Warren Murphy: Terror Squad

"It will make a nice earring," said Remo, gazing out into the darkening sky, watching the flight of a gull dip and pivot and then make its way off toward the Pacific, where gulls belonged.

"They got that gun through our latest detection devices. Our latest. The goddam thing will find gold fillings in your teeth, and they got it past that. That's like moving an elephant through a turnstile with no one seeing you do it."

"Elephant?" said Remo.

"Yes. A comparison," said Peterson.

"Oh," said Remo.

"I don't think you're going to get out of this thing alive," said Peterson.

"I'll get out alive," said Remo. He looked for the gull, but it had disappeared into the vast nothing that was the sky.

"Pretty sure of yourself, aren't you?" said Peterson.

"When you tie your shoelaces, do you worry about breaking your thumbs?"

"You're that confident."

"Pretty much," said Remo. "Tell me about this machine gun. Is it really so extraordinary to get it through your detection gadget?"

"Up till now, I would have said impossible. This is a whole new bag of worms."

Remo nodded. So that was why Smith had begun to pull out all the CURE stops, use all the CURE influence, and get him here to meet the plane. Smith was sure that this group was part of the new terrorist wave he was worked up about

Smith had lectured for a full afternoon, explaining how these terrorists with their new techniques could make international sanctions look like so much wallpaper. Instant competence, he had called it.

"You know something I don't know?" Peterson asked.

Remo nodded.

"You with the CIA?"

"No," said Remo.

"Aeronautics?"

"No."

"Pentagon?"

Remo shook his head.

"Who are you with?"

"The Insurance Association of America. Do you know that if 800,000 people were killed instantly, insurance stocks would drop almost a point on the Dow Jones? Horrifying, isn't it?"

"You're a wise sonofabitch," said Peterson, "and I hope they get you."

Remo squinted into the horizon.

"That's our baby, I think."

"Where?"

Remo pointed northward.

"I don't see anything."

"Wait."

Five minutes elapsed before Peterson could make out a faint dot in the sky.

"Do you have binoculars in your skull?"

"We in the insurance industry have to...."

"Oh, shut up."

The plane came in on a single line approach. No circling. There was no need. Traffic had been cleared hi the area. Remo watched the giant silver machine set down like a house being lowered, slowly, and then it was on the runway far away and coming toward them. He could see the twirl of propellers. The plane halted in a cough of dying engines. Remo heard fumbling and banging at the main plane door. The hijackers could commandeer a plane but they didn't know how to open a door. Yet, they knew how to smuggle a machine gun on board. They were also, undoubtedly, weapons wise. No matter.

The door flew open and a large man in dashiki and Afro stood in the doorway, a Kalashnikov cradled hi his right hand, a megaphone in his left. Add personal weapons to the .50 calibre. All of them past the new perfect security system. Maybe they even had an elephant on board.

"You there in the car. Come out with your hands In front of you. Open the doors and trunk so we can see inside," came the booming voice from the megaphone.

Not bad, thought Remo. They were careful. He nodded to Peterson, who opened the doors.

"I don't have a key to the trunks" Peterson yelled up to the plane.

"Shoot it open," said the man in the plane doorway. Very clever. A check to see if Peterson was armed.

"I don't have a gun," Peterson said.

"Well, throw up the money."

Remo hopped out of the car and grabbed the two satchels of cash sitting on the hood. He held them in front of him.

"I will bring up the money. But I want the passengers released. Now, I don't expect you to release the passengers before I give you the money but I do expect the passengers to walk out. So let my friend here drive the car away and get a boarding platform to the plane so the people can walk off after I give you the money."

"No. The money now or we kill a hostage."

"If you kill a hostage, not one of you will leave that plane alive," yelled Remo. "Think about it. You open fire on one hostage and we go for broke."

"We are ready to die and live in Paradise for Allah."

"Feel free," said Remo.

"Ah could shoot, you know."

"If I go, everyone goes."

"You lying."

"Try me."

"Ah knows your evil ways."

"Feel free to try me."

"Jess a minute."

The black head disappeared into the plane. All right, he wasn't the leader. him head returned and it said:

"Okay, but if you try any funny stuff, a hostage will die and the death will be on your hands."

"That's mighty white of you," Remo said. He watched his opponent blanch. Good. A little unnerving never did an opponent any good. He held the Kalashnikov with skill, finger ready at the trigger, but not on it.

Peterson looked to Remo.

"Get the car out and a platform in," said Remo, keeping his back to the air terminal. The photographers must be blazing away and who knew who had a telephoto lens. Maybe they had a good shot of his face already.

As the boarding platform made its slow way to the plane, Remo chatted with the man at the plane door.

"Have a nice flight?" he asked.

"Our flight to freedom will be the greatest flight."

"I mean the food. First class or tourist?"

"When you pack weapons, you always travel first class," said the man with the Afro.

"How true," Remo said. "How true."

As the ramp eased to the plane door, Remo watched the trigger finger move closer to the trigger. The barrel raised to just about the line where men might be hidden on the steps. The ramp touched, the black man stepped out onto the platform, Kalashnikov at the ready, and peered down. He nodded then for Remo to come on board. Like a passenger bound for a week's vacation, Remo gingerly boarded the plane with the two sacks of money.

"I brought a little something as a plane-warming gift," Remo said.

"Cool, man," said the gunman. "'Just carry those sacks to the front of the plane."

Heads turned to look at Remo, frightened faces, men and women, black and white, children and grownups, joined now by their common fear. At the pilot's cockpit was what Agent Peterson had predicted. A mounted .50 calibre machine gun.

The fear in the old prop airplane was palpable. He could smell it. It was a mix of adrenalin, perspiration, released urine-a combination of odours.

"Heads forward," commanded a black woman in yellow dashiki and high turban. The passengers looked forward. Remo walked up the aisle directly to the muzzle of the .50 calibre. It was pointed at his groin.

A man squatted behind the gun and the woman stood over him.

"Put down the bags," she ordered.

Remo lowered the bags.

"Close the door, Kareem," she yelled to the guard at the rear of the plane.

"Just a minute," said Remo. "You don't need these hostages."

The woman looked coldly at Remo. Her face was fatty but hard and her neck rolled in darkening thickness.

"Don't tell me what I need and don't need."

"You don't need seventy frightened people who might do something stupid. Not when you've got me and the pilot and the co-pilot,"

"And the stewardesses," she said. Her voice was clipped and her accent was Boston or New England.

"You don't need the stewardesses either. A hostage is a hostage. Anything more than that is baggage."

"You're very concerned with my problems," she said.

"I'd like to see the passengers and stewardesses out of a tense situation. I'm showing you why it's in your interest also."

The woman pondered a moment and Remo could see the quick sharp calculations begin in her eyes.