I rose to my feet and removed my jacket and the canvas sack from around my neck. I pitched both over the fence, then clawed and toed my way to the top of the swaying, eight-foot barrier, and jumped down. I landed in soft sand next to a palmetto bush. Only the whispering rustle of palm fronds disturbed by the salt breeze intruded upon the silence.
I recovered the jacket and sack and made my way in the loose, clinging sand bordering a runway. I judged the plane would roll to a stop at the end of the strip if the diminishing wind continued to blow from its present direction. Then I stretched out in the sand with the straggling palmetto bushes screening me from the road. The cover wasn’t as good as it had been outside the fence, but my ability to move rapidly had increased vastly.
The patrolling car — if in fact it was the same one — made one more pass along the perimeter road before fingers of light in the eastern sky alerted me to the advent of action. The plane was supposed to land as soon after dawn as the pilot’s judgment permitted.
The air grew cooler as the breeze seemed to fade even more. A faint odor of decaying seaweed was carried on the light eddies of air which now seemed to be on my left cheek instead of fullface as before, although they weren’t strong enough for me to be sure.
I replaced the canvas sack around my neck and re-buttoned my jacket. I would need both hands free to scramble into the escape aircraft with a minimum of delay. The gradual infiltration of light upon the field had grown sufficiently for me to make out the dark bulk of the field’s administration building to one side of the longest runway. I could see no activity there.
The increasing light also disclosed that the asphalt strips branching off from the principal runway formed a pattern shaped like the letter K. I wondered again if I had selected the correct place to position myself. Conceivably, the pickup plane could land on any of the strips, depending upon surface wind direction. There was nothing I could do except wait and see.
The light had increased to a point where I began to think something had thrown off the planned rendezvous. It seemed to me there was more than adequate light for a plane to land. Then from the direction of the water I heard the distant whine of turbine engines.
A plane flashed low overhead, a golden streak in the first rays of the sun. It pitched up into a steep climbing turn, dropping wheels and flaps in an acrobatic, unorthodox maneuver. It was going to be on the ground before anyone realized it was there. I stood up and waited. I still couldn’t tell which landing strip the pilot intended to use. There was practically no wind at all.
Only when the plane leveled out low in its final glide did I see that it was going to end up at the opposite end of the runway where I had stationed myself. I began to run through loose, damp sand that grabbed at my feet and seeped into my low-cut shoes. The crucifix of the plane hurtled past me, and I heard the screech of tortured tires biting into the asphalt. I swerved onto the runway into an invisible cloud of heat and kerosene fumes, but the better footing permitted me to run faster.
I couldn’t understand why the sound of the jet engines seemed to intensify until I realized I was hearing a second plane. I skidded to a stop on the asphalt. My pursuit of the rescuing jet had brought me almost midpoint of the long runway where the auxiliary strips intersected it, and to my left another aircraft, a single-engine piston type was in its final landing pattern and headed almost right for me.
I had to wait until it touched down and rolled rapidly toward the administration building. I could see heads looking out the side windows of the second plane. I began to run again as a door above the wing of the second plane opened and two women and a man clambered out, followed by a second man who stood on the wing and looked long and hard at the squatty jet at the farthest end of the main runway. A Bahamian businessman home from an all-night party at one of the Out Islands, I decided, and wondering what the strange plane was doing at this private field.
My breath was coming harder as I tried to increase my speed. The runway seemed endless. The man jumped down from the wing of the plane and began to walk quickly toward the jet. His course roughly paralleled my own. He began to run, too, trying to cut me off.
The pickup plane loomed close at hand now, though. I could see movement through its oval windows in the side of the smooth, cylindrical fuselage. Then the door which fit so snugly it was barely discernible was drawn inward. There were no markings on the plane at all.
A light-haired man in a brilliant orange flying suit appeared in the opening. A glance to the side revealed that the pilot of the private plane had unaccountably stopped running. He was staring at a corner of the field where a car I hadn’t noticed before was parked against the wire fence. Three dark figures were scrambling over its chain link barrier.
I raced around the rescuing plane’s jutting wingtip and hurled myself through the open door, almost knocking the man in the orange flying suit off his feet. “One pigeon in the roost, Artie,” he yelled up to the pilot, whom I could see with earphones cocked on his head so that one ear was exposed.
“Just — me,” I gasped. “Move — out — here!”
“Pappy said there’d be two of you,” the copilot said in a doubtful tone.
“No!” I got out with as much volume as I could muster. “Get — rolling!”
“Bumblebees outside, Sam,” the pilot drawled from up forward. “Batten hatches.”
I lurched to my feet as the sandyhaired copilot pulled the opened door shut and threw over the locking lever. Through one of the oval windows I could see the three men who had climbed the fence were halfway across the field. Their right arms were extended and dots of winking yellow light appeared at the ends of them.
“Pour it on, skipper!” the copilot shouted. “The uglies have arrived!”
The plane surged forward, and the copilot grabbed at the back of a cushioned seat as the cabin swerved with the unlocking of brakes. “Grab yourself a pad and buckle in,” he called to me over his shoulder as he strained against the increasing acceleration to make his way to the cockpit.
We were really rolling by the time I clamped a seat belt across my middle. I had a quick glimpse of the private pilot flat on the ground, dodging bullets. Just beyond him on the perimeter road a jeep was making the scene.
I was pretty sure police were in the jeep.
Police wouldn’t charge across an airstrip shooting at an unidentified plane.
So Candy had been right in his insistence that syndicate toes had been tramped on.
Our plane banked until its silvered wing glistened in the sunlight. Far below I could see tiny figures in positions which indicated the three assailants had reversed direction and were running toward the fence and their car.
Then we were out over the water, and I couldn’t see Oakes Field at all.
The force of the acceleration as the plane continued to angle upward forced me back into the deep cushioned seat. In the aftermath I felt dead beat but too keyed up to relax. Candy’s sudden change of attitude had been baffling, and I hadn’t really believed his seeming near terror was justified until I saw the assault wave coming at me over the airport fence. I’d always felt that Candy had steel cables for nerves, and his loudly expressed angry fear had seemed a rank overstatement of the seriousness of the situation until the close call a few moments before had proven him right.
Thinking back, I had to wonder if I hadn’t inadvertently blocked all escape routes for Erikson. I hadn’t mentioned his name, but both Chen Yi and Candy knew I had a partner in police hands. Candy knew it had something to do with a bank.
I had spoken too freely in Candy’s apartment when I was thinking only in terms of the police. I was certain that none of the group on Eurydice Street would run to the police with information, but the syndicate was another matter. Hadn’t Candy remarked that Hermione was a gangster’s girl friend? I wished I knew exactly what I’d said during that brandy-filled night when I felt fairly secure.
If Candy or Chen Yi talked under syndicate pressure, I had made Erikson a syndi
cate target.
It was a thought I didn’t like.
I reached down for the seat lever to incline the seat back. Just as I touched it, an alarm bell sounded in the cockpit, and a red light flashed on above my head. An emergency oxygen mask dropped down and dangled in front of my face. I grabbed for it and then was thrown forward as the pilot suddenly pulled back the throttles and abruptly leveled the plane from what been a steady climb.
The copilot scrambled back into the cabin, a flashlight in his hand. “Don’t crap your pants yet, Mac,” he advised me. “We’ve lost cabin pressure, that’s all. You won’t need that mask unless the skipper decides to go higher to get above a storm ahead of us. Meanwhile I’ll check the door seal and latch.”
I turned to watch him as he brushed past me. I wondered if parachutes were concealed somewhere in the aircraft’s plush interior. The copilot bent close to the fuselage door, then swung open a smaller door at the rear of the cabin. Apparently finding nothing there, he reversed direction and started back up the aisle.
He stopped partway and pushed the flat of his hand against the cream-colored vinyl overhead. Two small perforations marred the smooth interior. He probed with a finger, then inserted it into the break and ripped away the outer fabric. He pulled thick, soundproof padding away until the bare metal skin of the fuselage was exposed. “Damn!” he exclaimed. “We’ve been holed!”
I could see twin punch-outs the size of thimbles about four inches apart. The copilot spun around and stared at the plane’s opposite side. Two ragged slits showed in the vinyl, and when he peeled the soundproofing away, two much larger rents in the metal were exposed, made by tumbling bullets during their exit.
“Is it bad?” I asked. I hoped my voice didn’t reveal the totality of my concern.
My question fell unheeded upon the copilot’s retreating back. Through the open cockpit door I could see him consulting with the pilot, who advanced the throttles again. I noticed, though, that he kept the plane in level flight.
The copilot returned and shoved dangling oxygen masks above each empty passenger seat back into overhead compartments. I fumbled with mine until he took over impatiently. “There’s nothing to worry about,” he said. “This little fat cat will hold together through a lot worse than this, but the bullet holes will keep us from flying above ten thousand feet. Safety regulations prohibit it.”
His tone was accusing, as if I were responsible for the plane damage. And in a way I guess I was. “So we’ll hold at nine thousand, and that means we won’t get you back on schedule,” he continued. “At that altitude we’ll have turbulence and head winds because of the storm I mentioned. We’d planned to top it at thirty-eight thousand feet, but now we can’t. We’ll use twice as much fuel at the lower level, so we’ll radio ahead for a clearance into Patrick Air Force Base for refueling and quick repairs.”
“Can the condition get any worse?”
“Only if one of our wingtip fuel tanks was holed, and there hasn’t been any indication of it on the fuel gauges. All it would mean anyway is that Patrick would be the end of the line for you on this flying carpet. You’d have to contact your office and make other travel arrangements.” He returned to the cockpit.
I had a mental picture of myself trying to call my office and make other travel arrangements. I knew no office to call. Erikson had always handled all that. These jet jockeys might not know it, but they had a passenger until they landed me at Andrews, no matter how long it took.
But I could see another problem on the horizon. A slow flight and a stop at Patrick AFB meant I was going to be late for the 8:00 A.M. rendezvous with Erikson’s man Baker who was to be at Andrews only for ten minute intervals each twenty-four hours. What was I going to do with myself for twenty-four hours while I waited for the next rendezvous interval?
I put it out of my mind. Moments later I fell asleep. Or rather I dozed. I kept being wakened by the pitching of the plane. Over the steady hum of the engines I could hear a new, drumming sound. When I looked out the window, I could see heavy rain blasting against the fuselage. Driblets of water came through the bullet holes overhead. Once a lightning flash so bright it pierced my closed eyelids brought me to full consciousness with a start, but soon I went back to sleep again.
I was awakened fully by the thump of our landing. In contrast to the brilliant sunrise of our takeoff it was a dark gray morning. The plane rolled along a rain-slicked runway and turned off at its end. We bobbed and lurched along for a short distance, then swung onto a hardstand shielded on three sides by high earthern embankments. The plane spun around and stopped. A fuel truck halted alongside with a hiss of air brakes. “This shouldn’t take long,” the pilot said to me as he left the cockpit.
A sunburned mechanic entered the plane when the door was opened. He carried a tool box. He and a companion began hammering and pounding inside the plane and out, creating an unholy, ear splitting racket as they anchored temporary metal patches to the bullet-torn fuselage. It didn’t take them long, and I looked out to see the fuel hose being snaked back aboard the truck. Everyone worked with the speed and precision of a Daytona Speedway pit crew. Not that it made that much difference, since the time we’d lost flying at low altitude and bucking the storm had already made me miss the Andrews Field rendezvous for that morning.
Within minutes we were back in the air, climbing rapidly as we paralleled the east coast of Florida. The sky lightened as we gained altitude. I became conscious of a tugging at my sleeve; I had fallen asleep again. I couldn’t seem to get rested.
The copilot was placing a briefcase in my lap. “We’ll be letting down shortly,” he said. “My instructions were to give you these.” He flicked a hand at the briefcase — an attaché case type — and then handed me two keys. He hesitated a moment before continuing. “Sorry about your buddy,” he said awkwardly. “I wouldn’t have your job for four times the pay.” He went back to the cockpit.
I found that each briefcase latch had its own lock, which accounted for the two keys. After some fumbling I discovered that a half-turn of one key in the left-hand lock released a pin that permitted the right-hand lock to be opened with the other key. Only after that could the left-hand lock be sprung. Erikson had evidently planned for each of us to have a key to this briefcase, which afforded security by ordinarily requiring two individuals to open it.
I propped up the attaché case lid and looked inside. The case held nothing but two plastic cards which were strung individually on metal bead chains. The faces of the cards appeared blank except for an intricate network of threadlike wires imbedded under the slick coating. The letter Q was imprinted on the back of each card and beneath that a nine-digit identification number. The beaded chains were to permit the cards to be worn around the neck. There had evidently been one for Erikson and one for me. Where and when I would use mine was still a mystery.
The briefcase itself had obviously been provided as a receptacle for the material we had obtained from the bank. I transferred the contents of the canvas sack to the briefcase and for the first time had a look at the material the sack had contained. Most of it was loose papers, some so old they had become discolored with age.
There was a half-inch-thick pack of ledger sheets, but the only entries I could understand were the figures. It wasn’t English. I guessed it was either Spanish or Italian. And the figures were written with a European slant including the characteristic short bar drawn through the upright stroke of the 7s.
One thing I couldn’t overlook was the amount column at the right-hand side of the ledger sheets. Few had less than eight digits. Even if the figures represented lira or Swiss or French francs, it was a cinch the carefully preserved records represented some kind of financial dealings in the millions of dollars.
I looked at the rest of the material quickly. Flat cardboard boxes contained reels of film. A few single negatives I held up to the light disclosed groups of men. And there were half a dozen slim, leather-bound, diary-type books in which the writing again wa
s not in English.
I found pages of Italian names while leafing through one of these. In parentheses behind the names were listings such as Banc de Suisse, Banque du Martinique, and Banca la Roma. Letters and numbers following the listings evidently represented some sort of identification, and these in turn were followed by more of the eight and nine digit numbers I’d seen before. It didn’t take a giant intellect to perceive that I was looking at a record of secret bank accounts.
Ever since the semicommando assault wave at Oakes Field, I’d had a growing suspicion what Erikson had been after inside the safe deposit boxes we’d rifled. Now I knew for sure. I closed and carefully locked the briefcase with its incriminating material. The innocent-looking briefcase contained a time bomb for someone or a lot of someones. All I wanted to do was get rid of the thing.
I should have paid more attention to Candy. He was on his home turf and certainly should have known the score, but it just hadn’t sounded reasonable. Unknowingly, I might have put Candy on a tough spot. The syndicate had a long arm, and if they backtracked to Candy, they might backtrack to Erikson. I didn’t like what I was thinking. I wanted to tell my story to someone who could set the wheels in motion to jerk Karl Erikson the hell out of Nassau.
We had been flying in bright sunshine which reflected dazzlingly at times from the wing outside my window. Then the light was obscured as the plane entered a thick cloud bank. It took me a second to realize that we had started descending. A series of squeaks, squeals, and whistles filled the cabin, and the light outside grew more dim.
A gray strip of concrete appeared below us, and the plane eased down upon it so smoothly I didn’t know when the wheels made contact. A low layer of fog capped the field, explaining the semidarkness of the descent. A blur of unfamiliar buildings flowed by my window. These were abruptly blocked out by lines of aircraft all bearing USAF insignia. Then in an open space between the planes there appeared a low, squat building with a sign that said Andrews Air Force Base Operations.
Operation Breakthrough Page 6
