Roderick Thorpe - Nothing Lasts Forever

"What else can you tell us?"

"The leader of the gang is a German named Anton Gruber, a.k.a. Antonino Rojas, Little Tony the Red, with a call on him in the German Federal Republic. He has enough explosive in here to flatten the place, which may be what he has in mind if he doesn't get what he wants, whatever that is. On the other hand, I've got the detonators, or at least some of them..."

"Throw them out."

"Can't right now, and I don't think it's a good move. As long as he thinks he can get me and make me tell him where the detonators are, he won't play his last card, the hostages."

"You talk like a man who knows something, if you understand me. I want you to throw the detonators out. The first objective is to reduce the chance of disaster."

"I already have, until they catch me. Let me talk. From what I can tell, they have the elevators locked up on the thirty-second floor. You try to shoot your way in, from above or below, and they're going to start killing women and children. Call your boss and ask him if he wants children shot on Christmas in his town."

"I want you to listen to me..."

"No, you listen: I'm wounded and I left a trail of blood to where I am now. They're still after me. I won't be leaving a trail anymore; let me protect myself and I'll get back to you."

Leland turned the radio off. He had been in one place long enough. He had to get himself together and understand how the situation had changed. He wanted to talk some more with the police.

He was limping, but he could move. It was like walking on loaves of bread. His left foot felt as though it had been sliced in half. He would know if he started bleeding badly again. He went upstairs, taking the southeast staircase, hurrying the first flight to get past the thirty-fourth floor, then slowing and feeling the pain the next two. Good enough. He was tired anyway. He wanted to rest.

Of all the aircraft he'd owned after the war, the best had been his Cessna 310. During the war he had flown all sorts of things, of course, from training planes up through the Thunderbolt, a heavy-handling, evil-looking brute, to the Mustang, the best single-engine piston aircraft ever built, bar none. He had been happiest thinking about airplanes and flying. On the day he'd checked out in the 310, he'd dropped the salesman off at the office and taxied back out to the runway again. The kid in the tower had told him to keep the wings on — he'd know how good Leland was feeling that day...

The thirty-sixth floor was like the thirty-third, a gridiron of tiny cubicles surrounded by equally tiny, but color-coordinated offices — in a big corporation, you always knew where you stood in relation to the top.

It had no status now, with bulletholes, splintered panels, and broken glass everywhere. He was on the north side again, sitting on the floor behind a desk, looking down into Wilshire Boulevard. Three blocks away, he could see the flash of a boiling light against a building. A helicopter appeared over the hills, then swung around abruptly and headed north, toward the San Fernando valley.

Leland was eating his Milky Way. He'd finished the Oh Henry!, and he was saving the Mars bar for last. He felt like a kid in the movies, or a young cop eating for energy in a prowl car...

He'd taken the 310 straight out to sea at a height of a thousand feet, across the New Jersey suburban blight where every tacky, upright swimming pool stood revealed, every van, every bolt-together aluminum tool shed — at a thousand feet, at one hundred and fifty miles an hour, the suburbs looked like an enormous junkyard.

But then he'd gone on, out over the ocean. Two miles out, he was at five hundred feet; ten miles, fifty feet. By then he was making better than two hundred knots, faster than he'd flown in almost twenty years. It was a brilliant, blue-sky day, with only a few cirrus clouds far above. The sun was over his shoulder and the water looked very dark, so close the wave's seemed to be nipping at the plane. He passed a sport fishing boat and waggled his wings. The 310 was his second twin, with wingtip fuel tanks, as pretty as any general aviation aircraft ever, loaded, equipped for IFR, one of the first small radars — he had world-wide capability At thirty miles out, he came upon two freighters, five miles apart, making for the Ambrose Light Using their superstructures as pylons, he flew figure eights; and when the crews came out on deck, he waggled his wings, climbed straight up, rolled, stalled, let it fall, and finished with a full loop between the ships where both crews could see. When he headed back to the land, he could see arms waving from the decks.

He pressed the "Talk" button. "You guys still there?"

"Ah, how you doing? What happened to you?"

"I had to get the show on the road. For the last ten, I've been cooping."

"Right. A couple of us heard your earlier transmission, and we agree that you're the real thing. We're going to take a chance on you. Now how do you make the situation?"

"The roof is easier to defend than to take. They're very heavily armed..."

"How about you?"

Leland thought of the Browning, and that Little Tony might be listening. "I'm in business," he said.

"How do we recognize you?"

Leland smiled. "I'm black. I wasn't when I started, but I am now."

"I hear you. We'll talk about that later. What about the radio? How did you come into that?"

No wonder: they hadn't figured out that he had one of the gang's radios.

"I came into this the same way I came into this sweet little Kalashnikov machine gun. It's logical to assume they're tuned in, too. Do you know who Little Tony is?"

"Hey, I usually work out of Hollenbeck. I was on my way home to West L.A."

"Okay," Leland said. "He's third generation Red Army Faction, West Germany. After Andreas Baader died, his people went deep underground Nobody knew where they would turn up, but the stories were always that they would do something big. Here we are." Leland had a sudden thought: what if the marshal on the plane from St. Louis had been responding to some wild, incoherent information? If Leland had been paying attention and identified himself, he might have learned something that could have prevented this.

"How do you know all this stuff?"

"Just say it's a long time since I worked Hollenbeck. Look, I told you: These guys need me, and it's not a good idea to stay on the air too long."

"Well, we're going to give them a taste now."

Leland froze. The police still did not understand the situation. He had become convinced that Little Tony was listening. Leland moved closer to the window — and now, faintly, he heard one of the elevators running. He couldn't be sure that they weren't coming for him. No, such a short trip would have been completed already.

They had been listening! They were headed down to meet the police!

Leland pressed the "Talk" button. "Our conversation was monitored. They're coming to meet you."

"Right on," the black voice said. "Thanks a lot."

With only seven of them left, Leland didn't think they would mount another mission against him. He got up — he needed a cane, or even crutches. He made his way from one doorway to the next. If he was going to continue to be effective, he would have to figure some way to make the gang come to him. There was no point in staying at the window. If there was to be a firefight down in the street, this was the best place to get hurt. He had an idea, anyway. And a thought to bear in mind later: on the basis of the information he had given them, police snipers could assume they could shoot at any target above the thirty-second floor.

He had to give an account of himself, or the gang would know how badly he was hurt. If they sent someone after him while he was exposed and vulnerable, that would be the end, surely. But he knew he would be better off in the long run if he could keep them thinking that with him they still had more than they could handle.