Six Seconds to Kill

by Brett Halliday

  Vacationers in bathing suits watched curiously as the new arrivals, all in suits and neckties, poured out of the two helicopters. The instant Crowther stepped onto the loose sand the party began to move, with Crowther himself and two aides packed tightly inside a cluster of soldiers and Secret Service men. Crowther was waving gaily, and some of the vacationers returned the waves and shouted approval and encouragement, while the other crowd, out of sight on the far side of the hotel, bayed angrily.

  A siren howled in the distance. Photographers backed away in front of the moving group, taking pictures. The hotel manager was waiting at the front entrance to shake hands with his guest, but Berger kept everybody in motion.

  “Come on, Mike. Keep up.”

  A local politician and his wife squeezed into the elevator with them.

  “Mr. Crowther, I want to congratulate you on your strong position against Latin American Communism,” the politician declared. “We’ve been too patient with those people. What’s the point in having power if we’re scared to use it? The people of Miami Beach are with you, sir, all the way!”

  This was heady stuff, but Berger interrupted before he could answer.

  “Stay in the car, if you don’t mind, Mr. Crowther. I want to be sure everything’s lined up in the ballroom.”

  “Abe, you’re turning into a fussy old woman,” Crowther complained. “I don’t object to reasonable precautions, but can’t we relax a little? As I understand it, the people up here have all bought tickets.”

  “Which have been on public sale for weeks.”

  Crowther wagged his head wryly at the politician. “Why do we do it? Not for the salary!”

  The elevator doors opened, and they saw a clamorous crowd, bathed in television light. Berger and another Secret Service man stepped out into the confusion. Press photographers spotted Crowther and began taking pictures. Shayne saw Tim Rourke. Catching Shayne’s eye, Rourke shook his head and shrugged. Crowther chatted easily with the politician until Berger returned.

  “All right, Mr. Crowther.”

  The group moved out of the elevator. Crowther reached past the nearest Secret Service man to shake a hand. Everybody here except the media people and the police had paid $6.50 for the privilege of having lunch with him, and they wanted him to realize that in spite of the newspaper attacks, they were behind him. He was exhilarated by the welcome. He saw local friends, and shouldered past the Secret Service men to return their hugs and handshakes, and to kiss their women. The group moved slowly.

  The night before, Shayne had stepped out a circle at the end of the corridor, inside which Camilla would have to stand to make the bullet holes in the opposite wall seem plausible. The television platform had been brought forward, contracting the circle slightly. All three cameras were in action. He looked into the blaze of light.

  Crowther worked slowly forward, approaching the table where ticket-holders had their names checked off and were given lapel badges. The three women who presided at this table were standing, to get a view of Crowther. Like everybody else, they were screaming happily. Shayne was jostled from behind, and a red-faced man tried to knock him out of the way so he could touch Crowther’s hand. Shayne moved him aside.

  One of the women at the table turned gracefully, and the movement reminded Shayne briefly of Camilla Steele. But she was too old. Her face was swollen, and oddly mottled. Shayne was concentrating on his imaginary circle, shading his eyes against the glare of the TV lights. He still saw no one there who looked like Camilla. Crowther, a few feet behind Shayne, was giving his hands-over-his-head gesture, turning completely around. The Secret Service men struggled to keep him moving. Berger swung his elbows, swearing.

  Again something pulled Shayne’s eyes to one side. The woman he had noticed had stepped backward toward the elevators. Her shoulders were tense. Shayne pulled around sharply. But it was impossible. If she fired from there the bullet holes wouldn’t line up. Nonetheless, she raised a scarf she was holding, brought both hands together, and fired through the scarf.

  The scarf flared out and fell away, exposing an automatic pistol equipped with a silencer. Shayne, looking directly at her, saw the recoil, but no one else seemed to notice the shot. She fired twice more, smiling. Then she felt behind her and opened the elevator door, which had been blocked with something to keep it from closing.

  For an instant, alone in the lighted car with the door open, she was vulnerable. Abe Berger had seen her. He had his gun out, his left hand shielding his eyes. Shayne slapped at the gun-barrel. In the same quick motion, almost a reflex, he brought his right fist up hard. Berger was wide open, coming forward. The punch exploded at the hinge of his jaw. His head snapped around. He was unconscious before he hit the floor.

  Crowther watched the elevator door slide shut, an expression of disbelief on his handsome face. He clutched his neck, as though choking. He tried to move forward, clawing out in front of him with one hand. As he turned, Shayne saw that part of his face was shot away.

  He lurched forward and collapsed on top of Berger.

  CHAPTER 12

  Shayne scooped up Berger’s gun, lying on the carpet a few inches from his outstretched hand. As he went backward he worked the slide. The nearest Secret Service man reached inside his coat, but the expression on Shayne’s face froze him in place.

  The disturbance had been confined to one tiny section of the corridor, but ripples of shock and alarm were already radiating outward. Somebody screamed. One of the TV cameras toppled over. The elevator which Crowther and the others had used was still at that floor, with a Secret Service man in the doorway. Shayne stepped in and showed him Berger’s gun.

  “Out. Out.”

  The man looked toward the ballroom.

  Shayne hit him with the gun, gave him a hard push and stabbed the Down button. Tim Rourke, a few feet away, was staring at him.

  “Real bullets. Man, that’s trouble.”

  “Yeah,” Shayne said as the door closed.

  He dropped the gun in his pocket, his face hard and dangerous. He had been fooled, and there was only one person who could tell him how it had been done. That was Camilla Steele. Trouble was a mild word to describe the situation. Berger had had a good shot at Camilla while the elevator’s electronic brain was deciding to close the door. Shayne had interfered. As soon as Berger was conscious again, it would be clear to everybody that Shayne and Camilla, old allies, had planned the shooting together. Camilla had fired the shots and Shayne had made her escape possible.

  No one had rung for the elevator on the lower floors, and it descended directly to the lobby. Shayne stepped out. The lobby seemed normal—more crowded than usual, but as yet no one knew what had happened on the eighth floor.

  Shayne moved quickly, his hand in his pocket. He needed some fast transportation. Outside, the approach to the helicopter was still clear.

  The crowd on Collins Avenue was chanting rhythmically. Here everything was serene; Shayne was two or three minutes ahead of the hue and cry. He headed for the helicopter that had brought him from the airport. As he pulled himself in, the pilot, a young man with fanlike ears and hair redder than Shayne’s own, looked around from his controls.

  “Yeah, want something?”

  Shayne shut the door and said briskly, “Back to the airport.”

  The pilot had seen Shayne as part of the security detail surrounding Crowther. Responding automatically to the note of command in Shayne’s voice, he switched on his engine. The overhead rotors began to revolve.

  “Just by yourself?”

  “Let’s go,” Shayne snapped. “The bastard left his dispatch case on the Jet-Star.”

  “Oh.”

  The beginnings of doubt faded out of the pilot’s face. As the helicopter rose Shayne watched the front entrance of the hotel. The scene was still peaceful. A hundred feet from the ground, the pilot changed the tilt of the blades, hesitated and turned toward Shayne.

  “I don’t want to be chintzy, but I think for my own protecti
on I’d better get the captain to authorize this. They’ve been tightening up lately. I mean, you’re a civilian, right?”

  He reached for the control yoke, and Shayne, stepping forward, hit him with the flat of the pistol, just hard enough to jar him. He fell sideward, his hand going to his head. The helicopter stayed where it was, drifting almost imperceptibly toward the ocean.

  “Let’s get going,” Shayne said quietly.

  “What did you do that for?” He came out of his seat slowly. “Put that gun down, mister, or I’ll be forced to take it away from you.”

  Shayne’s expression hardened, and he brought the gun up between them. “Stop where you are.” The pilot stopped. “Don’t be a damn fool. Sit down and let’s travel.”

  “I warn you,” the pilot said, going into a crouch. “I’m getting my Irish up. You wouldn’t shoot me. You need me to fly the helicopter.”

  “Hold still,” Shayne said in a voice that stopped him again as he started to move forward. “I don’t know how accurate this gun is.”

  He fired. The pilot looked amazed and clapped his hand to his ear. When he looked at his hand he saw blood.

  “The next one goes in your shoulder,” Shayne told him coldly. “After that, we’ll see.”

  Blood was streaming from the lobe of the other’s ear. Twisting, he collapsed into his seat, and in a moment the helicopter was roaring in the direction of the mainland. Glancing down through the paint-spattered side window, Shayne saw two Secret Service men burst out of the hotel. “What’s your name?”

  “Hank McSorley,” the man muttered.

  “I’m Michael Shayne. Christ! People have been hijacking planes at the rate of one a week, and nobody’s had the slightest trouble. And I have to run into the one idiot who believes in protecting government property.”

  “All I wanted to do was go down and get an OK.”

  “Can you get a little more speed out of this, McSorley? I’m in a hurry.”

  “Because Crowther forgot his dispatch case. What crap.”

  “The truth is, I’m being chased. It’s possible that I’ve committed a crime and I want to get to the airport to catch the next flight for Brazil. It’s also possible that I’m right and everybody else is wrong. Take off your shirt. You’re losing blood, and I don’t want you to faint.”

  “I do feel a little—”

  “Come on, come on,” Shayne said without sympathy. “All you lost was the tip of an ear. Worse things happen all the time. Let’s have your shirt.”

  McSorley struggled out of his shirt. Shayne ripped it into strips. Standing behind him, he put on a crude slanting bandage.

  “Now when we get there, you’re going to do what I tell you, aren’t you?”

  “Under duress. Under duress!”

  Harry Montgomery, tower control chief at the International Airport, held up the incoming flights until the brief anti-Crowther demonstration had been completely suppressed. The banner that had flown briefly from the edge of the observation deck was lying in a sad heap below, near a docking gate. Too bad it had been so ineffective, Montgomery thought. He had been rooting for those boys with the black paint to get through so they could splash the people who were arriving from Washington. It was his own personal opinion that the United States had no business backing military despots like Colonel Caldera. As for Crowther, Montgomery had no use for the man at all.

  At the same time, it didn’t pay to fool around in the middle of a busy airport. Luckily he’d had a hunch that something might happen, and he had put all incoming traffic into a holding pattern until he saw that Crowther’s helicopters were safely on their way. Even at the best of times, with all runways open, ceiling and visibility unlimited, a major disaster was never more than a second away. He mistrusted even the tiniest variations from routing, because they disturbed his concentration. Of course the men in the tower cab relied on the sensitive electronic devices all around them, but only an imbecile imagined that machines never made mistakes. It was a human voice, in the end, which told the planes overhead that it was safe to come down.

  While the demonstrators were racing toward the helicopters with their buckets of black paint, Montgomery had crossed his fingers, a gesture that dated back to the days before radarscopes and the beginnings of air transportation. He had kept them crossed until the young men were rounded up and herded back onto Concourse 5. The Jet-Star was moved into a holding area. The taxiways cleared rapidly as departures were resumed. The stacked-up flights were now being talked down. Still Montgomery had an uncomfortable feeling that something was not exactly normal.

  The big Sikorskys were waiting at Gates 63 and 64, but they had been there all morning. He made a circuit of the windows. The observation deck was still crowded, though less so than before. A surprising number of people were staying to give Crowther an enthusiastic send-off after he returned from Miami Beach. The herringbone pattern of cars in the main parking lot had broken. A telephone repair crew was working around an open trench; he hoped nothing had happened to the cable into the city.

  Suddenly soldiers swarmed out onto the apron below Gate 63 and began pouring into helicopters. The radar screens in the tower showed nothing unusual, but Montgomery’s personal early-warning system, located somewhere at the back of his scalp, became agitated immediately. These troops had been held in reserve, awaiting developments in Miami Beach. The helicopter pilots requested clearance to take off. The man at the front console gave them a flight path and an altitude, and presently they were in the air.

  Montgomery continued to move from one window to another. In the cargo area, a mile and a half away in the airport’s southwest corner, two cargo planes had moved in against the loading platforms at W-4, the main warehouse for short-term in-and-out cargo. The tower had no cargo departures scheduled. He told one of his phone men to find out from the warehouse coordinator how soon the planes would be ready, and he resumed his patrol. At the phone desk, the man clacked the disconnect-bar angrily. “Damn line’s out again, Mr. Montgomery.”

  “Try again in a few minutes. It’s not urgent.”

  At one of the side consoles, the operator in charge of east arrivals was calling into his mike, “Bell one-forty, this is Miami Approach Control. I don’t receive you. I don’t receive you.”

  Montgomery caught the note of urgency and turned to watch a Bell helicopter approach from the northeast, too low and too fast. He saw splashes of black paint on its side windows, and then it lifted over the tower and disappeared. At that moment the door of the tower cab opened and a dark-haired boy came in, smiling in embarrassment. He was carrying a pistol in each hand. He was followed immediately by an older man in dark glasses and a tall pretty girl in a white blouse. Both the girl and the man had shotguns. Montgomery took a backward step, crossing his fingers.

  “Continue what you’re doing,” the girl said pleasantly. “You will not be hurt.”

  The army helicopters passed in staggered formation, like four ponderous geese, heading for Miami Beach. And that meant, Shayne knew, that the security of the airport was now in the hands of sixty-odd uniformed guards under the command of Teddy Sparrow, eked out by a few Miami police on traffic duty near the interchange.

  The radio crackled with a warning from the tower that they were entering a closed zone. They were to ascend at once to seven hundred and fifty feet and await landing instructions.

  “Do what they tell you,” Shayne said.

  He was using Berger’s binoculars. Nothing unusual was happening in the terminal area. A black Port Authority sedan, traveling fast on the perimeter road inside the big fence along the southern boundary of the airport, turned in among the warehouses. He followed its progress through his binoculars until it stopped abruptly and a man wearing the black uniform of the security guards jumped out and ran into a warehouse.

  Sweeping the area, Shayne picked up a swirl of activity involving two planes on the loading apron. Several fork-lift trucks worked back and forth between the nearest warehouse and the plane
s, moving large container pallets. He tightened the focus and studied the scene until he realized what bothered him about it. These were not ordinary warehouse workers. They were working too fast.

  “Take it down, McSorley,” he snapped. “Pick an open place in the south parking lot.”

  “Around here we do what the tower says. That way we stay healthy.”

  “Goddamn it—”

  “All right!” McSorley said hastily. “But under duress.”

  They dropped rapidly. The tower radio squawked: “Bell one-forty, maintain elevation. Hold for instructions.”

  McSorley answered, “Approach control, emergency, out of fuel. Request permission to land on parking ramp.”

  He was ordered to use the docking apron near Gate 1. By that time they were already down, on an unoccupied patch of concrete near the pumping station. Shayne leaped out and raced to his Buick. He grabbed up the phone in the front seat and signaled the operator.

  She took a moment to answer. Continuing to call her frequency, he took a flask out of the glove compartment, unscrewed the cap and drank.

  “Shayne,” he said when she came on. “Put in some calls for me. Will Gentry. General Turner—somewhere around the St. Albans. Abe Berger, Secret Service, same place.”

  “I’ve got that.”

  “Latin American guerrillas are raiding the airport. They hold the control tower. Guns being loaded aboard two planes. Get the troops back in a hurry and alert the air force. Fast, baby.”

  He threw the phone onto its cradle and ran for the helicopter. Halfway there he veered toward an outdoor Coke machine, fumbling coins out of his pocket. An instant later a cold Coke clanked into his hand. He opened the bottle while the machine delivered a second, and emptied both bottles as he ran across 20th Street to a gas pump inside the entrance to the big Delta Airlines maintenance facility. He unhooked the hose and began filling the bottles. A mechanic in greasy coveralls came toward him. “What do you think you’re up to, mac?”