The Terrorist's Holiday

by Andrew Neiderman

  “No one heard the gunfight?” the sheriff asked.

  “Everyone was at lunch and Barry put the dead bodies in the room. A female terrorist was shot too.”

  Balberri sat down. “Is that it?”

  “No,” Barry said. “The terrorist or terrorists are still somewhere on the grounds or in the building. I haven’t uncovered their sabotage.”

  “Paul Tandem is with them, helping.”

  “Tandem? That degenerate?”

  The phone rang.

  “It’s the health club,” David said, picking up the handset. “Who? Bill Marcus. Did you call for Dr. Bloom? The sheriff’s on his way. Just keep everyone out of that area. All right.” He hung up and turned to the sheriff. “Where do you want to begin, Ralph?”

  “Jesus.” The sheriff wiped his face. “I’d better call in the BCI, for one.” He paused, knowing the delicacy and the import of his next statement. His mind rushed ahead of him as he envisioned what the impact could be on the entire hotel industry, the county’s major source of revenue. This was the most politically dangerous situation he had ever confronted. It could cost him his career. “If we don’t apprehend these people and uncover their sabotage,” he said, looking at his watch, “within the next two hours, you’ll have to empty this hotel, David.”

  David turned in his chair, his hand on his chin. He nodded slowly. His voice cracked with emotion.

  “You’re right. Okay,” he said. He looked at Barry. “Any suggestions? You’re the man who’s been in on this from the start.”

  “Keep Eban secluded as much as possible. Tighten your security on the grounds and keep all outsiders away.” He turned to the sheriff. “Have the suite originally reserved for Chaim Eban searched thoroughly.”

  “I’ll get some more of my men around the grounds too,” the sheriff said.

  “Damn,” David said. “If I have to tell these people to leave, there will be pandemonium.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Sheriff Balberri said. “Let’s get started.”

  After Bill Marcus had been examined by the doctor, they had him dressed and took him out a side entrance to place him in an ambulance. Although his head ached and his throat was still sore, he was conscious and aware of everything now. Toby had been called to his side and stood by staring in disbelief. She was at the entranceway when the stretcher was rolled out.

  “I believe he’s got a concussion,” the doctor explained. “We’ll take X-rays and see how bad it is.”

  “I don’t understand. What happened?” She looked down at him. “Why’d you get involved in someone else’s fight?”

  “Who got involved? The guy just turned and hit me.”

  “We’d better let him take it easy now,” the doctor said. He signaled to the ambulance attendants so they would lift him into the ambulance.

  “Listen,” Bill said. Toby leaned in after him. “I want to go back to New York. I don’t want to stay up here in some country hospital. Get me to New York.”

  “But …”

  “They’ll take me in an ambulance,” he said. The attendants closed the door.

  “Of course,” the doctor said as Toby backed away. “After I get an X-ray reading, if that’s what he wants … If he’ll be more comfortable with his personal physician …”

  “But isn’t it bad to move him? I mean …”

  “We’ll see, but I don’t think so.” He squeezed her arm. “He’ll be all right.”

  Toby stood there as he walked to his car.

  “Oh,” he said, turning around. “You can look into ambulance services by going to the main desk. Mrs. Adelman will help you.”

  “But …” She watched the ambulance go down the driveway and then turned to look up at the hotel. “Damn it,” she said and stamped her foot.

  Barry walked out of David’s office slowly and went outside to think. Tandem was a man who would be recognized on the hotel grounds. He wouldn’t be somewhere they could see him. Perhaps he wasn’t even here and was just used for the information he could give the terrorists. And now the extremist knew he was also recognizable. Where would he go to hide? Why would he hide? Why was he still here if the purpose was simply sabotage? … Unless they hadn’t yet planted their bomb or had to stay to detonate it.

  He walked out to the driveway and stared at the old main house. He wondered what Shirley and the kids were doing and if they were anywhere in the building or on the grounds that presented danger to them. Then he turned and looked back, studying the fire escape he had come down earlier. The window to the second floor was still open. He looked back at the old house. Something was trying to come back to him, something said, something—David’s father. The old man had seen people on the fire escape late at night. They said teenagers, but was it? He hurried across the grounds to the old main house.

  Solomon Oberman got up from his easy chair to answer the door. He lowered his glasses on the bridge of his nose and closed his copy of Catskill Quarterly. He had been studying an article on the resorts, underlining everything he thought was poppycock.

  “Mr. Oberman?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Lieutenant Barry Wintraub, sir,” he said, showing his identification. “Can you tell me about the figures you saw on the fire escape these past two nights?”

  “What was it, robbery? I knew it, damn it.” He slapped his thigh with the magazine. “C’mon in.”

  When Barry came out of the old house, he studied the basement door by the fire escape. Logical place to hide, he thought, but why had they gone down there at night? Their sabotage work must have been done in the basement. But what? Could they reach Chaim Eban’s suite through the basement? Maybe through the heating system. Does that mean poison gas? The thought terrified him.

  He went back into the hotel and got Mrs. Adelman’s attention.

  “I don’t know if it’s possible for you to answer this,” he started—he thought he’d start off with a note of challenge—“but that party we traced on the phone, the Jaffes, do you know if they specifically asked for that room, 215?” She just looked at him and then her eyes lit up.

  “Why, yes, they did. And I was wondering about that.”

  “Thanks,” Barry said quickly. He looked for the nearest stairway to the basement and hurried over to it. He came out near the stagecraft area. Two men were painting flats and another was cutting out huge styrofoam stars. They looked up at him.

  “Hi,” he said. “Happen to see any guests come this way today?”

  “Guests?” They looked at one another and all shook their heads. He continued down the corridor. An elderly custodian was pushing a cart that held a tall carton. He was coming toward Barry so he stopped and waited for him.

  “Excuse me,” he said. The old man paused, letting the cart back against his foot. “Have you seen any guests down here, males?” The old man wiped his face with a gray handkerchief.

  “Guests, huh? When?”

  “Today.”

  “Nope.”

  “You’re not here at night, are you?”

  “Hell no. Get off at five. That’s enough for me.”

  “Yeah, well …”

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “There was someone earlier. He came out of nowhere it seemed. Helped me get the cart out of that storage room there.”

  “Did he look like this?” Barry showed him the picture.

  “Can’t say for sure. Might have. Didn’t look at him much.”

  “Which way did he go?”

  “Well, he didn’t follow me. He went back up the corridor.”

  “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

  Barry hurried on. He stopped at an electrical room and examined it. Could they be doing something with electricity? he wondered and studied the wires. Not finding anything suspicious there, he went on. There are so many possibilities, he thought. When he came to the firs
t girder, he paused to look around and envision where he was in relation to the hotel above him. The elevator all the way at the end of the corridor helped him get his perspective. The dining room and the five floors above it were all to his right. He turned and looked off into the depth of the basement beyond. It was a very poorly lit area since there weren’t any storage rooms located in it. Then he heard the squeak of wheels and turned to see the old man pushing his car back up the corridor.

  “Excuse me,” he said, as the man got close. “But aside from the electricity and the heat, is there anything else that goes upstairs from the basement?”

  “Huh? Goes up?”

  Barry nodded.

  “Well, water does.”

  Water? Yeah, water, he thought.

  “And that girder you leanin’ against,” the old man said, smiling.

  “Girder?” Barry stood up and looked at it.

  “All of ’em do,” the man said, gesturing farther in, “to support the damn building. What are ya tryin’ to figure out?” he asked, but Barry was lost in thought. The elderly custodian shrugged and went on to the storage room just down from them to get another carton. Barry started in a few feet, still thinking. Suddenly he heard the old man shout. He turned and ran into the room. The old man stood back and pointed. Tandem’s dead body rested exposed since the old man had moved another one of the big cartons. A stream of blood and mucus ran down his cheek from the gouged-out eye socket.

  “Sorry end for a sorry fella,” the old man said.

  “You know him?”

  “Yeah, sure. Used to work here. That’s Paul Tandem,” he said.

  32

  Barry didn’t go back upstairs. He sent the old man up and told him to report what he found to Sheriff Balberri. Then he went back to the dark area across the way. He stood there thinking again. That woman’s husband is down here, he thought. Perhaps both terrorists were. They were certainly ruthless people. Before continuing on with his search, he was going to wait for support, figuring the sheriff or his deputy would be down soon; then he looked to his right and saw the plastique.

  The impact of total recognition and discovery sent an electric chill down his spine. He approached the footing of the girder and knelt down. He was by no means a bomb expert, but he had seen plastique and he had seen some detonators. This looked different in its construction and design, but he understood that the penlight battery provided the needed impulse. With careful fingers, he worked the battery out. Then he saw the small picture inked in beside the detonator—a hawk with a sword through it. He remembered the picture in the Mandel apartment. He had tracked down the killers of the JDL member, followed his instincts and leads, and come to the end of the trail.

  A series of contradictory feelings overcame him. He was elated that he had been right, but he was suddenly alarmed and terrorized by what it could have meant and still could mean if he didn’t disarm all the other detonators. These girders supported the structure and the dining room was directly above him. His own wife and children would be in there tonight. He had brought them to it.

  He moved across the basement quickly to the other girder and worked out the battery from the detonator. Carefully and cautiously, he went farther into the basement, disarming each packet of plastique as he came to it. Each time he did one, he felt that much more relieved and yet with each girder he approached, he expected some opposition. They were here somewhere. They had to be. They were just waiting for all the people to move into the dining room and then they’d detonate—wanton killing to get Chaim Eban? Or was it their main intention to kill everyone else, too?

  He despised them as any law enforcement agent despises the criminal element, always threatening, out there, dangerous. Yet he hated them for even deeper, more personal reasons. Rabbi Kaufman had seen it in him, had known it lay dormant there, waiting to exert itself. I am a Jew, he thought, and these people have come here to kill me and my family and people like us because we are Jews. No battle in the Sinai Desert, no attack on the Golan Heights, no embattled kibbutz smacks more of the ancient rivalry than does the conflict in this basement now. A battle for Israel is being waged here.

  Nessim had been sitting next to his dead brother and delivering one of the longest monologues of his life. He wasn’t even aware himself of just how much he had been talking. He described all that had transpired upstairs and, for the first time, permitted tears when he came to the part about Clea.

  “They killed her, but it was partly my fault. I should have never agreed to bring her into this. I should have either come with you or by myself. Maybe with that Casewell woman. It was my mistake. I didn’t even think about it.”

  As he continued talking, he began to behave more and more irrationally. He was no longer talking to himself by bouncing his words off his dead brother; he was treating his brother as though he were alive. As if he knew it mattered, he didn’t look directly at him when he spoke. When he pounded out a cigarette from his pack, he offered the pack to the corpse and then put it back into his pocket.

  “Well, Yusuf,” he said, “you wanted so much to be beside me when I detonated the plastique. You’re going to have your wish. That’s right. We’ll do it together.” He paused and leaned back against the wall. Yusuf’s body was now in the same position, only his head was forward, chin to chest. “She was … was really so brave at the last moments. You should have seen her. If only we had left her in Athens, huh. If only …” His voice trailed off, his thoughts lost in the smoke that traveled into the darkness. He sat staring at memories.

  Not long after, he heard Wintraub walking on the other side. He crushed his cigarette out and leaned out to see who it was. Barry disappeared behind the next-to-last girder. He had understood from the structure of things that there were these two left. With the same great care, he worked out the battery and put it with the others in his jacket pocket. Still expecting to meet up with the terrorists, however, he waited in the shadows and looked out. Now that he was in the most secluded spot, the chances were that much greater.

  Nessim, on his knees, took out his pistol and waited. Perhaps it was just a custodian doing a routine assignment. Perhaps not. He would take no more chances. If there was the slightest suspicion, just the slightest now, he would risk the gunshot. If they found him, he’d detonate everything and take his chances on getting as many as possible in the building above.

  Barry waited a moment more and then began to cross to the other girder. Nessim saw his shadow first and then the clear outline of his body. Whoever it was, he was coming straight at him. He crouched, held his revolver braced against the girder to steady his aim, and waited to take his best shot. A little more than halfway across, Barry hesitated. It was the odor of cigarette smoke. He was sure of it. They were nearby. He listened for voices. Instinctively, he went to his knees.

  The moment he did so, Nessim fired. He thought the action indicated that the man had seen him. He was sure this man had come hunting for him. The bullet whizzed past Barry’s ear, and the report of the pistol carried in tinlike echoes back down the basement, seeking a way out. Voices of shouting men could be heard coming from the main corridor.

  “HEY,” Barry yelled. “IT’S NO USE. IT’S ALL OVER FOR YOU.”

  “No, you are wrong,” Nessim called back. “It’s all over for you. In fact, it’s over for all of us.”

  “STAY BACK,” Barry shouted to the oncoming men. “STAY BACK.”

  Nessim put his gun down and slowly took the transmitter out of his pocket. He unscrewed the back of it and slipped in the tiny battery. It would have been a great feat, he thought. Command detonation at its best. At least the organization will salvage something from all this. They’ll still remember the Seder Project.

  Barry went to his stomach and began crawling over the basement floor. He got to a point where he was sure he could make out the dark shadows of a man standing and another sitting with his back to the wa
ll.

  “Hey,” Barry called. “You’re surrounded. There’s no way out. Give it up.”

  “But there is a way out,” Nessim said, half laughing. “We’re going up, or rather, the up is coming down.”

  “What’s going on up there?” a voice cried from behind Barry. He turned.

  “Stay back. They’re in here.”

  “It no longer matters how far back they stay,” Nessim said. He enjoyed talking like this at the moment. His thumb rested on the transmitter switch.

  “You’re wrong,” Barry said. He crouched quickly, expecting to be shot at, but they weren’t shooting. He reached into the jacket pocket and grasped all the batteries he had taken from the detonators. Then, leaning on one arm, he heaved them toward the shadows and the voice as if he were heaving a hand grenade. The batteries bounced and rolled around Nessim. “Your plastique explosives can no longer be detonated.”

  Nessim leaned over and picked up one of the batteries. His heart sank. He felt anger like he had never felt it before. A shout built itself up from the pit of his stomach and climbed through his throat. When it came out, it was the raging of a wild animal. It was shrill and long. Barry had rarely heard anything like it. He inched back in anticipation. Nessim stood up and shot his pistol wildly. The bullets ripped into the basement walls and pinged with reverberations everywhere. When the gun had been emptied, he threw it into the darkness. Barry heard it bounce near him. He got to his knees and struggled for a clear view so he could take an effective shot.

  “You were very clever,” Nessim said. “Very clever. But you have yet to disarm one.”

  Barry understood his meaning and frantically rolled over to get as far back as he could. Nessim smiled to himself, knelt down and took his brother’s hand in his, and then flicked the switch looking directly into the detonator. He wanted the satisfaction of watching his system at work. The pleasure barely registered in his brain.

  Chunks of cement were thrown about like spitballs. They smashed into tiny bits against the walls and over the floor. The steel girder was shoved out to its right. The metal screamed as it bent. Ceiling plaster and installation materials fell in pieces all around Barry. He buried his head in his arms and rolled himself into a tight ball. Dust clouds rose up from the floor. Ominous cracks broke out along the side of the basement wall nearest to the blown girder. They ran like spiders’ legs, tearing the cement. The floor of the basement vibrated, and slabs of cement around the girder’s footing tore up and shattered, exploding in every direction. Barry felt his body peppered by pieces of it. It stung through his clothes.