58 Minutes

by Walter Wager

  They couldn't even embrace as they usually did before an operation. There might be a hidden camera. Paco Garcia shrugged, lifted one of the cases and placed it on the front seat of a blue Ford. Juan Garcia deposited the other on the floor of the front compartment of a green Omni. Both cars had four-wheel drive and snow tires. The orders on that too had been precise and unequivocal, and one did not defy his commands.

  He was utterly vicious, Juan Garcia reflected soberly. For a moment the husky Puerto Rican wondered about the others involved in this operation and what they were doing. They had never met. It felt unnatural to fight as part of an army of strangers, but there was no time to dwell on that now. Each of the brothers had almost an hour's drive to his target. The younger brother opened the garage door, and the two cars glided out into the night.

  The man who enjoyed killing was already on his way to the third telephone booth. He had to follow the rules. Taking chances would be stupid. Pausing at a red traffic light, he recalled a Russian proverb: "All the brave men are in prison." The Russians were wrong. Those men were dead. The litany of the U.S. Air Force test pilots had much more truth: "There are old men and bold men—but no old bold men."

  After searching several minutes for a parking space, he found one. Then he walked back three blocks to the booth to make the next call.

  Four rings . . . hang up . . . dial again. Now he was speaking to a swarthy man in the Atlantic Avenue section of Brooklyn where so many immigrants from the Middle East lived. They talked in Arabic, a tongue the man in the telephone booth had learned when he'd been an instructor at a "covert warfare" training camp in Marxist South Yemen. The man he was speaking to had been one of his best students. The brief and guttural conversation ended with another synchronizing of watches.

  The last of this group of calls was to a small warehouse in Queens some two miles from the snowswept phone booth. It was an earnest bespectacled Japanese in coveralls who answered. He was seated on a swivel chair in front of two large metal racks. The three shelves on each were crammed with sophisticated radio equipment and electrical gear. There were also six television sets.

  He was a small man with a large anger. Takeshi Ito, five feet four inches tall and a week from his thirty-first birthday, was an electronics expert on loan from the fanatical Japanese Red Army. His technical skills were crucial to the success of this operation.

  "I'm calling to remind you about the party tonight. It starts at eight."

  "No problem," Ito replied.

  "Good. Dammit, my watch has stopped. What time have you got?"

  Ito looked at the electric clocks on the rack. One ran on wall current and the other was battery-powered. Trained as an electrical engineer, he believed in backup systems for everything. He watched the sweepsecond hand move.

  "It's . . . five forty-one, straight up," he said.

  "Thanks. See you later. Don't be late."

  "I never am," Ito answered truthfully.

  When he heard the click and the dial tone, Ito put down the phone to glance at the video screens. They were as important to his survival as the 9-millimeter submachine gun on the ammunition box at his feet. Connected to television cameras mounted high on the exterior of the warehouse, they provided continuous surveillance of the street out front and the rear alley. He studied the screens for half a minute, squinting to see through the falling snow. Everything seemed quiet and normal outside.

  The man who had telephoned Ito felt exuberant as he walked back to the parked Volvo. The operation was moving forward. Nothing could stop it now. In two hours and nineteen minutes, war would come to the United States.

  It would be both a shock and a lesson to the complacent Americans. They hadn't endured a war in their homeland for more than a century. Their wives and children had felt safe behind two oceans for a long time—a dozen decades.

  That would end tonight.

  They would learn the meaning of fear.

  All the other major powers—Britain, Russia, China, France, Germany, Japan, India and Italy—had been bombed and battered in bloody battle. Now it was America's turn, he exulted silently.

  He patted the grenade in celebration.

  The plan was perfect, the equipment was excellent, the handpicked personnel he'd assembled were ideal for this unique assault. He hadn't told any of them what the real goal was or who was paying for this extraordinary operation. All they knew was that they were liberating political prisoners and each member of the attack group would receive $1 million.

  That part of what he'd told them was true. Most of the rest was a lie, but that didn't matter. They'd collect the $1 million each and disperse to deliver the money to their various organizations to fund their own future operations.

  He'd get a lot more.

  $5 million.

  He deserved it. He had conceived the plan and how to camouflage the real objective. That deception was extremely important to the enormously rich and famous man who was investing some $11 million in tonight's attack. That sum did not bother him. The only thing that counted was that the objective be achieved and in a way that did not point to him.

  In his own field, the man who would get the $5 million was also prominent. Britain's MI5, France's SDECE and "Police National," the American FBI and CIA, West Germany's internal security apparatus, Israel's Shin Bet and Mos-sad, a dozen other intelligence organizations and millions of newspaper readers and television viewers around the world were aware of his violent activities.

  The middle son of a leftist German magazine editor and a plump Austrian schoolteacher had come a long way since he was expelled from Ludwig-Maximilians Universität in Munich for "political hooliganism." He wasn't just another ranting revolutionary student anymore, he reflected as he saw his car up ahead. Even though he wasn't a sports, television or music star, he'd killed enough people to make the media take him seriously.

  He was one of the three most notorious terrorists alive.

  He was feared and "wanted" in many lands.

  He was Willi Staub.

  3

  6:10 P.M. in affluent midtown Manhattan.

  The winds were growing stronger. Erupting like tantrums, gusts swirled the snow on the fashionable East Sixties street into irrational pirouettes. Not being ballet fans, the two young policemen guarding 12 East 65th Street merely stamped their half-frozen feet and hoped that they wouldn't pull diplomatic protection duty again soon.

  As the brass plate on the five-story building announced, number twelve housed the Consulate of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Pakistan meant Land of the Pure, according to Sergeant Schwartz, who had sent these same patrolmen to protect the Soviet U.N. Mission on East 67th Street for two rainy weeks in November. Cops on that assignment had heated guardhouses to shield them from bad weather, but there was a much greater risk of being caught in a riot or a bombing.

  Tonight there was some kind of a party going on at 12 East 65th Street. Cars and limousines had been unloading dozens of people since five o'clock. Stoically enduring the steadily building snowfall, the two red-faced patrolmen could see knots of well-dressed men and women eating, drinking and chatting away cheerfully. Framed in the ground-floor windows, they seemed to be having a good time. It wasn't cold in there. Several of the smiling women were wearing sleeveless cocktail dresses, indicating that it was at least seventy degrees in the big room.

  "Shit," one of the policemen swore softly as another blast of icy air swept in from Central Park half a block away.

  "Shit" the other foot patrolman agreed.

  At that moment, the door to 12 East 65th Street opened. A welcome wave of warmth rushed out and a tall, sandy-haired man followed. Blue-eyed, bare-headed and wearing a Burberry overcoat, he walked with the gait of an athlete. He had been one for more than a decade. For two years, he'd been voted best quarterback in the Ivy League.

  Neither of the young policemen recognized him. But when he paused to fasten the top button of his dark coat, there was something in his eyes that made them feel that
they were being judged. They were. For no reason they could name, both of them stood straighter and nodded in silent salutation.

  For a few seconds, he considered telling them that it was just another reception—duller than most because the conscientious Moslem hosts did not serve hard liquor. Deciding that it would be condescending, Frank Malone simply nodded back and strode east on 65th Street.

  Trying to ignore the snow, he thought about the reception as he walked toward his car. He had nothing against diplomats, but he'd only gone to the party because his job required him to maintain certain lines of communication. Diplomats were no worse than any other bureaucrats. No, the administrators were much more depressing. They were as pompous as the lawyers, Malone thought as he crossed Madison Avenue.

  It was ironic, and he almost smiled. He'd been admitted to both the Harvard and Columbia Law schools, but had not gone. Though he knew many people who had become rich attorneys, Frank Malone could not say that some of his best friends were lawyers. One was—a sophisticated black woman who wrote excellent briefs and even better poetry.

  Aware that the snow could add at least 20 minutes to his ride to the airport, Malone marched on to Park Avenue. Electric bulbs beamed from the evergreens on the divider that separated the north-south traffic, and uniformed doormen outside luxury apartment houses glowed with the serenity of individuals who have a strong union and cast-iron expectations of substantial Christmas gratuities.

  Malone continued east to Lexington Avenue and turned north. When he reached 66th Street, he saw his parked car. Beside it stood a thin young man wearing a jaunty cap, a down-filled short coat, tweed pants and brown cowboy boots. He was trying to unlock the dark-green sedan's front door.

  Malone unbuttoned his overcoat a moment before he accelerated his stride. He stopped five yards away from the man as he'd been taught to do. Any closer could be dangerous.

  "That's my car," Malone said.

  Now he saw the ring of keys in the stranger's hand.

  "You're making a mistake," Malone said calmly.

  The man spun around and opened a large button-knife. The blade was five inches long.

  "You only get one," Malone announced.

  As the car thief rushed forward to stab him, Malone drew his Colt .38 pistol and smashed it against the wrist of the hand holding the knife. It was all one fluid motion—swift, precise and effective. The wrist was broken. Screaming in pain, the thief dropped his weapon but clawed for the gun with his other hand. That frantic effort ended when Malone slammed the Colt against the left side of his head.

  Dazed and gasping, he fell to his knees. His vision was blurred and he heard nothing. The only thing he knew for certain was that he hurt. He didn't feel the blood oozing from the two-inch gash in his temple. He wasn't aware that it was dripping down to stain the snow. Shaking his head and making sounds that were almost animal, he resembled some hybrid man-beast creature from a "mad scientist" movie of the 1940s.

  "Pay attention. I'm only going to say it once," Malone told him.

  Trying to focus, the battered thief peered up at him. It was a look of raw hate.

  "I'm a police officer. You're under arrest."

  Now the groggy man was trying to struggle to his feet.

  "You have the right to an attorney. If you don't have one, you may request that one be provided."

  "You son of a bitch!"

  "Watch your mouth," Malone advised. "Anything you say can and will be used against you."

  "Screw you!" the car thief replied hoarsely.

  "Save your breath. You have the right to remain silent, and I wish you would. I don't have any time to waste tonight."

  Now the man on the sidewalk could see again. His eyes brightened when he noticed the open knife gleaming a yard away.

  "Don't even consider it," Malone said and picked up the weapon by its blade to avoid smudging any fingerprints on the handle.

  A chubby woman walking her Saint Bernard saw him, knife in one hand and pistol in the other. She saw the bloodied man on the sidewalk too. Without blinking, she guided the big dog in a wide circle around them and continued north. Malone closed the knife, wrapped it in a handkerchief and put it in his coat pocket.

  The car thief finally managed to stand. His face was a bitter grimace as he swayed in the gusting snow. The pain was still terrible.

  "You broke my wrist!"

  "It was nothing personal," Malone replied. "Let's go."

  He gestured toward his car with the short-barreled Detective Special. When they reached it, he searched his prisoner for other weapons before handcuffing the man's uninjured wrist to the rear door. Then he unlocked the front door and slid behind the steering wheel to use the two-way police radio.

  The patrol car that he summoned arrived three and a half minutes later, and the pair of uniformed men who got out eyed him with a mixture of respect and curiosity. They had heard about Captain Frank Malone. He was a much decorated hero, the youngest captain in the NYPD and its pistol champion. He was known as a first-class commander, defending his people when they were right and sparing no one who was wrong.

  When the two patrolmen reached his car, Malone slid out and identified himself. Summarizing what had happened, he handed over the cloth-wrapped knife and unlocked the handcuffs.

  "Get him to a doctor as soon as he's been booked," Malone ordered. Then he reentered the green sedan and drove away down Lexington Avenue. The thief began to swear bitterly.

  "What are you cursing about? You're a very lucky man," the taller patrolman said.

  "First I pick a cop's car and then I get my wrist busted. What's so lucky about that?"

  "You're lucky the cop was Frank Malone. A lot of others would have blown you away if you came at them with a blade."

  "You'd be in a goddam body bag right now, Jack," the other radio patrolman agreed.

  That ended the conversation. The car thief said nothing as they led him to their cruiser. He was still silent six minutes later when they herded him into the station house. Frank Malone was less than a mile away, guiding the green sedan onto the 59th Street Bridge that would take him over the East River to Queens.

  4

  ALTITUDE: 39,200 feet.

  Airspeed: 548 miles an hour.

  Flight number: BA 126

  Thundering westward through the blackness some seven and a half miles above the North Atlantic, the big British Airways jet was exactly on schedule. The silver and blue Boeing 747 had left London eighteen minutes late, but skillful flying had closed that gap. Barring unforeseen problems, BA 126 would touch down at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport in ninety-five minutes.

  The flight had gone well thus far. There had been no bumpy turbulence, no difficult passengers complaining about the food or getting drunk, no infants wailing while furious adults tried to sleep, no irritatingly amorous travelers trying to seduce the flight attendants and no heart attacks, diabetic crises or women going into labor. With nearly three quarters of the journey over, almost everyone aboard—crew and passengers—was in fairly good spirits.

  Among the less enthusiastic minority was a graying, patrician-looking man seated up front in the First-Class section. First Class had been Sir Brian Forsythe's natural habitat and life-style long before he became the head of the United Kingdom's mission to the United Nations. The handsome son of a hard-drinking baronet, he knew Britain's elite. He was one of them.

  Like the custom-made clothes he wore, his credentials were inpeccable. He'd won the Latin medal at Harrow, a Distinguished Flying Cross in the Royal Air Force and an "honors" degree in history from Trinity College, Cambridge. His intelligence and "Old Boy" connections weren't the only reasons that he'd later risen swiftly in the Foreign Office. Beneath that elegant manner and upper-class accent, Forsythe had the toughness and practicality of a street fighter. A man of high principle and no illusions, he'd developed into one of the most effective diplomats serving Her Majesty's government today.

  HMG—the concise usage of generations of
British civil servants—usually sent Forsythe where the trouble was. He had never hesitated or resisted. A gentleman did his duty, and did it well. That was the Forsythe code. It had been since the twelfth century.

  He had survived riots in Teheran, an assassination attempt in Cairo, three years of ugly futility in Saigon, Washington's steamy summers and pushy press corps, malaria in East Africa and forty-one months of terrible food and worse weather in Moscow. Shrewd, patient, hard as steel and always pleasant, he'd earned the respect of ally and adversary alike—even the wary Russians.

  After thirty-three years with the Foreign Office, he knew the game well.

  But he wasn't sure that he wanted to play it anymore.

  Someone had changed the game in recent years. It had become vicious and violent, a brutal thing much closer to war than diplomacy. Political murders, terrorist attacks and naked military aggression were replacing international law almost everywhere. Barely sixty hours ago, bloody fighting had erupted in the Near East again. That was why Sir Brian Forsythe was on BA 126 en route to New York for an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council.

  Another orgy of righteous oratory, he thought as he refocused on the speech he was holding. When he reached the last paragraph, he took out his fountain pen . . . paused . . . struck out a phrase . . . and wrote two words above it. Then he finished reading and sighed.

  "Is something wrong, Ambassador?" the tall woman seated beside him asked anxiously.

  "Hardly anything. As usual, Miss Jenkins, you've done a splendid job. I'm fortunate to have such an able special assistant."

  Ellen Jenkins beamed. This soft-spoken woman's expertise in both Soviet and Arab affairs had earned her many commendations during her fifteen years with the Foreign Office, but Forsythe's approval was especially important to her.