by Bob Finley
"Hold it! He's...gonna fire unless...get ready, get ready...ship's talkin' a mile a minute, tryin' to..."
There was a sharp CRACK! above their heads in the direction of the pilotless flight deck and the cabin was suddenly boiling with white smoke. Instantly every man shoved in his mouthpiece and jerked down his facemask. Pure air filled their lungs, expunging the initial gulps of smoke. They all gripped whatever stationary handhold they could search out in the blinding whiteness and tensed like cats.
Strickland's headset was suddenly crackling with the panic-stricken voices of the pilot and co-pilot, declaring an emergency, yelling that their helicopter was on fire and that they were either going to have to ditch in the sea or make an emergency landing on the tower platform that they could just make out through the smoke seventy-five yards dead-ahead. Yelling that they were only fifteen feet off the water and didn't think they could hold it. Matt got the message.
The spotter on the Washington was calling out corrections continuously to the remote operator. Together, they had managed to maneuver the aircraft to a position upwind of the tower and no more than a hundred yards from it. It was hard to be sure at this distance, with the flattened perception of extremely long optics. But it was obvious that the smoke from the chopper was drifting down directly on the tower platform, obscuring the terrorists' vision through its television cameras.
"Hold steady," commanded Trigger/Coventry to the controller. "Can you give me five seconds exactly where you've got it?"
"You got it, sir," came the confident reply.
"Good. On my mark...five...four...three..." He raised his arm over his head. In his hand he held what looked like a joystick with a red button on one side of it and a slim, six foot antenna sticking out the far end. "...two...one..." His thumb depressed the red button and an instant later the spotter spat out a shocked expletive and jumped back from the binocular lenses. Two miles away there was a brilliant star of light followed by a geyser of flame and water and black, oily smoke that expanded rapidly outward into a huge cloud. Fragments speared skyward, arching over to curl seaward in slow motion, trailing streamers of white smoke. Moments later the concussion reached the Washington and startled even those who were expecting it.
There was an eerie silence aboard the carrier. People stood rooted where they were, watching the distant event.
Coventry moved to the binoculars and trained them on the tower. He held patiently as the pall of smoke drifted slowly away from the blast site. The tower materialized as the last remnants of the smoke moved downwind.
He saw a tiny splash of orange color bobbing on the surface of the sea. One small, insignificant PFD. A life jacket, blown before the wind, useless now to the former occupants of the destroyed helicopter.
He smiled, though it wouldn't have been noticeable to anyone else. He turned to the Washington's Captain.
"They're in," he said. And turned away, to enter the bridge.
Chapter 80
Bereel Jambou had scarcely calmed down from his rage over Kim Matsumoto's attempt to reach someone in the outside world when the radar mounted on the topside tower triggered the alarms in the control room with an ear-splitting din. He rushed to the console and read the dreaded words "AIRCRAFT APPROACHING". He quickly located it and zoomed a camera in on it. A helicopter! Well, at least it wasn't a bomber. Of course, some of those helicopters...
One helicopter. What could they be... He grabbed the microphone and demanded an answer over the established radio frequency. "Emissaries!" "Negotiators?!" Coming here, to land on his...
He brought the missile battery up. It's radar automatically painted the incoming aircraft and went into tracking mode, making almost continuous and minute adjustments to assure the most optimum trajectories. He overrode the firing mechanism and flipped off the cover to the firing stud. He warned them again...what kind of fools were these? They were going to ruin everything. If he had to shoot them down, it would change...
No, it wouldn't. His mind raced. How to take fullest advantage of this stupid act of theirs? It was obvious...well, it was fairly certain...that this was not an attack. They might actually believe that he'd be so naive as to let them land a military aircraft on his helo pad up on the tower. What then? Did they really think he'd just let them walk right in? How dumb could...?
He smiled. He couldn't lose. He'd shoot them down and then blame the incident on their own stupidity for daring to enter his air space and challenge his authority after he'd already given fair warning, on international television, no less. They wouldn't call his bluff. After all, they had ‘rules of engagement’ of their own and they had brazenly violated his in front of the whole world.
He glanced over to be sure the television camera was recording. He looked back at the monitors just in time to see the aircraft flair into a hover. A sloppy hover, but at least it had stopped. He couldn't let it come any closer, either, or they'd be inside his missiles' acquisition range. They wouldn't be able to arm themselves in time to blow up the plane. Oh, well, the fact that the helicopter had paused out there and was apparently waiting for somebody to decide whether they should come any closer or not had at least one advantage. A stationary target was easier to hit. He reached for the firing stud.
The strident voices that unexpectedly cut through the rest of the radio traffic startled him. His hand paused above the missile firing mechanism and he listened. The voices seemed to be those of the helicopter's pilot and...
He noticed the smoke for the first time. The first few seconds it was just wisps of white from the aircraft, streaming in the wind. But then, almost immediately, it became a billowing cloud, pouring from the right side and front. The voices became desperate, confused. He could feel their panic. They couldn't see where they were going. The big airship began to drift aimlessly and the windblown smoke suddenly engulfed his tower camera, causing a white-out.
His hand dropped to the firing stud and he gripped it hard, unsure whether or not to fire, afraid it was all a trick and he'd be caught off guard. He hesitated and...
The explosion was tremendous and he was sure he felt the shock wave even where he sat a hundred feet underwater and at least fifty yards away. Up there, it must have been catastrophic. Had they fired on him? Should he return fire? How? He couldn't even see them! But, wait...the radar shouldn't be affected by smoke, should it? He gripped the stud more firmly. Better to shoot, before they could fire on him again.
Quite suddenly, the camera could see again. Not clearly, but...he waited. A few more seconds. He could afford to wait now. And then...
Where the helicopter had been, there was debris floating in the water. And patches of what looked like oil or gasoline burning, black smoke roiling up, giving the impression the very water was on fire. He scanned the area with the topside camera. There was no sign of life. Only a small, bright orange dot that he finally decided must be a life vest. A PFD. He laughed out loud at the sight. A life vest where there was no life. The irony of it amused him. As did his next thought.
He smiled even more as he realized that, now that he hadn't been forced into a shooting war by the outrageous violations of his sovereignty, he'd simultaneously been handed another opportunity on a silver platter.
He'd answer their act of aggression with one of his own. Since he'd already decided to let Banner kill that little meddling buddy of Justin's, he'd pass the execution off as an innocent hostage paying the price for treachery on the part of the military force that betrayed the negotiations by attacking him. The killing would be a ‘freebie’ and he'd still be rid of his problem child.
He was actually chuckling to himself now. As he turned away from the console to set up transmission of his ‘response’ to the incident topside, he didn't notice the tiny, almost ethereal flicker on the sonar detectors. After all, widely-spread-out, six-foot-long bodies that were slowly sinking into the sea fell below the threshold parameters of eight-foot-long bodies in motion that the sonar required to trigger its detection alarms. Eventually th
e tiny smears of light faded from the monitor and disappeared.
Banner all but hissed when he heard the voice over his radio. He snatched it off his side and keyed the transmit key.
"Yeah!"
There was a slight pause. "Probably didn't like my tone of voice," he thought. "Too bad."
"There's been a change in plans," Jambou said in a tinny voice.
"Whaddaya mean?" Banner demanded, on edge.
"We're going to add a little something special when you kill Mr. Matsumoto."
Banner was immediately suspicious. But he wouldn't give the snake-in-the-grass up top the satisfaction of asking him what he was talking about. Sure enough, the answer came after a short wait.
"We're going to execute him on world-wide television. As an example." Banner hadn't seen a television screen since he'd left the penthouse, so he didn't know about the helicopter. His curiosity won out.
"An example of what?" he asked.
"A hostile aircraft just attempted to land on my helo pad. Unfortunately for them, however, they had mechanical difficulties and their plane blew up before it could land. But I'm going to teach them a lesson in humility. I'm going to execute a hostage in retaliation for their foolishness. Maybe they'll think twice before trying that again."
"So, you want me to...what?" Banner tried to keep pace with the reasoning.
"When you find him, bring him into the chamber. Stand him in front of the submarine so everyone can see it in the background. That way, there'll be no question in anyone's mind that it's really who we say it is, and that it's not a fake."
"So, you want me to blow his head off on live T.V., in front of the whole world? That's going to cost you extra. I mean, there's going to be a price on my head after this, what with everybody in the whole bloody world knowing what I look like!"
"Actually...no. You just round him up. Leo will take care of the rest. It'll be so much more...newsworthy Leo's way, don't you think?"
Banner looked at the radio in his hand as if he were holding out a bug for examination before squashing it. He shook his head. "What a nutcase this guy is," he thought. "Yeah, okay. I'll have him down here in a few minutes," he managed to say without sneering. He gave a universal order over the radio for Kim to be found and brought to the dock. "I want him here, now!" he added. He headed for the quay steps that led down to the dock.
He was startled a couple of minutes later when he heard a babble of voices coming down the stone staircase. Looking up, he saw two of his men none too gently herding Matsumoto toward the dock. He'd thought it might take longer. Most of the voices, raised in protest, came from the rest of the hostages who were close on their heels, demanding to know what was going on and where they were taking their friend.
"Where'd you find him?" Banner asked when they approached.
"We'd just seen the chopper blow up on the T.V. up in the mess hall when you called us. He happened to be there, too. No sweat."
Banner pulled his .45 from its holster and pointed it at the group behind the guards. They came to an abrupt halt twenty feet away. "That's close enough. Anybody wants to be a hero's gonna be a dead hero. Got that?" He glared at them. They glared back but no one ventured any further.
"Search him," the sergeant ordered. One guard stood aside with his gun loosely trained in Kim's direction while the other patted him down. He turned to Banner and shook his head.
"What's going on, Banner?" Justin called out in as neutral a voice as he could manage.
Banner looked from Marc to Kim and waved the barrel of the big-bore automatic in Kim's direction. "Your buddy here's been playin' games. Ain'tcha, boy?"
"What are you talking about? He's been upstairs with us."
"Uh-huh. That ain't all he's been ‘up’ to." He moved closer to Kim. "Is it, boy? Huh?" In a blur, he grabbed Kim by a fistful of shirt front and snatched him forward so their faces were only inches apart and Kim had to stand on tiptoe to keep from falling.
"I don't know what you mean," Kim said levelly, locking eyes with the other man in an effort to avoid showing fear or weakness. Which is why he never saw the gun barrel coming, as Banner crashed it viciously into the side of his head and face. Kim's legs would have failed him if Banner hadn't had such a grip on his shirt. As it was, he only sagged against him for a few seconds before recovering. Blood was already oozing from a gash where the big sight on the end of the barrel tore open a wound on his ear. Kim's eyes blazed as he met his captor's. One look at Banner's face and he knew that he was being goaded. He knew he was dangerously close to being killed.
Banner shoved him away and turned to one of the guards. He pointed toward the VIKING. "Get up on top of that submarine and watch him. If he makes one wrong move, kill him!" The guard jumped like he'd been shot and hurried down the stone steps to the quay. While he and another guard were running the gangplank over to the ship, Banner turned back to Kim.
"I don't know how you did it, but you're going to put a stop to it right now!" he growled.
"Did what?" Kim asked.
Banner took a step toward the smaller man and began to raise the heavy handgun for another blow. Kim tried to step back, but was brusquely shoved from behind by one of the guards. Banner stopped his arm half-way up and burned a mean look into Kim.
"You're usin' that tub over there," he shot a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the VIKING, "to send out a MAYDAY. I don't know how you did it, but you're going aboard and stop it."
Kim looked at his opponent for several seconds. He'd been caught. Somehow they knew. He tried to buy time. "And if I don't?" he countered defiantly.
The corners of Banner's mouth turned up ever so slightly but failed to qualify as a smile. He casually raised the .45, pointed it straight between Kim's eyes, and thumbed back the hammer. "Then I'm going to blow your head off, right here and now. And then, I'm going to shoot your friends one at a time until somebody turns off that radio signal. Does that answer your question?"
"No use," Kim thought. "End of the line."
He smiled slightly. "Yes, it does. I just hadn't had it explained to me quite that way before. Shall we go?"
After a moment, Banner thumbed the hammer down on the pistol. "Yes," he said sarcastically. "Let's." He stepped aside and Kim moved to the steps with Banner a couple of careful paces behind him. "Keep that piece on him!" Banner called to the guard atop the sub. The guard instantly took a bead on Kim and warily tracked his progress. When they climbed to the top of the sub and approached the entry hatch, the guard circumspectly moved farther away, but never allowed the muzzle of the rifle to leave his man.
"Open it," Banner ordered.
Kim kneeled and spun the release lever. The hatch swung up and away. The elevator disc became visible. Kim waited.
"Well? What are you waitin' on?"
Kim nodded at the plate. "That's an elevator. You just step on it and it automatically takes you down."
Banner looked at it like it might bite him.
"Would you like me to go first?" Kim asked innocently.
Banner glowered at him through slitted eyes. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? You're down there, doing who knows what, while we're still up here." After a pause, Banner stepped to the rim and said to the guard, "If anything happens to me, anything at all, shoot him. You hear me?"
"Yes, sir!"
Banner walked around to the other side of the elevator plate. Then, locking eyes with Kim and pointing his gun at Kim, he stepped onto it. He immediately sank out of sight. Kim heard the guard suck in his breath and looked at him...down what looked like a very big, black hole in the end of the barrel. "It's okay," he said gently. "It's supposed to do that." He stepped over to the plate which had returned. "I'm going down now, okay? Take it easy." He stepped on the plate and gratefully dropped out of sight of the guard.
When he stepped off the plate, Banner was a safe ten feet away and watching him.
"Do it."
Kim moved past him, concentrating on a non-threatening body language,
and went forward to the control sphere. He didn't look back, but he knew Banner was close behind him. He also knew that Yoko was watching them both. She would have recognized Kim, but would not speak unless he invited her to. And he had no intention of doing so. He wanted these goons to believe that the ship was manually operated so they wouldn't suspect that he was in contact with her. Or even that there was a ‘her’. There's no telling what kind of stupid things they might do that would damage his comm link, on which he and the rest of the hostages might have to depend for their lives at any moment.
He pointed at a blinking red light on the console at the pilot's station. When he was sure Banner was aware of it, he slowly leaned over and pressed a switch. The light went off.
"That's it?" Banner asked doubtfully.
"That's it."
Banner extracted his radio and raised it to his lips. "The signal off up there?" he asked. There was a silence of five or so seconds.
"Yes, it's off," squawked the radio. "Now, take care of the other matter." The way that Banner glared at the radio before he reholstered it convinced Kim that the party on the other end had to be Jambou.
"So, that's where and how they found out," he realized.
"What ‘other matter’?" Kim asked.
Banner's eyes narrowed. "Shut yo' mouth, boy, and get back up topside."
They reversed their trip, with never the slightest opportunity for Kim to even think about doing anything but what he was told to do.
As they topped out up on the main level again, and Kim saw his friends waiting, Banner said to him, "Stop right there, boy." Kim didn't like the tone of voice. It seemed somehow ominous. But then, he noticed something even more ominous. There were an unusual number of guards in sight. And they were all heavily armed.
Kim looked over at his boss, still standing at the edge of the group of hostages. They hadn't moved since he'd left them to go to the ship. Kim let his eyes shift to several of the guards and back to Marc. Justin barely shook his head and shrugged. He didn't know what was going on, either. Then Kim realized that the guards were positioned strategically so that they could confront any hostage in moments.
