Six Seconds to Kill

CHAPTER 12

Shayne scooped up Berger’s gun, lying on the carpet a few inches from his outstretched hand. As he went backward he worked the slide. The nearest Secret Service man reached inside his coat, but the expression on Shayne’s face froze him in place.

The disturbance had been confined to one tiny section of the corridor, but ripples of shock and alarm were already radiating outward. Somebody screamed. One of the TV cameras toppled over. The elevator which Crowther and the others had used was still at that floor, with a Secret Service man in the doorway. Shayne stepped in and showed him Berger’s gun.

“Out. Out.”

The man looked toward the ballroom.

Shayne hit him with the gun, gave him a hard push and stabbed the Down button. Tim Rourke, a few feet away, was staring at him.

“Real bullets. Man, that’s trouble.”

“Yeah,” Shayne said as the door closed.

He dropped the gun in his pocket, his face hard and dangerous. He had been fooled, and there was only one person who could tell him how it had been done. That was Camilla Steele. Trouble was a mild word to describe the situation. Berger had had a good shot at Camilla while the elevator’s electronic brain was deciding to close the door. Shayne had interfered. As soon as Berger was conscious again, it would be clear to everybody that Shayne and Camilla, old allies, had planned the shooting together. Camilla had fired the shots and Shayne had made her escape possible.

No one had rung for the elevator on the lower floors, and it descended directly to the lobby. Shayne stepped out. The lobby seemed normal-more crowded than usual, but as yet no one knew what had happened on the eighth floor.

Shayne moved quickly, his hand in his pocket. He needed some fast transportation. Outside, the approach to the helicopter was still clear.

The crowd on Collins Avenue was chanting rhythmically. Here everything was serene; Shayne was two or three minutes ahead of the hue and cry. He headed for the helicopter that had brought him from the airport. As he pulled himself in, the pilot, a young man with fanlike ears and hair redder than Shayne’s own, looked around from his controls.

“Yeah, want something?”

Shayne shut the door and said briskly, “Back to the airport.”

The pilot had seen Shayne as part of the security detail surrounding Crowther. Responding automatically to the note of command in Shayne’s voice, he switched on his engine. The overhead rotors began to revolve.

“Just by yourself?”

“Let’s go,” Shayne snapped. “The bastard left his dispatch case on the Jet-Star.”

“Oh.”

The beginnings of doubt faded out of the pilot’s face. As the helicopter rose Shayne watched the front entrance of the hotel. The scene was still peaceful. A hundred feet from the ground, the pilot changed the tilt of the blades, hesitated and turned toward Shayne.

“I don’t want to be chintzy, but I think for my own protection I’d better get the captain to authorize this. They’ve been tightening up lately. I mean, you’re a civilian, right?”

He reached for the control yoke, and Shayne, stepping forward, hit him with the flat of the pistol, just hard enough to jar him. He fell sideward, his hand going to his head. The helicopter stayed where it was, drifting almost imperceptibly toward the ocean.

“Let’s get going,” Shayne said quietly.

“What did you do that for?” He came out of his seat slowly. “Put that gun down, mister, or I’ll be forced to take it away from you.”

Shayne’s expression hardened, and he brought the gun up between them. “Stop where you are.” The pilot stopped. “Don’t be a damn fool. Sit down and let’s travel.”

“I warn you,” the pilot said, going into a crouch. “I’m getting my Irish up. You wouldn’t shoot me. You need me to fly the helicopter.”

“Hold still,” Shayne said in a voice that stopped him again as he started to move forward. “I don’t know how accurate this gun is.”

He fired. The pilot looked amazed and clapped his hand to his ear. When he looked at his hand he saw blood.

“The next one goes in your shoulder,” Shayne told him coldly. “After that, we’ll see.”

Blood was streaming from the lobe of the other’s ear. Twisting, he collapsed into his seat, and in a moment the helicopter was roaring in the direction of the mainland. Glancing down through the paint-spattered side window, Shayne saw two Secret Service men burst out of the hotel. “What’s your name?”

“Hank McSorley,” the man muttered.

“I’m Michael Shayne. Christ! People have been hijacking planes at the rate of one a week, and nobody’s had the slightest trouble. And I have to run into the one idiot who believes in protecting government property.”

“All I wanted to do was go down and get an OK.”

“Can you get a little more speed out of this, McSorley? I’m in a hurry.”

“Because Crowther forgot his dispatch case. What crap.”

“The truth is, I’m being chased. It’s possible that I’ve committed a crime and I want to get to the airport to catch the next flight for Brazil. It’s also possible that I’m right and everybody else is wrong. Take off your shirt. You’re losing blood, and I don’t want you to faint.”

“I do feel a little-”

“Come on, come on,” Shayne said without sympathy. “All you lost was the tip of an ear. Worse things happen all the time. Let’s have your shirt.”

McSorley struggled out of his shirt. Shayne ripped it into strips. Standing behind him, he put on a crude slanting bandage.

“Now when we get there, you’re going to do what I tell you, aren’t you?”

“Under duress. Under duress!”

Harry Montgomery, tower control chief at the International Airport, held up the incoming flights until the brief anti-Crowther demonstration had been completely suppressed. The banner that had flown briefly from the edge of the observation deck was lying in a sad heap below, near a docking gate. Too bad it had been so ineffective, Montgomery thought. He had been rooting for those boys with the black paint to get through so they could splash the people who were arriving from Washington. It was his own personal opinion that the United States had no business backing military despots like Colonel Caldera. As for Crowther, Montgomery had no use for the man at all.

At the same time, it didn’t pay to fool around in the middle of a busy airport. Luckily he’d had a hunch that something might happen, and he had put all incoming traffic into a holding pattern until he saw that Crowther’s helicopters were safely on their way. Even at the best of times, with all runways open, ceiling and visibility unlimited, a major disaster was never more than a second away. He mistrusted even the tiniest variations from routing, because they disturbed his concentration. Of course the men in the tower cab relied on the sensitive electronic devices all around them, but only an imbecile imagined that machines never made mistakes. It was a human voice, in the end, which told the planes overhead that it was safe to come down.

While the demonstrators were racing toward the helicopters with their buckets of black paint, Montgomery had crossed his fingers, a gesture that dated back to the days before radarscopes and the beginnings of air transportation. He had kept them crossed until the young men were rounded up and herded back onto Concourse 5. The Jet-Star was moved into a holding area. The taxiways cleared rapidly as departures were resumed. The stacked-up flights were now being talked down. Still Montgomery had an uncomfortable feeling that something was not exactly normal.

The big Sikorskys were waiting at Gates 63 and 64, but they had been there all morning. He made a circuit of the windows. The observation deck was still crowded, though less so than before. A surprising number of people were staying to give Crowther an enthusiastic send-off after he returned from Miami Beach. The herringbone pattern of cars in the main parking lot had broken. A telephone repair crew was working around an open trench; he hoped nothing had happened to the cable into the city.

Suddenly soldiers swarmed out onto the apron below Gate 63 and began pouring into helicopters. The radar screens in the tower showed nothing unusual, but Montgomery’s personal early-warning system, located somewhere at the back of his scalp, became agitated immediately. These troops had been held in reserve, awaiting developments in Miami Beach. The helicopter pilots requested clearance to take off. The man at the front console gave them a flight path and an altitude, and presently they were in the air.

Montgomery continued to move from one window to another. In the cargo area, a mile and a half away in the airport’s southwest corner, two cargo planes had moved in against the loading platforms at W-4, the main warehouse for short-term in-and-out cargo. The tower had no cargo departures scheduled. He told one of his phone men to find out from the warehouse coordinator how soon the planes would be ready, and he resumed his patrol. At the phone desk, the man clacked the disconnect-bar angrily. “Damn line’s out again, Mr. Montgomery.”

“Try again in a few minutes. It’s not urgent.”

At one of the side consoles, the operator in charge of east arrivals was calling into his mike, “Bell one-forty, this is Miami Approach Control. I don’t receive you. I don’t receive you.”

Montgomery caught the note of urgency and turned to watch a Bell helicopter approach from the northeast, too low and too fast. He saw splashes of black paint on its side windows, and then it lifted over the tower and disappeared. At that moment the door of the tower cab opened and a dark-haired boy came in, smiling in embarrassment. He was carrying a pistol in each hand. He was followed immediately by an older man in dark glasses and a tall pretty girl in a white blouse. Both the girl and the man had shotguns. Montgomery took a backward step, crossing his fingers.

“Continue what you’re doing,” the girl said pleasantly. “You will not be hurt.”

The army helicopters passed in staggered formation, like four ponderous geese, heading for Miami Beach. And that meant, Shayne knew, that the security of the airport was now in the hands of sixty-odd uniformed guards under the command of Teddy Sparrow, eked out by a few Miami police on traffic duty near the interchange.

The radio crackled with a warning from the tower that they were entering a closed zone. They were to ascend at once to seven hundred and fifty feet and await landing instructions.

“Do what they tell you,” Shayne said.

He was using Berger’s binoculars. Nothing unusual was happening in the terminal area. A black Port Authority sedan, traveling fast on the perimeter road inside the big fence along the southern boundary of the airport, turned in among the warehouses. He followed its progress through his binoculars until it stopped abruptly and a man wearing the black uniform of the security guards jumped out and ran into a warehouse.

Sweeping the area, Shayne picked up a swirl of activity involving two planes on the loading apron. Several fork-lift trucks worked back and forth between the nearest warehouse and the planes, moving large container pallets. He tightened the focus and studied the scene until he realized what bothered him about it. These were not ordinary warehouse workers. They were working too fast.

“Take it down, McSorley,” he snapped. “Pick an open place in the south parking lot.”

“Around here we do what the tower says. That way we stay healthy.”

“Goddamn it-”

“All right!” McSorley said hastily. “But under duress.”

They dropped rapidly. The tower radio squawked: “Bell one-forty, maintain elevation. Hold for instructions.”

McSorley answered, “Approach control, emergency, out of fuel. Request permission to land on parking ramp.”

He was ordered to use the docking apron near Gate 1. By that time they were already down, on an unoccupied patch of concrete near the pumping station. Shayne leaped out and raced to his Buick. He grabbed up the phone in the front seat and signaled the operator.

She took a moment to answer. Continuing to call her frequency, he took a flask out of the glove compartment, unscrewed the cap and drank.

“Shayne,” he said when she came on. “Put in some calls for me. Will Gentry. General Turner-somewhere around the St. Albans. Abe Berger, Secret Service, same place.”

“I’ve got that.”

“Latin American guerrillas are raiding the airport. They hold the control tower. Guns being loaded aboard two planes. Get the troops back in a hurry and alert the air force. Fast, baby.”

He threw the phone onto its cradle and ran for the helicopter. Halfway there he veered toward an outdoor Coke machine, fumbling coins out of his pocket. An instant later a cold Coke clanked into his hand. He opened the bottle while the machine delivered a second, and emptied both bottles as he ran across 20th Street to a gas pump inside the entrance to the big Delta Airlines maintenance facility. He unhooked the hose and began filling the bottles. A mechanic in greasy coveralls came toward him. “What do you think you’re up to, mac?”

“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!”