58 Minutes

by Walter Wager

  All the charges were in place—incendiary and explosive.

  The timers were attached, a primary and backup for each.

  He had checked and rechecked them carefully.

  He could set the seven delayed-action fuses in one minute and fifty seconds. By the time they went off, Takeshi Ito would be in a jet hundreds of miles outside U.S. airspace— with three forged passports and a million dollars for the Red Army.

  His eyes went to the television screens once more. It looked so peaceful outside, he thought. There was beauty in those fluttering snowflakes. Then he sighed and thought about the prostitute.

  In The Cab atop the Kennedy Tower, the printer had been grinding out messages for nearly six minutes. Now it fell silent, and Annie Green walked back to speak to her former lover.

  "Frank, the fuel figures on the last four planes just came in.

  The Concorde isn't the lowest in flying time anymore."

  She was frightened.

  He could see it.

  "TWA twenty-two?" he guessed.

  She nodded.

  "Assuming that they've been flying at minimum cruise speed to conserve fuel since the jamming started, they're going to run out at about nine forty-seven," she said.

  Frank Malone thought of his daughter.

  No, there wasn't time for that.

  He had to concentrate on facts, not emotion.

  He looked at his watch and saw it was 8:49.

  TWA 22 Heavy . . . no, the first plane . . . would crash in fifty-eight minutes.

  22

  MORE POLICE.

  Different ones.

  New York City cops, not Port Authority patrolmen.

  Staub recognized their garb and insignia at once. He was expert in split-second identification of the various uniformed police in thirty-nine countries. He could pick out each of the five kinds of local or national cops in Paris in the blink of an eye, and knew the multiple uniformed forces of Rome and Madrid equally well. With their fewer police organizations, New York and other North American cities were child's play by comparison.

  Looking down from the balcony at the crowded ground floor of the International Arrivals Building, Staub watched the newly arrived cops try to control an increasingly restive and noisy throng. It wasn't only journalists who grasped the significance of the additional police. Almost everyone below understood now.

  This was no "routine security exercise."

  Something real was happening.

  Why didn't the cops or airport staff explain what it was?

  The people downstairs seemed to be impatient and irate but not frantic. None of them had connected the lateness of the inbound planes with the unusual number of cops—yet, Staub thought. The waiting crowd didn't know that not one airliner had landed at or taken off from Kennedy, La Guardia or Newark in fifty minutes. The fools had no idea that the three major airports and the lives of thousands in planes above them were in the hands of ruthless revolutionaries.

  They would probably find out soon.

  Somebody would let slip a hint or phrase while telephoning a spouse or lover, or perhaps a minor civil servant might tip off a journalist to curry favor.

  Once the nasty secret was out, there wouldn't be a crowd downstairs in this terminal. It would suddenly become a mob. Staub had considered calling a radio station himself to put pressure on the authorities. While it might be entertaining to see the arrogant Americans panic, he had decided that a hysterical mob in the terminal through which the liberated prisoners of U.S. imperialism would depart might create some sort of problem.

  That would be unacceptable.

  Willi Staub detested uncertainty.

  It meant less than total control, which was unthinkable.

  He still had the terrible nightmares about what his father had done to him when he was four and five. Each time the boy had made "too much" noise or broken some other rule, he'd been locked in the closet for hours.

  In the dark.

  Totally helpless in a situation he couldn't affect at all.

  At first he'd beaten at the door until his little hands bled, and he'd screamed and screamed. Then he realized that his father wanted that, so he stopped and sat silent in the blackness. He wouldn't let anyone use darkness, confinement or anything else to terrify him.

  Ever again.

  Anywhere.

  He would have the control, and he would move freely everywhere.

  Now the terrified child had come out of the closet to terrify others. He had the control. He did what he wanted wherever he pleased, and he had no second thoughts. Staub never wondered why he'd chosen a life that forced him to move so frequently and far, one that barred even the idea of a home. As he had told two—or was it three—affectionate women in recent years, he hardly recalled anything about his own youth and home anyway.

  Women were often curious about such things, Staub thought as he saw a quartet of cops get onto the escalator. Within a week after the start of the most ordinary sexual liaison, females showed a compulsive interest in a man's past—back to his childhood. They'd been disappointed when Willi Staub explained that he didn't remember his. One long-legged Swedish woman had foolishly suggested that he might be repressing those memories.

  Now Staub felt sweat beading on his forehead. It must be that the stupid Americans had the heat turned up too high here as they did in so many public places. Yes, that must be it. That and the effect of the bulletproof vest under his shirt were causing him to perspire.

  Sure, he'd wash his face with cold water.

  It was probably cooler in the lavatory anyway, and he'd be away from the body heat and cigarette smoke rising from the agitated crowd below. He'd use the men's room on this floor, of course. There was no point in descending into the throng and main group of police.

  The counterfeit priest glanced left and right "casually" before he started walking. Some dozen yards to the right was a couple whose clothes suggested a suburban middle-class life. The trim woman had a determined smile, a "good" flannel skirt and a Bloomingdale's shopping bag. Eight or ten years older, the barrel-chested man in the tweed jacket had the hungry wary eyes that Staub knew so well. Their message was unmistakable.

  This man was some sort of cop.

  And he was working, a detective on stakeout.

  She had to be a cop, too, the terrorist reasoned as he walked away from them. He had no reason to believe that they were hunting him . . . and none that they weren't. The prudent thing was to stroll unobtrusively out of sight before they noticed him at all.

  When he was safely beyond their view, Staub mopped his glistening brow with a handkerchief. The airliners would start dropping in less than an hour, he thought. Then it would be his enemies who'd sweat.

  When the first plane crashed in flames, that high-tech pyre would be a clear signal that Number One was not bluffing. Then the federal government would rush the other four to Kennedy immediately, and there would be no further resistance from the stunned Americans. A nation of weaklings, they would do anything to avoid more loss of human life.

  Still damp with perspiration, he made his way to the nearest men's lavatory. Having meticulously reconnoitered every public area of this building three times in preparing his attack, he knew the exact location of each security post, fire alarm, shop, newsstand, snack bar, toilet, stairway and exit. He'd drawn floor plans and studied them again and again until he had memorized every detail. With the help of his undercover agent, he knew the layout of the control tower and Cab just as well.

  When Staub entered the men's room, he automatically scanned the chamber in routine self-defense. The door of one booth was closed, and two black men in their thirties were chatting amiably at the urinals. They were speaking French. Their accents had a Caribbean lilt.

  Haiti? Martinique? Guadeloupe? St. Martin?

  It didn't matter. They finished and stepped forward to the sinks to wash their hands. Staub mopped the sweat from his forehead again and walked slowly to one of the urinals. He sh
ould have done this earlier, he thought as he reached for his zipper.

  The ebony-skinned men from the Caribbean were laughing as they left the lavatory. Having emptied his bladder, Staub felt more comfortable when he zipped the black trousers closed again. He sighed as he approached the sink.

  The cold water felt good on his face.

  It was soothing and somehow reassuring. He splashed handfuls of the refreshing liquid across his hot forehead, then into his eyes. The chilled wetness took him away from the total tension for a few seconds. He almost relaxed. He was starting to when he heard a toilet flush and a cubicle door unlock behind him.

  That jerked him back to reality. He couldn't see or cope with whoever was at his back, and he didn't like that. His body reacted more extremely, stiffening as it braced for violence. Sweeping the water from his eyes, Staub forced himself not to spin on his heel in self-defense. With his vision returning to normal, he looked up slowly into the mirror in front of him.

  The round-faced man in rimless glasses behind him was dressed in the same black clothes and white Roman collar that Staub wore. With the odds against two clerical impostors meeting enormous, Willi Staub decided that the other man was a genuine priest.

  There was no reason to panic.

  Staub had successfully impersonated Catholic clergymen several times before.

  He'd be pleasant, brief and out the door in fifty or sixty seconds. It would be easy.

  So the terrorist smiled.

  "Good evening," he said affably and strode toward the paper towel dispenser.

  "Good evening," the real priest replied in a sturdy baritone voice. While Staub was briskly drying his hands with a towel, the cleric walked to the sink and turned on the hot water.

  "Which parish are you with?" he asked as he soaped his plump hands.

  The terrorist was ready for the question. He had created and memorized a complete cover story, right down to where he'd gone to high school.

  "I'm at Saint Agnes," the man who liked to kill lied. "Not here ... in Portland."

  "Maine?"

  That was too near. The other Portland twenty-six hundred miles away was safer.

  "Oregon," Staub parried. "Nice people. You ought to visit us sometime."

  Frowning, the priest turned to face Willi Staub.

  "I don't understand," the cleric announced.

  "What?"

  "For the past six years, I've been the pastor of Saint Agnes in Portland, Oregon . . . and I've never seen you before."

  Staub smiled again—big.

  "Let me explain," he chuckled as he stepped closer.

  His left hand was filled with a wad of paper towels. His right was inside his jacket, closing on a black plastic fountain pen in the breast pocket. He was grinning as he took out the writing instrument.

  "It's really very simple," the terrorist assured the puzzled priest. Staub pressed the catch on the pen. A five-inch-long ice-pick blade of tempered surgical steel suddenly flicked from the plastic cylinder.

  The pastor of Saint Agnes Roman Catholic Church in Portland, Oregon, opened his mouth to scream. He didn't. Staub crammed a fistful of towels between his open lips at the same moment that the lethal needle penetrated his chest. The terrorist rammed the weapon in with all his strength, plunging it expertly between the priest's ribs into his heart.

  Staub knew exactly where to insert the needle. He had read books on anatomy, paying special attention to the head and heart. He knew that a human heart's size varied with the body size of the person, and that the heart usually weighed one tenth of 1 percent of the individual's total. He also knew how to stop a heart—forever.

  The priest grunted as the steel sliver tore into him. His body shook and his eyes bulged. The pain was awful. It was pure fire. His mouth opened wider in a frantic attempt to cry out, but only a choked groan emerged. Staub pushed the wad of paper back into his victim's throat.

  Deep inside, blood was leaking from a tear in the mortally wounded man's heart. Staub knew that from his anatomy studies, and he knew what to do next—quickly. The assassin drew four inches of the needle out, twisted the grip sharply and rammed the metal back in full at another angle.

  This would make another hole in the aorta.

  With blood gouting from two tears, the pastor from Portland should be dead within ninety seconds.

  Now the priest tottered and moaned, his astonished eyes glazed and his legs failed. He kept making those muffled animal noises as Staub pushed him back, opened the door of a cubicle and shoved him into the toilet. The dying man's vision was blurring, and his head slumped to the right as his last strength leaked away.

  Staub looked around and nodded.

  There was no blood on the floor.

  If the terrorist handled it right, the corpse wouldn't be found until after Staub and the other revolutionaries were a thousand miles out over the Atlantic.

  "A million to one," Staub thought aloud. "The odds against my running into a priest from Saint Agnes of Portland, Oregon, here . . . tonight. . . had to be at least a million to one. Tough for you, Father."

  There was something else to be done.

  Willi Staub didn't take chances.

  Stepping aside so no spout of crimson from the tiny hole would stain his clothes, Staub removed the ice pick from the priest's chest and plunged it deep into the unconscious cleric's left ear. It wasn't sadism. Staub's target was the brain. This would make sure that the man from Oregon would never tell anyone about the fake Catholic priest at Kennedy.

  Now Staub carefully withdrew the needle and retracted it into the false pen. He locked the door of the booth from inside, lowered himself to the floor and tried to slide out.

  The dead man's feet were in the way, and it was a struggle to nudge them aside. Now the corpse was shifting on the toilet. Staub had to maneuver warily. One mistake would dump the body on top of him.

  Staub was sheeted with perspiration again.

  He had to hurry. Someone might come into this lavatory at any moment. Staub had to get out now, immediately. If he didn't, he might be seen by other people—too many to kill. That would put Staub and the whole operation in acute jeopardy.

  He had to get away from this corpse, this room, at once.

  Every second was crucial.

  There wasn't much space between the bottom of the door and the floor—about a foot. It would be a very tight squeeze at best. His attire was far from the best for this. The bulletproof vest and the black overcoat added an inch and a half or two inches. He had only an inch to spare at the most.

  Wriggling and twisting slowly, Staub managed to work his way out of the overcoat. That might do it, he thought. Free of that bulk, he should be able to slide out on his back under the door. Then he'd reach in, pull out the coat and leave the lavatory swiftly.

  Even under normal circumstances, when he was alone in a lavatory cubicle, Willi Staub felt uncomfortable. It was like being in some sort of a cell. Or a closet. Confinement in any small space had infuriated him for a long time. Now he was stuck in this goddam booth with the body of some pious fool, barely able to breathe.

  There wasn't a moment to waste. He couldn't take much more of this invisible unbearable squeezing. Now he was on his back, drenched in sweat from scalp to toe and panting. He took a deep gulp of air, exhaled and began to slide out under the door.

  The first few inches were easy. Then he had to turn his head sideways. He moved forward again. His entire head and neck were beyond the barrier. In another thirty or forty seconds he would be free.

  He writhed forward another inch . . . and another.

  It would be all right.

  He'd be entirely out of the small bad place in a few more moments.

  The punishment would be over.

  Staub slid on—and stopped. He couldn't advance any farther. Something—maybe the bulletproof vest—raised his shoulders just a bit too high. Maybe he could wriggle through by very small movements back and forth, the ones you used to park a car in a barely
large enough space. He started to try that.

  Then he heard the door to the corridor open . . . and voices. He reacted instantly. He began to slide and twist back. He had to be entirely inside before the new arrivals noticed a head and neck—a neck in a white Roman collar— protruding from under the door of the booth.

  A little more.

  Push just a bit harder.

  No, harder.

  He couldn't move—forward or backward. He was trapped.

  In a few moments, the men who had just entered would see him. He struggled with the door—and something else. Burning up from inside him was a terrible horror of the cell that awaited him, the years of cramped confinement, the helpless rage at being entirely in their power.

  Maybe it was the dread that did it. Suddenly he was able to slip back—just half an inch. As he tried again, he heard a sound that he couldn't quite identify. Whatever it was, the closet was more important. He wouldn't let anyone put him in there again.

  Another inch.

  One more push. Fueled by desperation, he twisted and strained and slid inside to safety. Soaked with sweat, he lay there gasping. He had made it. No one could see him here. No one could hurt him now.

  Then the body fell on him.

  Some 190 pounds, dead weight.

  It was maddening. Staub wanted to shout, to hit and kick and bite like a small crazed boy. Staub wanted to get rid of this thing that was pressing him down, confining him, making his throat knot and filling his mouth with the bitter taste of bile. Staub knew that it would be senseless to lash out at a corpse, but it took a major effort not to do that.

  The terrorist fought down the impulse, and sighed. He could hear his heart pounding. The body on top of him was heavy, but Willi Staub could endure it. He had survived worse, he recalled grimly as he turned his head two inches.

  He was peering directly into the dead priest's open eyes.