Day of the Delphi (12 page)

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Authors: Jon Land

BOOK: Day of the Delphi
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Blaine felt the captain’s arms graze up against him en route to the trays.
“I’ve got them.”
“Both?”
“Yes.”
“Start sliding them toward you now. I’m holding the bomb in my hand and it’s still wired to the trays. We’ve got to move exactly together … That’s it … Easy … Easy … .”
McCracken brought the bomb forward from its perch in rhythm with the captain’s pace. As soon as the trays began to clear the cart, Judy took the top one in hand, leaving the captain with only the bottom.
The bomb emerged in Blaine’s hands last, behind a trail of wires attaching it to the trays. It was a foot long by ten inches wide and three inches in depth. Its black casing revealed no exterior controls.
McCracken straightened himself up so he was between Judy and Captain Hollis. Together they approached the area of the galley that had been cleared of all clutter. The contents of the trays clanged a bit when placed down on the counter. Blaine laid the bomb between them.
He leaned over and inspected the steel housing with the flashlight. He probed some of the screw holes with the end of a steak knife and then a screwdriver. Apparently satisfied, he pulled a pair of scissors to him and cut the wires connecting the bomb to the trays.
Captain Hollis sighed audibly. “Is that it?”
“Not by a long shot. I’ve only deactivated the sensor mechanism. It’ll still blow up sometime in the midst of our descent when the proper pressure sets off the internal detonator.”
“Can you disarm it?”
Blaine looked up and shook his head. “The casing is booby-trapped. Remove it and the bomb detonates.”
“You’re saying you can’t disarm it, and if I take us down, it will explode,” Captain Hollis concluded.
“Yes.”
“In other words, we’re stuck up here until our fuel runs out.”
“Not necessarily.”
“No?”
“There’s one alternative.” Blaine’s eyes held the captain’s. “We can get the bomb off the plane.”
It took Captain Hollis a long moment to realize that McCracken wasn’t kidding.
“In case you haven’t noticed, that bomb is too big to fit through a window, and opening a door at 25,000 feet isn’t a very good idea.”
Blaine thought briefly. “Is there access into the baggage compartment from this level?”
“You’re standing on it,” said Judy, the head flight attendant.
“There’s a panel we can remove,” Hollis elaborated. “But if you’re thinking about opening one of the cargo doors—”
“I’m not.”
“Then—”
“I’ll need a rope, or the closest thing you’ve got to one,” McCracken continued, moving his eyes from Hollis to Judy. “And all the vodka you’ve got on board.”
“I hope Absolut will do,” she returned.
“So long as it’s hundred proof, it’ll do fine.”
 
Blaine explained his plan while a eight-foot length of strung-together nylon seat belts soaked in three liters of vodka in one of the galley sinks. He had already sliced the mask extremity off a small emergency oxygen tank, so that activating it would send the oxygen rushing out the tube like an open nozzle.
“Wait a minute,” Hollis said before McCracken had finished his explanation, “even if this works you’re still gonna get yourself sucked out of the aircraft and crash us in the process.”
“I won’t get sucked out if I tie myself down to the frame somehow. And if I can get the compartment sealed again before total depressurization, you’ll be able to maintain control.”
“Sealed? How do you think you can go about sealing a two-foot square hole in the bottom of the plane?”
Blaine’s mind worked quickly. “Lots of luggage be jostling around, of course.”
“For sure.”
“All being sucked toward the hole.”
“Plenty right on through.”
“But not all.”
The captain’s face brightened for the first time. “Yes! Yes, goddamnit, it just might work!” Then he sobered again. “Doesn’t do much to help you down there, though.”
“There’s a tie line strung across the width of the baggage hold,” Judy pointed out. “I’ve seen handlers use it to tie down bags. It’s connected up with the frame. If you strap yourself onto it, you won’t be sucked out.”
McCracken nodded.
“Just give me time to get this thing turned around and headed back for Washington,” Hollis instructed. “Best-case scenario, we’re still gonna need an emergency landing.”
“I could live with that, Captain.”
 
 
“It’ll take me a few minutes to get everything rigged,” McCracken said after they had returned to the Washington area.
On the ground at National, emergency preparations were under way. On the plane the thin carpeting had been pulled up on the galley floor and a panel removed to reveal the entrance to the cargo hold.
“Time for me to prepare the passengers,” nodded Hollis.
Blaine started to lower himself through the hatch. “Happy landings.”
“See you on the ground.”
The bomb was tucked carefully in a pack strung to his shoulders, padded with towels to prevent it from being jostled. Also contained in the pack was the vodka-soaked eight-foot length of seat belts as well as the customized oxygen tank. A larger portable oxygen tank dangled across his chest. The mask attached to it was wrapped about his neck. Around his waist he had looped a twenty-foot length of tight nylon rope pulled from an emergency kit. He would use the rope to fasten himself to the cargo hold’s tie line to keep from being sucked out of the plane.
The dark cold embraced McCracken as he descended into the hold. Thin ceiling lights streamed down, casting a dull glow over the neatly arranged luggage. The flight was crowded, and as a result the baggage compartment was packed. Blaine reached the floor as the hatch above him was sealed.
He followed the tie line toward the front of the plane and cleared a spot on the floor of luggage. The hole he needed to create in the plane’s aluminum skin had to be large enough to drop the bomb through but not so large that it would be impossible to plug with the flying luggage. With that in mind, he removed the alcohol-laden seat belts from his pack and arranged them carefully into a two-foot square on the floor of the hold where only an inch of aluminum lay between him and the open air. He then rose and began using
the rope looped around his waist to adhere himself to the tie line.
This was the most sensitive task of all, for he needed to be fastened tight enough to keep him from being sucked out but loose enough to allow for the easy and swift completion of the task before him. Blaine achieved the best compromise he could manage and pulled an emergency flare from his pocket. He yanked the fuse free and the bright orange flame flickered and flared. McCracken let it drop on the squared seat belts and the alcohol caught instantly. Flames rose along the rectangular outline, blackening the floor.
Alone, these flames would hardly be sufficient to burn through the Airbus’s outer skin. But feed the fire with a flood of oxygen from the portable tank he’d brought with him, and the heat of the flames would rise exponentially, eating through the aluminum like paper. It would happen fast and Blaine had to be ready to drop the bomb through as soon as it did in the last moment before depressurization. For this reason he drew the bomb from his pack and held it against his chest with his left hand while his right tightened its grip on the emergency oxygen tank. It felt like a large can of hair spray to him, and with the mask sliced off to expose the tubing, it functioned pretty much the same way as one as well.
His shoulders, waist, and legs strapped to the tie line, Blaine leaned over to bring the oxygen as close as possible to the alcohol-fueled fire. First he made sure the mask attached to the larger tank strung to his chest was fitted around his mouth. Then he tightened his grasp on the bomb and pressed the smaller, hand-held tank’s nozzle.
An audible
poof!
followed as the flames first swelled upward and then burned white-hot. They cut through the plane’s outer skin in no time, a two-foot-square hole burned open right before his eyes. The first gush of outside air shoved the last of the flames back up at him as he dropped the bomb toward the opening. McCracken feared that the sudden rush had stripped him of the stability required to accurately
release the steel casing. But the bomb slid straight through the hole he had created, certain to detonate harmlessly at whatever altitude it had been set for.
In the next moment it seemed that all the air was sucked out of the hold. Even with the oxygen pumping home through his mask, Blaine felt as if something had reached in and stripped the air from him as well. His ears bubbled and his head pounded. He could feel the plane wobbling, shaking in the air as it plunged through the sky nose-first. His insides seemed to join it. He felt himself being whipped about, the pressure testing his bonds to the tie line to the fullest.
The feeling conjured thoughts of a wild free-fall while parachuting, albeit one through an obstacle course as McCracken was jolted from all directions by flying luggage. A suitcase smashed him from the rear. He got his hands up in time to ward off a leather tote and then ducked under a duffel bag heading straight for his face. He caught glimpses of larger pieces of luggage being sucked through the hole in the bomb’s wake. He knew even now the fissure he had created would be widening, soon to spread the length of the entire hull unless the flying debris was able to plug up the hole and relieve the pressure.
Luggage continued to fly about. Pieces of all shapes and sizes wedged briefly in the fissure before being sucked through. The loss of pressurization continued to toss McCracken about at will, even as he searched for a means to aid the plugging process before it was too late. Directly beneath him pieces of luggage swirled and shifted about as if hurrying for their turn to be expelled, swirling through in a whirlpool-like stream. It was like watching water going down a drain, no hope of the hole being plugged up in the process.
Blaine felt the nose of the Airbus dip even more, time running out faster than he had expected. That realization led him to tear his legs and arms free of the holds he had tied them into. Fastened in only at the waist now, McCracken
began reaching out to shove luggage forward and pile it atop the fissure to keep the chasm closed for more than an instant. He heaved for oxygen with each hoist. He felt lightheaded and willed himself not to pass out. The layer of suitcases thinned as soon as he built it up, and he just kept heaving piece upon piece into the center of the maelstrom. Staying even was as good as getting ahead, so long as he could keep up the pace.
He felt the plane level off briefly before settling into an uneasy emergency descent toward National Airport. Blaine continued to work the chasm desperately until he heard the whir that signaled the lowering of the Airbus’s landing gear. He barely had time to refasten himself haphazardly to the tie line before the plane swooped in for what he expected would be a jarring jolt of a landing. He could barely believe it when he felt Hollis bring the Airbus down gently and ease into a slow glide down the runway. In the passenger compartment above him, Blaine could hear the cheers and applause.
The Airbus was still taxiing when he began the process of clearing the luggage he had piled from the fissure. A jagged tear stretched out five feet in both directions from the hole that was now twice as large as the one he had fashioned. Blaine dropped out through the fissure a moment before the emergency chutes activated and helped the first passengers down the nearest chute get to their feet.
Captain Hollis was the last one to slide off.
“I’d fly with you anytime, Captain,” Blaine said, helping him up.
Hollis grabbed Blaine at the shoulders. “You’ve earned your wings, Mr. McCracken.”
More emergency vehicles continued to arrive, sirens and flashing lights preceding them. The rescue workers had little to do other than gather the passengers up and begin the chore of loading them onto the waiting buses.
“Then do me a favor, Captain,” Blaine said, “and don’t mention to anyone that I was on board.”
Hollis gazed back at the hole Blaine had dropped the bomb through to save his plane. “Not an easy trick, under the circumstances.”
“Stall them, then.”
Hollis took a long look at the bruises across Blaine’s face, courtesy of the flying luggage. “I get the feeling this kind of thing is nothing new for you.”
“You might say that.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Captain!” a new voice rang out.
Hollis turned briefly to acknowledge the rescue boss. “Thing is,” he began as he turned back Blaine’s way. He let the sentence dangle.
McCracken was gone.
Ben Samuelson’s call reached the President while he was dressing for a state dinner with representatives of both the Israeli and Arab negotiating teams. The Mideast peace process had become yet another quagmire that had bedeviled his eighteen-month tenure. Tonight’s dinner marked a concerted attempt on his part to get the process going again. As soon as he got off the phone with Samuelson, though, the President buzzed his appointments secretary and instructed him to bump the dinner back an hour at the risk of offending his guests.
The FBI chief was ushered into his private office twenty minutes later. A handleless briefcase was tucked tightly under his arm. He had asked to see the President alone, without even Charlie Byrne in attendance.
“Only you can make the decision of who should share the information I’m bringing with me, sir,” Samuelson had explained.
“You were rather coy on the phone, Ben,” the President started, the door to his private office closed again.
The head of the FBI stood before him stiffly. “Let me go in order, sir. First off, Langley has confirmed from the logs that Tom Daniels met with the director on three separate occasions over the past ten days. The last meeting took place this past Thursday, the evening prior to the murders.”
“Is that unusual?”
“In and of itself, yes, because by all accounts Daniels skipped channels and went straight to Jardine. I could accept that happening once. But three times could mean only that Daniels had Jardine’s blessing to pursue whatever he was on to.”
“I don’t suppose those logs included a summary of what they discussed.”
“No, sir, they didn’t. At that point I was at a dead end, with no more to go on other than the feeling that the two murders were connected.”
“I gather you have more to go on than that now.”
“If I may, sir …”
“Please.”
Samuelson moved to the Queen Anne writing desk over on the right. He placed his briefcase atop it, careful to skirt the unkempt piles of the President’s personal correspondence.
“Two hours ago I received a call from the Russian ambassador insisting he had to see me immediately on a matter vital to national security.”
“Ours, I assume.”
“Quite,” Samuelson acknowledged and withdrew the cassette tape former KGB station chief Sergei Amorov had given to Vasily Conchenko. “Apparently, one of the last accomplishments of the KGB was to plant a bug inside Jardine’s office.”
“And it went
undetected
?”
“By all indications, yes. For years.”
“Years? Then …”
“Yes, Mr. President, the bug remained active after the KGB was withdrawn. Ambassador Conchenko assures me no foul play was intended. Either way, the placement of the bug proved most fortunate.” Samuelson’s eyes shifted to the cassette. “Thanks to it, and thanks to our friend Ambassador Conchenko, we now have a copy of this tape which was made Thursday night.”
“My God,” the President realized. “Jardine’s final meeting with Daniels.”
Samuelson removed a thin tape player from his briefcase and popped the cassette in. He pushed PLAY and the voice of Clifton Jardine filled the room.
“How many copies of this are there, Mr. Daniels?”
 
McCracken used the chaos enveloping all of National Airport as cover to flee. A cab brought him to Dulles, where he just made the evening’s last plane to Miami. A half hour after the thankfully uneventful flight had landed, Blaine was back at Strumpet’s, a mostly private club located in the basement of another building in South Beach. The lack of windows, if anything, added to the ambience. Strumpet’s was dark enough for people to hide out in the open. The single bar room was decorated in shades of peach and mauve, lit by electrified reproductions of Victorian gaslights. Its large bar was slightly curved and paneled in dark wood that matched the room’s walls.
The man who had put Blaine on to Ventanna was drinking in the same corner booth he had been in Thursday night. He was dressed all in black. Oil slicked his hair back and had taken the wave from it. The gold chains dangling from his neck glinted faintly in the dim light. He pretended not to see Blaine approaching.
“Hello, Rafael,” McCracken said from over him.
Rafael didn’t look up. “You fucked me good, you asshole.”
“Did I?”
“You set up Alvarez. They find out I helped you, I’m dead.”
“I had nothing to do with the Coconut Grove hit. And I came back to Miami to go after the real perps, Raffy.”
Rafael drained the rest of what looked like vodka on the rocks. “I buy you a drink?”
“I’d settle for more info.”
“Sorry. Fresh out.”
Blaine continued to stand. “Alvarez was selling to Arlo Cleese. Name ring a bell?”
“Can’t say that it does.”
“Sixties revolutionary who apparently hasn’t given up the cause. It’s possible he wants to finish the revolution he helped start a generation ago, with the help of firepower supplied by Alvarez.”
“He and his kid both got whacked for their efforts. That’s what you’re saying?”
McCracken nodded. “Because Cleese must have all that he needs. That means whatever he’s planning to do is going to happen soon.”
“He’s who you’re after …”
“And I can find him by following the trail of the guns Alvarez shipped out of Miami.”
A waitress arrived and set a fresh vodka on the rocks down on a napkin in front of Rafael.
“I could make some calls,” he offered when she was gone.
“Tell them I’m after whoever it was killed their boss and his kid. Tell them I don’t usually fail.”
 
McCracken accompanied Rafael to a private dock on Biscayne Bay two hours later.
“Must be them now,” Rafael said as a sleek 32-foot Gulfstar cabin cruiser approached, running with a single light.
The cabin cruiser slid up against the dock. A big man in shiny clothes jumped off and held it against a pylon while
Blaine climbed on board. Instantly flanked by an armed man on either side of him, McCracken looked back toward Rafael.
Rafael held his ground and waved. “Have a good life,
amigo
.”
McCracken couldn’t have said for sure at that point what the intentions of the men on the crowded cruiser were. He counted five in all: the two flanking him, the one who had held the boat in place, a driver, and a final man atop an open air bridge who was holding a Mac-10 submachine gun.
“Your gun, please,” the one closest to him said.
Blaine surrendered his SIG-Sauer and the man wedged it into his belt. The Gulfstar set off.
His escorts gave no indication where they were heading and McCracken didn’t ask. He simply stood at the rail in the warm night air and tried to relax.
The cruiser made good speed through the calm night waters. An hour into the voyage, Blaine made out the shape of a large yacht silhouetted against the moonlit horizon. When it came clearly into view, he recognized it as an 82-foot Hatteras motor yacht, complete with twin Detroit 875-horsepower engines. Strictly top of the line, at a cost of maybe two million dollars. The captain drove it from a high-perched, enclosed bridge. Even from this distance, Blaine noted a figure standing high on the large top deck following the approach of the Gulfstar.
As McCracken tried to get a better view of the figure through the night, a pair of speedboats roared from around both sides of the Hatteras and sliced toward the Gulfstar. They took up positions along the cruiser’s port and starboard and guided it the last stretch of the way.
A steel ladder was secured from the stern of the 82-foot Hatteras, and a pair of men on the cruiser’s foredeck reached up to steady it for McCracken. Taking the signal, Blaine began to climb.
“This way,” one of them greeted after McCracken had pulled himself onto the deck.
The man, conspicuous by the fact that he was unarmed, led him up to the top deck where the figure Blaine had glimpsed before stood with eyes gazing over the yacht’s port. The figure turned round slowly and the moon illuminated his face.
“Manuel Alvarez,” McCracken greeted, recognizing a man who was supposed to be dead from pictures Captain Martinez had shown him the day before.
“I see you are a difficult man to surprise, Mr. McCracken.”
“Not always. I’m surprised you had me brought here.”
“But not that I’m still alive.”
“I read your file,” Blaine told him. “You let them blow up the
smaller
of your two yachts.”
Alvarez smiled thinly. “Vanity, I’m afraid.” The smile disappeared. “You came down here expecting to find me.”
“Hoping, anyway. I knew the bait would interest you.”
“I was interested even before you left it. I might have contacted you myself earlier if I had known how. I looked at it as a godsend when word reached me you had returned to Miami.”
Blaine started forward. “Why?”
“I have well-placed contacts inside the Miami police. They informed me of who you were, what you managed to do in the Grove. It seems you saved many lives.”
“Not your son’s, Mr. Alvarez.”
“You would have. I know that.”
“If I’d had the chance, yes.”
Blaine met Alvarez at the halfway point of the upper deck. Alvarez leaned his elbows on the railing and turned his gaze back to the sea, anguish squeezing his features into a taut grimace. His naturally dark skin looked sallow. The wind ruffled his neatly coiffed hair and his thin mustache seemed to droop.
“That’s why I’ve been hoping I’d have this chance, Mr. McCracken.” He turned toward Blaine again. “I need you to avenge my son.”
“That means finding Arlo Cleese, Mr. Alvarez.”
Alvarez’s hands tightened around the railing. “It was Cleese’s people in the Grove, wasn’t it?”
“If you asked the question, you don’t need me to answer it.”
“I warned my son to lay low. I
warned
him! He thought himself beyond danger.” Alvarez sighed. “The folly of the young.”
“Then you must have suspected something. That’s why you faked your own death, let Cleese blow up that other yacht.”
“The indications were subtle, yet present. Contact had been broken off. My man who served as conduit with Cleese disappeared last week.”
“Leaving you and your son as the only sure links to him.”
“I told him what he should do. I warned him of the danger. I thought he would listen.”
“He was too greedy, Mr. Alvarez, a lesson learned at your knee, perhaps.”
Alvarez nodded painfully, conceding the point. “You can’t hurt me any more than I already have been. I know the responsibility for my son’s death”—a heavy sigh—“is mine.”
“You might soon be responsible for far more deaths than that.”
“Because of Cleese …”
“You never questioned what he intended to do with your merchandise.”
“He was like any other customer, Mr. McCracken. He placed his orders and I filled them.” Alvarez swallowed hard. “The guns that were used in the Grove, I had them checked. I … I had to know.” His eyes glistened. “They were part of one of the shipments I made to Cleese.” A look of detached resignation crossed his features. “My own guns had been used in the killing of my only son. For that, I must make amends and you must help me.”
“Stopping Cleese from killing anyone else would make a nice start.”
“Whatever it takes. I can give you the location of the storage facility where our shipments to him ended up.” More pain stretched over Alvarez’s face. “I could have had the cache of weapons I supplied him destroyed, I suppose, but that hardly qualifies as justice. It’s Cleese who must pay for this, but he has to be found first.”
“And for that you need me.”
Alvarez turned his gaze vacantly in the sea’s direction once more. “After you find him, Mr. McCracken, I will supply any and all help that you need to do what must be done.” His eyes came back to Blaine. “For my son.”
“For the country,
amigo.”

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