Liberty

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The hangar had been dark for several hours when Tommy Carmellini heard the car drive up. Heard the engine stop, heard the doors slam.

Heard the key in the padlock on the door.

Heard the door open.

A light came on.

“He’s still here.”

“Did you think he wouldn’t be?”

Arch’s face loomed above him. “Still paralyzed, all right. Slack facial muscles, drooling up a storm, can’t focus his eyes. Hey, asshole, look at me. Look at me!”

Carmellini couldn’t, of course.

Arch slapped him three or four times, stinging slaps that made his ears ring. Then he laughed.

“Tough shit, Carmellini. Hope you’ve had a hell of a bad day lying here getting ready to die. I went to a ball game. You’ll be delighted to hear the Wizards won. Drank beer, ate good food, even got laid last night. How about that? And tomorrow I’m going to keep on living. Go to work, eat, drink, get laid, enjoy life. And you’ll be dead!”

Arch tired of taunting him, finally, and checked the hardness of the concrete. Tommy could feel Arch lift his leg. He felt the weight of the concrete in the bucket, too, pulling on his muscles and tendons.

Arch dropped his leg roughly and the bucket banged.

“You’re ready to die, Carmellini. And we’re going to do it to you. Hope you enjoy the ride.”

Foster left him then.

Carmellini heard them opening the doors of an airplane, snapping latches, preflighting it, probably. Time passed — it was difficult to judge how much. They talked about the fuel and oil, even checked the air in the tires. Meanwhile he strained every muscle, trying to move something, anything. He tried so hard he felt his eyes leaking tears.

They came for him finally. Arch took his head and Norv took his feet, each of which had several gallons of concrete attached. With the concrete and his weight, it was all they could do to wrestle him off the table. They dragged him across the hangar floor toward the open cargo door in the right side of the airplane. The concrete was like sandpaper on his skin, ripping off hide. He could feel the pain, but he couldn’t even groan.

The two of them somehow wrestled him up and through the opening in the side of the plane. The plane seemed to be a single-engine. He got a glimpse of the fixed gear. It was probably a Cessna 206, he thought, like those he had seen hauling skydivers. He was thrown on a bare aluminum floor. Norv got in and arranged the buckets that held his feet near the aft bulkhead. Then he used bungee cords to secure Carmellini in place, so he wouldn’t inadvertently fall out the gaping hole in the fuselage, which had no door.

They left him there while they opened the hangar bay and pulled the plane out onto the taxiway with some kind of nose-tow tug.

He heard them climb into the front seats and the engine start. After a minute or so garbled voices came over the loudspeaker as the plane began taxiing.

Carmellini found himself focusing on a rivet in the floor. It was eight inches or so from his face, but he could see it clearly. He forced his eyes to move.

As the engine roared and the plane began its takeoff roll, he found that he could clearly see the cargo door in the subdued light from the instrument panel. It wasn’t much light, but it was enough. He could see! He could move and focus his eyes!

His hands were still tied in front of him. The tie wasn’t tight; the blood was still flowing to his fingers. He forced his eyes down so that he could see his hands. He could barely make them out in the gloom. He flexed his fingers. And they moved. Perceptibly. He could see and feel them move.

Jake looked exhausted when he got home at eleven on Sunday evening. Callie met him at the door.

“Any luck?”

“We’re working the problem, as they say. The next guy who tells me that, I’m going to reach through the phone and punch him out. Have you eaten?”

“We ate when Amy got home. I saved you some.”

“What do you think of Anna Modin?”

“I thought she was telling the truth this afternoon. I don’t think she’s an intelligence professional. She says she’s a friend of Ilin’s. Says you are, too. I guess I buy that. On the other hand, she may be lying. The world seems to be full of good liars these days.”

Jake ran his fingers through his hair. “Okay,” he said.

“According to her, Ilin said to tell you that the Egyptians might make an attempt on her life.”

That stopped Jake. He sat heavily on the nearest chair. “Has she made any telephone calls while she was here?”

“No.”

He shook his head. “I certainly can’t protect her from murderous fanatics. The FBI wants to talk to her anyway. Maybe she can file for some kind of asylum — I don’t know. She’s going to have to talk to the FBI — anything she can tell us that explains those CDs would be a help.”

“When will the FBI have the disks analyzed?”

“Not for a couple days anyway. They’ll want to see what’s on them before they talk to her.” He didn’t mention that he had Zelda make copies before he passed them to the FBI.

“Perhaps Anna could stay with us until then. I want to get to know her better, and she would really like to see Washington.”

Jake glanced at his watch. “You mean here in the apartment, or at a hotel?”

“I thought we could do the tourist thing and then she could sleep in Amy’s room. Amy can sleep on the couch. Tomorrow we’re going shopping together, get her some clothes. She needs clothes from the skin out.”

Jake took a deep breath, then exhaled. “Let me eat something, then let’s go for a ride. I need to see it again, too.”

Modin wasn’t sleepy. She was still changing time zones, and the nap earlier had refreshed her. Tonight she was wearing an exercise outfit of Callie’s that seemed to fit fairly well. She and Amy sat at the table while Jake ate. They talked of Washington.

“The city isn’t old, like European cities,” Amy explained. “In 1791 our first president, George Washington, commissioned a Frenchman, Pierre L’Enfant, to design a capital city for this site.” Callie broke out a map, and she and Amy showed Anna the design of the city.

After Jake got the dishwasher going, he drove the three women through the city. They crossed the Potomac and, after a few false turns, parked in the parking lot for the Jefferson Memorial, which was undergoing a major renovation. They walked around the construction barriers and were soon inside, looking at the statue of Jefferson and reading the inscriptions on the lintels.

Back in the car they drove the major avenues. They passed the National Air and Space Museum, slowly circled the Capitol, drove along Constitution Avenue past more museums, then parked and walked to the front of the White House. From there they drove back to Constitution Avenue and went west, toward the river. Jake parked again by a large statue of Albert Einstein; from there they walked to the Vietnam Memorial, the wall.

Amy led the way up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. “This is my favorite place in Washington,” she confided to Anna Modin as they stood before the seated figure of President Lincoln.

When the women came back outside, they found Jake sitting on the steps, looking up the Mall at the spotlighted white obelisk of the Washington Monument against the black sky. Callie sat down beside him and reached for his hand while Amy pointed out various buildings and monuments to their Russian visitor.

“I know you’re tired. Thanks for giving us the tour tonight.”

“I needed to see it all again myself,” he said.

“These nuclear threats, to murder millions or destroy civilization—” Callie mused. “In his column in today’s paper Jack Yocke said that even if the terrorists never set off a bomb, they are destroying our innocence.”

“They are pouring acid on the trust that holds civilization together,” Jake agreed. “The people doing it know what they are doing. They don’t want civilization, not as it currently exists. They want the traditional village life. They ignore the fact that the traditional Arab/Muslim lifestyle cannot support all these people living here on earth. Ignore it or don’t care.”

After a while they stood, dusted off their fannies, and went down the steps to join Amy and Anna.

As they went back to the car Jake walked beside Anna Modin. He slowed his pace and Amy and Callie walked on ahead. “Tell me again about Nooreem Habib and the men who killed her.”

Anna went through it again as they walked. Jake had parked the car across Constitution Avenue on a side of the street near the statue of Albert Einstein. Traffic was light, so Amy and Callie dashed across the avenue. Jake paused on the curb as Anna talked. She covered it all, including Freddy Bailey and the American tourist visa.

As Jake listened he watched her face, listened to the tone of her voice, noted the pauses and hesitations as she searched for the right English words. She told it slightly differently than she had the first time, and that seemed right. He decided she was telling the truth.

“They may try to find you here,” he said.

“Yes,” she said simply. “Ilin said they probably would.”

“Does that worry you?”

“Of course. I do not want to die.”

The traffic light changed, and they crossed the avenue. Callie and Amy were already in the car. Jake led the way to the Einstein statue and sat down on a wrought-iron bench. Anna took a seat beside him.

“I want you to talk to the FBI,” he said. “They will have many questions, about the CDs, about Saad and his bank, about how he finances terrorism …”

“I will answer those questions,” Anna said simply.

“They will also have questions about Ilin, about the SVR, what you do for them.”

“I work for Ilin, not the SVR.”

Jake’s skepticism showed on his face.

“I will not answer those questions.”

“You have discussed them with me.”

“Ilin trusts you. He does not trust the FBI or the American government. The SVR has penetrated your government. They have spies everywhere. Ilin must be protected.”

“But you talked to me,” he pointed out. “I am not Superman. I must tell my superiors what I know so that we can protect ourselves and utilize the information you have given us.”

“I trust Ilin, and he trusts you,” she replied, refusing to yield. “What you do and say is your business, but I will not say words to anyone who might betray Janos Ilin. He has many enemies. I know the identities of some of them, but not all.”

“How do you know he’s on the side of the angels?”

“He is a good man, trying to do right. That I know to be true.”

“How do you know?”

She made a gesture of frustration. “I know!”

Jake pressed. “The risk is that you are wrong. The KGB and SVR have cruelly used people for almost a century. Don’t tell me that you haven’t thought about it.”

“I have,” she acknowledged. “Some people believe in God. They cannot prove He exists, yet they have faith and believe. I believe in Ilin. I can prove nothing. Yet I believe.” She thought about it a moment longer. “Perhaps some people need something in this world that makes life worth living. Perhaps I am one of them. I believe on this planet there is at least one good man. Janos Ilin is his name.”

In the car Amy and Callie sat watching Jake and Anna. They couldn’t hear the conversation, but they could see Anna shaking her head obstinately.

“Who is she, really?” Amy asked.

“I only know what she told me,” Callie murmured.

“What’s this all about?”

“We’re in a war, Amy, and your father is fighting it.”

Jake had just gotten home when an officer from NIMA called him. “Admiral, we came up dry. We just didn’t have a satellite in that area at the time of the container losses. A day later a satellite made a pass, but when we review the data, we don’t find anything that might be a container.”

“It was a long shot, I know,” Jake replied. “I figured the storm would obscure the ocean.”

“Oh, there was no storm. We just didn’t have a satellite in that area.”

“No storm.”

“No, sir. Considering the season, the last two weeks were pretty quiet in the Indian Ocean.”

The engine noise of the Cessna drowned out all other sounds for Tommy Carmellini. The plane seemed to bounce occasionally, move gently in the night air.

As the plane burrowed through the night he worked his fingers, tried to flex his legs, forced a shoulder to move. The wind coming through the open doorway was cool and welcome. It swirled around his face and dried the perspiration.

He was afraid to do much more. He was still alive only because Arch Foster was a sadist. If one of those guys glanced back and saw him moving, they would shoot him without a qualm.

He swallowed. For the first time in thirty-some odd hours, he swallowed. Worked the muscles in his face. Forced his tongue across his teeth.

The plane flew on and on. Tommy Carmellini lay still as death. His moment would come — he could feel the strength flowing back into his muscles. He forced himself to relax, to not tense up.

The waiting was the most difficult thing he had ever done. Every minute passed glacially.

He was so focused on killing these men that he never thought of afterward. Not for a second.

Waiting … listening … trying to stay relaxed.

He was lying in a heap, still waiting, when an overhead interior light came on.

Norv put a leg over the back of the copilot’s seat. He kicked at Carmellini, then found room for his foot. Now he stepped completely over the front seat. Squatting, he grabbed Carmellini by the jaw, turned his head so he could see his face.

Using iron self-control, Carmellini kept his eyes unfocused, his face slack.

Norv unfastened the bungee cords that held Carmellini and his concrete buckets secured in place, took them off one by one. He slid one of the buckets toward the door, then reached for the other. When the buckets went out, Carmellini would follow.

As Norv pulled and shoved, Tommy Carmellini flexed his right leg, lifted the concrete bucket off the floor, and kicked Norv with it.

Lalouette grabbed for the doorpost, tried to save himself. Carmellini got a glimpse of his face, saw the shocked expression, then the slipstream took him and he was gone.

Tommy Carmellini pulled his legs under him, used his arms and hands to lever himself upward.

The airplane danced. Carmellini could see the whites of Arch’s eyes as he looked wildly at the apparition coming to life. Arch tried to fly and pull a pistol from a holster behind his belt. His shoulder and lap harness kept him pinned to the seat. Carmellini saw the fear in Arch’s face — and it made him glad!

Carmellini ripped off Foster’s headset, pulled it over the seat back. Then he reached for Arch’s neck so he could strangle him. Foster’s writhing prevented Carmellini from getting his hands around his neck, so he grabbed his head.

Foster banked the plane to the right, toward the open door. Whether it was a conscious move on his part or just a happy accident, the effect was the same — the concrete buckets on Carmellini’s feet — and Carmellini — slid toward the yawning blackness.

Unwilling to release his grip on Arch’s head, Carmellini used all the strength in his upper body to resist the pull of gravity and get his feet under him. Arch was moaning, a primal howl that mixed with the fierce growl that came up Carmellini’s throat.

Arch released the controls and used both hands to fight the vise that was squeezing his head. When he did the plane righted itself, and Tommy Carmellini adjusted his grip. Even with his wrists tied together, his fingers were like steel bands digging into Arch’s head.

His left hand was behind Foster’s head, his right over his eyes.

Carmellini dug two fingers into Arch Foster’s right eye.

Arch filled his lungs and screamed, a demonic scream of pure terror. Using both hands, he fought to pull Carmellini’s hands away. His writhing banged his knees against the yoke; the plane bucked viciously.

After all those years of rock climbing, Carmellini’s fingers were like steel rods. He forced his fingers deeper into Foster’s eye. The eyeball popped out, dangled on his cheek, held there by the optic nerve.

Arch Foster screamed insanely as the airplane stalled and fell off on one wing.

The human eye socket is constructed of bone. With a grip like a steel vise, Tommy Carmellini jammed his fingers into the back of Arch’s right eye socket and squeezed with all his strength.

He felt the bone give. His fingers sank into Arch Foster’s brain. He jammed his fingers in as far as they would go.

Foster’s screams ceased abruptly, and he went limp.

Tommy Carmellini shook the now-limp corpse like a dog shakes a rat. The airplane rolled left.

The antics of the plane brought him out of his killing rage. He threw Arch’s body to the right and grabbed for the yoke. For the first time, he looked outside. There was nothing to see in the stygian universe, not sky or sea or land … nothing at all.

The gyro was right there in front of him, telling him the nose and left wing were well down.

Concentrating on the gyro, he lifted the wing slowly so as not to tear it off and began pulling back on the yoke.

How high was he?

He looked for the altimeter, felt a moment of panic when he couldn’t find it, then realized which instrument it was. He was descending through two thousand feet, still going down.

Somehow he got the nose up, then he let go of the yoke and jammed the throttle forward to the stop.

Back on the yoke, pulling, climbing, watching the airspeed so the plane didn’t get slow again, trying to read the gyro and not panic.

Finally he realized he had the plane under control. He looked outside again, searched the darkness. Saw the lights of a beach town far to his left. He gently turned the airplane in that direction.

Carmellini had had a half dozen flying lessons from Rita Moravia in a high-wing Cessna smaller than this one. Those flights had all been during the day, and Rita had demanded he look outside.

As he stared at the gyro he found the sensations of flying disorienting. He kept the aircraft level by sheer strength of will. He also forced himself to glance at the altimeter, checked every now and then out the front windshield to see if the smear of light from the town was still dead ahead, then again stared fiercely at the gyro.

With his hands tied together he could only do one thing at a time, and that thing was handle the yoke. There was no way he could reach the rudder, no way to reach the trim wheel.

But he was alive! Alive! Oh, God, yes, alive!

The lights were still a smear on the horizon. How far out over the ocean was he? He was down below a thousand feet. He should climb, get away from the ocean, get higher so he could see. He pulled back on the yoke, made sure the altimeter was moving upward, desperately scanned the panel for the airspeed indicator. Oh, there it was, right above the altimeter.

At three thousand feet he decided he was high enough.

Slowly, slowly, the plane approached the city on the shore. Now he could see individual streets, buildings, the lights of a boardwalk. What city was it?

He didn’t know or care.

A flashing light off to his right caught his eye. He turned gently in that direction. Yes, it was an airport! In about a minute he picked out the runway lights.

A wave of relief flooded him.

The wind, where was the wind? He couldn’t find the wind indicator, so he gave up. He let go of the yoke momentarily and pulled the throttle out several inches. The drone of the engine changed dramatically.

He flew a wide, sloppy, descending circle, trying to line up on the runway that looked the longest. He had to release the yoke and adjust the power several times. Every time he took his hands off the yoke, it jerked forward, and the nose of the plane dropped precipitously. When he grabbed it again he had to pull back quickly. The problem was that the plane was trimmed for cruise, and he couldn’t reach the trim wheel and fly, too.

If there were other airplanes about, he didn’t see them.

He was still very high when he crossed the end of the runway. Releasing the yoke momentarily, he pulled the throttle all the way out, to idle. He grabbed the yoke as quick as thought, got the nose back up, let the plane settle.

Holy damn, he was going to run out of runway!

He eased the nose forward, dived at the runway, pulled back at the last moment, just before the plane hit the earth. It floated along just above the dark runway in ground effect, slowing slowly, refusing to touch down. The lights at the end of the runway raced toward him.

Now the wheels touched.

He couldn’t reach the brakes. He couldn’t steer.

How do I turn off the engine?

The red knob! The mixture! He released the yoke and grabbed for the red knob on the throttle quadrant, jerked it out as far as it would go.

The engine died as the plane careened past the lights marking the end of the runway.

Carmellini grabbed the back of the seats and braced himself for the inevitable, which wasn’t long in coming. One of the wheels hit something and the nose slewed right. The plane tilted left, then the left main gear collapsed; the wing hit the earth and sparks flew.

The airplane was slewing to the right amid the howl of tearing metal and slowly decelerating when the left wing tip hit something solid. The impact almost tore the wing off, spinning the plane madly to the left. Tommy Carmellini lost his grip on the seat back. His head smashed against the right side of the cockpit and the lights went out.

From the door of the helicopter Jake Grafton saw the wreckage of the Cessna in the headlights and floodlights of the fire trucks. The carcass sat off one end of the runway amid the stanchions that held up the approach lights. The left wing was nearly severed, the gear was torn off the plane, the tail was severely damaged.

The chopper settled onto the grass a hundred feet from the wreck. As the rotors spun down, Jake and FBI Agent Harry Estep climbed from the chopper and walked briskly to the ambulance. Tommy Carmellini sat on a gurney with a blanket around him drinking water from a bottle. Nearby lay a body covered with a shroud.

“Zip Vance said you were robbing a bank this weekend,” Jake said. “What in hell are you doing here?”

“Fun and games with agency colleagues.” Carmellini jerked his head at the corpse. “That’s Arch Foster. Norv Lalouette is somewhere out there”—he pointed a thumb eastward—“sleeping with the fishes.” He lifted a leg. The skin was raw and bleeding in places. The lime in the concrete had taken off the top layer of skin on his feet and ankles, leaving them red, raw, and inflamed. “The bastards had me in concrete booties. The firemen pounded me loose. See those buckets over there?”

Jake glanced at the buckets and piles of concrete shards.

“Who are those guys over there with the police and firemen?”

“Off-duty cops, I think, and plainclothes. Every cop in eastern Maryland must be here tonight. Crash at the airport, corpse in the cockpit, the only live guy wearing concrete galoshes … The chief himself was by to see if I’d talk without a lawyer. He and some brass from the state police. I told them I wasn’t even telling anyone my name until after I talked to you. I told them how to get hold of you.”

“They found me, all right.” Jake turned to Harry. “Maybe you’d better talk to them.”

Harry nodded and walked over to where the police officers stood.

“These two bastards were going to put me in the ocean while I was still alive,” Tommy explained to Jake, wanting desperately to make him understand. “I kicked Norv out the door and killed Arch, then flew that thing back here. Screwed up the landing.”

“I guess you did.”

“They had a plastic tie on my wrists. Thought I was history.”

Jake Grafton bent over for a close look at Carmellini’s feet, then straightened.

“How’d you kill Foster?”

“Jammed a couple fingers into his right eye socket. Punched them through to his brain.”

Tommy Carmellini began to shake. He wrapped the blanket tightly around himself, but the tremors continued. His teeth began chattering.

He told Jake about searching Arch’s house on Friday night, finding the money, and being kidnapped on Saturday morning. “They injected me with something that paralyzed me. It’s been a long weekend, I want to tell you.”

“Sounds like the weekend from hell, shipmate,” Jake said, and laid a hand on Carmellini’s arm.

“I was fucking scared shitless, man,” Carmellini admitted, biting his lip until blood flowed. “When the paralysis wore off, I just … like, you know … lost it, I guess. Wanted to kill those two bastards with my bare hands. Never thought about how I was going to land the plane — not once. Didn’t care, really. Just as long as I could kill them.”

He put a hand over his face and took several deep breaths. By the flashing lights from the emergency beacons Jake could see the struggle going on behind Carmellini’s hand. The tremors gradually ceased, which surprised Jake — he had never seen anyone demonstrate such iron self-control.

When Carmellini lowered his hand his face was composed.

“Where’d Arch get a hundred fifteen thousand in cash? Did he say?”

“No. You want my opinion, these two dumped people before. They had the routine down. Bet you ten bucks they dumped Richard Doyle out of this airplane into the Atlantic.”

“We’ll have the FBI forensic guys go over that plane. Maybe they can find some trace of Doyle.”

“And the hangar. Don’t know where it was — some — where around Washington, I guess. Took about an hour or so of flying to get out over the ocean.”

“You injured?”

“Scraped and scratched, covered with shit and piss. The concrete burned the hell out of my feet-those fucking pricks! God, I’m glad I killed’em!”

“Sit tight and let us talk to the law. Then maybe we can take the chopper back to Washington.”

“We don’t have any time to lose, sir. There was a television crew out here, but I told those cops I was CIA, so they ran them off. Don’t know what’s been on the air. We’d better get the FBI to get agents over to Lalouette’s and Foster’s houses to sit on them before the news leaks out. Then they can get warrants whenever. Same for their offices, cars, all of that.”

“We’ll take care of it,” Jake assured him. “How do you feel now, Tommy? Are you okay?”

“I’m all right.”

“Hey, man, you’re alive. It’s going to be okay.”

“Remember that time in Hong Kong, when you and I went into that ship after Callie?”

“Yeah.”

“How you just wanted to do the bastards, regardless? It was sorta like that.”

“I hear you.”

“I needed to talk to somebody I trust.”

Jake Grafton didn’t reply, and Tommy left it there. After a bit Jake said, “I’ll walk you over to the helicopter,” and helped Carmellini to his feet. His feet were so sore he tottered and staggered like a very old man, so the journey took a while. When Carmellini was seated inside the helicopter, Jake walked over to where Harry Estep stood talking to the chief of police.