBI’s in charge of a terrorist incident, not the Marshals or Secret Service.”
“Do you have enough to arrest Lake or Fell, Agent Lassen?”
“Definitely,” Lassen replied. “You gave me the caller ID with Lake’s number, telling us about Cazaux in this place — that makes him a witness. I’ve circumstantially linked Lake with the aircraft used in two of the bombings.”
“Then I’d suggest you go pick him up,” Hardcastle said. “We can explain things to the FBI later. Besides, you have to make room for Judge Wilkes’ chopper.”
“Gotcha,” Lassen said. He waited until the big white- andorange PAVE HAMMER touched down, then plugged his ears against the noise and trotted off. No sooner had the aircraft roared off out of sight than a small blue-and-white Bell JetRanger zoomed into view, circled the landing zone until a small smoke marker was set out for them, then rapidly touched down.
Judge Lani Wilkes, Director of the FBI, was the first off the JetRanger, and she was ready to explode with anger. Two agents followed her off, both armed with Uzi submachine guns. She didn’t wait for the screech of her helicopter’s turbine engine to subside before laying into Hardcastle: “You’re coming with me, Admiral. You and Agent Harley and Agent Landers there and anyone else who was responsible for this raid.”
William Landers, still wearing his body armor and still carrying his H & K MP5 submachine gun, asked, “Would you like a briefing on the operation before we depart, Judge?”
“Shut up, Bill,” Wilkes interjected. “You know damned well that SOG was involving itself in an FBI-directed investigation, yet you proceeded without my authorization. I’m responsible for all the casualties here, and I can assure you, I’m going to rake you over the coals for each and every one of them. Hardcastle, where was that… that thing, that tilt-rotor thing of yours going?”
“It doesn’t belong to me, Judge Wilkes,” Hardcastle — replied, yawning. “It belongs to the Navy. We borrowed it for this operation.”
“This operation?… This massacre, you mean!” Wilkes shouted. “Where the fuck was that aircraft going?” “Following up on the tip we got this morning.”
“We checked those offices in Manhattan. They look like they’ve been evacuated.”
“We think we know where Harold Lake and Ted Fell might’ve gone,” Deborah Harley said. “Agents of the Marshals Service are going to check it out.”
“I told everyone to stay put,” Wilkes seethed. “The FBI is in charge of this investigation, Hardcastle. You’re interfering. You’re not authorized to conduct any arrests or investigations without my office’s authorization. I’m going to bust all—”
“We think we got Henri Cazaux, Judge,” Hardcastle announced.
Wilkes stopped in midsentence, staring in complete shock first at Hardcastle, then at Landers and Harley, and finally at the line of body bags in front of the mansion. “Where is he?” she asked skeptically, her voice a weak gasp. “Show me.” She turned to one of her aides and said, “Get a P and P satellite ID unit in here and secure this area. Get everyone out of that house. Now! Move it, move it!”
Wilkes followed Harley and Landers over to the body bag with the bullet-shattered body of Henri Cazaux inside, and Landers explained how they made their identification. “It’s not confirmed,” Landers reminded her, “but from my operational notes, one of the bodies we recovered could be him. He was trying to escape in a motorcycle along with three others; we got one of the other riders. Two escaped. State Police and the sheriffs are out looking for them.” He then explained what happened to the fourth rider, and gave a thumbnail sketch of the raid itself.
When he was finished, one of his agents handed Landers a note. “We ID’d the woman killed in the raid,” he said. “Jo Ann Rocci, a.k.a. Jo Ann Vega, address, Newburgh, New York.”
“That’s where the Marshals are headed to see if they can find Lake and Fell,” Hardcastle said. “This place and Newburgh look like Cazaux’s entire U.S. base of operations.”
“I hope congratulations are in order,” Wilkes said as she examined the body, then ordered it to be zipped up and guarded, “but you still violated my procedures. I expected no less from you, Admiral Hardcastle, and I’m very disappointed with the Secret Service and the Marshals for letting themselves be led around by the nose by you, Admiral. Well, this will be your last cowboy stunt, Hardcastle, I promise you. We have a debriefing at the Justice Department, all of you. The Bureau takes charge of these bodies and this crime scene as of right now. Let’s go.”
Stewart International Airport, Newburgh, New York
That Same Time
The roadblocks were still in place, but all cars were no longer being stopped and searched. The limousine driver simply showed the bored rent-a-cop an airport pass, and they were waved in. Things had definitely calmed down here at Stewart International Airport, and the commuter flights were flying again.
To Harold Lake, it made perfect sense — Henri Cazaux abandoned Newburgh, so why not use it? So what if it had State Police, Army, Air Force, and FBI swarming all around it? Evading the authorities was Cazaux’s headache, not his. The presence of all these uniformed men gave Lake great peace of mind.
Of course, being surrounded by his own personal security detail helped. Using a portion of the money he was skimming from the option contract deals he was doing for Cazaux, Lake had hired his own small, well-equipped army and air force. Starting with a new personal secretary — a beautiful statuesque redhead who could take Gregg dictation, type sixty words a minute, and had a Browning 9-millimeter automatic hidden in a holster beside her ample left breast — Lake had a new chauffeur and bodyguard, a new armored Lincoln sedan, inside and outside guards at his East Side apartment, a Gulfstream III jet with a six- thousand-mile range, and a ranch in central Brazil with yet another contingent of guards stationed there.
All this security had cost him one-third of all the money he had skimmed from Cazaux over the past few weeks, but it was well worth it. Henri Cazaux was relentless. Many of these guards were nothing more than trip wires — their quick, silent deaths would hopefully alert the inner guards that Cazaux was on the hunt and closing in. Lake had no illusions about evading Cazaux — he just hoped that the world’s law enforcement authorities and his own security force would get Cazaux before he got too close.