They talked about it some more and Joe concluded by saying, as cheerfully as he could muster, “I’m with you, Dinah. Sounds to me like you’re doing the right thing.”
Dinah Schwind shot him a glance that may have been gratitude. But she remarked, “You can call me Dinah, Joe, but don’t ever let me hear you refer to me as ‘Dinah-mite.’”
Joe smiled and promptly effaced that epithet from his vocabulary.
9
Hell Gate
Schwind was around somewhere, but Joe couldn’t see her. Her management style was to let the dog hunt. As long as she didn’t get in the way, or complain if he didn’t come when she called, he was content.
He was ready. It was getting dark. The mountains to the east reared up huge, their snowcaps red-gold in the last of the sun. Another beautiful day in paradise, here in the Salt Lake valley. No clouds, just sun. But cool, even for March. And a breeze, as always. Joe wondered if airports caused breezes. It wasn’t a sea breeze, not a salt breeze, although the lake was just over there to the west. All he could smell was jet fuel.
He watched the Gulfstream V from about three hundred yards. He sat in a used pickup truck, not quite as old and beat-up as the one he’d abandoned in Granby. This one was a GMC. It had a big engine and everything worked. It had cost him fifteen hundred dollars—or rather, it had cost Schwind. Paid in cash to a young fellow who had run an ad in the Salt Lake Tribune. This kid would probably be able to identify Joe if anyone asked, providing they showed a picture of a cowboy with a mustache. But it was just a description. It would be a stretch to connect the buyer with Joe Service, an escaped prisoner from Denver. And no reason, for that matter, to connect Joe Service with the kind of activity he was about to initiate in Salt Lake City. And if all those connections were made … so what? Just something else to attribute to Joe Service, if you ever saw him again.
When they had finished fueling and the truck had moved away, Joe began to get ready. He’d tried out the RPG in the desert and he felt he had a good chance to make a hit with the second or third shot. Hell, he might even get lucky and score on the first. But he didn’t have a lot of time. He figured that from a range of less than two hundred yards, at the fence, he could fire three times for sure, and if nothing interfered, he could fire more if he had to. A week to practice would have been better, but he didn’t have it.
What he wanted now was for the attendants and others to leave the scene. But it didn’t look like that was going to happen. Regardless of what Schwind wanted, he had no intention of waiting for Echeverria and his friends. He would knock out the plane and that was that. The trouble was, as he’d feared, there was always somebody in the plane, or close by. Obviously, there was a guard— he saw a man in quasi-military fatigues who occasionally left the plane by its open exit ramp, took a little stroll around, and looked like he desperately wanted to smoke a cigarette. This man looked professional, perhaps a former soldier.
This guy appeared to be unarmed, but on one occasion when he had appeared at the door of the plane he’d carried a weapon in a casual way, in one hand, aimed upward. Joe got only a brief glimpse, but it looked like a Heckler & Koch MP5. He wore aviator sunglasses and a beret. It must have taken some kind of clout to be permitted an armed guard on the flight line, although the guy was pretty circumspect—maybe he had orders not to show the gun. It looked like there was only the one guard. Sorry Raul, Joe thought, gazing through the binoculars, you can pack heat, but no smoking on the flight line—that’s the American Way.
There were also a couple of women in uniform-type outfits, rather like stewardesses, who came out now and then, presumably to get a little air. There were people who drove up to other nearby aircraft: just people, businessmen, pilots, secretaries, service workers. There were just a heck of a lot of people coming and going. And then there was occasional traffic on the service road, which was why he wasn’t parked on the service road. He was parked back off the road, behind some old earthen mounds, grassy piles evidently left over from construction.
The aircraft was larger than he’d envisioned it, having pored over photographs of Gulfstream Vs in aviation magazines at the library. This was a beautiful piece of work, painted fancifully in azure blue with a broad, sweeping swash, a leafy jungle-vine motif in brown and green that started at the base of the low, short nose and ended high on the tail. The aircraft had two big Rolls-Royce jet engines mounted on either side of the rear of the fuselage. The wings were swept and low. He knew from the magazines that the Gulfstream was noted for speed, cruising altitude, and, especially, range. In one of these a drug lord could check on his poppies in Asia or the Mideast, zip to Paris to make a deal, buy the wife a frock, and then head home to Lima, or wherever, with hardly a glance at the fuel gauge.
Obviously, the drug business paid well, but Joe was impressed. The drug dealers he was familiar with drove around in Cadillac splendor, and maybe the odd Rolls. This was spending money on a scale that declared, We gotta get rid of it.
The plane was angled away from the fence, its lofty tail toward him. In this posture it presented just about the smallest target profile it could have. He’d go for a direct hit on the left engine for the first shot. He had just decided that, after watching the scene for forty minutes. It was much as he’d seen three days earlier. Just too many innocent bystanders. The tail assembly was the closest, biggest target available. It was also, he thought, the least likely site for a general explosion, although he wasn’t at all sure about that. The magazines he’d looked at had provided very little technical information about the location of fuel tanks. He assumed the main tanks were in the low wings, but then the engines were in the back. If he were designing it, he’d have put as much of the fuel as he could back there, in case of accidents. But he knew there were aerodynamic reasons for spreading the weight around, and fuel was a big part of the plane’s weight.
If he could hit the tail assembly, the explosion of the rocket would frighten the people away from the plane. The exit was right up front, just behind the flight deck, a combination ramp and door. The crew would have maximum access to the exit, and he’d allow them as much time to flee as he dared. But there would be unforeseen problems, he was sure.
The guard would not run away, or not far. He would locate the source of the attack. He would see Joe, for there was really no place to hide. Standing by the fence would not give him a clear view to the target; he would be a little below grade. Anyway, there wasn’t much cover value to standing at a wire-weave cyclone fence. The service road was elevated, however. If he stopped on the road and he stood in the back of the pickup truck, using the cab roof as a rest, he would have a good view, could fire over the fence instead of having to cut a hole to fire through. Of course, the elevated position, in the pickup bed, would make him very visible to the guard.
Joe accepted the probability that he would have to take some fire, probably automatic fire, probably 9mm, if that was an H&K. And he’d have to wait until he was sure the women had fled the scene, as well as anybody else who might be idly present, before he launched two and three. And, of course, the explosion would bring the cops.
The cops would come from inside the fence, first, rushing to the site, but there would be others who would quickly block the access roads. He had no idea how long it would take them to do this. There was doubtless a way to find out, but he hadn’t had the time to do it. Today was moving day; Echeverria was leaving tonight. It was a major hole in the plan, but Joe had weighed the options and decided to go, regardless. There were two alternate exit routes; if either of them had been the primary route he wouldn’t have agreed to do it, but as the primary was simplicity itself, he quit fretting.
It was only common sense to make all the preparation you could, but sometimes it was better not to make too fine a plan. Things always went a little wrong. You could never imagine exactly how things would go, so it was better just to have a loose, rather flexible plan—within limits.
He loved the intricate plans he saw i
n caper movies, usually of bank robberies. He could see the artfulness of the director and the screenwriter: the otherwise uncommitted viewer was drawn into the plot by its seeming explicitness. Everything seemed to be carefully mapped out. One wanted it to succeed, just as one listened in anticipation for the resolving chord of a musical phrase. And then, of course, the enactment was drawn out, heightening the viewer’s tension, until some ludicrous little incident cropped up, some dumb little thing that one couldn’t have anticipated or predicted, like a kid wandering into the scene, or a car double-parked and blocking the getaway route, whole traffic-stopping parades that materialized out of nowhere. People panic and start screaming, noon whistles blow and startle a gunman, who begins to fire wildly … a fire alarm next door, a tiny barking dog that won’t go away … always a bunch of things. And, of course, it screwed everything up.
Well, it would, wouldn’t it? This released tension into action, into another more rapid train of events. Usually it ended in a hail of bullets, sometimes quite satisfyingly in an exhilarated gangster looking back and laughing as he somehow managed to elude pursuit.
And now, Joe realized, at the last moment, something seemed to be happening on the flight line. It was time. It was getting late. Visibility was already reduced. The guard came out and so did the women, not casually but purposefully. They descended the ramp and walked together the few steps to the nose of the plane. Terrific! He couldn’t have asked for better. Even the pilots had come out. And the guard didn’t seem to be armed.
By god, he saw what it was! A group of vehicles was driving from the air terminal toward the aircraft parking area: a sedan, an ambulance, another car. The reception party was standing by the nose, on parade.
Joe tossed the binoculars onto the seat, started the engine, and drove out to the point he’d selected on the road. He hopped out of the cab and vaulted into the back. With no haste, he hefted an RPG, armed it, and took up his position. He looked up and down the road. No one in sight, which was a great relief. He had a fine view of the target.
He aimed and fired. The rocket whooshed, he tossed the launcher aside and stooped to get another ready. He tried to keep his eye on the rocket while he got the next one ready. It wasn’t easy. The rocket took only a few seconds to reach its target. It had a better parabola than he’d anticipated. He’d aimed a little high and to the left, accommodating the breeze. The rocket swerved and smacked into the fuselage, about forty feet aft of the open door. It struck just in front of the left engine pod and exploded. These rockets were supposed to be armor penetrating, but this one exploded externally.
Joe figured the basic weight of the aircraft to be some twenty-four-plus tons. He hadn’t expected it to move much, but the explosion kicked the tail of the aircraft sideways, bringing the entire plane now nearly broadside to him. He hadn’t reckoned on that, and he was grateful that it worked in his favor. The target was much larger, and everybody was on the other side of it. He could hardly have asked for a better deal.
There was a gaping hole in the side of the plane, and smoke was pouring out of it. People were running, doubtless screaming, but he was not aware of that. Where was the guard? He at least ought not to be running away. He must realize what direction the rocket had come from. Joe couldn’t wait to look. He aimed at the spot where the wing joined the fuselage and fired. Whoosh! Toss the launcher. Get another.
Now he heard shots. The guard must have gotten his weapon somehow and unleashed an entire clip. It was 9mm, all right, but Joe couldn’t see him, didn’t see any bullets kicking up dirt. No impacts on the truck. The second rocket struck the fuselage too high, blew a big chunk off the top of the plane. The approaching cars had turned away, Joe could see them driving away from the plane. But whoever was driving the ambulance was either confused or determined to make delivery. The ambulance swung clear around the nose of the plane and skidded to a halt, nearly crashing into the wing that was extended toward Joe.
The doors of the ambulance flew open, personnel in white uniforms ran wildly, running toward nearby parked planes, frantically seeking cover. Also two men in suits. There would be one person in that ambulance who couldn’t run, Joe realized. A man who had intended to kill him. This was an unlooked-for opportunity. If he weighed the ethical factors at all, they didn’t compute, didn’t even register consciously. This was just too good to pass up. He aimed directly at the ambulance. But then … he let the sight drift away, toward the fuselage. The target was the plane, wasn’t it? He fired, then tossed the launcher and bailed out of the truck, scrambling into the cab and driving as rapidly as he could down the road toward the terminal parking lot.
He never saw the rocket veer and strike the wing, just above the ambulance. The explosion, the fire on the wing, then another, much larger explosion. But he heard the blast, saw the flashes. It took him less than a minute to reach the spot where he had decided to leave the truck. The service road did not communicate with the passenger parking lot. From where he left the truck it was exactly a minute and forty seconds of walking purposefully, no panic, to reach the lot. That was twenty seconds faster than he had estimated. Must be adrenaline, he thought as he slipped through the hole he had cut in the cyclone fence. He slowed to the halting pace of the man who is pretty sure where he left the car, but not dead sure. He peered about, stopped, and then walked directly to the car he had rented two days ago. It was a white car, like so many rental cars, but also like a huge percentage of cars in the Salt Lake area; for some reason they liked white cars here, he’d noticed. He got in and drove to the exit, where a striped wooden barricade stopped him next to a windowed hut. The attendant had come out and was looking back toward the terminal.
“What’s going on?” Joe called, extending his parking ticket.
“I don’t know,” the man said, coming around. He took Joe’s ticket, glanced at it, said, “Be right with you. Some kind of explosion over there. Jeez, I hope it wasn’t a crash!”
“My god,” Joe said, “I hope not. It didn’t sound that loud, did it?”
“No, I guess not,” the man said. “It was a couple of bangs. You hear it? That wouldn’t be a crash.” He took the ticket back into the booth, ran it through a time-stamp device, and said, “That’s thirty dollars and seventy-five cents, sir.”
Joe paid, got his receipt, and when the barrier went up, drove cautiously out onto the terminal exit road. There was a lot of activity, sirens, flashing lights, that kind of thing, but he just drove onto the freeway and it was soon behind him.
In Salt Lake City he found a parking lot two blocks from where he had earlier left another car that he’d bought with his own money, a very nice four-year-old Ford Taurus, not white but green. He checked the rental car for any evidence that could connect it to Joe Service. There was none, of course. He locked the car and took five blocks to travel two blocks, checking his tail, crossing a hotel lobby, doubling back, entering a large department store, exiting by the parking structure. He was clean. He drove his new car out of yet another lot and back to the freeway. Traffic in the Salt Lake area was nuts. There was still a lot of construction going on because of the bid for the upcoming Olympic Games, but Joe didn’t mind. The more confusion, the better. He patiently followed the temporary signs and got onto Interstate 80, then onto I-84, and finally, well north of the valley, onto I-15, headed toward Idaho and Montana.
This was more like it. Even though it was night, he could sense the wide-open spaces. Especially after he got over the ridge, out of the basin. He’d never cared for the basin. The Snake River reminded him of the last time he’d driven up this way. He’d turned around, just north of here, and gone back to Salt Lake City. He wasn’t sorry he’d gone back, but thinking about it he was reminded of an odd guy he’d encountered there, a Colonel Tucker. He was pretty sure Tucker had been a federal agent, probably narcotics, but maybe Immigration or Treasury. The guy had staked out Helen’s house in Salt Lake City, obviously intent on recovering the money that Helen had boosted from Joe’s cabin. Not
that Helen would see it that way, Joe thought. It was peculiar, though, that he had not given a thought to this guy before now. He wondered if Schwind knew this guy.
From here it was little more than two hours up over the Monida Pass to the turnoff that led up the road to his now ruined house, near the town of Tinstar. This really was a foolish idea. He’d thought about it as he drove. Almost no traffic at all on that freeway, from north of Idaho Falls, over the Monida Pass, until he turned off at Dillon. A couple of trucks. Then hardly any traffic to here. And all that time he’d known it was not just foolish but stupid.
If anyone was ever going to look any particular place for the fugitive Joe Service, it would be right here. He’d asked himself if this was just a blind, gut thing—a coyote running for his den. But he didn’t feel like he was running from anything. He’d soon recovered from whatever adrenaline rush the attack on the plane had given him. Was this some primal thing? He didn’t believe it. He decided it was just curiosity, and maybe a little bravado.
Then he laughed out loud. He was not a man to kid himself. There was at least one cardboard liquor box still stashed up there, full of money. Possibly two. As best as he could figure, there was between $500,000 and a cool million up there … assuming that the cops or somebody else hadn’t found it.
He wanted to see the place, but it was the middle of the night. The house, of course, was just a charred hole in the ground. Too bad—he’d loved that house more than any other place he’d ever lived, but he was a remarkably unsentimental man. He parked and walked up the hill to a secret cache, an old mine shaft that he’d discovered only after he’d been on the property for some months.
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