“Yes, yes,” Richards said, and smiled ferally. McCone blinked.
“So you see-”
Richards started. The man was hypnotizing him. The minutes were flying, a helicopter was coming up from Boston loaded with three ampoules of jack-me-up-and-turn-me-over (and if McCone said forty minutes he meant twenty), and here he stood, listening to this man’s tinkling little anthem. God, he was a monster.
“Listen to me,” Richards said harshly, interrupting. “The speech is short, little man.
When you inject her, she’s going to sing the same tune. For the record, it’s all here. Dig?”
He locked his gaze with McCone’s and began to walk forward.
“I’ll see you, shiteater.”
McCone stepped aside. Richards didn’t even bother to look at him as he passed. Their coat sleeves brushed.
“For the record, I was told the pull on half-cock was about three pounds. I’ve got about two and a half on now. Give or take. ”
He had the satisfaction of hearing the man’s breath whistle a little faster.
“Richards?”
He looked back from the stairs and McCone was looking up at him, the gold edges of his glasses gleaming and flashing. “When you get in the air, we’re going to shoot you down with a ground-to-air missile. The story for the public will be that Richards got a little itchy on the trigger. RIP.”
“You won’t, though.”
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“No?”
Richards began to smile and gave half a reason. “We’re going to be very low and over heavily populated areas. Add twelve fuel pods to twelve pounds of Irish and you got a very big bang potential. Too big. You’d do it if you could get away with it, but you can’t.”
He paused. “You’re so bright. Did you anticipate me on the parachute?”
“Oh, yes,” McCone said calmly. “It’s in the forward passenger compartment. Such old hat, Mr. Richards. Or do you have another trick in your bag?”
“You haven’t been stupid enough to tamper with the chute, either, I’ll bet.”
“Oh no. Too obvious. And you would pull that nonexistent imploder ring just before you struck, I imagine. Quite an effective airburst.”
“Goodbye, little man.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Richards. And bon voyage. ” He chuckled. “Yes, you do rate honesty.
So I will show you one more card. Just one. We are going to wait for the Canogyn before taking action. You are absolutely right about the missile. For now, just a bluff. Call and raise again, eh? But I can afford to wait. You see, I am never wrong. Never. And I know you are bluffing. So we can afford to wait. But I’m keeping you. ‘Voir, Mr. Richards. ”
He waved.
“Soon,” Richards said, but not loud enough for McCone to hear. And he grinned.
Minus 029 and COUNTING
The first-class compartment was long and three aisles wide, paneled with real aged sequoia. A wine-colored rug which felt yards deep covered the floor. A 3-D movie screen was cranked up and out of the way on the far wall between the first class and the galley.
In seat 100, the bulky parachute pack sat. Richards patted it briefly and went through the galley. Someone had even put coffee on.
He stepped through another door and stood in a short threat which led to the pilots’
compartment. To the right the radio operator, a man of perhaps thirty with a care-lined face, looked at Richards bitterly and then back at his instruments. A few steps up and to the left, the navigator sat at his boards and grids and plastic-encased charts.
“The fellow who’s going to get us all killed is coming up fellas,” he said into his throat mike. He gazed coolly at Richards.
Richards said nothing. The man, after all, was almost certainly right. He limped into the nose of the plane.
The pilot was fifty or better, an old war-horse with the red nose of a steady drinker, and the clear, perceptive eyes of a man who was not even close to the alcoholic edge. His co-pilot was ten years younger, with a luxuriant growth of red hair spilling out from under his cap.
“Hello, Mr. Richards,” the pilot said. He glanced at the bulge in Richards’s pocket before he looked at his face. “Pardon me if I don’t shake hands. I’m Flight Captain Don Holloway. This is my co-pilot Wayne Duninger.”
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“Under the circumstances, not very pleased to meet you,” Duninger said.
Richards’s mouth quirked. “In the same spirit, let me add that I’m song to be here.
Captain Holloway, you’re patched into communications with McCone, aren’t you?”
“We sure are. Through Kippy Friedman, our communications man.”
“Give me something to talk into.”
Holloway handed him a microphone with infinite carefulness.
“Get going on your preflight,” Richards said. “Five minutes.”
“Will you want the explosive bolts on the rear loading door armed?” Duninger said with great eagerness.
“Tend your knitting,” Richards said coldly. It was time to finish it off, make the final bet. His brain felt hot, overheated, on the verge of blowing a bearing. Call and raise, that was the game.
I’m going to sky’s the limit right now, McCone.
“Mr. Friedman?”
“Yes. ”
“This is Richards. I want to talk to McCone.”
Dead air for half a minute. Holloway and Duninger weren’t watching him anymore; they were going through preflight, reading gauges and pressures, checking flaps, doors, switches. The rising and falling of the huge G-A turbines began again, but now much louder, strident. When McCone’s voice finally came, it was small against the brute noise.
“McCone here.”
“Come on, maggot. You and the woman are going for a ride. Show up at the loading door in three minutes or I pull the ring.”
Duninger stiffened in his bucket seat as if he had been shot. When he went back to his numbers his voice was shaken and terrified.
If he’s got guts, this is where he calls. Asking for the woman gives it away. If he’s got guts.
Richards waited.
A clock was ticking in his head.
Minus 028 and COUNTING
When McCone’s voice came, it contained a foreign, blustery note. Fear? Possibly.
Richards’s heart lurched in his chest. Maybe it was all going to fall together. Maybe.
“You’re nuts, Richards. I’m not”
“You listen, ” Richards said, punching through McCone’s voice. “And while you are, remember that this conversation is being party-lined by every ham operator within sixty 430
miles. The word is going to get around. You’re not working in the dark, little man. You’re right out on the big stage. You’re coming because you’re too chicken-shit to pull a double cross when you know it will get you dead. The woman’s coming because I told her where I was going. ”
Weak. Punch him harder. Don’t let him think.
“Even if you should live when I pull the ring, you won’t be able to get a job selling apples. ” He was clutching the handbag in his pocket with frantic, maniacal tightness. “So that’s it. Three minutes. Signing off.”
“Richards, wait-”
He signed off, choking McCone’s voice. He handed the mike back to Holloway, and Holloway took it with fingers that trembled only slightly.
“You’ve got guts,” Holloway said slowly. “I’ll say that. I don’t think I ever saw so much guts.”
“There will be more guts than anyone ever saw if he pulls that ring,” Duninger said.
“Continue with your preflight, please,” Richards said. “I am going back to welcome our guests. We go in five minutes. ”
He went back and pushed the chute over to the window seat, then sat down watching the door between first class and second class. He would know very soon. He would know very soon.
His hand worked with steady, helpless restlessness on Amelia Williams’s handbag.
Outside it was almost full dark.
Minus 027 and COUNTING
They came up the stairs with a full forty-five seconds to spare. Amelia was panting and frightened, her hair blown into a haphazard beehive by the steady wind that rolled this manmade flatland. McCone’s appearance was outwardly unchanged; he remained neat and unaffected, unruffled you might say, but his eyes were dark with a hate that was nearly psychotic.
“You haven’t won a thing, maggot,” he said quietly. “We haven’t even started to play our trump cards yet. ”
“It’s nice to see you again, Mrs. Williams, ” Richards said mildly.
As if he had given her a signal, pulled an invisible string, she began to weep. It was not a hysterical weeping; it was an entirely hopeless sound that came from her belly like hunks of slag. The force of it made her stagger, then crumple to the plush carpet of this plush first-class section with her face cupped in her hands, as if to hold it on. Richards’s blood had dried to a tacky maroon smear on her blouse. Her full skirt, spread around her and hiding her legs, made her look like a wilted flower.
Richards felt sorry for her. It was a shallow emotion, feeling sorry, but the best he could manage.