by Stuart Woods
“Sounds good to me, John.”
“Starting today, you’re going to be learning a lot more about the organization,” John said. “And after today, you’re going to be a hero in the group.”
“Hold it right there,” Ham said. “Who knows I’m pulling the trigger today?”
“Only the board. That’s who I was referring to.”
“Do they already know who I am?”
“Yes.”
“Make sure nobody else knows.”
“I understand your concern, Ham, and I’ll do that.”
“One more thing,” Ham said.
“What’s that?”
“Who am I killing today?”
“I don’t believe it,” Harry said. “Not a single Owen in any hotel in Miami Beach?”
“There was an Elizabeth Owen in one, but that didn’t pan out. We’ve called them all,” Doug said. “They all have a search engine on their computers, so it only takes them a few seconds to find out. What are we going to do?”
Harry looked at his watch; it was nearly noon. “We’re going to hope to God we hear from Ham,” he said.
Holly was stretched languidly on a chaise by the Delano’s pool, watching the young go by, when her wrist suddenly vibrated.
She sat up and grabbed the phone. “Ham?”
“One and the same,” he drawled. “Don’t talk, listen: I’m in a hotel called the Savoy, room two-ten. I’m to start shooting in an hour or so, maybe sooner.”
“Who’s the target?” she asked.
“You’re not going to—” Ham stopped talking.
“Ham?”
Silence.
“Ham, talk to me!”
Nothing.
Holly grabbed her stuff and started running. “Come on, Daisy,” she yelled.
Sixty
HOLLY HIT THE DELANO LOBBY STILL RUNNING. People stared at her as she impatiently banged on the elevator button. She finally made it to her room, threw on a skirt and a T-shirt over her bikini, stuck her feet into her sneakers, grabbed her phone, purse, weapon, badge and Daisy and started running again, punching numbers into the cell phone. Harry’s line was busy.
Ham set the tripod up at the bedroom window, which was perpendicular to the street, rather than parallel. John watched him in silence. Ham was still breathing hard from the fright John had given him when he came unexpectedly out of the bathroom while Ham was on the phone to Holly. He had told her what he could, but not the target’s name, which he had not had time to speak.
John moved to the window. “There,” he said, pointing. “The car will slow as it turns into the drive of the Berkeley Hotel, and that’s your moment. The car will begin its turn, and the rear window will face you for that split second. That’s when you fire. You agree?”
“I agree,” Ham said. “It’s perfect, like you said. And look at the palms: no wind; dead calm. We couldn’t ask for more.”
Ham pulled the curtains nearly shut, then fixed the Barrett’s rifle to the tripod. Then he emptied all of the ammunition clips onto the bed.
“What are you doing?” John asked.
Ham got a pair of latex gloves from his bag and slipped them on. “I’m going to wipe every round, every shell casing clean of prints, then the rifle.” He gave John another pair of the surgical gloves. “Put these on and start wiping down the whole room, everything from the phone to the flusher on the john, and I mean everything. I am not going to get caught doing this, now or later.”
“Good man,” John said, pulling on the gloves. “And I guarantee you, Ham, you won’t get caught. Steps have been taken.”
“I think it’s time you started telling me about those steps,” Ham said.
“Okay, here’s how it goes: We’re ready to move, so when you fire, we don’t stay around to gloat. We go directly to the fire stairs, leaving the rifle here, but taking our personal stuff. You’re wearing your disguise, of course. A van will be waiting for us where the fire stairs end in the rear parking lot, where the restaurant garbage is collected. The van takes us straight to Opa-Locka, and we fly out of here, back to Winachobee.”
“Sounds good.” He went to the window, and as he looked out, he saw a flash from a hotel room window across the street. John’s binoculars were lying on the bed; he picked them up and trained them on the window. What he saw froze his blood.
Holly elbowed another woman out of the way and leapt into a cab. “Hotel Savoy,” she said to the driver. “You know it?”
“Sure,” said the driver laconically. “I can be there in fifteen minutes, but no dogs.”
She showed him her badge. “It’s a police dog. Stand on it; I want to be there in five.”
“Look lady,” the driver said, “I don’t care if you show me a badge. I’m not losing my license for you, and I told you, no dogs.”
“You want me to show you my gun?”
“Yeah, sure.” He chuckled.
“Daisy, get in the front seat.”
Daisy hopped lightly into the passenger seat.
“Guard.”
Daisy made a low growling noise and showed her teeth.
The man froze. “You get that dog out of my car!”
Holly got out on the driver’s side, opened his door, grabbed him by the belt and yanked him into the street. She got in, slammed the car into gear, went about ten feet and stopped. “Back seat, Daisy.” She put the car in reverse and backed up swiftly to the stunned driver, who had gotten to his feet. She grabbed him by the front of his shirt. “Where’s the Savoy?” she demanded. “And be quick about it.”
Ham suddenly realized that he was about to be awarded the Lee Harvey Oswald Memorial Prize. What he saw through the binoculars was another set of hotel room curtains, across the street, drawn to leave a gap of a foot like his and, like his, with the muzzle of a Barrett’s rifle just visible. And it was pointed directly at his own window.
Harry’s line was still busy. Holly had reached eighty miles an hour on the boulevard, her emergency lights flashing, one hand on the horn. Hotels were flashing by her window at an alarming rate, and in the distance, she saw a building of, perhaps, fifteen stories, and high atop it was a neon sign reading Savoy. “Yes!” she said. Then a car ahead of her stu pidly swung into her lane. She heard the crunch of metal on metal.
Ham, looking down the boulevard, saw a taxi, moving fast, swing into oncoming traffic, leaving a fender attached to another car, then swing two lanes to the right to get around a UPS truck, then move back into the left lane, horn blaring, lights flashing. A block behind it, a police car had turned on its flashers and was giving chase. Still farther down the boulevard, the street was empty. Something had stopped traffic. As the taxi made a wide turn into the Savoy, Ham looked a quarter of a mile up the empty street and saw a dozen sets of flashing lights, led by a platoon of motorcycles. In the midst of them was a long, black limousine, with flags flying from its front fenders.
“The time is now, Ham,” John said.
Ham turned and looked at him. He was standing as far away as he could get, sweating as if air conditioning had never been invented, and he was holding a 9mm semiautomatic pistol in his hand, pointed at Ham.
“You think you need a gun to get me to do this?” Ham asked.
He turned back to the window, grabbed the Bar rett’s rifle, smacked a clip home and sighted through the scope, his finger resting lightly on the trigger. This was going to make a mess; he hoped no innocent bystanders would get hurt, but there wasn’t a lot he could do about it.
Holly abandoned the taxi under the portico of the Savoy, and, with Daisy running by her side, sprinted through the lobby, ignoring the elevator and racing up the stairs, two at a time, her weapon in her hand.
“Halt, police!” A man screamed at her from somewhere behind. She ignored him and turned a corner. At the top of the stairs she began running, checking room numbers. She was at two-fifty when the cop yelled at her again.
“I’m on the job!” she shouted over her shoulder. “I’m a cop!
Follow me!”
Ham drew a fine bead on his target. It was a perfect setup: no wind, clear air, prominent target. Steady as a rock, he took a deep breath, let out half of it and squeezed off the round. A second later, the sound of an explosion could be heard.
“Did you score?” John yelled, keeping his back hard against the wall.
Ham smiled and stepped back. “See for yourself,” he said. “Don’t worry, nobody’s going to shoot back at us.”
John reached the window, and his eyes grew large.
Across the street, a couple of hundred yards away, dead level with Ham’s window, smoke and flame poured out of another hotel room, where the other Barrett’s rifle had been set up. In the street, the motorcade, instead of stopping, had picked up speed and was tearing up the boulevard at a great rate of knots.
Then their attention turned to the door of the room, from which a loud noise had just erupted. John seemed frozen in place. Ham reached over and plucked the pistol from his hand, and at that moment, Holly and a uniformed Miami police officer both exploded into the room, yelling, “Freeze!”
John threw his hands into the air, and Ham turned and smiled at Holly. Then the police officer shot Ham in the chest.
Sixty-one
HOLLY SWUNG HER PISTOL HARD INTO THE COP’S face, before he could fire again. He fell to the floor, clutching his nose and yelling. Daisy was at his throat.
“Daisy, release!” She grabbed the cop’s pistol from his hand and threw it across the room. “That man is with me!” she screamed at him, then she ran to Ham’s aid.
John sprinted past her and was out the door. Daisy was still straddling the cop, baring her teeth.
Holly let him go and bent over Ham. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Can you talk?”
Ham nodded. “See if it went through,” he gasped.
Holly rolled him on his side. There was an exit wound high on his right shoulder. “Yes,” she said.
“Is there a lot of blood?”
“A fair amount.”
“Then you go get John. He’s on the way to Opa-Locka. He flies a Malibu, tail number one, two, three, tango foxtrot. If he gets to that airplane, he’s gone. He could make Mexico.”
“I’m going to stay with you,” she said.
“Do what I tell you, girl. I’m going to be fine, trust me. It’s not the first time I’ve been shot.”
“All right, then.” She kissed him on the forehead, then ran to where the cop sat on the floor, blood streaming from his nose. She snatched the radio microphone from where it was clipped to his shirt and pressed the button. “Officer needs assistance at the Savoy Hotel, room two-ten. Second man down with a gunshot wound to the chest, needs an ambulance, alert the nearest trauma center. Got that?”
“Got it,” the operator replied. “Who are you?”
Holly handed the stunned cop the microphone and patted his pockets until she found his car keys, then retrieved them. “You explain it to your dispatcher,” she said. “And you take care of that man over there. He’s an FBI agent, and they’ll be here soon.” The cop nodded, and Holly ran.
“Let’s go, Daisy!”
She got the police car started. “How do I get to Opa-Locka airport?” she yelled at the doorman. He gave her directions. She switched on all the car’s lights and sirens and floored it.
With her free hand, she punched the redial button on the phone.
“Yeah?” Harry said.
“You sonofabitch,” she said, “why has this number been busy?”
“Sorry, what do you want?”
“Ham is in room two-ten of the Savoy Hotel with a bullet in his chest. An ambulance is on the way.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know, but I think the president is in town, or was. My guess is he’s headed for Air Force One right this minute. Now listen, John is headed for Opa-Locka, and I’m about a minute and a half behind him in a Miami police car. If he gets to his airplane, he could go anywhere, so you shake it, Harry! Call the tower and tell them not to clear him to take off. Better yet, close the goddamned airport!”
“I don’t understand—”
“Don’t even try, just move!” Holly closed the phone and concentrated on her driving. She wished to hell that she knew what kind of car John was in.
John was in the maroon van. “Just drive at a normal speed,” he said to the driver. “We don’t want to attract attention. How long to the airport?”
“Ten minutes,” the driver said. “Where’s Ham?”
“He couldn’t make it.” John picked up the car phone and called Opa-Locka. “Hi,” he said, “my airplane, a Malibu, N123TF, is parked there. Can you tell me where the lineman put it?”
“Let me see,” the woman said, consulting a list. “It’s to the right, as you exit the terminal. You need fuel?”
“It was fueled last night,” John said. “Please be sure that no one’s blocking me, that I can taxi straight out. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“Okay,” she replied, and hung up.
John sat back and collected his thoughts. Then, from somewhere behind him, he heard a police siren.
Holly saw a sign for Opa-Locka, and she made a high-speed right turn in a four-wheel drift, and rico cheted off a bus, but she kept going. She was weaving in and out of traffic, which wasn’t moving out of her way fast enough.
The van came to a halt outside the terminal. John opened the door. “You disappear,” he said to the driver. “Get word to the board that I made it out. I’ll call as soon as I can.”
“Got it,” the man said, then drove away.
John made himself walk at a normal pace through the terminal building. He went straight through onto the ramp, and the airplane was where it was supposed to be. Then he heard the police siren, close, and he started running.
Holly followed the signs to the ramp gate and slammed on her brakes at the intercom, switching off the siren. She pushed the button. “Police! Open the gate now!”
“What?” a woman’s voice said.
“This is the police! Open the gate!”
The gate began to slide slowly open.
John got the airplane’s door open, got inside and secured the door. No time for a preflight, no time for anything. He got into the pilot’s seat, switched on both magnetos, both alternators and the master switch. He opened the throttle half an inch, pushed forward the mixture control to prime the engine, switched fuel tanks and repeated the procedure. The fuel gauges read full. He hit the starter button; the prop turned for three or four seconds, then the engine caught. Slowly he moved the mixture control all the way forward, then he opened the throttle more. The airplane did not move. He had forgotten to remove the chocks on the nose wheel. “Shit!” he screamed. He applied full power, and the airplane overrode the chock and lurched forward at speed. People on the ramp were running to get out of his way.
Holly spun the tires getting through the gate, then she was on the ramp. She stopped and looked around at the airplanes parked there, searching for a Malibu. She saw two, but they had the wrong registration numbers. Where the hell were Harry and his people? Then she heard the sirens. “Thank God,” she breathed. Then she saw the airplane. It was taxiing out of the ramp area toward the runways, and she could plainly see the number painted, in twelve-inch numerals, on its fuselage. She switched on the siren again and floored the car.
John could hear the siren only faintly over the engine, but that was enough. He shoved the throttle forward. A training aircraft was ahead of him on the taxiway; he slammed on his left brake and turned onto the grass. As he made the turn, he could see the police car coming toward him. No more time, he thought, as he reached another taxiway. No time for a runway, either. He shoved the throttle all the way forward and, steering with his feet, tried to aim the airplane down the taxiway. Another aircraft, a large twin, was coming straight toward him, perhaps a thousand feet away.
The ground controller was yelling over the radio, “One, two, three, tango foxt
rot, stop where you are; aircraft coming opposite direction on your taxiway. Stop now!”
“Yeah, well he better get out of my way,” John said into the radio, maintaining his direction.
The other had obviously heard him on the ground frequency, because he was turning off the taxiway and onto the grass.
John was at twenty knots now, then forty. He needed eighty for takeoff. A corporate jet roared down the runway parallel to him, and the wake turbulence from its wingtips rocked the Malibu, but still John continued his takeoff roll.
Holly drove across taxiways and grass, dodging taxiing airplanes and tearing up turf. John’s Malibu was accelerating down a taxiway ahead, at a right angle to her. She picked a point ahead of him and aimed for it. “Get down, Daisy,” she said, pointing at the floor of the front seat. A collision seemed the only way. Then she realized that his wing was full of one hundred-octane aviation fuel, and she decided she didn’t want to hit that.
John saw the police car coming. He put in twenty degrees of flaps, which would allow him to take off at seventy knots, instead of eighty. He was now at sixty and accelerating. A landing-gear warning horn, which came on automatically at slow speeds and twenty degrees of flaps, began to bleat loudly. John’s hands were slippery on the yoke.
Holly had the accelerator on the floor, and it looked as though she might hit the engine, and she wanted nothing to do with that spinning propeller, so she adjusted course. She also began groping for her seat belt, which she had completely forgotten. Daisy gazed raptly at her from the floor.
Harry’s car rolled onto the ramp, leading a charge of half a dozen FBI cars. Maybe three hundred yards away, he saw a police car headed for a collision with an airplane. He picked up the microphone. “We’re going to need ambulances,” he said. “Send them right now.”