Six Seconds to Kill

by Brett Halliday

  “Helping myself to some gas,” Shayne said savagely.

  The mechanic stopped. “Why, yeah. I see that. Go right ahead, man.”

  Shayne left the hose running. He raced back to the helicopter, which sprang up from the concrete even before he closed the door.

  “Remember I’m not getting combat pay,” McSorley said nervously.

  The radio was shouting again. “Bell one-forty from tower. Do not proceed over runways. Emergency incoming traffic. Category-two emergency procedures. All aircraft hold, repeat hold.”

  The helicopter cleared Concourse 1, rising at a sharp angle.

  “The warehouses,” Shayne said curtly.

  “But what if there really is—”

  Shayne handed him the binoculars. “Look at the tower.”

  They were now on the level of the control cab, and they could see straight through from window to window. Even without binoculars Shayne could see the clear outline of a man with a gun.

  “Jesus,” McSorley said.

  “Tower to Bell one-forty, make an immediate right turn, heading zero-eight-one, and land at once. Acknowledge.”

  McSorley thumbed the transmit switch. “Bell one-forty to Air Traffic Control. Up yours.”

  He hung the mike back on its hook. “I always wanted to do that. But you know this isn’t recommended, Shayne. If any of those planes are actually coming down—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Shayne told him. “They’re clearing everything out of the way so those cargo planes can take off.”

  One of the two planes in the warehouse area was coming about slowly. It headed along the taxi strip into the east-west runway. Shayne picked up McSorley’s torn shirt and ripped off a long strip. Tearing this in two, he rolled each portion into a tight cylinder and stuffed it into the neck of one of the gas-filled Coke bottles. He upended the bottles to let the gasoline soak into the rags.

  “You aren’t thinking of destroying any aircraft, are you?” McSorley said.

  “Yeah. Come right up over it. As soon as I’ve dropped the bottles, land on the railroad track. Make the turn fast because they’re carrying ammunition and it’s likely to blow.”

  “Great. I’d rather not have any part in this, but I don’t suppose I have a choice?”

  “No.”

  “I had a date to play golf this afternoon. I don’t suppose—”

  They skimmed across the crosshatched field at an altitude of fifty or sixty feet. Shayne told McSorley to climb. The plane ahead was approaching the end of the runway, ready to turn to come back.

  “More to the left.”

  He unlatched the door and forced it open. He leaned out, but as long as the helicopter was moving forward there was too much outside pressure on the door; he couldn’t hold it open and expect to throw accurately at the same time.

  “I’ll go up ahead and hover,” McSorley offered.

  “Fine.”

  The plane on the ground began a long loop into the end of the runway. McSorley picked a spot where it would pass beneath them. He cut their forward momentum.

  Shayne braced the bottles between his legs and lighted the rags. The cargo plane rolled toward them, picking up speed.

  “Hey, somebody’s shooting,” McSorley said, surprised.

  “Can you cut down the goddamn vibration?”

  Shayne leaned out and lobbed one bottle, then the other. He swung back inside and slammed the door.

  The helicopter shot toward the General Aviation Center. He felt the explosion through the soles of his feet. He had led the plane too much with the first bottle, but the second had hit it squarely. One wing was a sheet of fire.

  The helicopter swung back and around. McSorley, very excited, yelled, “Now what?”

  Shayne, from the window, gave him hand signals. The cargo plane slewed off the runway, and the burning wing crashed into a lighting stanchion. Men were spilling out of the side door.

  The helicopter touched down, kicking up swirls of dust, between the last warehouse and the Seaboard Airline siding. An instant later Shayne was out and running, Berger’s automatic in his hand.

  He raced around the corner of the warehouse and along 4th Street toward the remaining plane. At the next intersection a young guerrilla armed with a hunting rifle fired from a warehouse platform. Shayne threw himself face down and rolled, reaching the opposite platform before the other could fire again. In the darkness beneath the platform, Shayne scrambled backward and out again five feet away. A bullet buried itself in the edge-beam above his head. He fired. The youth went backward and lost the rifle.

  Shayne ran across to him and snatched it up. The main siren was going, the big one that was saved for major calamities. Fire apparatus, salvage trucks, pumpers and ambulances were on their way from the fire and rescue station at the center of the field. Shayne worked his way to the end of the platform.

  His view of the field was partly blocked by a Port Authority sedan and two trucks. The second plane was beginning to stir. Armed men from the disabled plane were running toward it. Others, working desperately, pulled the big pallets into the plane’s belly.

  There was a piercing whistle. A man appeared on the opposite loading platform. He had a pistol strapped to his side and carried a submachine gun. As he turned in Shayne’s direction, Shayne saw the heavy-lidded eyes, the deep mark above the nose, the pale olive skin of the magazine photographs—Gil Ruiz.

  A dead cigar was clamped between his lips. He relighted the stump as several unarmed men coming out of the warehouse passed him and jumped down onto the apron and ran toward the moving plane. Shayne brought his rifle around to bear on Ruiz. He waited a moment, his finger grazing the trigger. He raised the barrel without firing. He wanted this man alive.

  Ruiz saw someone Shayne was unable to see, frowned and half shook his head. There was an explosion from the burning plane, and Shayne didn’t hear the shot. Ruiz was struck in the chest. Like Eliot Crowther in the hotel corridor fifteen minutes earlier, he looked surprised, a little indignant. He staggered sideways and tumbled off the edge of the platform.

  Another booming explosion blew the burning plane back onto the runway. A big pumper was pouring chemical spray on the fire. Shayne could feel the heat.

  An unlikely vehicle raced across the field from the terminal—a motorized ramp. One man was at the controls, another man and a dark-haired girl were behind him, clinging to the steps. As it turned into a cross taxi-strip, Shayne put a bullet into one front tire. It careened away, out of control, and tipped over on the grass. In a moment the two men were running.

  Shayne left cover and darted forward between the two trucks. Hands reached down from the plane’s belly to haul the two men aboard. Shayne, on one knee, took careful aim at the big tire. The hammer clicked down on nothing.

  Moving back fast, he grabbed the submachine gun dropped by Ruiz when he fell. The plane’s pilot had decided to take a chance on getting off using only three quarters of the runway. The plane seemed to hesitate while he used his brakes to let the power build up, and then it leaped forward.

  Shayne returned to his position between the trucks, threw the safety flap and waited for the plane to come back within range. There was a wild crackle of small arms as the fire reached the ammunition boxes in the burning plane.

  At that moment two airport security guards in black uniforms ran in front of Shayne. One was unarmed, the other had a revolver. The plane came rapidly down the runway. Shayne yelled at the armed guard to get out of the line of fire, and the man whirled and snapped off a shot. The bullet hit the concrete to Shayne’s right and screamed away. Shayne dived beneath the truck. The guard ran to his right, back to his left, squatted and tried to shoot again.

  Swearing, Shayne sent the submachine gun skidding into the open to make the guard think he was surrendering, then wriggled out beneath the truck on the warehouse side. The guard screamed at him to hold still and put his hands over his head. Shayne swore again, fiercely, but he stopped and did as he was told. />
  Teddy Sparrow, with two more guards, burst out of the next warehouse. Sparrow had been tied up, and a length of clothesline dangled from one wrist.

  “They’re getting away!”

  “Aren’t they,” Shayne said dryly. “Will you tell your man we’re both on the same side?”

  Sparrow jumped down, shouting. He landed on a spare tire lying on the ground, and one leg crumpled beneath him. Shayne started to move, but the excited guard made a menacing gesture with his pistol and Shayne stopped again.

  Sparrow came to his feet. Hobbling out to the submachine gun, he snatched it up and fired a burst at the departing plane as it lifted off the runway and made a climbing turn to the southwest.

  He turned back toward Shayne, his face contorted. He was nearly crying.

  “I blew it! I knew I would! I knew it would happen!”

  CHAPTER 13

  Shayne knew he had very little time.

  The main siren was still screaming. More emergency vehicles had gathered. Kneeling beside Ruiz, Shayne went through his pockets quickly.

  “I see we got one of them, anyway,” Sparrow said miserably. “You can’t blame my people, Mike. They haven’t had military training. These guys were soldiers! They came in on us from all sides.”

  “Round up your men and cordon off the area,” Shayne said. “Don’t let anybody in or out. You’ll have reinforcements inside of fifteen minutes.”

  Sparrow straightened his shoulders and looked serious. “That’s right, maybe everybody didn’t get away. I certainly would like to capture a couple. It wouldn’t be such a total disaster.”

  He climbed up on the platform. “Fellows!” he shouted. “Over here. We’re going to cordon off the area. Don’t let anybody in or out.”

  Shayne checked the black official sedan at the loading dock. The key was still in the ignition. He swung in and started the motor.

  “Mike, where are you going?” Sparrow called.

  Ignoring him, Shayne wheeled around and entered the diagonal taxi-strip to the runway. He had seen movement near the wrecked mobile ramp. Crossing the runway, he saw Adele Galvez sitting on the grass, looking around. There was a smear of dirt across one cheek.

  “Get in,” Shayne said, pulling up beside her.

  She pushed back her hair with a dazed gesture. “Mike?” Shayne set the hand brake and got out. Understanding suddenly that she was about to be taken prisoner, she scrambled for a shotgun lying on the grass. Shayne kicked it away, pulled her to her feet and thrust her into the car.

  “The fight’s over. You’re all by yourself, as far as I know.”

  As he drove down the runway toward the terminal area, she looked back at the burning plane. Another box of ammunition let go. In the mirror, Shayne saw flaming bits of debris erupt across the runway.

  “That was you in the helicopter, wasn’t it?” she said.

  “That was me.”

  “Did the others—”

  “You took a few casualties, but everybody else got off, and maybe they’ll make it. I’m hoping the air force knows about them by now.”

  “Luckily they don’t,” Adele said quietly. “Before we left the tower we smashed the radios. All the telephone cables have been cut.”

  “That may not be quite enough.” He swung between the Delta maintenance building and Concourse 1, cutting beneath the wing of a parked 707. “But never mind about them, think about yourself for a minute.”

  “I don’t care! It was splendid! We paralyzed a great American airport. We stole a shipment of arms intended for our enemies.”

  “All of which,” Shayne said, “carries a heavy jolt in jail. But be a nice girl and maybe we can deal. Do you have a car?”

  “Yes.” She looked at him sharply. “You mean you’re letting me go?”

  “That depends on a number of things. How you behave, for one.”

  He pulled up alongside his Buick and slid out. Unlocking his own car, he picked a Phillips screwdriver out of the tool kit beneath the glove compartment. He felt Adele’s restlessness behind him. Half turning, he saw that she had edged over in the front seat. She could start the car and lock the front door in the same quick flurry of motion, and with luck she could get away. But she was hesitating.

  Shayne unscrewed the radio-telephone antenna attached to the front door-frame. He snapped the wire between the antenna and the phone and took out the entire unit. Then he went into the glove compartment for his flask. Adele hadn’t moved.

  “You’re thinking,” Shayne said, getting in beside her. “You only have one chance of getting out of this unsinged, and that’s if I decide to give you a break.”

  “But that’s what I don’t understand. Why should you?”

  “Where’d you leave your car?”

  “The main parking lot.”

  They were on the wrong side of the barrier; to stay together, they would have to detour around on 20th Street and come back through the toll plaza. He told her to get her car and meet him at the interchange, and to flash her headlights so he would recognize her.

  She was still puzzled. “I could take a taxi and—”

  “Don’t be dumb. How long do you think it would take the cops to find out about you? Somebody in that crowd on the deck knew who you were. You’re going to need some help. Wipe the dirt off your face so you don’t look so much like a girl guerrilla, and get going!”

  She gave him one more puzzled glance, got out of the car and walked off. Shayne drove to the interchange and waited, keeping his motor running, on the ramp leading south on 42nd Avenue.

  As the minutes passed, he felt more and more conspicuous in the black Port Authority sedan. The siren finally stopped. One of the army helicopters clacked overhead, coming back from Miami Beach, and Shayne rattled the steering wheel. He couldn’t delay much longer. Too many people had seen him leaving the warehouse area in an official car.

  An elderly Chevrolet with its lights on came down the ramp from the parking area. He signaled with his blinkers, and she followed him off the expressway. On 8th Street he turned east. A half dozen blocks later, he signaled again and passed through a pair of high gates into a cemetery. Adele hesitated, but in the end decided to follow him in. A curving roadway took them between orderly ranks of monuments and headstones, and they parked beside a mausoleum. There were no other cars.

  He took the phone and antenna to the Chevrolet and got in.

  “I ought to be going someplace very fast,” she said. “I shouldn’t be sitting here. We’re on opposite sides!”

  “Right now the sides are pretty scrambled. Things have been happening in other parts of town. Crowther’s been assassinated.”

  She came all the way around. “Who did it?”

  “A lady named Camilla Steele. Her husband was executed for murder a few years ago. He was innocent, it turned out. Crowther prosecuted the case.”

  Adele breathed deeply. “Then it had nothing to do with us.”

  Shayne made a rude noise. “There were five hundred armed paratroopers at the airport, and the minute they were ordered into the city, you people moved. That was a careful operation. Of course there’s a connection.”

  “Mike—no! We didn’t know about those soldiers till late last night. It made everything more risky, but Gil decided to go ahead. Careful—it certainly was careful. Some of our men had warehouse jobs. Two others were part-time guards. Gil and the rest drifted down two or three at a time. The guns were under a platform. The guards didn’t have a chance. Even if we’d had to do any shooting you wouldn’t have heard it, because that’s when the kids ran out on the field with the paint. The soldiers were there all the time!”

  “It wasn’t arranged on your level, Adele. Ruiz arranged it. I can’t ask him how he did it, because he’s dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Don’t blame me—I didn’t do it. But I hope I’m going to get some of the credit, because it might not have happened if I hadn’t tossed those Coke bottles out of the helicopter.”

 
; “Gil Ruiz is dead?”

  “It happens, baby. When you take over an airport and hijack two planes and a shipment of rifles, there’s an outside chance that somebody’s going to get hurt.”

  She put her fingertips to her forehead. She swayed forward. Shayne caught her before she hit her head against the steering wheel. He uncapped his flask of cognac and held it out.

  “Drink some of this. I don’t want you to faint again. I don’t have the time.”

  She swallowed some cognac, coughed and drank again.

  “Let’s assume the plane got through,” he said. “Cuba’s only a couple of hundred miles away, and the air force isn’t as efficient in real life as it is in the movies. You lost your commander and at least one man, maybe more. I didn’t stick around to get the complete casualty list. But on balance, it was a great success. Adele, are you with me? The political effect could be terrific. But not if your band of heroic revolutionaries assassinated an American cabinet member to pull the paratroopers away from the airport. That’s dirty football.”

  “We don’t believe in assassination. Read Gil’s books.”

  “Nobody on the jury is going to read any books. I mean the jury that’s going to decide whether you get five years for armed robbery or thirty years for conspiracy to commit murder.”

  “Thirty years?”

  “You committed a few crimes this morning, haven’t you realized that? But I seem to be in a worse jam than you are. Crowther and I weren’t exactly friends. I won’t explain the whole thing, but the way it looks, the killer and I had a joint contract. The top Secret Service man on the scene was about to shoot her, and I slugged him and took his gun. I’ve still got it.”

  “It’s a trick. Why should I believe you?”

  “You don’t have any choice, Adele.”

  He opened the radio antenna to its full length and slid it out the window. After cutting back the insulation on both sides of the break, he spliced the wires. Then he tied the lead-in wire into the Chevy’s ignition system and signaled his operator.

  She came on promptly.

  “Mr. Shayne, what’s happening? No, don’t tell me. I probably shouldn’t know. Some police officer—Peter Painter, can that be right—wants me to call him the instant you get in touch with me.”