Nelson Demille - [John Corey 2]

by Lions Game(Lit)

  They made small talk for a few seconds. McCoy seemed a little put off by the fact that Bill Satherwaite had dragged along a stranger to their reunion. But, McCoy thought, this was typical Bill—totally clueless, completely without forethought or social skills. He smiled despite the situation and said, "Let's go see some flying machines." He said to Khalil, "You can leave that bag here."

  "If you don't mind, I have a photographic camera as well as a video camera."

  "Fine." McCoy led the way out into the corridor, back through the atrium and through a set of big doors that led to the hangars.

  On the floor of the adjoining hangars were over fifty aircraft from various periods of history, including both world wars, the Korean Conflict, as well as modern jet fighters. Jim McCoy said, "Most, but not all, of these aircraft were made here on Long Island, including some Grumman Lunar Landing modules in the next hangar. All the restorations that you will see were accomplished with volunteer labor—men and women who worked in the aerospace industry here on Long Island, or in commercial or military aviation, who have put in thousands of hours of time in exchange for coffee, donuts, and their names on the wall in the atrium."

  McCoy went on in a tone that betrayed the fact that this was a short tour. He said, "Hanging up there, as you can see, is a Ryan NYP, which was the original sistership of the Spirit of St. Louis, so we've taken the liberty of putting that name on the fuselage."

  They walked as McCoy talked, bypassing many aircraft, which again revealed that this was not the tour that the major benefactors got. McCoy stopped in front of an old, yellow-painted biplane and said, "This is a Curtiss JN-4, called a Jenny, built in nineteen eighteen. This was Lindbergh's first aircraft."

  Asad Khalil took his camera out of his bag and shot a few perfunctory photos. McCoy looked at Khalil and said, "You can feel the canvas if you wish."

  Khalil touched the stiff, painted canvas and remarked, "Yes, I see what you mean. This is too heavy for flight. I will remember that when I send you my donation."

  "Good. And over here is a Sperry Messenger, an Air Corps scout plane built in nineteen twenty-two, and there, in the far corner, are a bunch of Grumman World War Two fighters—the F4F Wildcat, F6F Hellcat, TBM Avenger—" Khalil interrupted. "Excuse me, Mr. McCoy. I sense that time is short for all of us, and I am aware that Mr. Satherwaite would like to see his former fighter aircraft."

  McCoy looked at his guest, nodded and said, "Good idea. Follow me."

  They walked through a large opening into the second hangar, which held mostly jet aircraft as well as space exploration craft.

  Khalil was amazed at all the artifacts of war gathered here. The Americans, he knew, liked to present themselves to the world as a peace-loving people. But it was clear, in this museum, that the art of war was the highest expression of their culture. Khalil did not fault them or judge them harshly regarding this; in fact, he was envious.

  McCoy walked directly to the F-lll, a shining silver, twin-engine aircraft with American Air Force insignia. The F-lll's variable wings were in a swept-back position, and on the fuselage, under the pilot's side, was the name of the aircraft—The Bouncing Betty.

  Jim McCoy said to Bill Satherwaite, "Well, here it is, buddy. Bring back any memories?"

  Satherwaite stared at the sleek jet fighter, as if it were an angel, beckoning him to take her hand and fly.

  No one spoke as Bill Satherwaite continued to stare, mesmerized by the vision of his past. Bill Satherwaite's eyes misted.

  Jim McCoy was smiling. He said softly, "I named it after my wife."

  Asad Khalil stared, recalling memories of his own.

  Finally, Satherwaite approached the aircraft and touched its fuselage. He walked around the fighter, his fingers caressing the aluminum skin, his eyes taking in every detail of its perfect, sleek body.

  He completed his walk-around, looked at McCoy and said, "We flew these, Jim. We actually flew these."

  "Indeed, we did. A million years ago."

  Asad Khalil turned away, giving the impression he was sensitive to this moment between old warriors, but in fact, he was sensitive only to his own moment, as their victim.

  He heard the two men talking behind him, heard them laughing, heard words that brought joy to them. He closed his eyes and a memory of the blur coming toward him now took shape in his mind, and he could see this terrible war machine clearly, belching red fire from its tail like a demon from hell. He tried to block the memory of himself urinating in his trousers, but the memory was too strong, and he let it overtake him, knowing that this humiliation was about to be avenged.

  He heard Satherwaite calling to him, and he turned around.

  There was a rolling aluminum platform with a staircase beside the pilot's side of the fuselage now, and Satherwaite said to Asad Khalil, "Hey, can you shoot us in the cockpit?"

  This was exactly what Khalil had in mind. Khalil said, "My pleasure."

  Jim McCoy went first and climbed the staircase. The cockpit canopy was lifted, and McCoy lowered himself into the weapons officer's seat on the right. Satherwaite scrambled up the staircase, jumped into the pilot's seat, and let out a loud whooping sound. "Yoooweeey! Back in the saddle again. Let's kill some ragheads! Yeah!"

  McCoy glanced at him disapprovingly, but said nothing to spoil his friend's moment.

  Asad Khalil climbed the staircase.

  Satherwaite said to McCoy, "Okay, wizo, we're off to Sandland. Hey, I wish you were with me that day instead of Chip. Fucking Chip can talk the balls off a brass bull." Satherwaite played with the controls, making mock engine noises. "Fire one, fire two." He smiled broadly. "Hell, I can remember the start-up drills as if we did them yesterday." He ran his hands across the cockpit controls, nodding in recognition. "I bet I could do the whole pre-take-off checklist from memory."

  "I'll bet you could," McCoy said, indulging his friend.

  Satherwaite said, "Okay, wizo, I want you to put one in that tent where Moammar is inside fucking a camel." He let out a loud laugh and made more engine noises.

  Jim McCoy looked at Mr. Fanini, who stood on the platform at the top of the stairs. He forced a weak smile at his guest, wishing again that Satherwaite had come alone.

  Asad Khalil raised his camera. He aimed it at the two men in the cockpit, and he said, "Are you ready?"

  Satherwaite grinned into the camera. The flash went off. McCoy tried to keep a neutral expression as the flash went off again. Satherwaite raised his left hand and extended his middle finger as the flash went off yet again. McCoy said, "Okay—" The flash went off again. Satherwaite gripped McCoy's head playfully in an armlock and the flash went off once more. McCoy said, "Okay—" The flash went off again, then again. McCoy said, "Hey, that's enough—"

  Asad Khalil dropped the camera into his black bag, and extracted the plastic bottle that he'd taken from the Sheraton. He said, "Just two more shots, gentlemen."

  McCoy blinked to clear the flash from his eyes and looked at his guest. He blinked again and noticed the water bottle, which did not alarm him, but he also noticed a strange expression on Mr. Fanini's face. In an instant, he realized that something was terribly wrong.

  Asad Khalil said, "So, gentlemen, you are having happy memories of your bombing mission?"

  McCoy did not reply.

  Satherwaite said, "This is a fucking gas. Hey, Mr. Fanini, crawl onto the nose and get a shot of us from the front."

  Khalil did not move.

  Jim McCoy said, "Okay, let's get out of here. Come on, Bill."

  Khalil said, "Stay where you are."

  McCoy stared at Asad Khalil, and his mouth suddenly went dry. Somewhere in the deepest recesses of his mind, he knew this day would come. Now, it was here.

  Satherwaite said to Khalil, "Roll the stairs around and take some shots from the other side. Get a few standing on the ground, too, then—"

  "Shut up."

  "Huh?"

  "Shut your mouth."

  "Hey, who the fuck—" Satherwaite fo
und himself staring into the muzzle of a pistol, held close to his customer's body.

  McCoy said softly, "Oh, God . . . oh, no—"

  Khalil smiled and said, "So, Mr. McCoy, you have already guessed that I am not a maker of canvas. Perhaps I am a maker of shrouds."

  "Oh, mother of God . . ."

  Bill Satherwaite seemed confused. He looked at McCoy, then at Khalil, trying to figure out what they knew that he didn't know. "What's going on?"

  "Bill, shut up." McCoy said to Khalil, "This place is full of armed guards and security cameras. I suggest you leave now, and I won't—"

  "Quiet! I will do the talking, and I promise I will be brief. I have another appointment, and this will not take long."

  McCoy did not reply.

  For once, Bill Satherwaite did not say anything, but a glimmer of understanding began to penetrate his mind.

  Asad Khalil said, "On April fifteen, nineteen eighty-six, I was a young boy living with my family in the place called Al Azziziyah, a place that both of you know."

  Satherwaite said, "You lived there? In Libya?"

  "Silence!" Khalil continued, "Both of you flew into my country, dropped bombs on my people, killed my family—my two brothers and two sisters and my mother—then went back to England, where I presume you celebrated your murders. Now, you are both going to pay for your crimes."

  Satherwaite finally realized that he was going to die. He looked at Jim McCoy sitting beside him and said, "Sorry, buddy—"

  "Shut up." Khalil continued, "First of all, thank you for inviting me to this little reunion. Also, I want you to know that I have already killed Colonel Hambrecht, General Waycliff and his wife—"

  McCoy said softly, "You bastard."

  "—Paul Grey, and now both of you. Next . . . well, I must decide if I should waste a bullet on Colonel Callum and end his suffering. Next is Mr. Wiggins and then—"

  Bill Satherwaite extended his middle finger toward Khalil and shouted, "Fuck you, raghead! Fuck you, fuck that camel-fucking boss of yours, fuck—"

  Khalil put the neck of the plastic bottle over the muzzle of the Glock and fired a single shot at close range into Bill Satherwaite's forehead. The muffled shot echoed in the cavernous hangar as Satherwaite's head snapped back in a splash of blood and bone, then fell forward on his chest.

  Jim McCoy sat frozen in his seat, then his lips started to move in prayer. He bowed his head, praying, then made the sign of the cross, and continued to pray through trembling lips.

  "Look at me."

  McCoy continued to pray, and Khalil heard the words, " . . . the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil—"

  "My favorite Hebrew psalm. For thou art with me—"

  They finished the psalm together, "Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

  When they were finished, Asad Khalil said, "Amen," and fired a round through Jim McCoy's heart. He watched him die, and their eyes met, before Jim McCoy's eyes stopped seeing anything.

  Khalil pocketed the pistol, put the plastic bottle back in his bag and reached inside the cockpit, finding Satherwaite's wallet in the hip pocket of his jeans, and McCoy's wallet, covered with blood, in the breast pocket of his suit jacket.

  He put both wallets in his bag and wiped his fingers on Satherwaite's T-shirt. He felt around Satherwaite's body, but found no weapon and concluded that the man lied too much.

  Khalil reached up and pulled down the plexiglass canopy. "Good night, gentlemen. May you already be in hell, with your friends."

  He came down from the staircase and gathered his two shell casings, then rolled the staircase away, near another aircraft.

  Asad Khalil held his Glock in his jacket pocket, and walked quickly out of the hangar and back into the atrium. He didn't see the guard in the huge expanse, and did not see him outside through the glass doors.

  He walked into the office area and heard a sound coming from behind a closed door. He opened the door and saw the guard sitting at a desk, listening to a radio, and reading a magazine called Flying. Behind the guard, fifteen numbered television monitors showed scenes of the vast museum complex, interior and exterior.

  The guard looked up at his visitor and said, "You guys done?"

  Khalil closed the door behind him, fired a bullet through the guard's head, then walked to the monitors as the guard fell off his chair.

  Khalil scanned the monitors until he saw the one that showed images of the hangar with the modern jet aircraft. He saw changing scenes of the exhibition space, recognizing the rolling staircase, then the F-lll with its canopy down. He also saw images of the theater, the exterior doorways where his car was parked, and various images of the atrium lobby. No one else seemed to be in the building.

  He found the video recorders stacked on a countertop and pushed the Stop button of each one, then extracted all fifteen tapes and put them in his bag. He knelt beside the guard, removed the dead man's wallet, found his shell casing, then left the security office and closed the door behind him.

  Khalil walked quickly back through the atrium, and exited one of the front doors. He pulled on the door behind him and noted with pleasure that it was locked.

  Khalil got into his rental car and drove off. He looked at the dashboard clock. It was 10:57 P.M.

  He set his Satellite Navigator for Long Island MacArthur Airport, and within ten minutes was on the parkway heading north toward the Long Island Expressway.

  He dwelt a moment on the last minutes in the lives of Mr. Satherwaite and Mr. McCoy. It occurred to him that one could never anticipate how a man was going to die. He found that interesting, and wondered how he would act in a similar situation. Satherwaite's final arrogance had surprised him, and it occurred to Khalil that the man had found some courage in the last few seconds of his life. Or perhaps the man had so much evil in him that those last words were not courage at all—but pure hate. Asad Khalil realized that he himself would probably act as Satherwaite had in a similar situation.

  Khalil thought of McCoy. This man had reacted in a predictable way, assuming he was a religious man. Or he had quickly found God in the last minute of his life. One never knew. In any case, Khalil appreciated the man's choice of psalms.

  Khalil swung off the parkway into the eastbound Long Island Expressway. There was not much traffic, and he kept up with the other vehicles, noting his speed on the speedometer's metricscale at ninety kilometers per hour.

  He knew full well that his time was running out—that these double murders would attract much attention.

  The appearance of a robbery was very suspect, he knew, and sometime this evening, Mrs. McCoy would call the police and report her husband was missing and that no one answered the telephone at the museum.

  Her story of Mr. McCoy meeting an Air Force comrade would cause the police to worry far less than Mrs. McCoy was worrying. But at some point, the corpses would be discovered. It would be some time before the police thought to go to the airport to see about the aircraft that Satherwaite arrived in. In fact, if McCoy never mentioned his friend's method of arrival to his wife, it would never occur to the police to go to the airport at all.

  In any case, no matter what Mrs. McCoy or the police did, Asad Khalil had time for his next act of vengeance.

  Yet, as he drove, he felt, for the first time, the presence of danger, and he knew that somewhere, someone was stalking him. He was certain that his stalker did not know where he was, nor did his stalker completely comprehend his intentions. But Asad Khalil sensed that he, the Lion, was now being hunted, and that the unknown hunter understood, at the very least, the nature and substance of what he was hunting.

  Khalil tried to conjure an image of this person—not his physical image, but his soul—but he could not penetrate this man's being, except for the strong force of dan
ger that the man radiated.

  Asad Khalil came out of his trance-like state. He reflected, now, on his trail of corpses. General Waycliff and his wife would have been found no later than late Monday morning. At some point, a member of the Waycliff family would attempt to contact the deceased General's old squadron mates. In fact, Khalil was surprised that by now, Monday evening, no one had telephoned McCoy. A telephone call to Paul Grey would not have found him able to come to the phone, nor would a call to Mr. Satherwaite be answered. But Khalil had the feeling that Mrs. McCoy, aside from her worry about her husband, might be given the additional worry, tonight or tomorrow, of a call from the Waycliff family or the Grey family, with the tragic news of the murders.

  Soon, by tomorrow, he guessed, there would be many telephone calls, answered and unanswered. By tomorrow evening, his game would be drawing to a close. Perhaps sooner, perhaps later, if God was still with him.

  Khalil saw a sign that said REST STOP, and he pulled off into a parking lot hidden from the road by trees. There were a few trucks parked in the big lot, as well as a few cars, but he parked away from them.

  He retrieved Satherwaite's Air Force overnight bag from the rear seat, and examined the contents, finding a liquor bottle, some underwear, prophylactics, toiletries, and a T-shirt, which depicted a jet fighter and the words:

  NUKES,NAPALM, BOMBS, AND ROCKETS—FREE DELIVERY.

  Khalil took Satherwaite's bag and his own bag and walked into the woods behind the rest rooms. He retrieved all his money from Satherwaite's wallet, and the money from McCoy's wallet, which amounted to eighty-five dollars, and the guard's wallet, which contained less than twenty dollars, and put the bills in his wallet.

  Khalil scattered the contents of all three wallets in the undergrowth, and threw the wallets into the woods. He also scattered the contents of Satherwaite's overnight bag, then flung the bag into a thicket of bushes. Finally, he removed the security videotapes from his overnight bag and threw them in different directions into the woods.

  Khalil made his way back to his car, got in, and drove back onto the Expressway.