by Walter Wager
He could live nicely on that if he were set free tonight.
Was that what was happening?
Maybe.
The FBI men seemed angry, and the road looked like the Grand Central Parkway—a primary route to New York's major airports. The four prisoners could be on their way to a flight overseas to freedom.
Maybe not.
This ride through the blizzard might be a trick.
After so many years in the treacherous cloak-and-dagger world, Lloyd was instinctively suspicious. The fact that they were on this highway didn't prove anything. The Grand Central Parkway led to many places other than La Guardia and Kennedy.
Where was this convoy going?
Why tonight in such a raging storm?
He might be in mortal danger. His trial was to start in ten days. Maybe he was now being taken from the safety of jail so he wouldn't testify. During two decades with the Agency and four years as an arms and murder merchant, burly balding Arnold Lloyd had lived and learned a lot. He knew many things that certain people would not wish him to reveal.
One of those people could be General al-Khalif, Soraq's devious and messianic president-for-life, who had the scruples of a vampire bat and a long history of ordering assassinations. There were quite a few matters and corpses that Arnold Lloyd's biggest customer might not want mentioned in court.
Or the certain people might be self-protecting executives in the CIA's covert operations division where Lloyd had worked for so long. In today's political climate, those steely bureaucrats could fear what Lloyd might disclose about dozens of sensitive operations and questions. One was whether those executives had known of and tolerated Arnold Lloyd's dealings with the bloody al-Khalif regime.
Nobody, in or out of any government, would mind if Lloyd and a couple of despised terrorists were slain while "trying to escape." Both the public and the press would be delighted.
Maybe all four prisoners would die when something "happened" to their escape plane five hundred miles out over the deep Atlantic. The pilots—CIA mercenaries— would parachute down to be picked up by a waiting ship. Arnold Lloyd would be silenced—permanently.
There could be some other reason for this unexplained and sudden journey from the city, the businessman who sold death realized. For a few moments he was infuriated that he didn't know. Then he repressed his frustration. Whatever the truth was, he could only watch and wait tensely. He had to be ready for anything at any time, Lloyd realized. His survival was at risk every second now.
Two cars back, Ibrahim Farzi was smiling. He was much younger and less cynical than Lloyd, and full of confidence. He, too, had recognized the highway, and had no doubt that a courageous rescue was being mounted. From the moment of his arrest, the twenty-three-year-old Palestinian had known that his comrades in the holy crusade would not forget him.
It wasn't simply blind faith. The slim, boyish-looking Farzi had been taught a lot about his enemies. These barbaric Western countries were immoral and weak. They had caved in again and again when threatened. Materialist, decadent and cowardly, they had shown themselves willing to pay any price to avoid further bloodshed. Then they lied about it, claiming that they hadn't yielded at all.
The FBI men hadn't said a word about what was happening. Farzi had no idea of what his brethren had done to force his release, and he didn't understand why the other three prisoners were also in the convoy. None of that was important. What mattered was that he'd soon be on his way to rejoin the holy war.
"God is great!" Ibrahim Farzi exulted loudly.
That was when a veteran federal agent and regular church-goer named Heggerty, who was seated to the left of Farzi, controlled an extraordinary impulse to punch him in the mouth.
28
IN THE CAB atop the Kennedy Tower, the Port Authority Police lieutenant's radio crackled loudly. Hamilton raised the walkie-talkie and spoke.
"Command Post," he announced.
Then he listened for a dozen seconds. His expression did not change. Only his eyes showed the impact of what he was hearing.
"Where?" he finally asked. "How? No, seal off the room and don't touch anything. Exactly. Not a word about this to anybody—and I mean anybody. Say the pipes are broken. I'll take care of that myself. In five minutes."
He put down the radio.
"I think this is for your guys," he told Malone.
"That bad?"
"Worse," Hamilton replied. "It's just what we don't need tonight. There's a dead priest in a john in the International Arrivals Building. The word is that it looks like homicide."
"Looks like?"
"Two small holes in the left side of the chest—maybe an ice pick. Very neat and precise work. Sounds like a pro to me.
Malone nodded before he asked the question.
"Was he robbed?"
"I'll let you know. I'm heading down there now. On the way I'll tell your people about it—unless you'd rather."
"Be my guest," Malone said.
Hamilton thought about the dead priest again.
"This is unusual," he announced. "We normally deal with pickpockets, cargo thieves, loonies or agitated demonstrators. Now and then a gang hits a payroll or a bonded warehouse. It's been years since anyone was killed at Kennedy."
"And you're wondering why it happened tonight," Malone guessed.
"Of course. I don't believe in coincidences, Captain. This corpse could be connected with the terrorists."
"Maybe," the detective replied with a shrug.
Now Hamilton picked up the radio.
"I won't be gone long," he assured. "Use this if you need to reach me."
Malone accepted the walkie-talkie silently. As Ben Hamilton started down the stairs, Malone suddenly recalled the priest whom he'd pointed his gun at earlier in the night. That gentle cleric had quietly deplored these "violent times." It would be almost too brutally ironic if he were the victim.
Then Captain Frank Malone remembered someone and something else. One of the lethal tools that Willi Staub had used expertly on several occasions was a long thin blade similar to an ice pick.
But cold-blooded Willi Staub did everything for a reason.
What could make this wary, hunted man risk killing a priest in a crowded public building full of heavily armed police?
If this was homicide, the murderer might well be someone else. Staub wasn't the only killer who slew with such a weapon, Malone reminded himself. Then his thoughts leaped to TWA 22 Heavy again, and his heart beat faster. His only child wouldn't be trapped up there on that plane, minutes from death, if his marriage had not failed.
Or had damn-near-perfect Frank Malone failed?
Had he done enough to keep his family together? There they were again: sins of commission and omission. He had lived with an awareness of them and their blood-brother guilt since the third grade in parochial school. At Harvard, he had discussed and debated them earnestly, many times, with his Jewish roommate. Harry Berger, a judge's son who was now one of Hollywood's senior "baby moguls," had insisted that emotionally healthy and sensible people could deal with any sense of guilt rationally.
Sure.
Harry Berger was right, the detective thought.
Rationally, it was illogical to blame himself for the fact that his daughter was in terrible danger.
The problem was that he wasn't feeling quite rational.
Not about her.
Not about Willi Staub either.
29
THERE WAS no warning.
Suddenly the helicopter was being brutally battered in a microburst of fierce turbulence. Clubbed by fists of icy air, the H-65 lurched like a groggy boxer. Then more strong blasts of spinning wind twisted the rotorcraft half around. Straining to keep control, Lieutenant Saldana managed to guide his craft back on course.
But it wasn't over yet.
Ten seconds later, a powerful downdraft abruptly hurled the H-65 toward the ground. The big Aerospatiale, which now weighed more than four tons with its tanks full,
dropped like a boulder.
It fell a hundred feet before Saldana could gasp.
It didn't stop.
Two hundred feet. . . three hundred . . . four hundred.
Ernesto Saldana's stomach knotted in instant reflex, but he didn't panic. The aircraft commander grunted and tried to fight back. With one hand he immediately fed more fuel to the two jet engines to increase their thrust. At the same time his other hand worked the control to adjust the "angle of attack" of the rotors.
But the H-65 kept falling.
Down . . . down . . . the moments felt like minutes.
We're going to crash, Saldana thought. We're probably going to die.
Then the large rotorcraft shuddered, shook and broke out of the murderous microburst. Saldana felt somewhat relieved, but not at all safe. This surging storm could strike again at any moment, from any direction, in at least half a dozen ways. Any one of them could be lethal.
His body reminded him of the danger. His shoulders hurt from the seat harness that had saved him from broken bones when the aircraft plummeted. His stomach muscles were still rigid with tension from the very recent crisis as he looked at the altimeter.
Eighteen hundred feet.
The downdraft had dropped the H-65 a fall thousand feet. Damp with perspiration, Saldana held the helicopter on search course and considered his options. He wanted to find that transmitter, but he didn't wish to die in the process.
He decided not to climb back to twenty-eight hundred feet. A number of big fast airliners were circling nearby in the storm at altitudes between two thousand and four thousand feet. With visibility so poor tonight and no air traffic control radar to help, there was a genuine risk of collision if the helicopter rose again.
He'd take the H-65 even lower.
Fifteen hundred—that ought to do it.
Saldana slowly moved the control forward. Beside him in the right seat, the copilot was cursing. It had nothing to do with the change in altitude. Vincent Babbitt had been swearing steadily for five minutes. The river of obscenities—none of them either original or colorful—had begun well before the microburst nearly killed him. He wasn't aware that he was cursing. The stream of oaths was like some exotic litany, a bizarre tribal chant to appease nameless and terrible gods who might protect him.
Both pilots wore hard plastic flying helmets, brightly colored and equipped with built-in earphones. Saldana had tuned his to the rotorcraft's intercom channel so he might stay in constant touch with his crew as the blizzard pounded the H-65. Babbitt was listening for something quite different. He was looking for it too—urgently.
Leaning forward toward the instrument panel, he was utterly focused on the round glass face of the radio direction finder. Only four inches in diameter, the compact electronic device probably meant life or death for the thousands of people in those airliners.
And perhaps for Vincent Babbitt, too, the copilot thought.
If it worked, this desperately dangerous flight might end soon and the helicopter could return to the safety of its hangar. But if the direction finder didn't locate the jammer quickly, the H-65 would have to continue battling the massive storm—a chilling prospect.
The visual display part of the direction finder resembled a compass. It had a rotating needle that was supposed to point toward the transmitter being sought. When the device detected the transmitter, the crewman operating the finder would hear a signal in his headset. As the search-and-rescue craft flew where the needle pointed and got nearer to the transmitter, the sound in the operator's earphones grew louder.
So far nothing was happening with the needle. There was no sound signal either. Maybe the storm was somehow playing havoc with the machine, the tense young ensign worried. Perhaps the terrorists' powerful jammer was blinding the direction finder with ECM transmissions—electronic counter-measures such as those used to confuse radar scanners.
Or the damn thing could just be broken.
It didn't matter what the problem was, Babbitt reasoned. If the usually reliable DF equipment was not functioning, there could be no hope of locating the jammer and no dishonor in returning to base. They might as well start back now.
Babbitt reached over and tapped Saldana's shoulder. When the aircraft commander turned his head in response, Babbitt pointed at the dormant direction finder and shook his head. The he gestured emphatically with his right hand— twice—toward their squadron's home airfield.
Saldana studied the direction finder soberly for almost fifteen seconds before he spoke into the minimicrophone connected to his helmet. When he realized that the copilot didn't hear him, Saldana hand-signaled Babbitt to switch to the intercom setting. The junior officer complied at once.
"Can you fix it, Vince?" the aircraft commander repeated.
"I don't even know what the hell's wrong with it. I'm a chopper pilot, not an electronics expert."
"There has to be something we can do," Saldana insisted.
"Not us . . . not up here tonight. Maybe God can fix it," the copilot said cynically.
There was a bolt of lightning and thunder boomed. More lightning flashed by only yards from the helicopter. Then Vincent Babbitt swore again.
"Son of a bitch!"
The needle on the radio direction finder had moved.
It was pointing to the northwest.
The startled young ensign wondered what had happened. Was this another form of mechanical malfunction or was the machine performing at last? There was one way to double-check. Babbitt swiftly turned the dial to switch his headset to the direction finder's audio location channel. His eyes widened and beamed five seconds later.
"It's really working!" he exulted. "We've got the sound too. It isn't very loud, but it's there."
"Let's make it louder," Saldana replied with a smile as he turned the H-65 in the direction to which the needle pointed.
Then he increased the fuel flowing to the pair of jet engines. They produced 750 horsepower each, and the standing orders were to fly these rotorcraft at 150 or 160 miles an hour. The outside limit for safe operations was 180. That was the speed at which Lieutenant Ernesto Saldana was now pounding his helicopter through the dangerous storm. And the sound did grow louder.
At 180 miles an hour, the H-65 was closing quickly on the target. It was three, four, maybe five miles at most. Both pilots listened intently as the signal got stronger and stronger. The aircraft comander began to reduce speed.
"Two minutes—max," he said.
It grew still louder. The level of sound was annoying now, but the Coast Guard fliers didn't care.
"One minute," Saldana estimated.
He was wrong. Just forty seconds later they were staring at the direction finder when it happened. Without warning, the needle swung completely around and pointed in the opposite direction.
"Bingo!" Saldana called out triumphantly.
"We did it! Son of a bitch, we did it!" Babbitt celebrated.
As the sound level of the signal in their earphones eased a tiny bit lower, Saldana turned the H-65 in a tight circle. He was heading back to the place where the needle had abruptly spun. That was the site of the terrorists' transmitter. Despite the massive snow and powerful winds, despite the first H-65 that wouldn't fly and the microburst and downdraft that nearly destroyed the second, despite the finder that wouldn't work, despite everything, they had found the jammer.
Now it was time to finish the job.
They had to pinpoint the exact building, and that couldn't be done from eighteen hundred feet in this storm.
"I'm going in closer for a good look," the aircraft commander said as he inched the control forward.
The helicopter descended rapidly. It was down to nine hundred feet by the time it flew over the warehouse that concealed Ito's transmitter. The needle swung around again once more before Saldana guided his craft into another curved course. The H-65 was only five hundred feet above the streets as it approached the warehouse this time.
"They might hear us," Ba
bbitt warned.
"Not in this storm," Saldana disagreed.
As if on cue, a booming barrage of thunder began to fill the night with more than enough noise to cover the sounds of the H-65 engines. Encouraged by this, Saldana took the helicopter down to 350 feet and reduced the airspeed to seventy miles an hour.
With histamines flooding his bloodstream, the tense aircraft commander calculated the risks at near computer speed. There were two major dangers. First, several tall smokestacks and a microwave relay tower rose unpleasantly close to the target. A very small error in flying through here could be fatal.
Second, the terrorists might have human or television camera guards on the roof. If Saldana brought the Coast Guard chopper in too low, they could see it even if they didn't hear it. Once they knew they had been spotted, they might do anything.
But Saldana knew that he had two things to do.
He had to find out what was on top of that building.
Then he must tell the police what he had seen so they might smash in quickly with minimum loss of life in a surprise attack.
There was only one way to examine that roof now, and he had to succeed on the first try. A second, low-flying pass was almost certain to be noticed and understood by the terrorists below. If Ernesto Saldana didn't do this exactly right, a lot of people would die—soon.
He couldn't delay.
The building was directly ahead.
He'd have about three or four seconds over it, and he had to see the roof clearly. Saldana pointed at a switch on the instrument panel to warn Babbitt what he meant to do. As the copilot nodded in comprehension, Saldana pressed the switch. The helicopter's powerful main searchlight instantly stabbed a big bright beam down through the falling snow.
"Everybody check the roof," Saldana ordered as he expertly banked the H-65 and slipped the rotorcraft even lower so all three crewmen could get a better look at the target.
A wire fence, several feet high, ran around the top of the building.
Antennas, complicated-looking, three . . . no, four of them.