Queen Victoria's Revenge (2 page)

Tony let this rather startling information sink in for a moment until one glaring inconsistency surfaced.

“Well that's all very nice—but what has the speaking of Spanish to do with Arabs and Moslems?”

“Nothing. But the skyjackers speak only Spanish. They are anti-Castro Cubans.”

Any expected, or unexpected, answer to this was pre-empted by the arrival of a great gaunt old man with a mean cast in his eye and Tony's shoes in his hand. The curl of his lip assured another enthusiastic acceptance of Tony's presence. Old Fred, the FBI weapons specialist, had never taken kindly to Tony.

“You are not going to be armed, blast it, which is probably all for the best, considering…” A world of statement lurked behind the last word, memories of Tony on the firing range, guns dropped, targets missed, eyes closed. “But these shoes may make a difference. The right heel is resealed in place and contains a radio with a transmitting range of a quarter of a mile and a battery life of twenty hours. The microphone is here on the side—see it?—keep your blasted fingers off it. Try not to move your feet when you're talking to those crumbbums so we can monitor your conversation. Now, the other shoe—on this one the blasted left heel pivots from the rear like this and contains seven small grenades, see them?
Don't
take them out, blast it! One of them could blow up this entire room. Put the shoes on. This is a dummy of one of the grenades, you will see it is labeled
dummy
in yellow. To activate this blasted grenade you pull up on this pin here and then you throw it because it explodes three seconds after the pin is pulled. Is that all clear?”

“Very,” Tony said coldly and bent to put his shoes back on, more than a little tired of the general assumption that his intelligence and ability fell somewhere between a microcephalic idiot and a spastic basket case. After all he was an art historian—it was their idea to call him an FBI agent. He was probably the only person in the room who had ever heard of the Mannerists or knew something more about Van Gogh than the fact he had cut his ear off. This reassurance helped not in the slightest.

“Don't stamp your blasted heel too much. Them grenades can be tricky sometimes.” As he spoke this morale-building advice Old Fred produced a snub-nosed revolver in a quick-draw holster, neatly imprinted with the initials FBI, which he fitted into place on Tony's belt.

“What's this? What's this? A minute ago you said I wasn't going to be armed. Are they supposed to think this is a carbuncle on my hip?”

“Blasted skyjackers expect an agent to be armed. They'll search you and find this.”

“Very generous of the FBI to turn over dangerous weapons to known criminals.”

“Nope. Gun's rigged to explode if anyone tries to fire it. And if they really search you they'll find this. Should satisfy them.”

This
was what appeared to be a length of thick wire that had been looped at each end. Old Fred quickly wrapped it around Tony's wrist and taped it into place, then slid his watch back down to cover its presence.

“Gigli saw,” he explained. “Used in brain surgery for sawing out hunks of skull. Got notches in it like teeth. Blasted tough. Can saw bars or be used as a garrote to choke someone. Blasted handy.”

“Just what I have always needed. Is that all?”

“All from me.”

“The DC-10 has a cruising speed of six hundred miles an hour…”

“Sones, please, a little less airplane and a little more information on the skyjacking. How did they manage this thing with all the precautions we are supposed to have?”

“The details are not completely clear. The passengers deplaned in Los Angeles while the plane was refueling. There are a lot of them and I understand the transit lounge was pretty full. Also they were dressed in an unusual manner, you know, robes and things. It appears the skyjackers were similarly dressed and just boarded with the crowd.”

“Weapons too?”

“Plenty of them. They made the captain describe their arms. Pistols, submachine guns, grenades, satchel charges, bayonets.”

“No anti-tank guns?”

“None were reported.”

“I'm surprised. They seem to have gotten everything else they needed aboard.”

“There will be an investigation.”

“Which won't help me in the slightest. So this small army is aboard and makes its presence known after they take off. How many of them are there?”

“Captain Haycroft, the plane's commander, reported twelve. They seized control of the ship and diverted to Dulles Airport here in Washington. They also asked for the two million dollars to be waiting when they landed. They threatened to kill one passenger a minute for every minute they had to wait for the money. After sixty minutes, or sixty passengers, they will blow the entire plane up. The money has been provided.” He waved in the direction of the long table where the industrious agents were still stamping the bills with invisible identification of many kinds.

“I should hope so. Who put up the cash?”

“Treasury is providing the cash. But there were some quick phone calls and ten of the Arab countries, the oil ones of course, have guaranteed two hundred thousand dollars each.”

“Then what?”

“When the money is aboard they agree to release most of the hostages. They want the plane refueled and after takeoff will announce their destination. The plane has a wingspan of one hundred and fifty-five feet, four inches…”

“Hawkin, let's go.” X's voice cut through the murmur of the room and pulled Tony to his feet as though he had been jerked by a rope. The head agent stood scowling down at the repacked suitcase, agleam with mint-fresh greenies. “We have used radioactive marking so these bills can be detected by a geiger counter or similar device. Under black light the legend
SKYJACKED CURRENCY
is revealed. The right-hand edge of every bill is coated with a saccharin solution very sweet to the tongue. And—
Buenos días, señor Hawkin. Como está usted?”

He looked up at Tony and waited expectantly. Tony blinked and ran the sentence through his mind a few times until he finally understood that it was badly pronounced high school Spanish which, with some effort, he translated.

“Ah, sí, me siento muy bien gracias y espero que te sientas igual. Que español tan perfecto hablas. ¿Porque no vas al avion…?”

“That sounds all right, Hawkin. But the files do not explain how you, an American Indian, came to speak a foreign language so well.”

“If you will look closer at the record you will see that I grew up in Palm City, California, on the Mexican border, where Spanish is not only not a foreign language but the language of choice for most of the population.”

X frowned and chewed over this fact and eventually accepted it. He gestured to the big Treasury agent, Stocker, who still hovered over the money like an eagle guarding its kill. Stocker swooped and slammed the bag shut and locked it. He also clamped a handcuff around Tony's right wrist and locked that as well; the cuff was secured to the handle of the bag. Both keys were in a small key case, which, with some show of reluctance, he finally handed to Tony.

“Yore responsible fur this two million dollars, Hawkin. Treasury is still fussin' over that hundred dollars you…”

“Just the keys if you please, Stocker. Thanks.” He put them in his pocket. “If you want a quick course in Spanish you can have the money back.”

“Here we go, Hawkin, on your toes. The plane is in the landing pattern.”

Sones and another burly agent flanked him and started him toward the door. And he really was on his toes, as much as possible, painfully aware of the heel-load of explosive.

TWO

Tony had always wanted to travel this way, however he wished that the circumstances were different so that he could have enjoyed it more. A large black Cadillac, doors gaping, was waiting at the curb outside. Motorcyclists surrounded it, exhausts hammering, while police cars waited back and front. There was even an army half-track, filled with heavily armed troops, to bring up the tail of the convoy. All was in readiness. The instant the doors closed, before they were even seated, the car shot forward. Roaring with power, the motorcycles matched their velocity and the impressive group of vehicles tore down the broad avenue.

Apparently other police units had gone ahead and stopped all traffic, for they moved at a steady sixty miles an hour through the city. Once they were on the highway this whooshed up to a good hundred miles an hour and the half-track was forced to drop behind, shrinking to an olive drab speck before it vanished behind a turn. They hurled themselves through the green Virginia countryside and into the turnoff for Dulles International Airport. Above them, bulking large against the blue afternoon sky, was the hovering hulk of an airplane that Tony now recognized as a DC-10.

“Is that it?” he asked Sones, who was in the front seat muttering into a microphone, headphones clamped to head.

“It is. The tower had them in the stack as long as possible but they insisted on landing. Can't argue. This is going to be a closerun thing. We'll have to stay out of the terminal and go directly onto the field.”

It took a good deal of firm persuasion, and some calling in of higher authorities, to convince the airport authorities that the car should be allowed out among the runways. The outriders and police cars peeled off at the gate so that the Cadillac shot through in solitary splendor. All other traffic was halted as they sped toward the boarding area in the center of the field, their arrival coinciding with that of the Hadji DC-10, which was just turning off the taxiway.

There are certain interesting facts about Dulles Airport that must be considered, other than its being named in memory of that stern architect of the cold war. For particular reasons, some financial, others physical, planes do not pull up to the terminal as they do in other airports around the world. Instead the planes wait expectantly a good half mile from the cant-roofed, glass-walled terminal building. The departing passengers, all unknowing, exit through gates in the normal manner, surrendering passes, being frisked, and board beyond the gate what must be the ugliest vehicle ever to be powered by an internal combustion engine.

This is a people transporter. A sort of railroad coach body standing high in the air on hydraulic pistons. Far below is the supporting structure borne on great rubber tires. Once loaded, the vehicle backs out and squats like a collapsing praying mantis, both at the same time. Roughly at ground level, it drives to the waiting plane at a majestic twelve miles an hour, where, hydraulically once again, the passenger section rises a good eighteen feet into the air to align with the plane's doorway.

One of these constructions was already lumbering its way toward the arriving plane. The FBI car passed it and stopped, waiting with throbbing impatience. A meet was accomplished; the DC-10 shuddered and braked while the whistling roar of its great engines died away. The transporter arrived. Tony was hustled to its door, pushed through in lonely solitude, to sit and clutch the money bag to his bosom as the body rose under the deft manipulation of the driver-operator who sat in the glassed-in nose. The operator mated the open end against the plane's hull with the door centered neatly. After a brief hesitation the door moved inward and upward an inch and stopped. A deep voice spoke through the opening:

“El chofer se irá detras del camión, lo más lejos posible.”

“He wants you in the back,” Tony told the gray-haired and unhappy driver. “As far back as you can get.”

“He doesn't have to say it twice.” The man moved quite swiftly.

“Está bien, ya se fué el chofer,”
Tony said, and a moment later the door opened a bit wider to reveal a suspicious eye and the muzzle of a machine gun.

“Are you alone?”

“Of course.” Tony tried to sound firm and determined but his voice had a certain tendency to crack. Not without reason, he thought, gloomily.

“You have the money, all of it?”

“In here.” He shook the bag in the direction of the eye and tried to ignore the gun. The door moved up and inward and vanished from sight. A hulking, brown-skinned man rose from his knees and waved Tony forward with a sharp motion of the submachine gun that he was holding in an efficient-looking manner. Tony entered.

It was a scene out of
Lawrence of Arabia,
lacking only a blown-up railroad and a couple of horses. The Spanish-speaking gunman wore an Arab burnouse with crossed cartridge belts, as did a half-dozen gun-wielding companions. Some of them even had part of the cloth drawn over their faces so that only glittering and deadly eyes remained revealed. Beyond them, to complete the picture, was row after row of similarly garbed men and women, eyes damp with fear, the air rich with moans of despair, the deck thick with prayer rugs being industriously prayed upon, hopefully in the direction of Mecca, their elusive goal.

“On the deck and open it up.”

Tony's attention was brought rudely back from this fascinating scene to the business at hand. He reached in his pocket for his keys and six gun barrels pointed unerringly at his vitals while ugly fingers twitched at triggers.

“The keys,” he said sweatingly, “I need the keys for the bag and the handcuff.”

“Just pose in that position for a little-little moment while I get the keys and whatever else you have.”

The burly speaker, apparently their leader, cold of eye and grizzled of hair, swung the machine gun over his shoulder and gave Tony a quick and efficient search. He was not surprised to find the revolver, and stuck it and the holster into his belt, but discovered nothing else to interest him other than the keys. He tossed them to Tony, who opened both locks, then knelt and opened the bag upon the deck.

Even the faithful were interested in two million dollars in devalued American currency and there were murmurs of appreciation in a number of languages. The leader pushed Tony aside roughly and knelt in his stead, pawing through the bundles, counting the bills in a bundle and then the number of bundles. All must have been in order, for he nodded approval and snapped the bag shut again.