The Lion jc-5

by Nelson DeMille

  Khalil shoved a handkerchief deep into the man's open mouth and said, "Yes, a butcher's saw. You are an animal, and I am your butcher."

  Wiggins tried to defend himself, but both arms and legs were useless. He began shaking his head from side to side, but Khalil grabbed him by his hair, then put the teeth of the saw against the left side of his neck.

  Wiggins let out a muffled scream through the handkerchief as Khalil drew the saw across his neck. He continued his screams as Khalil slowly and patiently sawed into his flesh and muscle.

  An increasing amount of blood began to pour from the open neck wound, and it ran over Wiggins's white shirt and began puddling on the floor of the cabin. Wiggins's movements and sounds grew weaker, though Khalil knew he was still experiencing the pure pain and terror of having his head cut off.

  Khalil kept the saw blade toward the rear of the man's neck to avoid severing the carotid artery or the jugular vein, which would kill Wiggins too quickly. Khalil now felt the teeth of the saw scrape the man's vertebrae. There were unfortunately no more cuts to be made that would cause pain without causing death.

  Khalil had done this once before, in Afghanistan, where a Taliban fighter had instructed him on the finer points of beheading. The victim was a Western aid worker, and the instrument used was a large Afghani knife that Khalil admitted he had difficulty with, especially in severing the neck bones. This was much easier, and therefore more enjoyable for him-though not for Mr. Wiggins.

  Khalil pulled Wiggins's head back by his hair and looked at him. His face was chalky white, and his eyes, though open, seemed dull and lifeless.

  There was no more pleasure to be drawn from this, so Khalil sawed quickly, first severing Wiggins's left carotid and jugular vein, which gushed blood over Khalil's hands and arms. Then he sawed through Wiggins's windpipe, then his right carotid and jugular, until only the man's vertebrae connected his head to his body. Amazingly, Wiggins's heart still pumped blood, but soon it stopped.

  Khalil pulled straight up on Wiggins's hair and sawed through his vertebrae, lifting his head from his body. He held the head by its hair and stared at Wiggins's face as the head swung slightly from side to side. He said, "You are in Hell now, Mr. Wiggins, and my family rejoices in Paradise."

  Khalil threw the saw aside, then stood and carefully placed Wiggins's head in the man's lap. He then took the crowbar and shoved it down into Wiggins's open neck until it was half into his body.

  Khalil left the aircraft and closed the airstairs behind him. He took the time to complete Wiggins's job of putting the two remaining chocks under the other wheel so the aircraft would attract no attention.

  If his information had been correct, this aircraft would sit here until Sunday evening when Mr. Chip Wiggins, who was unmarried and lived alone, was to report back for his scheduled flights. Mr. Wiggins would be late-or one could say early since he had never left the aircraft-and by the time Wiggins was discovered, he, Asad Khalil, would have crossed the continent and crossed more names off his list before anyone even knew he had returned to America.

  Khalil walked quickly across the ramp, passed through the security gate, and within a few minutes he was in his car, driving out of the airport.

  He returned to the Best Western hotel and disposed of his bloody clothing under the bed, where Farid Mansur lay.

  Khalil showered and changed into another sports jacket, trousers, and shirt, then spent a few hours reading the Koran. At 6 A.M., he prostrated himself on the floor, faced east toward Mecca, and recited the Fajr, the predawn prayer in remembrance of God.

  He then collected his luggage, left the room, and exited the hotel through the rear. He put his suitcase and duffel bag in the trunk and his overnight bag on the passenger seat and made the ten-minute drive back to the airport.

  There was more activity at this hour, and Khalil parked in a space near Sterling Air Charters. He gathered his luggage, locked the car, and walked into the Sterling office.

  A young man looked up from his desk and inquired, "Can I help you, sir?"

  Khalil replied, "I am Mr. Demetrios, and I have reserved a charter flight to New York."

  The young man stood and replied, "Yes, sir. Your billing information is here and ready, the pilots are here and ready, and the aircraft is ready. We can take off anytime you're ready."

  Khalil replied, "I am ready."

  PART III

  Upstate New York

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Skydiving.

  I've done a lot of stupid things in my life, and it would be hard for me to list them in order of stupidity. Except for Number One. Skydiving. What was I thinking? And I couldn't even blame this one on my dick.

  But I could blame my wonderful wife, Kate. When I married her three years ago, I didn't know she had once been a skydiver. And when she confessed this to me about six months ago, I thought she said "streetwalker," which I could forgive. What I can't forgive is her getting me to agree to take up this so-called sport.

  So, here we were-Mr. and Mrs. John Corey-at Sullivan County Airport, which is basically in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York, a long way from my Manhattan turf. If you're into nature and stuff, the Catskill Mountains look nice, and it was a beautiful Sunday in May with clear skies and temperatures in the mid-sixties. Most important for what lay ahead, it was a nearly windless day; a perfect day to jump out of an airplane. Does it get better than this?

  Kate, looking good in a silver jumpsuit, said to me, "I'm excited."

  "Good. Let's go back to the motel."

  "This is my first time jumping from a Douglas DC-7B," she said.

  "Me too," I confessed.

  "This is a fabulous addition to our jumper's logbook."

  "Fabulous."

  "This is the last flying DC-7B in the world."

  "I'm not surprised." I looked at the huge, old four-engine propeller aircraft taking up most of the blacktop ramp. It had apparently never been painted, except for an orange lightning bolt running along the fuselage, nose to tail. The bare aluminum had taken on a blue-gray hue, sort of like an old coffee pot. To add to the coffee pot image, all the windows of this former luxury airliner had been covered with aluminum-except, of course, the cockpit windshield, which I guess could be thought of as the little glass percolator thing… well, anyway, the plane looked like a piece of crap. I asked my wife, "How old is that thing?"

  "I think it's older than you." She added, "It's a piece of history. Like you."

  Kate is fifteen years younger than me, and when you marry a woman that much younger, the age difference comes up now and then, like now when she continued, "I'm sure you remember these planes."

  In fact, I had a vague memory of seeing this kind of aircraft when I went to Idlewild-now JFK-with my parents to see people off. They used to have these observation decks, pre-terrorism, and you'd stand there and wave. Huge thrill. I reminisced aloud and said, "Eisenhower was president."

  "Who?"

  When I met Kate three and a half years ago, she showed no tendency toward sarcasm, and she had once indicated to me that this was one of several bad habits that she'd picked up from me. Right, go ahead and blame the husband. Also, when I met her, she didn't swear or drink much, but all that has changed for the better under my tutelage. Actually, she'd made me promise to cut down on the drinking and swearing, which I have. Unfortunately, this has left me dim-witted and nearly speechless.

  Kate was born Katherine Mayfield in some frozen flyover state in the Midwest, and her father was an FBI agent. Mrs. Corey still uses her maiden name for business, or when she wants to pretend she doesn't know me. Kate's business, as I said, is the same as mine-Anti-Terrorist Task Force-and we are actually partners on the job as we are in life. One of our professional differences is that she's an FBI agent, like her father, and a lawyer, like her mother, and I'm a cop. Or as I said, a former cop, out of the job on three-quarter disability, which is not actually disabling, but good enough for a steady check every month. This disability, for th
e record, is a result of me taking three badly aimed bullets up on West 102nd Street almost four years ago. Actually, I feel fine, except when I drink too much and Scotch spurts out of my holes.

  Kate interrupted my thoughts and said, "The ATTF should give us jump pay, like the military does."

  "Write a memo."

  "This is an important skill."

  "For what?"

  She ignored my question and turned her attention to the sixty or so skydivers who were milling around aimlessly in silly colored jumpsuits, giving each other dopey high fives or checking one another's pack and harness. No one, and I mean no one, touches my rig, not even my wife. I have literally trusted her with my life, and she's trusted me with hers, but you never know when the ladies are having a bad day.

  Kate belatedly replied, "My theory is that mastering difficult skills like skydiving or mountain climbing gives you confidence on the job even if the skill is not directly related to your work."

  My theory was that the FBI should first master some basic police skills, such as how to use the subway system or how to follow a suspect without getting hit by a taxi. But I didn't verbalize that.

  The concept of this joint task force is to create synergy by joining Federal agents-who all seem to be from Iowa, like Lisa Sims, and who think mass transit means driving to church-and NYPD, who know the city intimately and do a lot of the street work. The concept, in practice, actually works in some weird way. There is, however, some tension and a few small misunderstandings among the men and women of these two very different cultures, and that, I suppose, is reflected in my marriage. And maybe in my attitude.

  Anyway, while Kate was checking out our fellow skydivers, I looked at the pilot standing under the wing of the DC-7B. He was peering up at one of the engines. I don't like it when they do that. I observed, "The pilot looks older than the plane. And what the hell is he looking at?"

  She glanced toward the aircraft, then asked me, "John, are you getting a little…?"

  "Please don't question my manhood." In fact, that's how she got me to agree to skydiving lessons. I said to her, "Be right back."

  I walked over to the pilot, who had a close-cropped beard the color of his aluminum plane. He looked even older up close. He was wearing a Yankees baseball cap that probably covered a bald head, and he had on jeans and a T-shirt that said "Beam Me Up, Scotty." Funny.

  He turned his attention away from the possibly problematic right outboard engine and asked, "Help ya?"

  "Yeah. How's your heart?"

  "Say what?"

  "Do you need a part?"

  "Huh? Oh… no, just checking something." He introduced himself as Ralph and asked me, "You jumpin' today?"

  What was your first clue, Ralph? The black-and-blue jumpsuit? Maybe the parachute rig on my back, or possibly the helmet in my hand? I replied, "You tell me."

  He got my drift and smiled. "Hey, don't let the looks of this old bird fool you."

  I wasn't sure if he was referring to the aircraft or himself. I pointed out, "There's oil dripping out of the engines." I drew his attention to the puddles of oil on the tarmac.

  Ralph agreed, "Yep. Oil." He informed me, "These old prop planes just swim in oil." He assured me, "When it's time to add more, we just pump it up from fifty-five-gallon drums. Problem is when you don't see oil."

  "Are you making that up?"

  "Hey, you people have parachutes. I don't. All you got to worry about is getting up there. I got to land this damn thing."

  "Good point."

  "This was once an American Airlines luxury liner," Ralph confided.

  "Hard to believe."

  "I bought it for peanuts and converted it to haul cargo."

  "Smart move."

  "This is my first time hauling skydivers."

  "Well, good luck."

  "You weigh less, but cargo don't ask questions."

  "And cargo doesn't unload itself at fourteen thousand feet."

  He laughed.

  An even older guy ambled over, and Ralph and he spoke for a minute about things I couldn't understand, but which didn't sound good. The older gent shuffled off, and Ralph said to me, "That's Cliff. He's my flight engineer."

  I thought he was Ralph's grandfather.

  Ralph further informed me, "No computers on this aircraft, so it takes three cockpit crew to fly this old bird." He joked, "One to fly and two to flap the wings."

  I smiled politely.

  He continued, "Cliff works the engine throttles, the mixture controls, and all that stuff. He's a dying breed."

  I hoped he didn't die after takeoff.

  Before I could ask him if he and Cliff had new batteries in their pacemakers, a girl wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, who looked about twelve years old, came up to us and said to the pilot, "Ralph, Cliff and I did the walk-around. Looks okay."

  Ralph replied, "Good. I'm gonna let you do the takeoff."

  What?

  Ralph remembered his manners and said to me, "This is Cindy. She's my copilot today."

  I must have heard him wrong, so I ignored that and walked back to Kate, who was in a conversation with one of the guys in our so-called club, a putz named Craig who desperately wanted to fuck my wife.

  His stupid smile faded as he saw me approach, and Kate said to me, "Craig and I were discussing the scheduling for our jumps in the next few weeks."

  "Is that what was making Craig smile?"

  After a moment of silence, Craig said to me, "Kate was just telling me that you had some concerns about the plane."

  "I do, but I could reduce the takeoff weight by sending you to the hospital."

  Craig thought about that, then turned and walked away.

  Mrs. Corey said to me, "That was totally uncalled for."

  "Why did you tell him I was concerned about the plane?"

  "I… he asked why you were talking to the pilot, and I…" She shrugged, then said, "I'm sorry."

  I was really pissed off, and I said, "We'll discuss this after the jump."

  She didn't respond to that and said, "We're starting to assemble for boarding."

  I saw that our group was drifting toward the big aircraft. They seemed like a happy, excited bunch of idiots, in stark contrast to paratroopers, who look appropriately somber and purposeful as they form up to board. Paratroopers have a mission; skydivers are having fun. I'm not having fun. So I must be on a mission.

  Actually, I was carrying my Glock 9mm in a zippered pocket and Kate was carrying her.40 caliber Glock. Someday, someone will explain to me why the cops and the FBI agents carry the same make of gun, but in different calibers. What if I ran out of ammunition during a shoot-out? "Kate, can I borrow some bullets?" "Sorry, John, my bullets are bigger than yours. Would you like some gum?"

  Anyway, we didn't need our guns for skydiving, but, as per regs, we couldn't leave our weapons in the motel, or even in the trunk of our car. If you lose a weapon or it's stolen, your career is in serious trouble. So we were packing heat. Hey, there could be bears in the drop zone.

  We continued toward the aircraft, and Kate took my hand and said to me, "Let's just make this one jump and pass on the next two."

  "We paid for three, we'll make three."

  "Let's decide when we get on the ground." She suggested, "I think I'd rather go antiquing."

  "I'd rather jump out of an airplane than go antiquing."

  She smiled, and squeezed my hand. She knew I was still pissed. Sometimes you milk these things for all they're worth and hold out for a blow job. Other times, like now, you just let it go. So I said, "We'll play it by ear."

  A guy from the skydiving club was standing on the tarmac marshaling people into their jump groups. As I understood this, there would be two large groups exiting en masse to attempt a prearranged join-up formation. They were trying for some sort of record. Like Biggest Circle of Flying Assholes.

  Kate had enough experience to join either of the groups, but I did not, so Kate and I would be jumping together along with som
e single jumpers and a few groups of two or three. Although I technically didn't require a jumpmaster any longer for my solo jumps, Kate would be my jumpmaster so we could practice some relative work during the free falls. Someday, I would be qualified to be part of a big hook-up formation that looked like a flying eggbeater.

  I actually enjoyed the free fall without the work and concentration of trying to maneuver to hold hands with strangers. The air resistance as I fell at over a hundred miles an hour allowed me to position my body and arms to slow myself, or speed up, even do loops and rolls, and it felt more like flying than falling. In truth, it made me feel more like Superman than I already did.

  The guy from the skydiving club was now standing at the rolling stairs that led to the big cargo opening in the rear of the fuselage. He was holding a clipboard, checking off names as the jumpers assembled.

  As we walked toward the clipboard guy, I asked Kate, "Are we in first class?"

  "We are, until we step out of the plane."

  We approached the clipboard guy and I announced, "Corey. Mr. and Mrs."

  He consulted his chart and said, "Okay… here you are. A third-stage two-jump. You can board now. Go all the way forward. Row Two."

  "Is this a lunch flight?"

  Clipboard guy looked at me, but did not respond to my question. He said to me, "Have a good and safe jump, Mr. Corey."

  How about a safe landing?

  Kate led the way up the portable metal stairs, and I followed her into the dark cavernous cabin.

  When I'm flying in a commercial airliner, I always like to see nuns and clergy on board. But parachutes are good, too. Nevertheless, I suddenly had a bad feeling about something. I've been in law enforcement for over twenty years, and it sounds cliched, but I've developed a sixth sense for trouble and danger. And that's what I felt now.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Kate led the way toward the front of the aircraft.

  The windows, as I said, had been covered with aluminum skin, so it was darker in the cabin than I expected. A few dim light fixtures were mounted along the sidewalls, which revealed that the interior had been stripped bare to convert this airliner into a cargo plane. Apparently we would be sitting on the floor, like cargo.