Time of Terror (18 page)

“But don’t we have to risk it?” Treadway asked. “We get ready to break in as soon as Mark has delivered the money and hope we get to the timing device before it sets off the explosives.”

Brand seemed to be lost somewhere else. “One way or another, timing is everything,” he said. “This is what I had in mind.” He pointed at the blueprint with a yellow pencil. “The suite—Fifteen A—and the room next to it where the detonator is located are on the outside of the north wing—the east side looking toward the river. Across the street is an apartment building. The roof of that building comes just level with your fifteenth floor. The windows to the room where the detonator is located are here.” He drew a circle on the blueprint. “Snipers on that roof, armed with rifles with telescopic sights, can see the man at the detonator as clearly as if they were just across the hall. He can’t be just sitting there with a hand poised over a button hour after hour. He must light a cigarette, or get up and walk around the room to stretch his muscles, or involve himself with eating or drinking something. Maybe they change men. There has to be a moment when someone isn’t poised directly over that detonator. When that moment comes, we open fire. Meanwhile we have men ready on the fire stairs outside the fifteenth-floor corridor. The moment the men on the roof open fire, we charge in. Properly timed, we get to the detonator before they can replace their dead man. We hopefully get to the children, in the confusion, before they do.” He turned away from the blueprint. “I like this better than waiting to play it Coriander’s way. His way the timing is his, he supplies the surprises. This way the timing is ours, the surprise element ours.”

I liked it better, too. It didn’t involve me!

“Your snipers are that good, Brand?” Treadway asked.

“With telescopic sights they can hit a dime at two hundred yards,” Brand said. “We can drill that sonofabitch at the detonator right in the eye.”

“How do you coordinate with the men on the fire stairs?” Jim Priest asked.

“Coriander’s friend isn’t the only man with walkie-talkie equipment,” Brand said. “From the moment the shots are fired to the moment we reach the detonator is a matter, literally, of seconds.”

“How long will it take you to get set up?” Chambrun asked.

Brand glanced at his wrist watch. “Let’s say an hour—just before noon.”

“They’ll be ordering something from Room Service, I’d guess, between twelve and one. They may be thrown off guard a little by the arrival of food. When the waiters are gone—” Chambrun was concerned for his people.

Brand looked around at all of us. Somebody was supposed to say “go.”

Chambrun said it.

G
US BRAND WAS NOT
a careless planner. I had a chance to watch him at work for a few minutes before I got an assignment from him that made me a part of what he referred to as his “game plan.” It was, in effect, a military operation and I’ve seen men in charge of an attack in my time. Once the decision is made to “go,” nothing matters except getting from point A to point B, losing as few men as possible in the process. Casualties are numbers and not human beings.

Gus Brand was something else again. He hated the gamble he was taking. He was genuinely concerned for the safety of innocent people, and particularly the safety of Elizabeth and Mariella Cleaves and Katherine Horn. Their lives depended on a kind of split-second efficiency.

People with rooms in the north wing on the sixteenth and fourteenth floors were to be kept away for the period of time between noon and the time when an “all clear” could be sounded. This in case Coriander’s big explosion couldn’t be prevented.

“We are guessing, without any proof, that Cleaves is the person on the outside who’s making contact with Coriander,” Brand said. Chambrun’s office was the headquarters for the “game plan” and the cops and officials and our staff were waiting for instructions. “But for all we know there are others, God knows how many. That means we’ve got to get our men into position without anyone guessing what we’re up to. I can’t march twenty armed men through the lobby wearing bulletproof vests and attack helmets. We’d have a panic that way and the word gets to Coriander.”

“Freight elevator,” Chambrun said. “Your men can come in the service entrance, one or two at a time. You’ve got an hour to get them all into position.”

Brand located the service entrance and the freight elevator on the blueprint. “That should do,” he said. “There’s no problem getting my sharpshooters on the roof of the adjoining building.” He picked up one of the phones on Chambrun’s desk and dialed an in-house number. He obviously had a man or men at a command post somewhere else in the hotel. “Plan A,” he said in his quiet voice. He had worked out his scheme long before he proposed it to us. He glanced at his wrist watch. “The time now is eleven-O-six. Ready to move in exactly one hour. We’ll hold then, however, if an order has been placed with Room Service and is in the process of being delivered. You will send in the attack squad through the service entrance and use the freight elevator. Say, two men at a time. Hold a minute.” He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and looked at Jerry Dodd. “Do those men have to go through the kitchen area in full view of the staff there?”

“Kitchen area can be shut off,” Jerry said. “The only persons who can’t be avoided are the chief engineer and his assistant.”

“You can have someone there to show our men the way, and make sure your engineer and his man aren’t talking to someone on a walkie-talkie?”

“I’ll cover it myself,” Jerry said.

“Fine—with one of my men,” Brand said. “I don’t want a single step of the way covered by anyone outside my command. I’m going to have to take the rap if anything goes wrong.” He smiled very faintly. “And the credit if it works.” He turned back to the phone. “Dodd, the hotel security man, will meet you outside the hotel at the service entrance in five minutes?” He raised a questioning eyebrow to Jerry, who nodded and started out of the office. Brand put down the phone. “There are other angles to be covered.” He fished a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. “The joint is swarming with newspaper and media reporters. Every damned one of them is like a detective on the case. Anything that arouses the least suspicion will have them on our tails like a pack of bloodhounds.”

“That should be easy,” Chambrun said. “You haven’t held your press conference yet this morning, have you, Mark?” I indicated no. “Well, call it for twelve o’clock. They all know you’ve been up to see Coriander. They’re panting for that story. You should be able to keep them occupied in that special dining room for as long as is necessary.”

I picked up the phone and called my office. I ordered the girls there to spread the word I’d meet with reporters at noon. That would be a nice, comfortable place to be when the shooting started.

“Finally,” Brand said when I’d hung up, “not one word of this must leak to Cleaves, or Buck Ames, or Mrs. Cleaves.” The tinted glasses turned my way. “I know you have a genuine sympathy for the lady, Haskell. But it will be easier for her to keep a secret she doesn’t know than one she does. She might talk to her father no matter what promises you extract from her. I haven’t written off Ames as Coriander’s outside contact. Mrs. Cleaves must think we’re trying to meet Coriander’s demand for money and a safe flight to Cuba.”

“I don’t think she’d be reassured by what we are doing,” I said. “Seriously, how much chance do the kids have?”

Brand glanced down at the blueprint. “It’s about forty feet from the door of the fire stairs to Fifteen A, fifty to the door of 1507. If we knock out the man at the detonator, we should have no problem there. But the minute Coriander hears shooting, he’ll know what’s up. If he turns on the girls then—” He let it ride there.

“No one’s going to open doors for you, you know,” Chambrun said. “We can supply you with master keys, but there are inside chain locks. It’s going to take time to break into any locked room.”

“I have two men armed with bazookas,” Brand said. “We’ll blow those doors open in seconds. The children are down a corridor in the bedroom here.” He pointed at the blueprint. “They’ll be safe from the break-in. If Coriander isn’t with the kids when it happens, we have a very good chance.”

“If—for God sake,” I said. Those brave little girls were very vivid to me.

“This plan or any other, the gamble is a big one, Mark,” Chambrun said. “This way we can hope that surprise is working our way. The girls have almost no chance in an open shoot-out on the way to a plane and Cuba.”

“Or left behind to be blown to pieces by a timed explosion,” Brand said. “It makes me ill just to think about it, but I’m certain this gives them their best chance—maybe the only one.”

I wasn’t protesting from strength, just a kind of sick anxiety for the children and for what the end result might do to Connie. You could talk and argue about it, but in less than an hour it would be
NOW!
A few agonizing minutes in time, no turning back, no second guessing, no alternatives once it began. All or nothing.

Feeling queasy and weak-kneed I went down the hall to my apartment. Somehow I had to see Connie, to bolster her courage without telling her what was really cooking.

Connie and Miss Ruysdale were sitting on the couch together, coffee, untouched and cold, on the table in front of them. Ruysdale had evidently busied herself trying to put the living room into some kind of order again. Connie looked at me from behind the black glasses, her lips parted in an unspoken question.

“Nothing yet,” I said.

“No word from Buck?”

“Not yet.”

“And Terrence?”

“Nothing.” I tried to sound cheerful. “But there is more than five hours to the end of the business day.”

Ruysdale stood up. “Can you stay with Mrs. Cleaves for a few minutes, Mark? I’d like very much to know if there is anything I can do for Mr. Chambrun.”

I glanced at my watch. “I have a press conference in about twenty-five minutes,” I said. “Take fifteen minutes if you want.”

Connie leaned her head against the back of the couch. I imagined her eyes were shut. The door closed behind Ruysdale and we were alone together. I wanted to go to her, hold her, comfort her. I didn’t. Instead I went to the kitchenette and poured a hot cup of coffee for myself and a fresh one for her.

“Why wouldn’t he let me go up to the girls?” she asked. “What could it have cost him?” Her voice sounded lifeless.

“Perhaps he thought that down here you could help persuade people to meet his demands,” I said.

“What could I persuade anyone to do that isn’t being done?”

I wanted to say something absurd, like all the world loves a mother, but I didn’t.

“What will I do if I don’t get the children back?” she asked.

“You mustn’t think that way,” I said.

“You must have talked about it back there in the office—how much chance they’ve got.”

“Mr. Brand thinks they have a very good chance,” I said.

“If Coriander takes them off to Cuba?”

“It may not come to that—if he gets the money,” I said.

“Without the children as hostages they won’t let him go,” she said. “Surely he knows that.” She was facing reality. “You’re not telling me the real truth, Mark. There is no chance for them, is there?”

“A good chance,” I said. I sat down beside her on the couch and took her hands in mine. They were ice-cold. I had the crazy impulse to tell her, in spite of Brand’s instructions, that in about forty-five minutes she might have the children back. She had just to hang on for that long. I came close, but I didn’t.

“The very best trained men in the country are handling this,” I said. “There couldn’t be a better man in charge than Augustus Brand. He’s not a crazy, trigger-happy kid. He’s thinking about the children every step of the way.”

“Oh, my God, Mark.” She was suddenly in my arms, crying softly. I held her, kissing her forehead and her cheeks, muttering some inane words of comfort. When this was over, I told myself, no matter how it came out, I wasn’t going to let her go. Not ever.

“You’re very sweet, Mark,” she whispered. “Very kind.”

I was going to be a hell of a lot more than kind to her in the future.

There was a discreet knock on the door and I knew that Ruysdale was back. “Chin up,” I said to Connie, like some sort of romantic idiot. I kissed her, very lightly, on the lips and went to the door. Ruysdale gave me an odd, faintly amused smile.

“Mr. Chambrun said to remind you that it’s going on twelve o’clock,” she said.

I explained to Connie that I had to meet with the reporters. I wished I could tell her that the next time I saw her we’d have all the answers, that however it came out I, Sir Mark the Glorious, would be standing by. I touched her cheek and got the hell out of there. My part of the plan, an important part, was about to begin. I was to keep the reporters occupied while Brand and his men gambled for the lives of the children and Katherine Horn.

It was ten minutes to noon.

At five minutes to twelve I walked into the private dining room and found a large crowd of men and women waiting for me. Cameras clicked. A few hundred yards away snipers were staring through their telescopic sights at the room where a man sat ready to blow up the hotel. I wished I’d asked Ruysdale whether an order had gone through to Room Service from 15 A. If it hadn’t, the shooting would begin in about eight minutes. If it had, I might have to hang onto these people for quite a while.

I made a brief statement. Coriander had reduced his demands for the time being. He would accept the money and a safe flight to Cuba with his hostages. They could bargain for his other demands from there.

“Will the FBI buy that?” someone asked.

The questions came at me like machine-gun fire. I wanted them to keep coming, so I wasn’t too direct with some answers. These people weren’t dummies. They knew the past history of this kind of situation. That was all too fresh in all their minds—the shoot-out with the Hearst girl’s friends in California, the jail break with hostages in Texas where two women were shot and killed rather than let the prisoners go free. A man from the
News
was particularly persistent.