A Bomb Built in Hell

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A Bomb Built in Hell Page 19

by Vachss, Andrew


  Wesley carefully, slowly laid out the two dozen sticks of dynamite the kid had purchased from a construction worker a few weeks ago. After he had screwed in the blasting caps one at a time, he stuck them all together with more of the plastique putty, driving the wires through and around the deadly lump and into the rectangular transmitter. Finally, he gently positioned the unit under a dark-green canvas tarpaulin in a far corner of the first floor.

  Wesley climbed the seven flights of stairs to the top floor. The place was nearly completed. He found himself in a long hall, with doors opening into various rooms. He tried each room, looking across to the Pier with the night glasses until he located the right one. The elevator shafts were already finished, but no cars were installed. There was another staircase at the opposite end of the building parallel to the one Wesley had used.

  Wesley stored all his stuff in the room he was going to use and began to retrace his steps. He tried the portable blowtorch on the steel steps first, but quit after a few minutes, only halfway through the first step. He then pulled a giant can of silicon spray out of his duffel and began to carefully and fully spray each individual step, working his way up the steps backwards until he again reached the top floor. Then he went down the parallel staircase to the first floor and worked his way back up again, repeating the procedure.

  He looked down the stairs and gently tossed a penny onto the step nearest him. The penny slid off as if it were propelled and kept sliding all the way to the bottom of the flight. Satisfied, Wesley then applied the Permabond to each of the two top doors. He used all the remaining silicon to paint his way back toward the entrance of the room he was going to use.

  He walked to the opposite end of the floor and worked his way backward, so that the only clear spot on the floor was in the very middle. Then he stepped inside the door and, without closing it, sprayed an extra-thick coat around the threshold. Finally, he closed the door and applied a coat of the Permabond to the inside.

  It was 3:18 a.m. when he finished. Between Wesley and the ground floor were some incredibly slippery stairs, all separated by doors bonded to their frames.

  Wesley set his tripod way back from the window, only about three feet from the door. No matter how the sun rose the next day, the shadows would extend at least this far back. Wesley would be shooting out of darkness, even at high noon. He went to the window and leaned out. The street below was narrow and empty. It was a long way to the ground.

  Wesley took a long coil of black Perlon 11mm line from his duffel. It would support five thousand pounds to the inch. He anchored it securely to the window frame and tested it with all his strength. He laid the coiled line inside the window and attached the pair of U-bolts to the window frame to make sure.

  Wesley spread a heavy quilt on the floor. On it he placed a bolt-action Weatherby .300 magnum. From all Wesley’s research, this one had the flattest trajectory, longest range, and greatest killing power. He’d tried several rifles set up for the NATO 5.56 mm cartridge, but the Weatherby gave him the best one-shot odds. If he put any one of the Nosler 180 grain slugs into Fat Boy, that would get it done.

  He and the kid had talked it over for hours. The kid wanted Wesley to go for the chest shot, since it was a much bigger target. But Wesley had showed him the new LEAA Newsletter with its successful field-tests of the new Kevlar weave for bulletproof fabric. The publication said the weave would turn a .38 Special at near point-blank range and Wesley figured Fat Boy to be double-wrapped in the new stuff.

  The 2-24X zoom-scope was bolted to the rifle’s top; the whole piece was designed so that the bolt could be worked without disturbing the setting. He put the spotting scope, the altimeter, and a handful of cartridges down on the quilt. No silencer this time; there would only be the one chance, so accuracy ruled over all other considerations.

  Wesley removed the deerskin gloves, and the surgeon’s gloves he wore underneath. His palms were dry from the talc. Wesley took the auger with the four-inch bit and drilled sixteen precise holes in the room—in the walls and in the floor. Into each he put a stick of dynamite. The dynamite was connected with fusing material and the whole network again connected to one of Pet’s zinc-lined boxes. It would have been better to take all the stuff with him, but that would cost time he wouldn’t have. Wesley taped the other eight sticks of dynamite together and wired them to the door, with a trip mechanism set just in case the radio transmitter failed to fire—sooner or later, the cops would be breaking down the door, even if they hit him with a lucky shot as he was leaving the window.

  It was 4:11 a.m. when Wesley finished this last task. None of the metal in the room gleamed—it had been worked with gunsmith’s bluing and then carefully dulled with a soapy film. All the glass was non-glare, and Wesley was dressed in the outfit he had field-tested on the roof. He was invisible even to the occasional pigeon that flew past. Wesley hated the foul birds. (“I never saw a joint without pigeons; fucking rats with wings!” Carmine had said once.) But it would be too much of an indulgence to even think about killing one now.

  Wesley had no food with him, and no cigarettes, but he did have a canteen full of glucose and water and he took a sip just before he went into a fix on the window. He came out of it, as he planned, at 6:30. The city was already awake. Staying toward the back of the room, he took the readings that he needed. The building was one-hundred-and-eighteen-feet high at window level, the Pier was seventeen-hundred-and-fifty feet from where he stood. Wesley stepped behind the tripod and refocused the scope. There was no ship at the Pier, but he swept its full length and he knew he’d have a clear shot no matter where Fat Boy got off.

  Wesley went toward the back of the room again, crossed his legs into a modified lotus, and sat focusing on the window ahead of him, mentally reviewing everything in the room and all the preparations inside. The building outside the one room was blocked off completely. There was no way to go back downstairs anyway, so Wesley’s entire mind was focused in the room and out the window. He mentally reviewed the picture of Fat Boy the kid had clipped from Newsweek. It wasn’t all that good, but Wesley knew the target would wear a ton of medals on his fat chest and would be obviously treated like a big deal when he walked down the ramp to the Pier.

  77/

  The crowd started to assemble well before 10:00 a.m. At first it seemed like it wasn’t going to be such a big event after all; maybe three hundred people total, half of them government agents. But the crowd kept growing, and Wesley saw the white helmets of the TPF keeping people back. Demonstrators ... with the spotting scope, it was easy to read the carefully lettered signs:

  THE U.S. DOES NOT WELCOME TYRANTS!

  KILLER OF CHILDREN!

  LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON!

  “They should be the ones up here in this fucking window,” flashed through Wesley’s mind. He carefully plucked the thought and tossed it into the garbage can of his brain—the part that already contained questions about his mother and the name of the first institution he had been committed to when he was four years old.

  By 11:15, the crowd was good-sized, but not unruly. Traffic was backed up on the West Side Highway as people rubber-necked to see what was going on down at the Pier. The dock, which could accommodate two ocean liners at the same time, was still empty.

  At 11:45, the Mayor arrived in a helicopter with three men who looked like politicians from the ground, but like bodyguards through the scope.

  At 12:05 p.m., the first tugs steamed in, towing the ship. The crowd let out a major cheer, drowning the voices of the demonstrators. Wesley trained the scope on the face of their leader, searching carefully for anything dangerous. But he seemed too beside himself with rage to have planned anything that might get in the way.

  At 12:35 p.m., the gangplank was lowered from the ship to the dock. An honor guard came first, flying the Haitian flag and the American flag in separate holders. The soldiers held their rifles like they were batons. As the TV crews trained their cameras toward the entrance to the gangplank, the rep
orters jockeyed for position at its foot.

  At 12:42 p.m., Fat Boy started to walk down the gangplank. In what must have been a carefully orchestrated move, he stood alone, with bodyguards in front and behind, his fat body contrasting photogenically against the gangplank’s fresh white paint.

  Fat Boy halted—from the way the men behind him halted too, the whole thing must have been rehearsed to death.

  Fat Boy turned and waved to the crowd—a huge roar went up and surrounded him. Wesley felt a lightness he had never felt while working before—a glow came up from his stomach and started to encircle his face.... But it had too many years of breeding and training to compete with. Wesley focused hard on the scope, watching Fat Boy’s face fill the round screen. He watched the crosshairs intersect on Fat Boy’s left eye.

  The crowd was now in a huge, rough semicircle around the base of the gangplank and the noise was terrific. The wind held steady at seven m.p.h. from the west—the tiny transistor-powered radio which picked up only the Coast Guard weather reports gave Wesley a bulletin every fifteen minutes. He had cranked in the right windage and elevation hours ago and stood ready to adjust ... but everything had held ... static.

  Wesley slowed his breathing, reaching for peace inside, counting his heartbeats.

  Fat Boy turned to his left to throw a last wave at the crowd, just as Wesley’s finger completed its slow backward trip—the sharp cccrack! came at a higher harmonic than the crowd-noise. It seemed to pass over everyone’s head as Fat Boy’s head burst open like a rotten melon with a stick of dynamite inside. The screaming took on a higher pitch and the bodyguards rushed uselessly toward the fallen ruler as Wesley smoothly jacked a shell into the chamber and pumped another round into Fat Boy’s exposed back, aiming this time for the spinal area. It seemed to him as if the shots echoed endlessly, but nobody looked in his direction. Still, it wouldn’t take the TPF too long to figure things out.

  Wesley stood up, stuck the two expended shells in his side pocket out of habit, and ran to the window. Without looking down, he tossed the coil over the sill and followed it out. Wesley rappelled down with his back to the waterfront, both hands on the nylon line. Either the kid would cover him or he wouldn’t—he didn’t have any illusions about blasting somebody with one hand holding on to the rope. The bottom of his eyesight picked up the Ford as he slid down the last twenty feet. Wesley hit the ground hard, rolled over onto his side, and came up running for the back door, which was lying open. He grabbed the shotgun off the floor of the Ford, heard running footsteps, and saw the kid charging toward the car with a silenced, scoped rifle. The kid tossed the rifle into the back seat and the Ford moved off like a soundless rocket, as good as Pet ever could have done.

  78/

  The quiet car spun itself loose in the narrow streets of the area. The kid hadn’t said a word—he was watching the Halda Trip-Master clicking off hundredths of a mile. Just before the machine indicated 99/100, the kid slammed the knife-switch home. A dull, booming sound followed in seconds, but the echoes reverberated for another full minute after the Ford had re-entered the West Side Highway and was passing the World Trade Center on the left.

  The Ford sped back to the Slip without seeming to exceed the speed limit. A touch of the horn ring forced the garage door up, and the kid hit it again to bring it down almost in the same motion. The door slammed inches behind the Ford’s rear bumper. Both men sprinted out from the Ford and jumped into the cab, which was out the door and heading for the highway again almost immediately.

  Wesley inserted the tiny earplug and nodded to the kid who turned on the police-band radio under the front seat. It was more static-free than the regular police units and Wesley could hear everything clearly.

  All units in vicinity Pier 40, proceed to area and deploy ... TPF is in charge ... acknowledge as you go in ... repeat: acknowledge as you go in ... unknown number of men spotted in building directly across from pier ... eighth floor, fourth window from left ... shots fired.

  Central ... Central, this is 4-Bravo-21, K? We’re going to try the rear door. Get us some cover, K?

  Four-Bravo-21, 4-Bravo-21: Do not enter the building. Repeat: Do not enter the building. Back-up is on the way. You are under the command of the TPF captain on the scene. Do not enter. Acknowledge.

  Wesley slid back the protective partition between the seats, tapped the kid on the shoulder, “Slow it down, kid—they’re not even at the building yet.”

  The kid did something and the cab slowed to a crawl, although it still appeared to be keeping up with the traffic stream. Wesley kept locked into the police-band. Minutes crawled slower than the cab.

  All units now in position, acknowledge.

  A series of 10-4s followed as each car called in. Central went back to a stabbing in Times Square. Wesley tapped the kid again, and the cab sped up unobtrusively.

  The cab passed by the building on the highway very slowly; traffic was clogged as the drivers bent their necks to see what was happening. The Pier was crowded with people and ambulances. The cab finally came to a dead stop in the traffic. From where they sat, they could almost see into the blown-out window—the rest of the building was completely intact.

  “I guess we got the window blown out in time,” Wesley said. “They never noticed the rope hanging down.”

  “There was no rope hanging down—that’s what I was doing with the piece when you ran into the car,” the kid replied.

  “You fucking shot the rope down?!”

  “It wasn’t hard—black line against a red building, and I had almost a minute to get set up. I figured it would only cost us a second or so and the rope hanging down was the only bad part of the whole thing.”

  “How many shots you have to fire?”

  “I got it the first time—I cut loose as soon as you let go.”

  “You’ve got Pet’s blood in you, alright.”

  Wesley spotted the SWAT team deploying on the roof. He flicked the walkie-talkie to the intercept band.

  “Not a fucking sound in there, Sarge. Want us to go in?”

  “Negative! Stay right there! The Captain’s getting on the horn down here first—maybe the bastards’ll surrender.”

  The cop’s short laugh sounded just like a bark over the speaker. Then the bullhorn’s battery-powered voice blasted the air.

  “You men up there! This is Captain Berkowitz of the Tactical Patrol Force. Throw out your weapons and walk out of the back door one at a time, with your hands away from your bodies. You will not be harmed. The building is completely surrounded—you don’t have a chance. You have to surrender peacefully—don’t make it any worse on yourselves.”

  It didn’t surprise Wesley that only silence came back out at the police from the building. The cop was back on the horn again.

  “Listen, you people ... the man you shot isn’t dead—he isn’t going to die! It’s not a murder rap yet—don’t make it one! Come out without your weapons ... you have thirty seconds.”

  The kid said “Fuck!” softly, almost beyond audibility, but Wesley had been listening for it.

  “He’s dead, kid,” Wesley told him. “The first shot took his face off. The cops are just running a hustle, that’s all.”

  “They said...”

  “Doesn’t mean anything. We’re not the only ones don’t play by the rules. Fat Boy is gone to heaven, I promise you.”

  One of the cops on the roof lobbed in a tear-gas grenade—the wind carried the gas right out of the window of the sealed room and it stayed quiet. A sharp bang! broke the silence.

  “They must of figured they wasn’t going to break in that street door,” Wesley smiled.

  While the TPF Captain kept up a steady stream of threats and promises, the floor of the building rapidly filled with cautious policemen who started up the stairs. They slid back, cursing and frightened. After they reported back to the Captain, he tried the bullhorn again. “All that crap on the stairs isn’t going to keep us out forever, men! You’ve got nowhere to go! Make
it easy on yourselves!”

  A break in traffic opened up and the kid shot for it like any good city hackster. They followed the highway to 23rd Street and doubled back toward the building. Four blocks from the site, they found traffic choked off again—a burly cop was gesturing threateningly at anyone who tried to get by.

 

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