Don Pendleton - Tower of Terror

"We have terrorists downstairs!" Quickly Green related to his overtime office staff what had happened on the fifth floor. "I saw two. There could be any number of them in the Tower — five, ten, twenty crazies. And they have automatic rifles."

"There's no money in the building!" Sandy interrupted. She was a tall, slender blonde, one of the temporary workers who rotated through the various offices of the Tower. There was panic in her voice.

"There's nothing here they could want...what could they possibly want?"

"We'll hear all about it on television tonight," Green told her. "WorldFiCor is an international corporation. What they want could have nothing to do with us. All that we have to do right now is live through it."

"But they know we're here," Jill said. "They know what floor we're on! From the elevator numbers!"

"I hit all the numbers when we got out," Green told her. "The elevator stopped on every floor above us."

"If we hide," Sandy interrupted again, "the police will be here soon. They've got to be!"

"Sandy, let me finish. We don't have to be brave, but we have to keep cool. We have to think out what we'll do. We can stay up here, or we can try to get out. If we stay up here," Green detailed his thinking, "we might be here for days. They might have time to search all the offices. But if we try to get out, we're betting our lives that the crazies won't be waiting for us. We'd have to shoot our way past them, and I've only got six rounds in this pistol."

"Seventeen bullets," Mrs. Forde corrected. She took a snub-nosed .38 revolver from her purse. "Five in the cylinder, and six extras. And I know how to use it."

"Mrs. Forde!" Green said in mock horror. "Pistols are illegal in New York City."

"Yeah. Murder and rape, too. And what about terrorism?"

"We still don't have fire superiority," Green continued. "But if they find us, or we have to break out, we could surprise one or two of them. Surprise them to death. So what's it going to be? It's time for a vote."

"No voting!" Mrs. Forde told him. "You're the Department Director. None of the girls has got your experience. We'll do what you say."

"This is not an accounting project. And it's their lives we're talking about, Mrs. Forde."

The woman turned to the others. "Mr. Green was a company commander in the Army. Two tours of duty in Vietnam. If you don't want to do what he says, take the elevator downstairs. Maybe you'll make it to the street, maybe you won't."

Diane, the third temporary worker, smiled, gave Green a quick salute.

"You got my vote."

Sandy and Jill raised their hands.

Green nodded. "Command accepted, with reluctance. And now, troops, get comfortable. Your fearless leader has to think of what to..."

Screaming drowned out his voice. It was an electronic wail. In every office and corridor of the hundred floors, sirens sounded the alert to evacuate the Tower.

"Fire! They've set fire to the..." Jill shrieked, running to the door.

" Shut up !" Green shouted. He grabbed her, pushed her back into a chair. "Really, Jill, keep cool! It's just noise, a fire alarm. It could be a trick. When we smell smoke, then we'll panic."

Green knew that the building was considered fireproof. Something else must be up.

One by one, in twos, sometimes in joking and laughing groups WorldFiCor employees and executives left the elevators. Every one of them assumed the evacuation of the Tower was a weekend drill. Within seconds of stepping into the lobby, each employee became a prisoner. The soldiers of Zuniga's squad seized and immobilized the employees with freighting tape. They did not resist. It happened too quickly.

Zuniga waited for a proper subject for his upcoming demonstration. His improvised plan required horror. It was not enough that the prisoners saw the corpse of the fat executive sprawled on the lobby's polished marble floor. They might think the fat man provoked his captors. The prisoners might hope for mercy. Without blind, unthinking terror twisting their emotions, torturing their intelligence and logic, the prisoners might not take the desperate chances his plan demanded.

A woman screamed. Zuniga watched his soldiers throw a young black woman against the wall. She was very young, perhaps still in her teens. They silenced her screaming with a rifle butt to the stomach, then a loop of tape around her head to cover her mouth. Loops of tape immobilized her hands.

Cocking his .45 automatic, Zuniga started toward her. But to his side, elevator doors slid open. An elderly woman stepped out. She walked slowly, her back stooped from decades of bending over a desk. Under one arm, she carried an account folder, sheets of paper and adding machine tape hanging from the folder. Two of his soldiers, Carlos and Rico, grabbed her, wrenching her arms behind her.

She cried out in pain, and Carlos released his grip. The old book-keeper fell to her hands and knees. Rico jerked her to her feet. Screaming, anger and horror on her face, she tried to twist away.

Zuniga glanced at the prisoners. All of them watched Rico struggling with the old woman.

Crossing to her in three strides, Zuniga jammed the barrel of the .45 automatic into the old woman's mouth and blew her head away.

Returning to downtown Manhattan, Lyons called Gadgets on his limo's secure phone.

"Hardman One for Hardman Three, connect please!"

"This is Mr. Three's liaison, will you hold for a moment?"

"Get me the man, right now!" Lyons glanced at his watch. Thirty-nine hours, two minutes. He looked outside. Double-parked trucks and jaywalkers jammed the traffic. Whenever Smith saw an opening, he accelerated, whipping the limousine through the traffic like a sports car. But then a traffic signal or a shopper's open car door or kids on bicycles slowed them again.

Gadgets finally came on the phone. "This is Hardman Three. How's it going?"

"Slow. I had a conference with the executives of the Corporation. That is one company I wouldn't want to work for. What's happening there?"

"Nothing electronic. Two or three words on hand-radios since I got plugged in. They've got an iron fix on it in there. They also got a body count going."

"Don't tell me the details over this line. Wait until..."

"This line is secure. I checked it out. National Security Agency equipment. Unless someone has one of the three phone units, all they can tap in on is static."

"Go on then."

"I hear we got two bodies in the lobby. A man and a woman. It happened before we arrived."

Lyons felt his gut twist. Two working people dead. Dead because they cared enough for their company and their duties to put in a sixth day this week. Not that their company cared about them. Dead because of political problems thousands of miles away. Dead because a group of psychopaths wanted to dictate the future of millions of Puerto Ricans.

And how many more innocent people would die?

"You there?" queried Gadgets.

"I'm here. Those psychopaths make any demands yet?"

"No communications whatsoever. We got a negotiation team waiting."

"Buzz me if anything else happens. I'm going to join up with Hardman Two. Off."

Lyons adjusted his shoulder holster, checked his pockets for speedloaders. Only four. Six rounds in his .357, twenty-four rounds in the speedloaders. He called forward to Smith:

"Got any .357 Magnums? Or .38 rounds?"

"9mm only, sir."

"Call the taxi. Find out where Hardman Two is, tell him I'm on my way. Then trade in this tank for something less conspicuous. Pick up a box of .357 ammunition."

It took Smith thirty seconds to get Blancanales' location. Lyons noted the address and cross street.

"Drop me off at the corner, I'll take a real taxi. Get back with the other car within half an hour."