Final Flight jg-2

by Stephen Coonts

  The weapon slammed back against his shoulder. He crawled backward away from the edge, the barrel of the heavy rifle dragging against the rock.

  “You are surrounded!” His uncle was shouting. “Lay down your rifles and step out and you will live. Allah is merciful.”

  “We have the water.” The voice was high-pitched, a boy’s voice.

  “Surrender or die!”

  “You will kill us anyway.”

  “I swear by the Prophet. If you surrender, you live.”

  Qazi crawled back to the edge and looked down.

  “As Allah wills it,” the boy said, barely audible. He and his companion stepped from behind the rocks. Only one of them had a rifle. He tossed it on the ground before them.

  * * *

  “I don’t think anyone is coming, Colonel,” Ali said.

  “Perhaps later. Relieve the men on the roofs when you relieve the perimeter guards.” This was done every two hours.

  “Who could it have been?”

  “Anybody,” Qazi shrugged. “Even curious neighbors.” He glanced at his watch. It was three-thirty. He stood and picked up the radio on the table. “I am going upstairs to sleep. Wake me at five o’clock. Put only men who are not going with us on guard duty. All the others should meet in the dining room at five for a briefing.”

  * * *

  Jake threw the telephone receiver onto its cradle with a bang. “The whole damned afternoon wasted, all because of him!”

  “Now, Jake,” Callie said, “don’t be nasty. It’s not Toad’s fault.” They had ridden the same ferry back from Capri that they had ridden over, and Jake had stopped by fleet landing and talked to the ship by radio. He had spoken to the XO, Ray Reynolds, and told him of Callie’s suspicions about Judith Farrell, Lieutenant Tarkington’s new flame. He had left word that Toad was to personally call Captain Grafton at his hotel. And Jake had asked to be telephoned when Lieutenant Tarkington was located.

  In the lobby the Graftons had telephoned Judith Farrell’s room, but no one answered. They had even gone to the fourth floor and knocked on the door. All to no avail.

  “They say he isn’t aboard. They’ve just figured out that he had liberty all day and cycled through the ready room at ten o’clock, on his way ashore again. No one knows where he is.”

  “How about the Shore Patrol?”

  “Reynolds has already alerted them. If they run across him, they’re to secure his liberty and send him back to the ship immediately, after he calls me.”

  “Surely you don’t think Judith is behind the disappearance of those petty officers?”

  “I don’t know what to think. Goddammit, I don’t have enough facts to do any thinking with. Sailors are over the hill. Sailors go over the hill all the time when the ship is in port. The captain has a big mast when we get underway and kicks a lot of kids’ butts for overstaying liberty. But petty officers rarely do that. And Judith has a funny accent — a faint, funny accent that only a linguist can hear. She’s not what she says she is and she’s not in her room and she was aboard the ship in Tangiers. And Toad can’t be immediately located. So what does it all add up to?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Maybe. Or it may mean Judith has been a part of a ring kidnapping American sailors. Maybe she’s a terrorist. Toad could be her next victim. Maybe she just has a speech impediment. Or that pussy-hound Tarkington may have her flat on her back this very minute and be fucking her silly. Goddamn if I know.” He threw himself into a chair.

  “So what do we do next?”

  “I’m all out of ideas. What do you suggest?”

  Callie stood and examined herself in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. She tucked in a stray lock of hair. “Well, let’s go have a drink someplace and contemplate where we’ll go for dinner.”

  “Leave Toad to his horrible fate, huh?”

  “You’ve done all you can. But at heart Judith is a very nice young woman and Toad is a nice young man. I’m sure it’ll all work out.”

  “Aaaahg! Women! Why don’t you panic like you’re supposed to?” She grinned at him. “How men ever managed to keep women from running the world, I’ll never know.” Jake grabbed the room key from the desk. “Com’on, I’m tired of sitting around the hotel.”

  As he stabbed the button for the elevator, Jake muttered, “The whole afternoon down the tube. By God, I hope that horny bastard catches the clap.”

  “Jacob Lee Grafton! You do not! Now calm down and stop that cussing!”

  18

  Toad Tarkington sat at the bar of the Vittorio and watched the desk in the lobby reflected in the mirror. He had sipped his way through two slow beers and now a third beer sat untouched on the table before him. He was hungry and tired and discouraged. Maybe she would never come. But why hadn’t she checked out of her room? Sooner or later she had to come to that desk and ask for messages or check out.

  Behind him a crowd was gathering. It looked like a wedding reception. Men in formal dress and women in sharp fashions gathered around a table of hors d’oeuvres against the back wall. The bartender passed drinks across the counter to the lively crowd. The volume was rising. Toad didn’t understand a word of it. Couples entering the lounge kept obscuring his view, but he kept his eyes on the mirror anyway.

  When he could stand it no longer, he used the house phone on the end of the bar and dialed her room. Perhaps she had come in the back way, avoiding the lobby. He let it ring ten times before he hung up and returned to the bar.

  And then she was there, against the lobby counter, looking at the key boxes behind the desk and glancing at the clerk. Toad stood quickly, then eased back into his seat.

  Let her read the letter first, he decided. He had spent two hours this afternoon writing and rewriting the two pages, two long hours devoted to the most important letter of his life. The letter said the things that he had never been able to say — had never before wanted to say — to any woman. She should read it first, he concluded, trying to quell his feeling of unease.

  She spoke to the clerk and he handed her the envelope. She looked at both sides of the envelope carefully, glanced around the lobby — her gaze even passed over the people going into the bar — before she opened it with a thumbnail.

  Her hair was piled carelessly on top of her head. Even at this distance Toad could see stray locks. She was wearing a nondescript dark jersey, a modest skirt, and flat shoes. A large purse hung on a strap over one shoulder.

  He watched her face expectantly as she read. Her expression never changed. Her eyes swept the crowd again and returned to the letter. As she finished the first page her attention was back on the crowd. She scanned the second page. Now she was folding the pages and replacing them in the envelope, now looking at the envelope, now tapping it against her hand as she searched the faces of the wedding guests.

  He stepped into the doorway and she saw him.

  Toad started toward her only to hear the barman’s shout. He fumbled in his pocket and found some bills. He threw a wad on the bar and crossed the lobby toward her.

  “Judith, I …”

  “Hello, Robert.” Her features softened. “Ill keep this,” she said and tucked the envelope into her purse.

  “Hey, uh …” He couldn’t think of anything to say and yet he knew he should be saying the most important things he had ever said. “Listen …”

  But she was looking away, her eyes tense and expectant. Toad followed her gaze, A lean man with stringy blond hair and carrying a backpack was standing in the door that led to the rear courtyard and looking at her.

  “I have to go, Robert. You are very, very kind.”

  “At least give me your phone number, your address. I’ll …”

  “Not now, Robert. Later.” She was moving toward the courtyard door and he was moving with her. She put a hand on his chest. “No, Robert. Please,” she said firmly. He stopped dead. She bussed his cheek and disappeared through the door.

  He stood stock still, unsure of what had h
appened. She had read the letter. She knew he loved her. He looked around the lobby, at the starkly modern designer furniture, the second-floor balcony, the artsy chandeliers, the bright green drapes, the anonymous dressed-up people coming and going. Of course she didn’t love him, but she had to give it a chance. Then he knew. There was another man — a husband or a lover. Oh Christ, he had never even considered that possibility.

  He turned and walked down the hall toward the rear courtyard, hurrying.

  There was someone lying in the courtyard. Toad froze in the doorway.

  Judith and the man with the backpack stood over the prone figure. And there was another man, one wearing a workman’s shirt and cap, with a tool case at his feet. He had something cradled in his hands. In the semidarkness it was hard to see. The workman used his foot to turn the body over.

  “That isn’t him,” Judith said softly, her voice carrying very well within this enclosure.

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Well, who is it?” Her voice was tense.

  “It’s Sakol,” the workman said in a flat, American Midwest voice. “We’ve been after him for a long time. I had to do it.”

  “You fool,” she said fiercely. She took an object from her purse and spoke into it. “Everyone inside. Hit the door. Now.” She dashed toward the entrance to the other wing of rooms. As she went under the dim entryway bulb, Toad saw that she was carrying a pistol. The two men were right behind her. Now Toad could see what it was that the workman carried at high port — a submachine gun.

  Toad crossed the courtyard and stared at the man lying on the stones. He was on his back now, eyes and mouth open, a wicked bruise on his cheekbone. Little circles of blood stained his shirt around five holes in his chest. The holes were neat and precise, stitched evenly from armpit to armpit.

  God Damn! Holy Mother of Christ!

  He heard muffled, stuttering coughs and the sounds of shattering glass and splintering wood.

  A distant shout: “He’s on the roof.”

  Pounding footsteps clattered on the stairway that Judith had gone up. She came flying out, followed by the man with the backpack. He had a submachine gun in his hands and the fat barrel pointed straight at Toad as he moved.

  She ran toward the corridor to the lobby. “Get out of here,” she hissed at him and the man with her gestured unmistakably with his weapon.

  Someone three or four stories up, inside the hotel, was shouting in Italian. Cursing, probably.

  Toad looked again at the dead man at his feet. This was the first body he had ever seen that wasn’t in a casket. He found himself being drawn toward the lobby inexorably, almost against his will.

  The lobby was full of people. A young woman in a white formal gown was wending her way toward the bar, acknowledging the applause and handshakes. Her new husband, wearing a tux, followed at her elbow, shaking hands with the men and bussing the women.

  The blond man was bending over near a large potted fern. His backpack lay on the floor near him, by his right hand. Toad looked for Judith. She was behind a group near the elevators, watching the floor indicators above the stainless-steel doors.

  The workman faced the elevators, his submachine gun pressed against his leg.

  For the love of …! “Look out!” Toad roared. “He’s got a gun!” Startled faces turned toward him.

  Toad pointed. “He’s got a gun!”

  Women screamed and the crowd surged away from the gunman.

  The elevator door opened.

  The blond man had the butt of the weapon braced against his hip, spent cartridges flying out. The sound of shattering glass from the elevator was audible, and a low ripping noise and the screams and shouts of the panicked crowd, some of whom were on the floor and some of whom were trying to flee, shoving and pushing and sprawling over those lying on the carpet. The gunman fired one more burst, picked up his backpack, and ran for the courtyard corridor.

  Something hard was pressed against Toad’s back. “Follow him,” Judith ordered, and pushed him toward the archway. Over his shoulder Toad could see a bloody body lying half-in, half-out of the elevator.

  The bride stood horrified in the middle of the lobby, staring at the body being crushed by the closing doors of the elevator. A woman somewhere was screaming.

  “Quickly,” Judith urged.

  They were in the corridor. She pushed him hard. “Run.” She had a pistol in her hand. It had a long, black silencer on the barrel as big as a sausage. Even in the dim light Toad could see the hole in the end pointed at him.

  He ran.

  At the street entrance to the courtyard, men carrying weapons were racing toward them, at least four of them. A van careened around a corner and screeched to a stop.

  As the men piled in the back Judith shouted, “Him, too.” Someone grabbed Toad and hurled him toward the van. He was thrust facedown onto the floor and a heavy foot planted itself on the back of his neck.

  The van accelerated at full throttle for fifty feet, then the engine noise dropped. “You asshole,” someone said loudly. “You killed the wrong man. You blew it, fucker!” Three or four of them began talking at once.

  “Silence!” It was a command. Judith’s voice.

  He could smell the sweat and hear them breathing hard over the street noises and the eternal quacking of automobile and motor-scooter horns. He could hear the distinctive clicks and hisses of a two-way radio conversation, muted, from the front of the vehicle, the voices low and indistinct. He concentrated on the tinny voice from the speaker and concluded it was a foreign language, one he didn’t recognize. Cutting through all the noises was the distant, two-tone panic wail of a siren. Two sirens, moaning out of sync.

  He could tell from the road noises, the short accelerations and brake applications, that the van was cruising in traffic. Time passed. How much Toad didn’t know. The sirens eventually became inaudible.

  When he felt his legs cramping and he could stand it no longer, he said, in as conversational a tone of voice as he could muster, “Take your foot off my neck, please.”

  The pressure increased. He raised his voice, “I asked you nice. Take your fucking foot off my neck!”

  “Okay, let him up.” Judith’s voice.

  “He’ll see our faces.” It was the flat, American Midwest voice.

  “He ought to see yours.” Another male voice. This was a heavy accent, perhaps Eastern European. “You agency assholes want to be included, then you fuck it up.”

  “Shut up, everyone,” Judith said. “Let him up.”

  He was pulled bodily toward the rear of the van and turned into a sitting position. Hands seized his face. They were Judith’s hands. Her face was only inches from his. “Don’t look around.”

  The light came through the back windows of the vehicle — headlight glare and occasional streetlights. Her eyes held his as the lights came and went. They were the most intelligent, understanding eyes he had ever seen.

  “Don’t ever tell anyone what you’ve seen or heard. Promise me! Not a word.”

  Her eyes held him.

  “Oh, Judith! Why you?”

  “If you tell, people will die. Not you. Other people. Good people.”

  “You?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I don’t even know your real name.”

  “Don’t tell,” she whispered fiercely and increased the pressure of her hands on his temples.

  “I love you.”

  The van came to a halt and the rear door opened. “Get out.” As he did so, he heard her say, “I’ll keep the letter.”

  The van accelerated into traffic. He was beside a pedestrian island in the middle of a vast piazza. Buses were parked in rows across the street from him. To his right was the central train station, easily recognizable with the black triangles on the low, flat roof. He was in the Piazza Garibaldi.

  Then he remembered that he should have looked at the license number on the van. He wildly scanned the traffic, but it was gone. He had been looking at the little rear wi
ndow when it pulled away. Pedestrians were staring at him.

  He put his hand in his pockets and began shuffling along.

  * * *

  Jake and Callie were having dinner in a storefront trattoria on the Via Santa Lucia famous among U.S. Sixth Fleet sailors. Unit patches covered three large mirrors in the crowded dining room. The floor was linoleum and round bulb lamps hung from the ceiling. Pictures of American ships and airplanes in cheap black frames adorned the dingy wallpaper. Two men in their fifties served the noisy customers at the fifteen tables.

  An Italian couple at the next table was slaughtering a pizza and demonstrating the proper use of the knife and fork on this delicacy to their daughter, who was about eight. The utensils were used to roll up the triangular slice until it looked like a blintz, then the fork was stabbed through it and the pizza roll raised to the mouth, where one took a delicate bite from one end. The youngster was having her troubles with the technique. Red sauce and gooey cheese dribbled down her chin.

  The little brother was peeking at Jake. Jake winked. The boy averted his face, then peeked again. Another wink. The little head jerked away, then inched back around very, very slowly. Jake grinned.

  “Kids are great, aren’t they?” Jake remarked.

  “Oh, you think so?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Then you won’t mind if we adopt?”

  Jake hitched himself up in his chair and stared at his wife. She sipped her wine and gazed innocently around the room with a trace of a smile on her lips, her eyebrows slightly arched, the corners of her eves minutely crinkled. God, she was beautiful!

  He grinned. “Anyone specific in mind, or will a generic kid do?”

  Her eyes swiveled onto him like two guns in a turret, then her head followed. “She’s ten years old. Her name is Amy Carol. She has black hair and black eyes and a smile that will break your heart.”

  “And …”

  “She has diabetes. She’s been in four foster homes and she needs a family of her own. She was sexually abused in her first foster home, and the man went to prison. She doesn’t like men.”