Don Pendleton - Tower of Terror

Siren wailing, a New York Police Department squad car cut through the late-afternoon traffic. Taximan kept the front bumper of the cab only a few car lengths behind the police black-and-white, roaring through intersections at sixty miles an hour, throwing the wheel from side to side to swerve around slow trucks, accelerating in open stretches of avenue, power-gliding around corners.

In the cab's back seat, Lyons shouted instructions through the security phone. "I want a team of surveillance agents ready right now! Street clothes, unmarked cars, panel trucks. They'll need hand-radios, D.F.'s, minimikes. Cameras with light intensification lenses, super-fast film. And I want an M-16 with a Starlite scope. I want them ready to move when we get there, and we're on our way in, now! "

He shared the backseat with Blancanales and several boxes of photos and paperwork taken from the apartment. Blancanales patiently sorted through the material as the cab skidded from side to side of the streets and avenues. He skimmed over the typed and handwritten Vietnamese, a language in which he was fluent, searching for names. There were hundreds of sheets.

"Anything?" Lyons asked.

"It'll take me weeks to get through all this. But look at these dates, they go back months. This was no rush job. They've been on it quite a while."

"Any background? Why they were sent? What they were looking for?"

"Can't tell. These are only day-to-day logs. Surveillance records. Copies of weekly reports. All signed by Le Van Thanh."

"She was the commander?"

"That's right. When they stitch her head back together, we'll have to ask her about Davis and that other man, the man who links Davis to the crazies. I see Davis' name all over the place, but I don't see the go-between's. Maybe they didn't get it."

"What is the hold the crazies have on Davis?" Lyons pondered the mystery out loud. Then, to Blancanales: "When did the crazies first contact him? You find anything that could tell us that? What's the date on the first picture with the go-between and Davis?"

"The photos aren't dated." He held up one eight-by-ten. "Labels with numbers. The numbers refer to reports. But I haven't matched up the reports yet with the photos. Can't until I have some help with this."

"Then they could have been talking to Davis for a week, two weeks?"

"Could be they had pressure on him before the Vietnamese came to New York. We could go straight to Davis. With these photos, he can't deny meeting with the crazies."

"He could have told me this morning, and he didn't. Maybe they have his children or grandchildren, and he thinks he can tough it out on his own. Maybe they've been threatening his company all along. Maybe taking the Tower was only the final turn of the screw. I want Davis watched. Because whatever they want from him, now's the time to take it. And when they try, we'll take their contact man."

Federal agents in electrical company uniforms watched the squad car and taxi roar past, then replaced the street barricades. In seconds, the cab screeched to a smoking-tire stop.

"Just take the photos with Davis in it," Lyons told Blancanales. "We'll have these agents carry the boxes in. They're just hanging around anyway. Heard what I said, Taximan?"

"I'll put them to work, sir. Right away."

They ran from the cab, weaving through the agents in uniforms and street clothes standing at the commandeered office building's back entrance. An agent at the glass doors stopped them.

"Who are you guys? Show me some official identification."

"We don't have identification," Lyons told him, tried to shove past. The agent shoved back, and found himself on his back on the concrete, looking up at Lyons and Blancanales.

Blancanales laughed, put his hand on Lyons' shoulder. "Ease up, man. These guys are on our side!"

An agent in gray janitor coveralls stepped from the building and held the door open for them.

"I'm Hardman Three's liaison man," he said. "He's waiting for you upstairs. Many interesting developments."

Another man — slight-figured, in a conservative suit and brown shoes, carrying a zippered folder — rushed to the door of the elevator. But Lyons straight-armed him, said, "Wait for the next one up."

"Please," Blancanales added.

"But he's..." the liaison agent protested. The elevator doors closed. The car shot up. "He was waiting to talk to you. He has some background material on WorldFiCor."

Lyons turned to the agent, emphasized his words with a finger to the man's chest. "I want you to understand this, Mr. Agent. We have been in the shit all day long. We have done the work you feds can't. And the reason we can do it is that we don't exist. We don't have identification, we don't have names. You have never seen us. We will never be news, we will never be on tv. No one will ever include us in their expose, or in their memoirs. If we get killed, we're just meat in a body-bag, no name and no face. So we show up here, and what do we have? Some clerk with a notebook trying to brief us. That is a violation of our working rules! When Brognola tells me to talk to the man, then I talk to him, not before. Nobody comes up and introduces himself to us! Do you understand?"

"Right. Yes, sir. Mr. Brognola has to give you the okay. I'll call him back, right now. Security is important."

"You talked to Brognola?" Blancanales asked.

The elevator stopped, and Lyons stepped out as the doors slid open. He glanced in both directions down the corridor, but all the doors were closed.

"Yes, sir. He called me." The agent pointed to the left. "This way. I think we've made contact with someone trapped in the Tower. They're flashing a light in Morse code. We're trying to get some information from them, but there are problems."

"What problems?" Blancanales asked.

"Their Morse code is bad. Very slow, and they get some of the alphabet wrong. But they're getting across to us."

"Where are they?" Lyons asked.

"The fifty-third floor."

The agent in overalls opened an office suite's door. Lyons strode in. "Hey, Hardman Three! You missed the action!"

Gadgets said, "What action?"

Schwarz was in a stock broker's plush private office. Shipping blankets now covered the desk, the chairs, the bookshelves and the carpet. Consoles and recorder decks crowded the walls. At the window that overlooked the WorldFiCor Tower, tripods supported devices still in their vinyl cases. Gadgets stood at the window, looking out at the Tower through a pair of binoculars.

Twilight shadows and sunset glare broke the Tower's mirror walls into alternating patterns of black and fire. Here and there, lights showed in the other buildings on Wall Street. But very few lights broke the depthless black of the Tower's shadow patterns. One light blinked on and off, in dot-dash sequences.

"We interrupting anything?" Blancanales asked.

"Not really. Just a second." Gadgets kept the binoculars on the blinking light for another second, then went to an intercom phone. "You taking down the message? Great. I'm in conference."

Gadgets turned to them. "Hope their lives don't depend on their Morse. Because if they do, they're dead."

"What's happening in there?" asked Lyons, moving to the window.

"There's a man named Charlie Green on the fifty-third floor. There's a woman named Forde, I think, and some others. I sent their names downstairs. I don't know how they'll be able to help us. But..." Gadgets grinned "...I have got the most fas-ci-nating development. Remember what happened... wow, was it only last night? The big bang? It just about..."

"Wait!" Lyons interrupted. He looked at the liaison agent.

"I'll go," the agent offered.

"How about bringing up that fellow who wanted to talk to us?" Blancanales asked. "We can talk in the corridor out there. So that we don't compromise the mission. That okay with you?"