by Phil Bowie
He stood there breathing hard with adrenaline coursing through him, watching Donny, but there was no movement except shallow breathing. He put the automatic in his left jacket pocket and he found the .45, its magazine, and the ejected cartridge, all of which he put in his right pocket, his hand shaking badly. He righted the coffee table, which now had a cracked leg, and put the grenades on it.
He went over to the footlocker, looking for rope, but he found a roll of duct tape. Better yet. He stood the wood armchair up and heaved Donny onto it, propping him while he carefully taped his forearms tightly to the chair arms, his head lolling slackly on his chest. Then he sat back on the couch, ten feet away, and waited, taking out the .45 and reloading it. He brought Donny’s automatic out and laid it on the table. He was still wearing the thin driving gloves, so he had no concern about leaving fingerprints anywhere.
In a few minutes Donny’s head jerked and he opened his eyes. He moaned and said, “Arm. I think it’s broken.”
“Yes.”
“Why…ah, God it hurts. Why you doing this?”
“A bomb you rigged in a Jeep in North Carolina killed a woman who never even knew what it was all about.”
The thin man’s expression did not register any understanding as the seconds stretched out. Then his features betrayed surprise under the pain. He shook his head convincingly and said, “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, man.”
“I know you did it, Donny. Calzo told me all about it. He didn’t like you. Calzo is dead.”
Donny looked from side to side as though searching for some way out. He licked his lips, squinted up at Hardin, and said, “But that wasn’t supposed to happen. Man, it was a job, you know? I just did what they told me. Just a job.”
“I understand that.”
“Look, there’s money.”
“Where?”
“In the kitchen. Refrigerator, in the back. Almost ten thousand. In a coffee jar. Go look. Take it, man.”
Hardin went in and found the money and stuffed it into his pants pockets, leaving the jar. Then he swept cans and dishes and pots out of the cabinets, strewing them onto the floor. Not looking for anything but trying to make it look like somebody else had been searching the place. Somebody looking for weapons or cash.
He went back into the living area. Donny was struggling desperately against the tape but stopped. Hardin pulled off the bedding and rifled through the dresser drawers. Then he pulled the contents out of the footlocker and threw them onto the floor, finding two more grenades.
He looked around the loft and went back to stand to one side of the armchair, out of reach of Donny’s boots.
Donny moaned again and said, “You get the money, man?”
“There are two ways we can do this,” Hardin said, picking up the M 68 grenade from the coffee table. “I can walk over to the door and take off the clip and pull the pin and throw this back into this room. Or I can give you a chance. Do you want a chance?”
“You don’t have to do this. I just did what I was told. Look, I’ll do anything you want. A guy named Strake ordered that job. You want me to waste Strake for you?” The words were a high-pitched, tumbling plea.
“Do you want a chance or not?”
Donny looked at him with wide terrified eyes. “What…how…how you going to give me a chance?”
Hardin took the duct tape and made a single tight wrap around Donny’s left wrist, leaving a flap across his palm. He removed the other tape from his left forearm. He took the M 68 grenade and slipped off the clip. He put the grenade against Donny’s collarbone and pressed his head down so he was clamping the safety lever with his chin. He held Donny’s head there, pulled the ring pin, and placed the pin on the coffee table.
Hardin said, “Hold the grenade there while you get the tape off and you’ll live.”
“’ait…’ait,” Donny said through clenched teeth. “ ’iss’s nurder…iss…”
“It’s a chance,” Hardin lied. “It’s not much of a chance, I admit, but it’s a better one than you gave the woman in that Jeep, isn’t it?” Then he walked out, locking the upstairs door and the downstairs steel door behind him.
“Jeeeesiss…uh, Jeesiss,” Donny said through his teeth, trying furiously to think, his heart going like crazy.
He worked his little finger under the tape flap, managed to pinch it with his third finger and pulled and it came free a little. Good, good. But he was sweating now and his fingers were slipping. He tried again and a little more came free but it wasn’t going to work. It wasn’t fucking going to work. His face was sweating and his collarbone was hurting and his chin was going numb. Sweat ran down the side of his nose in an itching trickle.
The bed, he thought. If I can get to the bed, kick a pillow off on the floor. Drop the grenade on the pillow. That should keep the impact detonator from going off and give me some seconds. Then kick myself across the bed and down on the other side. The bed was built up with a solid platform underneath it, so it should shield him.
It could work. Had to.
The metal of the grenade was warming against his slick skin. His chin was going more numb. He clamped down harder. Straining his neck muscles.
He set his feet, left foot forward, right foot back under the chair, and carefully stood in an unsteady crouch, lifting all the weight of the chair with his left arm, the right front chair leg knocking against the floor, his right arm on fire, but he was standing. Then, very carefully, he started moving, inching along in the crouch toward the bed.
It was so far away.
Halfway to the bed the grenade slipped and he clamped down even harder and said, “Nooooo…” and then he started moving faster. Got to get to the bed. Got to—
The smooth grenade began sliding and he froze his legs and moved his head down frantically trying to stop it, saying, “Nononono—” but it turned and the safety lever sprang up free in front of his eyes with a little ping and he clamped the grenade for a second longer just below his collarbone and then it squirted out and as he was frozen there in the crouch he watched it fall toward the hardwood floor…
Hardin was parked a block away on the other side of the street, looking backward through his open side window. He saw the flash inside the loft and the windows blossoming out in a bright glittering cloud a fraction of a second before the sound reached him, echoing off of the buildings.
He started the car and drove away slowly.
25
HARDIN CALLED FROM A PAY PHONE.
Duane Kelly answered, “Yes.”
“You’re flying for Louis Strake?”
“That’s right.”
“I have a proposition for you.” He was trying to disguise his voice, speaking slowly and in a lower than normal register. “A good chunk of money in return for a small favor.”
“Who is this? You sound a little familiar.” Kelly was the man Hardin had recommended to Strake as a backup pilot.
“You don’t need to know that.”
“I don’t get involved in any tricky stuff.”
“You did once. But this isn’t smuggling. Nothing anywhere near that risky or difficult. Just a simple favor.”
“But not legal.”
“That depends on how you look at it. Why don’t we meet for twenty minutes and talk about it? You don’t have anything to lose.”
“How much money are we talking about here?”
“Five figures.”
“Just for a little ol’ favor.”
“That’s right.”
“Where did you want to meet?”
“There’s a place near the Teterboro Airport called the Starlight Lounge. Do you know it?”
“Yeah. Used to be a good place to go but not lately.”
“Park as close as you can get to the far back corner of the lot tonight at eleven. Leave your passenger side door unlocked. I’ll get in and we’ll talk. What are you driving?”
“A red BMW rag-top. Brand new.”
“Heavy payments.”
“Tell me about it. But you only live once, you know?”
“Eleven o’clock then.”
Hardin parked in the dark lot at ten-thirty and waited. The BMW showed up at five before eleven and pulled into a slot at the far back corner. There were only half a dozen other cars scattered over the lot. Hardin gave it ten minutes, then slipped out of his car. He had removed the dome light bulb. He was wearing driving gloves and he pulled on a black ski mask. He went up behind the BMW and quickly slid into the passenger seat.
“Dammit, I knew you were coming and you still scared the crap out of me,” Duane said nervously. “What’s the mask for?”
“It’s best for you if you don’t see me.” Trying to disguise his voice, the wool mask helping.
“Already I don’t like this deal.”
“It’s not complicated or dangerous for you. We’ll pay you twenty thousand dollars for a favor. Five right now, the rest after you’ve done the favor. We’ll mail you a key to a storage locker in the Teterboro terminal.” He had decided it might be a good idea to lead Kelly to believe more than one person was involved in whatever was going on.
“It must be a pretty big favor. A little more than introducing you to my sister, I’ll bet.”
“Do you have a backup pilot for Strake’s plane?”
“No. Not yet. I’m supposed to be looking for one.”
“We need you to make copies of the hangar and plane keys and leave them in the FBO pilot’s lounge hidden under the base of the weather TV console; the base is hollow. That’s so you and I don’t have to meet again. We know you take Strake and Montgomery Davis on fairly frequent routine southern flights. We know he usually likes to take off well before daylight. We want a scheduled flight with just Strake and Davis aboard to Georgia, Florida, the Bahamas, or South America. A late-afternoon or very early takeoff, well before dawn, would be best. As soon as a flight like that is scheduled you call me. If I give you the go-ahead, you come down with sudden food poisoning. About two hours before takeoff you call Strake or Davis and say you can’t make it but you know a good pilot who can take over, maybe serve as a backup from now on.”
“What do I give for a name?”
“You tell them Vinny Stratton, who flies Baron and King Air charters out of Baltimore, with two thousand hours in King Airs.”
“Is that you? I swear you’re familiar somehow.”
“Not your concern. You just have to sound very sick and tell them Stratton is in town, available, and competent, and you can send him over to get the plane ready immediately. We need them firmly convinced, and we don’t want to leave them enough time to run any kind of check on Stratton. You call me again when it’s solidly set up.”
“So what’s the rest of it?”
“That’s it. Then you stay in your apartment for at least twenty-four hours so it looks like you’re really sick.”
“I mean why? Why are you doing this?”
“Again, not your concern. Maybe we want to get Strake alone and propose a business deal. Maybe Stratton just needs the job as backup pilot.”
“And maybe you don’t really want to screw my sister. I think I can safely assume Strake isn’t going to be happy about this and he can be a mean mother. What if he decides this is all my fault?”
“He won’t. Don’t worry about that.”
“Suppose somebody like the FAA starts asking uncomfortable questions at some point down the airway?”
“Make up a simple story. You happened to meet this Stratton in some bar the night before the takeoff. He told you he was a King Air pilot and wrote his cell phone number on a napkin. You never checked his credentials; why should you? He’s average height, black hair, about one-eighty. When you took sick you recommended him. End of your story. That’s all you know. You can’t even remember his cell phone number.”
“Why do I think this is going to turn out badly?”
“Once again, it’s not your concern. Will you do it or not?”
He thought for half a minute, looking out across the dark lot, tapping a finger on the wheel. “You say you’ve got five with you?”
Hardin pulled out a plain thick white envelope with a number printed on it and placed it on the dash. “My beeper number is on this. When you call it I’ll call back within twenty minutes. When it’s all set up I’ll put the storage locker key in the mail.”
“So that’s it.”
“Not quite.” He pulled a small recorder out of his pocket along with a folded paper. He handed Duane the paper and a small squeeze light. “I’ve recorded this conversation and the one over the phone. That paper details our agreement. I’d like you to sign it.”
Kelly read through it and said, “Who sees this?”
“Just me unless you try to upset our apple cart. Then Strake’s people, the FAA, the media, everybody.”
“There’s always a catch, isn’t there?” He read the paper, reluctantly signed it, and handed it back. Hardin carefully refolded it and slid it into another envelope.
“Oh, I get it. You want my prints on it, too. That’s pretty devious.”
“Like I said, nobody ever has to see this but me. Don’t worry about it.”
“You know, most of the trouble I’ve gotten into over my life has been because I like high living,” Duane said pensively, caressing the steering wheel. “Maybe I ought to sell this money bucket. Cut up two or three of the charge cards. Move into a smaller apartment.”
“But you won’t.”
“No,” he said and smiled sadly. “No, I guess I won’t.”
Nine days later Kelly called the beeper and Hardin called back in fifteen minutes from a pay phone.
“Did you get the keys?” Kelly said.
“Yes.”
“There’s a flight scheduled for next Thursday. Strake wants to go to the Bahamas. Leaving Teterboro at four in the afternoon. Just him and Davis.”
“That will make the arrival after sunset. It’s not legal to fly a private plane in the Bahamas at night.”
“That depends on who you are and who you know and where you’re going. He’s going to a private island called Blue Coral Cay and he says he’ll take care of the details. The return flight is on Friday afternoon.”
“What about a flight plan?”
“I’m not supposed to file one at all if the weather is VFR. If it’s instrument conditions I’m supposed to file for Jax as the destination. When I’m getting close to Jax I call and change it to Hilton Head or St. Simons and cancel the flight plan, then just turn off the transponder and divert at low altitude for the islands. He said to plan on staying below ten thousand to the coast, then below 2,500 over the water. Pilot controlled lights at the island strip.”
“All right. Set it up.”
They talked again on Thursday two hours before the scheduled flight, Hardin calling back from a pay phone near the airport.
“Did you have any problems?” he asked Kelly.
“No. At least I don’t think so. Since a few details about this flight aren’t exactly legal, Strake wondered how a replacement pilot would take to it. I told him this Stratton really needs some extra money right now because he owes a bundle, and that there are rumors he’s been involved in some pretty tricky stuff before, but that he’s supposed to be a top-notch pilot. I told him it wouldn’t be a problem. I’ll be honest, I tried to make it sound like I don’t really know this guy all that well, to cover my ass. I told him Stratton could swing by here to get the keys and have the plane ready to go on time. Strake wasn’t happy, to put it mildly, but he told me to go ahead and arrange it.”
“Okay. That storage locker key will be in the mail.”
The plan was simple.
Hardin would get to the plane enough ahead of time to hide his parachute in plain sight. The Para-Cushion backpack had been made to serve as a cushion as well, and was at most only two inches thick, that in the lumbar area. With the harness folded around behind it and a tailored piece of sheepskin slipped over it nobody would suspe
ct it was anything other than a custom seat-and-back cushion. The .45 would be in his flight case along with a roll of duct tape, right behind his seat. Not having to file a flight plan simplified things. He would keep inland, fly south, and depending on the local weather, would choose his spot on the sectional chart.
By dusk they would be over sparsely populated southern Georgia and on autopilot. He would allow enough time so he could get out the .45, use it to disarm Davis and Strake, and tape them into their seats. If either one of them tried to fight he would simply shoot. He would disable the radios and transponder by smashing them in with the butt of the .45 in case the men should get loose later.
He would drop down to 5,000 feet and slow the plane. Then, with the course set southeasterly but while still over land and close to his chosen spot, he would drop the air-stair door and jump. The high T-tail would allow an easy exit. He had a small flashlight, a compass, and a knife taped to the chute harness. On the ground, he would get rid of the chute, walk to U.S. 17 or an I-95 interchange, and hitch a ride north. The King Air would fly on autopilot toward distant Africa until it ran out of fuel and then it would begin a long last dive down to the sea.
And Valerie’s death would be avenged.
He stopped only long enough to swing by a mailbox and drop in the envelope containing the key for Kelly, who would find the agreed-on money, right to the dollar. He wore the driving gloves so there would be no prints. He left his old car in the long-term storage lot, walked to the hangar carrying the cushion and his flight bag, and prepared the King Air, pulling it out onto the apron with the electric tow cart and then closing up the hangar.
The plane was as immaculate as ever and already had a full load of fuel. He did a careful walk-around out of long habit. He made sure the cockpit was arranged according to plan, took off the driving gloves, and stood on the pavement waiting near the open air-stair door, watching the planes, mostly light business twins and singles, taking off and landing. He was wearing a captain’s hat, a blue blazer, blue slacks, a white turtleneck, and large aviator transition glasses, now tinted dark in the light of the lowering sun. His beard was neatly trimmed. He slipped a dime-sized wad of cotton in each cheek against his lower teeth to help disguise his voice.