‘Yes, but I mean, flying on the Albatross across the Atlantic … ’
Macmillan laughed.
‘Jesus, don’t make it sound like a death sentence, Claire. Remember, I’m the chief engineer on the trip.’
The girl grinned.
‘I suppose it is rather exciting, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah; it was exciting enough as it was, but trust Badrick to throw in a little extra drama. One would think we were back in the 1920s and 1930s racing against rival companies.’
‘Well, I can see how important it is to be the first to make the crossing and prove airships are safe and economically viable.’ Macmillan sipped his coffee.
‘I guess you’ve been reading Samantha’s press handouts.’ She pouted.
‘I’ve been writing them,’ she replied. Then: ‘It will be nice to see England again. How long do you think the Albatross will be there? I mean, we won’t just fly there and then fly back like an aeroplane, will we?’
‘No,’ Macmillan shook his head. ‘According to the schedules we drew up originally, we should be there seven days because there’ll be a lot of checking out to be made after the flight.’
‘Seven days,’ breathed Claire. ‘Where will we be — Heathrow? London Airport?’
‘No, some place called Cranfield, a little aerodrome just north of London.’
‘Will you and I be able to have a few days off?’
Macmillan smiled.
‘I suppose so, why do you ask?’
‘I’d like to show you some of England, Danny — especially Kent where I grew up.’
‘I’d like that a lot, Claire.’
The girl suddenly reached forward impulsively and caught one of his hands in hers.
‘Danny, did you ever read Nietzsche?’
He looked at her in surprise.
‘Nietzsche? No, I can’t say I have.’
‘He once wrote that women can form a friendship with a man very well; but to preserve it a slight physical antipathy would help.’
She paused and gazed directly into his eyes.
‘Well, Danny, I want you to know that I don’t feel any physical antipathy towards you.’
Macmillan stirred uncomfortably.
‘Claire, I value our friendship very much. I don’t want to destroy it.’
‘If our friendship ends, it can never have started.’
‘Claire … ’
She moved forward towards him.
‘Kiss me, Danny … please.’
Conflicting emotions racing through his mind, Macmillan reached forward. The girl’s mouth was soft and warm and opened hungrily under his.
*
For the second time in an hour Samantha Hackerman woke up wondering what had disturbed her. The first time it had been the telephone and Jules Keller had answered it. His conversation had been short and monosyllabic. Now the bed beside her was empty. She squinted into the darkness and then reached out for the bedside lamp and switched it on.
Jules Keller was dressing in the darkness.
‘Where are you going?’ she demanded in a grumpy voice, still sleepy and annoyed at being disturbed. ‘Don’t you realize I have to be in the office at eight o’clock? Hell!’ She peered at the bedside clock. ‘It’s two-thirty in the morning!’
Keller grinned apologetically.
‘I was hoping I would get back before you woke. I didn’t mean to disturb you.’
‘Where in hell are you going?’
‘I have some work to do down at the project site.’
She frowned.
‘At this hour?’
‘Yeah; it’s important. I had these series of equations to work out for Van Kleef and it went clear out of my head until … ’
‘Was that Van Kleef on the telephone earlier?’
Keller hesitated. It had been the Transatlantic Cable Service with an important cable from Geneva.
‘That’s right, Sam,’ he smiled.
‘Damn!’
Samantha Hackerman turned over and snapped off the light.
Chapter Fourteen
Tom Saxon came out of the shower, grabbed a bathrobe and sauntered to the television. He pressed the channel finder until he came up with an all-night programme of old movies. Tense and irritable, he did not feel at all like sleep. The shower had not relaxed him. He needed a drink. He was about to telephone room service when he changed his mind. Maybe not. He had not exactly reached the stage when he was consciously a kamikaze. Still, one drink wouldn’t notice, would it? Then one drink would lead to another and another and … Oh hell! What did it matter, anyway? Again he hesitated as he reached towards the telephone. He knew Carson was watching him and that Maclaren was suspicious. Not that he cared about them but he’d better not foul up at this time. If he was booted out of Anglo-American that would put an end to his flying career … career such as it was. It had to come sooner or later. He couldn’t stand the strain. Better to hang on as long as he could, though. This time he picked up the telephone and when room service answered he ordered a pot of black coffee and some Alka-Seltzer.
As he put the telephone receiver down, he was startled by its immediate ring. With a frown he picked it up. To his astonishment Helen greeted him.
‘I’m glad you’re not asleep, Tom,’ she said. ‘I’m down in the lobby. I was, er, passing by. I want to see you before you go.’
He hesitated.
‘Do you want to come up?’
‘Yes. If that’s alright with you.’
‘See you in a minute.’
A moment later the door buzzer whined. Helen stood there, her face a little tense, but she forced a quick, nervous smile.
‘Hi, Tom.’
He swung the door open.
‘Are you coming in?’ he asked as she made no movement.
‘For a moment,’ she said hesitantly. She brushed by him and he caught the fragrance of her perfume — a musky smell. ‘Opium’ by Yves St. Laurent. Strange how he could remember. He closed the door and motioned her to take a seat.
‘I’ve left Garry and moved in with the Terrasinos for the time being,’ she said.
‘I heard.’
The doorbell buzzed again. It was room service with the coffee and seltzer. Saxon mixed the concoction and threw it back, feeling sick. He reached for the coffee pot.
‘May I have a cup?’
He poured it for her while she loosened her outdoor coat but did not remove it. When he placed the cup before her she made no move to touch it.
‘Tom,’ she said, after what seemed a long, uncomfortable pause, ‘what I’ve come to tell you is that I’ve started to make a few decisions.’
‘Oh?’ He felt a little helpless, as if he had to flow with a situation over which he had no control.
She nodded.
‘The first decision was leaving Garry. I told you before that it had absolutely nothing to do with us. What has happened between us merely threw my problem into a sharper relief.’
He made no comment.
‘Garry and I were good friends once,’ she went on, ‘and we had some fun together. But there was nothing more in our relationship than friendship. For many people it would have been the basis for a good marriage. For me, it was not enough. I didn’t really understand that until I met you in England. Then came all the drama … ’
Saxon stirred uncomfortably, waiting for her to refer to Jan and Tom Junior. She didn’t.
‘Even though we split up, even though we didn’t make it together … well, I should have left Garry then, a couple of years ago. But I was a coward. It takes a lot of nerve to alter your lifestyle suddenly and drastically. I was emotionally exhausted when our relationship came to an end. So I decided on an easy option. I stayed with Garry. I tried to pretend that everything was alright with us. I tried to bury my head in the sand. But you can’t go on living a lie all your life. Something had to give. Our relationship was almost split up when you arrived, only I still had not built up enough courage to make the important st
ep.’
Saxon raised his eyes to hers.
‘Now you have? For good?’
‘Yes. Your coming put a lot of things into a clearer perspective for me.’
‘Does Garry know about us?’
She shook her head.
‘What do you want from me, Helen?’ Saxon asked quietly. ‘I’m pretty loused up, you know.’
‘I know.’ There was sympathy in her voice.
‘Well?’ he prompted, after waiting for a reply.
‘I said that your coming had put things in a clearer perspective for me. By that I don’t mean that I see you as an avenue of escape. No, it’s the reverse.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ He was puzzled.
‘I mean that I am not leaving Garry simply because I think I have a better deal going with you. To leave Garry for you would be no solution. But what I am saying is that I love you, Tom. I would like to make a life with you. However … I can’t.’
He stirred uncomfortably.
‘You have problems and I have problems,’ she continued. ‘We need time to sort them out. I’m going to work on mine. At the same time, though, I want you to know that I love you and that I think that we could possibly have a future together … ’
‘If?’ It was Saxon who conjured the word.
‘If you can lay the ghosts which are haunting you, Tom. It can only be when you’ve stepped off the elevator that’s carrying you down into the pits. You don’t really want to spend the rest of your days as a lush … but that’s where you’re headed.’
He could summon no reaction to her words. He felt mentally drained. Deep inside him, Tom Saxon — the old Tom Saxon — agreed with her, agreed with her every word. Yet he found himself wondering whether he really cared.
‘What I am saying, Tom, is that if and when you’ve laid the spectres of your past, when you’ve stepped off the liquor merry-go-round, I’ll be there. Then, perhaps, we can make it together. Who knows? But it can’t be under the present conditions.’
Abruptly, she stood up.
‘Well, I just thought I’d tell you.’
Buttoning her coat, she walked purposefully towards the door.
Saxon, sitting in the chair, did not move. He sat, gazing into space.
Helen paused at the doorway.
‘And Tom,’ there was suppressed emotion in her voice, ‘for all I’ve said, I hope to God that you can get things together soon, really soon.’
When he glanced up the door was banging shut.
*
Terrasino was still working late in his office. Maclaren had presented him with one hell of a problem: to finalise security plans in time for the Albatross’s take-off. It was an almost impossible task to provide one hundred per cent security cover. Terrasino could not even guarantee a fifty per cent cover until the mad bomber was found. Badrick must be mad himself to let commercial decisions overrule the safety of the airship, its crew and passengers. The only method of frustrating the designs of the psycho would be frequent searches — body searches and searches of the airship. That, in itself, was a near impossibility, for the Albatross was like a gigantic floating city … and it was obviously the saboteur’s home territory. In his anonymity and with his technical knowledge, the mad bomber could roam at will. If he wanted to hide explosives on board he had a million and one places to choose from. The bomber was dictating the ball game. Terrasino turned a baleful eye on the plans of the airship. He cursed Badrick for putting too much responsibility on him.
There was a tap on his door and Parish, one of his security guards, entered. He carried a clip-board.
‘What is it?’ demanded Terrasino irritably.
‘I thought you might like to see the list of people who have checked on board the Albatross for maintenance duty tonight.’
Terrasino frowned.
‘Why should I see that, tonight especially?’
Parish stood hesitantly.
‘Well … ’
‘You have something on your mind, Parish?’ Terrasino encouraged.
‘Usually the duty roster for night work on the ship is listed during the morning, right? And any changes on that list are confirmed by department heads to the security duty officer.’
‘What are you getting at, Parish?’
‘Maybe it doesn’t mean anything in particular, these scientists are a bunch of weirdos anyway, but one of the engineers showed up tonight whose name was not on the duty roster. He said he had forgotten some work which had to be done before Doctor Van Kleef arrived in the morning.’
‘So?’ sighed Terrasino, ‘aside from the bureaucracy of his name not being on the list, what is so goddam suspicious about that?’
Parish bit his lip.
‘It was just the way the guy acted. I was a cop for twenty-five years before I came into security, Mr. Terrasino. You develop an instinct for things which aren’t right.’
Terrasino looked at the man and stroked the side of his nose. He had been in security long enough to respect ‘instincts’, especially from old pros like Parish.
‘Okay, who is the engineer?’
‘Keller, Van Kleef’s assistant.’
‘Keller?’
Keller, with Van Kleef and Nieman, had been one of the first to be checked out by the FBI.
‘What section has he signed in to work on?’
‘Section 5CB.’
Terrasino checked his plan of the airship and identified the area.
‘Okay, I’ll go and have a word with him just to ease your mind, Parish.’ The security chief smiled. ‘I can’t see our mad bomber giving us cause for suspicion like this. The man is too clever.’
‘I just got this feeling,’ replied Parish in an aggrieved voice.
As Terrasino went aboard the airship, through the main companion way entrance, he checked with the security guard there that Keller had not left. Then he made his way up to Deck Level 5. Section CB was towards the rear of the ship, one of the stabiliser units. Most of this level was deserted and only the red running lights lit the now gloomy corridors. Terrasino reached section CB and peered around. No one was in sight. He unclipped his transistor two-way radio.
‘Evans?’
The main companion way guard answered immediately.
‘Are you sure Jules Keller has not left the ship?’
‘No way, sir,’ was the response. ‘This is the only exit open now.’
Terrasino flicked off the radio and frowned. Keller was breaking security rules by signing in to work on one section and then leaving it. He walked along the corridor to the nearest toilet facilities but Keller was not there. He stood for a moment, mystified.
It was the slight noise that caused him to glance up. It had been a shuffling step on the deck immediately above. The corridor in which he stood ended in a spiral staircase leading to Deck Level 6, which contained areas for the fuel systems for the ship’s heating and lighting. It was a restricted area. He heard the sound again. This time he moved forward and cautiously began to climb the stairway.
As his head came level with the deck above, he halted and peered round before climbing on. The corridor was deserted. Something made him reach to his Berns-Martin belt holster and pull out his Walther PPK 7.65 mm automatic. He began to inch his way along the corridor, peering into the side cabins.
Jules Keller was bent over something by one of the control boards in the fuel induction unit control.
Terrasino glanced at what was in Keller’s hand, recognised it and felt a fierce elation.
‘Freeze, Keller!’ he hissed.
Keller’s body tensed.
‘Put down the explosive, gently, then stand up slowly with your hands on your head.’
Keller did as he was told.
Still holding his automatic on Keller’s back, Terrasino unclipped his radio and called Evans.
‘Get a security detail here fast, Deck Level 6CB,’ he snapped.
Then he glanced down at the two sticks of dynamite which Keller had laid on the ground
. By them was a timer and battery.
‘Two steps backward, Keller. Then turn around slowly. After the Westbrooks and Jack Lane my finger is very itchy, so just give me an opportunity to blast you … ’
Slowly, very slowly, Keller stepped backwards and turned around as instructed. His face was white, eyes staring.
‘Terrasino … ’ his voice was dry and harsh. ‘I didn’t kill the Westbrooks or Lane. I wasn’t responsible for the previous bombs. Honest to God, Terrasino!’
‘Yeah?’ sneered the security chief. Again he spoke into his radio. ‘Evans, get Agent Hayes, FBI headquarters. Tell him we’ve caught our bomber.’
‘No!’ protested Keller. He looked desperate. ‘I’m not the bomber. You can’t pin that on me!’
Terrasino gestured to the dynamite.
‘What’s that, Keller? Your usual tool kit?’
‘No, no. I can explain.’
Keller moved a hand in emphasis.
Terrasino swung up the muzzle of his gun.
‘Hold still, dammit!’
Keller snapped his hands back on his head.
Parish and two other guards came hurrying along the corridor. Acting on Terrasino’s orders they seized Keller and handcuffed him. The engineer was silent.
‘Take him down to my office and stay with him,’ Terrasino ordered, as he holstered his gun.
Parish motioned the two guards away and turned, grinning, to the security chief.
‘I just knew the guy wasn’t acting right,’ he said.
Terrasino had dropped beside the explosives and was examining them without picking them up.
‘He hadn’t time to wire them up,’ he murmured. ‘Strange though, this seems a crude construction compared with the previous devices. This was going to be a pretty sloppy job.’
‘Effective enough,’ commented Parish, peering over his shoulder.
‘Get a plastic bag and bring those things down to my office,’ replied Terrasino as his radio buzzed.
‘Evans here. Agent Hayes and Mr. Vambrace are on their way. They’ll meet you in your office in five minutes.’
‘Right.’
Terrasino turned and walked through the silent corridors of the airship. Something was nagging at him. Like most pieces of detective work the tracking down of Jules Keller had been a fluke, a piece of absolute luck, an ex-cop’s reliance on an indefinable instinct rather than a brilliant piece of detection. Well, that was the way it usually happened. Yet, at the same time, Terrasino felt uneasy. Why? Something was wrong. He couldn’t figure out what it was. But something was wrong.
Airship Page 26
