Thomas Harris - Black Sunday

Kabakov watched from the command post at the stadium as the river of people poured in through the southeast gate. They were so well dressed and well fed, unaware of the trouble they were causing him.

There was some grumbling when lines formed at the metal detectors, and louder complaints when now and then a fan was asked to dump the contents of his pockets in a plastic dishpan. Standing with Kabakov were the members of the east side trouble squad, ten men in flak jackets, heavily armed. He walked outside, away from the crackle of radios, and watched the stadium fill up. Already the bands were thumping away, the music becoming less distorted as more and more bodies baffled the echoes off the stands. By one forty-five most of the spectators were in their seats. The roadblocks closed.

Eight hundred feet above the stadium, the TV crew in the blimp was conferring by radio with the director in the big television van parked behind the stands. The “NBS Sports Spectacular” was to open with a shot of the stadium from the blimp, with the network logo and the title superimposed on it. In the van, facing twelve television screens, the director was not satisfied.

“Hey, Simmons,” the cameraman said, “now he wants it from the other end, the north end with Tulane in the background, can you do that?”

“You bet.” The blimp wheeled majestically northward.

“Okay, that’s good, that’s good.” The cameraman had it nicely framed, the bright green field, solidly banked with eighty-four thousand people, the stadium wreathed with flags that snapped in the wind.

Lander could see the police helicopter darting like a drag onfly around the perimeter of the stadium.

“Tower to Nora One Zero.”

Simmons picked up the microphone. “Nora One Zero, go ahead.”

“Traffic in your area one mile northwest and approaching,” the air controller said. “Give him plenty of room.”

“Roger. I see him. Nora One Zero out.”

Simmons pointed and Lander saw a military helicopter approaching at six hundred feet. “It’s the prez. Take off your hat,” Simmons said. He wheeled the airship away from the north end of the stadium.

Lander watched as the landing marker was deployed on the track.

“They want a shot of the arrival,” the cameraman’s assistant said. “Can you get us broadside to him?”

“That’s fine,” the cameraman said. Through his long lens, eighty-six million people saw the president’s helicopter touch down. The president stepped out and walked quickly into the stadium and out of sight.

In the TV van, the director snapped, “Take two.” Across the country and around the world, the audience saw the president striding along the sideline to his box.

Looking down, Lander could see him again now, a husky blond figure in a knot of men, his arms raised to the crowd and the crowd rising to their feet in a wave as he passed.

Kabakov heard the roar that greeted the president. He had never seen the man, and he was curious. He restrained the impulse to go and look at him. His place was here, near the command post, where he would be instantly alerted to trouble.

“I’ll take it, Simmons. You watch the kickoff,” Lander said. They switched places. Lander was tired already, and the elevator wheel seemed heavy under his hand.

On the field, they were “reenacting the toss” for the benefit of the television audience. Now the teams were lined up for the kickoff.

Lander glanced at Simmons. His head was out the side window. Lander reached forward and pushed the fuel mixture lever for the port engine. He made the mixture just lean enough to make the engine overheat.

In minutes the temperature gauge was well into the red. Lander eased the fuel mixture back to normal. “Gentlemen, we’ve got a little problem.” Lander had Simmons’s instant attention. He tapped the temperature gauge.

“Now what the hell!” Simmons said. He climbed across the gondola and peered at the port engine over the shoulders of the TV crew. “She’s not streaming any oil.”

“What?” the cameraman said.

“Port engine’s hot. Let me get past you here.” He reached into the rear compartment and brought out a fire extinguisher.

“Hey, it’s not burning, is it?” The cameraman and his assistant were very serious, as Lander knew they would be.

“No, hell no,” Simmons said. “We have to get the extinguisher out, it’s SOP.”

Lander feathered the engine. He was heading away from the stadium now, to the northeast, to the airfield. “We’ll let Vickers take a look at it,” he said.

“Did you call him already?”

“While you were in the back.” Lander had mumbled into his microphone all right, but he had not pressed the transmit button.

He was following U.S. 10, the Superdome below him on the right and the fairgrounds with its oval track on the left. Bucking the headwind on a single engine was slow going. All the better coming back, Lander thought. He was over the Pontchartrain Golf Course now, and he could see the airfield spread out in front of him. There was the truck, approaching the airport gate. Dahlia had made it.

From the cab of the truck, Dahlia could see the airship coming. She was a few seconds early. There was a policeman at the gate. She held the blue vehicle pass out the window and he waved her through. She cruised slowly along the road flanking the field.

The ground crew saw the airship now, and they stirred around the bus and the tractor-trailer. Lander wanted them to be in a hurry. At three hundred feet he thumbed the button on his microphone. “All right, I’m coming in 175 heavy. Give it plenty of room.”

“Nora One Zero, what’s up? Why didn’t you say you were coming, Mike?” It was Vickers’s voice.

“I did,” Lander said. Let him wonder. The ground crew were running to their stations. “I’m coming to the mast crosswind and I want the wheel chocked. Don’t let her swing to the wind, Vickers. I’ve got a small problem with the port engine, a small problem. It’s nothing, but I want the port engine downwind from the ship. I do not want a flap. Do you understand?”

Vickers understood. Lander did not want the crash trucks howling down the field.

Dahlia Iyad waited to drive across the runway. The tower was giving her a red light. She watched as the blimp touched down, bounced, touched again, the ground crew grabbing the ropes that trailed from the nose. They had it under control now.

The tower light flashed green. She drove across the runway and parked behind the tractor-trailer, out of sight of the crew milling around the blimp. In a second the tailgate was down, the ramp in place. She grabbed the paper bag containing the gun and the cable cutters and ran around the tractor-trailer to the blimp. The crew paid no attention to her. Vickers opened the cowling on the port engine. Dahlia passed the bag to Lander through the window of the gondola and ran back to her truck.

Lander turned to the TV crew. “Stretch your legs. It’ll be a minute.”

They scrambled out and he followed them.

Lander walked to the bus and immediately returned to the blimp. “Hey, Vickers, Lakehurst is on the horn for you.”

“Oh, my ass—All right, Frankie, take a look in here, but don’t change nothin’ until I get back.” He trotted toward the bus. Lander went in behind him. Vickers had just picked up the radio telephone when Lander shot him in the back of the head. Now the ground crew had no leader. As Lander stepped off the bus he heard the putt-putt of the forklift. Dahlia was in the saddle, swinging around the rear of the tractor-trailer. The crew, puzzled at the sight of the big nacelle, made room for the forklift. She eased forward, sliding the long nacelle under the gondola. She raised the fork six inches and it was in place.