by David Wind
Haller couldn’t take the little girl into the cockpit, but he could do something for her. “Bring her into first class,” he told the stewardess. “Let her enjoy the rest of the flight. I’ll tell Joan to give her the royal treatment.”
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In the first-class lavatory, Jonah Graham flushed the toilet, and washed and dried his hands. Then he unlocked the lavatory door and stepped out.
Another first-class passenger, bearded, of medium height and swarthy Middle Eastern features, stepped back to allow Jonah passage. With the brief but polite nod and smile of two men who will never see each other again, they continued on their way.
Jonah did not stare at the well-known face of Senator Milton Prestone, who occupied two first-class seats. Nor did he intend to eavesdrop when he passed the couple in seats 4A and 4B.
Graham recognized Cristobal Helenez from an article in Newsweek. The man was deep in conversation with his wife. Their voices were subdued; their tone was strident.
They were having an argument. Jonah’s thirty-five years of marriage was experience enough to sense that. Smiling, and pleased that the days of trying to pick a smooth path through the early and rocky stretches of marriage were long past, he returned to his seat and his wife.
“I’m glad to see you’ve relaxed a little,” Anita Graham said, covering Jonah’s hand with her own. The only jewelry she wore was the wedding band he’d placed on her finger thirty-five years ago tomorrow. “It’ll be nice to be home.” After almost four decades of knowing this man, she was still in love with him. The heavy graying of his hair, the recession at his temples, the facial lines that grew increasingly more elaborate each year, did not bother her. She still saw the same handsomeness that attracted her from the beginning. He may be getting old, she thought, but he’s aging well. Highlighting his rough features was what she called his Sinatra eyes—sharp, blue, and clear. His body was only five pounds heavier than it had been when she fell in love with him.
“Yes, it’ll be nice to get home,” Jonah agreed, thinking of their anniversary.
For an anniversary present, Jonah had bought her an XJ-series Jaguar—white on white. He could already envision her reaction. Anita did not like flashy cars or flashy clothes. She liked quiet quality. However, this time he was determined to make her enjoy the opulent present. Jonah smiled to himself.
“Care to share the humor?”
“Eventually,” he said and glanced about in the subdued light of the cabin.
The couple across from him, their legs and waists covered by an airline blanket, were snuggled together, oblivious to anyone else. The woman was startlingly beautiful, a model he guessed. The man was at least twenty years older. Was she his mistress?
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J. Milton Prestone, tall, thin, and angular, tugged impatiently on the lapel of his hand-tailored blue silk suit. A moment later, the same hand fingered the full Windsor knot of the matching blue tie.
J. Milton Prestone was always impatient. He believed it was his right. It wasn’t egotism making him feel that way; it was the knowledge that he was an important man. Prestone turned to look at the other first-class passengers. He slid an index finger along the side of his, as the newspapers referred to it, “hawkish” nose.
His was a nose that suited him well, for J. Milton Prestone, a former senator from New Mexico, was a hawk. He had voted for more arms increases than any other member of the Senate during his eighteen-year tenure. Then he had taken over the chairmanship of Lentronics and had guided the nation’s largest weapons manufacturer to unparalleled profits.
“Hate these damned things,” he muttered, meaning the commercial aircraft that was taking him home; he had no choice. He could not afford to wait seven additional hours for repairs on his own plane. They needed him in the boardroom of the Lentronics New York offices by ten tomorrow morning. He was due at the Pentagon for a meeting with the Joint Chiefs at three.
Prestone lifted his attaché case from the neighboring seat, which he had purchased along with his own. He opened the case and looked at the figures on the top sheet. The figures were only part of the reason J. Milton Prestone never allowed anyone to sit next to him on a public airplane.
“Everything all right, Senator?” came a drawling voice from over his shoulder.
Prestone glanced up at the airplane’s captain, resplendent in his gold braided black uniform. “Fine. Still on schedule?”
“Right on schedule, sir.”
“Thank you,” Prestone said in dismissal as he picked up the cellular phone he’d appropriated from the wall in the front of the first-class cabin.
He waited until the captain disappeared into the flight deck before attaching a small black mechanism to the mouthpiece and dialing a special number in Washington. The phone was answered on the second ring.
“This is Prestone,” he said in a voice he believed would not carry far. As soon as he finished speaking, he pushed the only button on the scrambler attachment. A pinpoint red dot glowed in response.
He heard two clicks and, when a familiar voice spoke, Prestone said, “The meeting is a go. All terms have been agreed to.”
“So easily?”
“There were some concessions on my part,” Prestone admitted.
“Such as?”
“I’ll give you the details when we meet. You just authorize my other deal, understood?”
“The President isn’t happy about this.”
“You tell that ass backward conservative that’s his problem. I gave him what he wanted, now he gives me what I want—full approval for the sale to the Israelis.”
“Senator,” the man in Washington began, but Prestone cut him off.
“Any further discussion on the matter will result in a complete disclosure to the press.”
“That would be a mistake.”
“Yes, the President’s,” Prestone said.
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In seat 1D, in front of J. Milton Prestone, the same dark-skinned man who had passed Jonah Graham at the lavatory door, nodded to himself at the conversation he had overheard behind him.
Shifting slightly, the man reached beneath his seat to finger the packages taped to its bottom-it was a gesture of reassurance.
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Sonja Mofferty, her head resting on her husband’s shoulder, readjusted her position so her lips touched his ear.
“Want to get laid?”
Startled, Jack Mofferty drew away and looked down at her. “Here?”
“It would be fun,” she whispered. Beneath the blanket, her hand drifted along the inside of his thigh. She continued to let her fingers rise until she could feel the start of his erection. Her nail scratched lightly at its head.
“Stop,” Mofferty laughed.
“Why?” she teased. When she had agreed to marry him, she had doubted a man of his age would be able to satisfy her for any length of time. So far, he had surprised her.
Sonja was glad. She had married Jack when her career’s quick and not so subtle downhill slide began. She chose Jack because, although he was not worldly, he was rich. She had been surprised, shocked actually, to find out just before they married, she had fallen in love with him.
Sonja smiled. Never had she imagined loving a Jack Mofferty—short, balding, potbellied, and sweet, too, although he did his best to hide it.
“You really want to?” Mofferty asked, cutting into her thoughts.
She lifted her hand and caressed his cheek. She liked the way the stubble of his beard vibrated on her palm. “We’ll see.”
“What about the attendants?”
“They’re used to it,” Sonja said, hitching the blanket up over their waists.
When her fingers resumed their play, Jack did his best not to let his pleasure show. How did I get this lucky? Initially, he knew his wealth caught her, but not long ago, he discarded the belief it was just money keeping them together. Mofferty was sure it was love, no matter what his brother and sister-in-law said.
That he wa
s forty-eight, had a twenty-four-year-old son, and had fought his way out of Sheepshead Bay and into the foreign car business in Long Island, was no reason to think that someone as young, beautiful, and famous as Sonja couldn’t love him.
Without warning, Sonja’s fingers tightened on him. Her head left his shoulder and slipped beneath the blanket. He barely held back a groan. His eyes closed, and his hips pushed upward. He did not see the stewardess walk by, pause for a fraction of a second, and then smile to herself as she went toward the flight deck.
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Laughing to herself at the all too obvious under the blanket love play, Elaine Samson passed the first row of seats when the eerie sensation of being stared at crept up her spine. She stopped to look over her shoulder, her features set in a professional expression of, ‘did I forget anything’.
Her eyes locked with those of the bearded man in seat 1D. He held her stare for just an instant longer, before lowering his gaze.
A shiver slithered down Elaine’s back. Turning, she went to the galley, thinking how foolish it was for her to be so uneasy about a man’s gaze. Then she put the incident out of her mind.
Chapter Three
The passengers experienced Flight 88’s initial descent as a subtle shift in airspeed. For most, the change meant nothing. For others it was a signal to prepare.
In seat 1D of the first-class cabin, adrenaline rushed into Rashid Mohamad’s bloodstream, giving his nut-brown skin a slight flush. The bearded man’s senses grew acute. Sounds expanded; odors turned intense and easily identifiable; cigarette smoke, American; a whiff of perspiration; coffee from the galley; a hint of wine.
Mohamad looked casually about. His left fist clenched and unclenched, loosening his muscles. All the first-class passengers were in their seats. In the front, the curtain between first class and the galley was drawn. A closed curtain separated first class from coach. There was very little movement in the cabin. Behind Mohamad, J. Milton Prestone continued to make prolific notes. Mohamad listened to Prestone’s pen scratching across paper.
In the last row, a silver-haired older woman wearing a gold-and-diamond Star of David was engaged in a discussion with the man next to her. Mohamad doubted if the woman would want to continue her dialogue in another half hour.
He shifted, drew the red blanket higher in his lap, and reached beneath his seat. Removing the taped-on package, he slipped it beneath the blanket.
He unwrapped the package without looking down. His sure fingers needed no guide to put the clip into the Ingram MAC-10 machine pistol and make sure the safety was on.
Mohamad opened the attaché case on the seat next to him. He listened for footsteps, heard none, and placed the machine pistol in his case and snapped it closed.
Standing, Mohamad folded the blanket and put it on the seat he’d vacated. Then he placed the case on top of the blanket.
His attitude was that of a man in need of stretching after hours of sedentary confinement. Nevertheless, his eyes were never still—never as relaxed as his body appeared. Mohamad walked toward the rear of first class.
His glance fell on the little girl. When he’d seen the stewardess settle her into a seat, he’d experienced a momentary pang of anger, but accepted that fate never quite let things go the way one envisioned them.
When he passed seats 7A and 7B—occupied by the silver-haired Jewess and the young man she was talking to—Mohamad gave a barely perceptible nod before slipping through the curtained partition into the coach section of the plane.
“Can I help you, sir?” asked a stewardess.
Mohamad smiled. The girl was pretty: Cafe-au-lair skin with amber eyes. He smelled the perfume clinging to her skin. Was her father black, or her mother?
“Just stretching my legs,” he said in an Oxfordian accent. “It is all right, is it not?”
“Oh, certainly.”
“Thank you,” he said, absently massaging his left shoulder with his right hand.
The movement was casual but studied. The eye contact between him and the man in the first row was so fleeting that no one could have suspected a signal passed between them.
The man who had received Mohamad’s signal rose and went to the lavatories in the middle of the plane. He carried a large rectangular attaché case. When he reached the lavatories, he found them all unoccupied. He bypassed the first three in favor of the last.
A second later, Mohamad walked to the rear of the plane, where he stood behind the last seat, took out a pack of John Player Specials, and lit one with a gold Dunhill.
He took several deep drags on the cigarette and then went to the last center-aisle seat and looked down at the man sitting there. “Do you mind?” he asked, making a motion toward the ashtray.
The man shook his head without replying, Mohamad stubbed out his cigarette. “Thank you.”
The cigarette extinguished, the bearded man returned to his seat in first class. Behind him, the passenger whose ashtray he’d used rose and, taking a bulky attaché case from beneath the seat, went into one of the lavatories. Inside the locked compartment, he opened the attaché case and took out a hexagonal recess key. He unlocked the towel compartment, removed the remaining paper towels, unfastened the back of the polished aluminum cabinet, and removed three items. A short while later, the three metallic pieces had been fitted together to make an Uzi machine rifle.
Still working with meticulous care and speed, the man placed the Uzi diagonally into the attaché case; its stock folded, and replaced the cabinet’s back. He put the paper towels inside and locked the cabinet. Then he pulled down his pants and voided his bladder and bowels. He knew he might not have another chance for several hours—if ever.
Eight minutes later, he looked down the aisle toward the middle lavatories. Standing there was another man, holding the twin to his own attaché case. Although the distance was too great for either to see the other’s eyes, their silent message was sent and received.
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The seatbelt sign was on. Seconds later, Captain Haller’s voice came over the plane’s P.A. system.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we will begin our final approach to Kennedy Airport in fifteen minutes. It’s a beautiful night in New York. Visibility is near perfect, as you will notice if you look out your windows. The temperature is a comfortable seventy-nine degrees Fahrenheit. Humidity is seventy-two percent.
“On behalf of myself, my crew, and Trans Air Airlines, we thank you for flying with us, and hope to see you all again.”
Joan Bidding and Elaine Samson collected the last two glasses from the passengers and returned to the galley, closing the curtain behind them. They did not notice Rashid Mohamad stand and start after them, a red blanket thrown carelessly over his right arm.
Elaine dumped the two glasses into the tray. “God, this trip seems to be taking forever.”
“Not really,” Joan said, as a passenger appeared in the galley’s opening. “Can I help you, sir?”
“Yes, actually, you may.” He extended his blanket-draped arm.
Elaine reached for the blanket. Her bored gaze met the man’s sensuous and brooding eyes; the unease she’d experienced earlier returned. Without taking her eyes from his, she took the blanket. Behind her, Joan Bidding gasped.
The man moved quickly then. His left arm circled Elaine’s neck. His right hand rose, cruelly pressing the barrel of the machine pistol into the soft skin beneath Elaine’s chin. The tightening of his arm about her neck cut off her cry of panic and fear.
“If either of you do anything—anything at all—everyone on the plane will die! Is that understood?”
It had happened so fast that all Joan could do was to stare at the weapon. Her stomach twisted violently. Her heart pounded trip-hammer fast; her breathing turned shallow. She stepped back against the galley wall and searched for a hidden button.
“Don’t do that,” the man said, his arm tightening on Elaine’s neck. Elaine’s eyes bulged. Her mouth opened.
Joan quickly brough
t her hands before her. “Stop! Please!”
The man loosened his hold on Elaine. “Excellent,” he said.
“What do you want?” Joan asked.
“Right now we are waiting,” Mohamad said. Shortly, another man appeared behind Mohamad, revealing another pistol. The two spoke in rapid Arabic.
“You will call the pilot on the intercom. You will act normal,” he told Joan. “You will tell the pilot that there is a problem with one of the passengers. A heart attack. You need help. Do not cause him to become alarmed.”
This can’t be happening, Joan thought while Elaine’s bloodless face confirmed that the terror everyone believed happened only to others was happening to them.
The incessant pounding of Joan’s heart slowed. After her initial moments of fear, numbness stole in. She clenched her hands to stop her fingers from shaking and forced herself to function. In the second or two that it took to turn and reach for the intercom phone, a dozen things went through her mind. Trained, like all attendants, for hijack situations, she realized her training was not good enough for her to risk the passengers’ lives.
She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want her passengers to die either. From the moment the man grabbed Elaine and looked into Joan’s eyes, she instinctively knew he could and would kill. It was fact of which she had no doubts.
She turned back to the bearded man. “The captain is on approach. He won’t leave the controls.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mohamad said, relaxing slightly.
The woman’s words told him she would try nothing. She had passed her first test. She would live, for now. “Get the flight engineer.”
Mohamad stared at her for a moment longer. His eyes betrayed no emotion. Indiscriminate killing was not what this mission called for. While some people would die, wholesale slaughter was unnecessary.
Joan saw something behind the dark orbs of his eyes. Her fear quickened as she dialed the flight deck. The flight engineer answered. Joan forced herself to speak in a normal voice. “Alan, we’ve got an emergency back here. A heart attack.”
