Stanislaw Lem - The Chain of Chance

“And you just happened to be standing in that particular place on the escalator? Is that it?”

“Not quite.”

I took advantage of the pause, a nerve-racking pause interrupted only by the hammering outside, to select my words carefully.

“It wasn’t just by accident that I was standing there. The Japanese let the girl go ahead of him because he figured a kid would be the least likely to cramp his style. The girl”—I nodded in her direction—“was at the head of the line because she was intrigued by a stuffed dog. That’s my impression, anyway. Am I right, Annabella?”

“Yes.” She was visibly surprised.

I smiled at her.

“And as for me… I was in a hurry. It’s irrational, I agree, but when you’re in a hurry you automatically want to be the first to board the plane. And that goes for the boarding ramp as well… It wasn’t deliberate on my part, it just happened that way.”

Everyone sighed. Canetti murmured something to the deputy police chief, who nodded.

“We would like to spare you, young lady… certain details of the inquiry. Would you mind stepping outside for a while?”

I glanced over at Annabella. A girlish smile—her first—just for me. She got up. Someone opened the door for her. As soon as she was out of the room, Canetti went at it again.

“Now for the next question. When did you begin to suspect the Japanese?”

“I never suspected him for a moment; he was so totally convincing in that tourist getup of his. Till the moment he crouched down, that is. At first I thought he was out of his mind. But as soon as I saw he’d triggered the grenade, I figured I had about three seconds, more or less.”

“How many did you have exactly?”

“Hard to say. The grenade didn’t explode right away when he pulled the pin, it must have had a delay mechanism. My guess is two, maybe two and a half seconds.”

“That would coincide with our own estimate,” said one of the men over by the window.

“You seem to have trouble walking. Were you injured?”

“Yes, but not by the explosion. The blast came just as I was landing in the water. How high up is the bridge? About five meters?”

“Four and a half.”

“That would account for one second. My reaching for the grenade and clearing the railing would account for another. You asked if I was injured. I banged my back against something while I was in the air. I once fractured my tail bone.”

“You hit a deflector,” explained the man seated on the window sill. “A boom equipped with a diagonal shield designed to deflect an object into the center of the funnel. You’ve never heard of such a deflector?”

“No.”

“I beg your pardon, but it’s still my turn!” protested Canetti. “Did that man—that Japanese—actually throw the grenade?”

“No. He held on to it till the very end.”

“Didn’t he try to escape?”

“Nope.”

“Poltrinelli, head of airport security.” The newcomer was leaning against the desk, dressed in a pair of grease-stained overalls. “Are you absolutely sure the man wanted to die?”

“Did he want to die? Yes. He made no attempt to save his own skin. He could have unloaded the whole camera if he’d wanted to.”

“Excuse me, but this is an important point for us. Isn’t it possible he planned to jump over the bridge after throwing the grenade but was prevented from doing so by your surprise attack?”

“Impossible. Though I could be wrong,” I conceded. “For one thing, I didn’t attack him. I was only trying to get the grenade out of his hands after he pulled it away from his face; I could see the pin sticking out between his teeth. It was made of nylon instead of metal. He was using both hands to hold the thing. That’s not how you throw a hand grenade.”

“How did you attack him? From above?”

“That’s how I would have attacked if the stairs had been empty or if we’d been last in line. That’s why he knew better than to stand at the back. Any hand grenade can be knocked loose by a straight jab from above, in which case it would just have gone sailing down the stairs. If I’d only poked it out of his hand, it would have landed close by. Even though it’s against regulations, people still put their hand luggage on the steps. In which case the grenade wouldn’t have rolled very far. That’s why I swung from the left, and that’s what took him by surprise.”

“From the left, you say? Are you left-handed?”

“Yes. He wasn’t expecting that. He ducked the wrong way. The guy was a real pro. He stuck out his elbow to guard from the right.”

“Then what happened?”

“After that he kicked me in the knee and threw himself backward. He must have been extremely well trained; even if you’re willing to die, it’s hard as hell to throw yourself backward down a flight of stairs. Most of us would rather die facing forward.”

“But the stairs were crowded.”

“Right! And yet there was no one standing behind him. Everyone was trying to move back out of the way.”

“He wasn’t counting on that.”

“I know, but nothing was left to chance. He was too slick, he had every move down pat.”

The security chief squeezed the desk top till his knuckles turned white. He fired away with his questions as if conducting a cross-examination.

“I wish to emphasize that as far as we’re concerned your behavior is beyond reproach. But I repeat: it is of vital importance to us that we get at the facts in this case. You understand why, don’t you?”

“The question is whether they have people ready to face certain death.”

“Precisely. That’s why I must ask you to reconsider the exact sequence of events that took place during that one second. Let me put myself in his place. I release the safety catch. Next I plan to jump over the bridge. If I stick to my plan, you intercept the grenade and throw it back at me as I’m going down. I hesitate, and it’s that split second of hesitation that proves decisive. Couldn’t that have been the way it happened?”

“No. A person planning to throw a hand grenade doesn’t hold it with both hands.”

“But you shoved him as you were going for the grenade.” “No. If my fingers hadn’t slipped I would’ve pulled him toward me. I couldn’t get a grip on him; he got away from me by kneeling over backward. That was a deliberate move on his part. I confess I underestimated him. I should have just grabbed him and dumped him over the railing along with the grenade. That’s what I would have done if I hadn’t been so startled.”

“He might have dropped the grenade by your feet.”

“Then I’d have gone over the railing with him. Or tried to, at least. Of course it’s easy to say afterward, but I think I would have gambled. I weighed twice as much as he did, and his arms were no bigger than a kid’s.”

“Thank you. No further questions.”

“Scarron, engineer.” The man introducing himself was young looking but prematurely gray; he wore civilian clothes and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. “Can you think of any security measures that might have prevented such an attack?”

“You’re asking too much of me. It looks to me as if you’ve taken care of everything.”

They were prepared for many things, he said, but not everything. They’d even found a way of counteracting the so-called Lod Type Operation. At the push of a button, isolated sections of the escalator could be converted into a sloping plane capable of depositing people in a water tank.

“One equipped with the same kind of foam?”

“No. That’s an antidetonation tank designed strictly for under the bridge. No, I had other kinds in mind.”

“Well, then… what was stopping you? Not that it would have mattered, really…”