Hostages of Hate (9 page)

But Frank hadn't finished yet. Rising to his feet, he braced himself and kicked the table again. The tabletop flew over and landed on the horrified Karl. He had time only to scream a few curses. His hands had automatically shot up to brace against the weight. He wasn't hurt, but he was trapped for a few precious moments.

Frank went to get the Walther, but it had skidded to a stop in front of Pia, who stood frozen in the doorway. She snapped out of her daze, crouched, and picked up the gun.

Events had moved too fast for her. The pistol wavered in her hand, as if she didn't quite know where to point it.

Gambling, Frank took a step toward her, reaching out with his hand. "Come on, Pia, give me the gun."

"No!" The word came like an explosion from the trapped Dutchman. He grunted, trying to shove the table off himself. "Shoot. Kill them both. Then we leave."

Blinking in astonishment, Pia still hesitated. She was obviously having a hard time thinking of Franz and Josef, the allies who had warned her and helped in her escape from the police, as enemies.

Frank took another step. He was almost within grabbing range.

But Pia finally made up her mind. Her slack face tightened up, and she swung the gun to cover him. "You tricked me!" she cried, her voice a shrill scream. "You pretended to be helping me, but all the time you were using me to get to Karl."

Frank stood still, just a little too far from the gun to try anything.

"You were working with the police all along, weren't you? Pretending to be recruits to the cause." She glared across the room at Joe. "I thought you were so smart, tricking those cops in Georgetown. But it wasn't so hard, was it? The same way it wasn't so hard for you to beat that Espionage Resources man by the freeway."

Her lips skinned back from her teeth in a snarl. "It was good acting. But I bet he lay right down for you. I'm only sorry now I didn't shoot him. That would have surprised him. But no, you stopped me. Of course you would, if you were working together."

It almost made Frank laugh. Pia thought the whole horrible journey had been a setup. If only she knew!

But Pia went on, her voice growing shriller. "When I think that I worried about you when that tunnel caved in, when you fought—you made me like you!" She almost spat the word out. "And all the time you had another girl." If she had had a crush on him before, it was all over then. She was working herself into a fury — a murderous fury.

"Pia!" The Dutchman had finally wormed his way out from under the table. Sitting up, he glared at her, ignoring Joe. He knew he was safe. Joe couldn't make a move before Pia shot him.

But the Dutchman also wanted the gun in his hands. He got to his feet and walked to Pia, being careful not to get in her line of fire. "I will take care of these two. Give me the gun."

For a second, Pia looked rebellious. But all Karl had to do was repeat her name again, more sternly. He was, after all, the leader. And she was his follower. He edged forward, confidently extending his hand.

That was when Joe grabbed the full can of soda lying on the floor and threw it at the back of the terrorist's head.

The Dutchman went down like dead weight. Pia stared for an instant, then turned her gun on Joe.

Frank leaped forward, his hand sweeping down like a blade.

The gun went off, but it was pointing at the floor. The recoil and Frank's blow jarred the pistol from Pia's hand. It clattered to the floor.

But Pia wasn't finished. With a howl, she dropped to the floor, scrambling for the gun. Frank tried to grab her, but she twisted free. Pia's elbow caught him in the side of the head—not hard enough to knock him out, but enough to slow him down.

She stretched desperately, snatching up the gun. Still shaky, Frank jumped on her, pinning the wrist of her gun hand to the floor. She flailed under him, her free hand smacking against him, one knee thumping against his ribs.

But Frank wasn't about to be distracted. His fingers were clamping on the pressure points in her neck. She managed one convulsive shudder before she sagged back, unconscious.

Frank scooped up the pistol, then stood up. "She'll be in dreamland for a few minutes at least—time enough to find something to tie her up with. How is our friend Karl?"

"He'll wake up with a good-sized bump on the back of his head, but that's about it," said Joe, carefully examining the unconscious terrorist leader. "Hard to believe he's the big cheese. Somehow I kept expecting more muscles."

Frank shook his head. "When you have brains, you don't need muscles. You just recruit young, strong, desperate people to follow your plans. If they go wrong, the recruits die. So what? They are expendable."

His fists clenched. "Lots of innocent people die, too — the ones who happen to be walking past when a bomb explodes, those trapped on the airplanes that get hijacked ..."

Joe nodded grimly. "And if a plan goes well, slugs like Karl step out from the shadows and become heroes of the movement — whatever the movement happens to be." He looked down at the Dutchman. "Well, we've got him now. The question is, what do we do with him?"

Half an hour later, the captives were lying tied up on the living-room floor. Joe had robbed the stereo system of wire to bind their wrists and ankles. He had also found some rags to gag them with.

Pia came to first. They could hear her make faint, muffled noises, almost drowned out by the sound of a transistor radio. Then the Dutchman opened his eyes, glaring at them silently.

Frank got up from the couch and turned the radio off. "We've been listening to the news. The same reports, over and over again. Nothing's changed at the airport." He sat down again, spreading out the papers he had retrieved from the kitchen. The plans hadn't gone through the fight unscathed. There were mayonnaise stains, a big blotch where the coffee had spilled, and a bullet hole in one corner.

Joe had been more interested in finding an undamaged sandwich than looking at the plans. Frank had only nibbled on his sandwich as he read.

For about the fifth time, Joe got up and checked the street outside. Frank didn't even look up. "If anybody had heard shots, the cops would have been here by now." He grinned, rattling the papers. "Nobody else is coming to visit. Our friend here left strict orders. No contact while the operation went down."

He walked over to the Dutchman, knelt, and loosened his gag. "You left that order, didn't you?"

"Even the best plans go wrong." He sounded like a college professor commenting on a disappointing experiment.

"This changes nothing, you know," he continued in that same calm voice. "We've already accomplished our major objective — disrupting the counterterrorism seminar. The ransom would be useful, but it is not important. And the prisoners we wanted freed ..." He shrugged. "They are not really part of our organization. That was merely misdirection. I was much more interested in getting your antiterrorism experts out of Europe. Too much cooperation between countries would hamper my cause."

"But if your main target was the seminar, why seize the plane?" Joe demanded. "Why not attack the conference rooms, where your enemies really are?"

The Dutchman smiled. "You are very direct, my young friend. There are other ways to destroy an enemy. Instead of making martyrs of the men at the seminar, I hurt them far worse by making them seem ineffectual under the cameras of your own media. A true victory."

"Victory!" said Joe. "You're lying on the floor, tied up. Reinforcements can never reach the plane to relieve the hijackers. And you're acting as if you've won!"

"I have won," the Dutchman said, still calm. "My people on the plane will continue to carry out my plan—without reinforcements. Of course, when they don't appear, Lars and Habib will become nervous. I cannot be responsible for their actions in that heightened state."

Frank turned away abruptly. The Dutchman laughed.

"I know that your father is a detective — an ex-policeman. You play by the rules." He made the word sound like a joke.

"Oh yeah," Joe burst out. "You guys don't have to worry about rules. You just kill off anybody who gets in your way. Even if they don't get in your way. What do they say? 'Kill one, frighten a hundred'?" The muscles on his jaw stood out.

"So, you can't do anything to me, can you?" The Dutchman mocked him. "If you do, you'll be no better than I."

Frank swooped down and silenced him with the gag. "Don't push your luck," he warned.

"I don't know why we're wasting our time listening to this creep," said Joe. "We ought to be doing something. I mean, I don't want to get you upset or anything, but Callie is still stuck on that plane. And time is running out." He glanced over at the Dutchman. "I figure we'll pack him into a car and head for the airport — "

"Where the cops will take him off our hands as soon as we reach the outside gates." Frank finished for Joe grimly. "And then the negotiators will negotiate, and the terrorists will demand that our side set him free. Because if we don't, they'll kill all the people on the plane."

The Dutchman's eyes changed as he listened to them. Frank suspected that if they took the gag off, he'd be laughing.

Standing over his captive, Frank looked at his brother. "You know," he said, "maybe he has a point. If we want to save those people, we'll have to forget the rules."

He spread out the plans of the airport. "The red lines and notes show his plan for taking over the jetliner. He really did it with only two guys. Nobody else is hiding on the plane."

Then he pointed to the blue lines and notes. "And here is his plan to get reinforcements aboard. In a little while, the guys on the plane are going to demand a van full of food. And these notes outline how to sneak into the airport and take over that van."

Frank glanced at his watch. "We've got time, but we should start getting ready. There are supplies — guns and stuff — hidden here in the house for this run. But there are some preparations we'll have to make that aren't noted down here." He smiled grimly. "For instance, that little souvenir you got from Lonnie — the handful of CN—will come in handy."

He started writing a list on a piece of paper. "Here are the supplies we'll need. I saw car keys on a rack in the kitchen. There's probably a car in the garage. Try to find an all-night store and get what we need. I'll stay and keep our host company."

Joe jumped to his feet. "At last I get some action!" he said.

Frank smiled. "And I have a plan. Or should I say," — he glanced over at the beet-red Dutchman — "he has a plan."

CALLIE SHAW GLANCED at her watch—hours since the terrorists had taken over the plane. For about the four-hundredth time, she tried to close her eyes and rest. And once again, it didn't work. She sighed and wished she hadn't. The air in the plane was so thick, it was like trying to inhale molasses. Hot molasses.

With the air-conditioning off, the inside of the jet had quickly heated up. Even now, at night, the interior of the plane had not cooled off. Washington's hot spring weather had made things just about unbearable.

Callie normally would have hated the idea of fainting. But she began to think about the chance to faint so she could escape. She glanced around the plane. Some of the older people were really looking bad.

Pauline Fox's TV look was melting away across the aisle from her. Her hairdo had turned into individual limp strands, and all her makeup had sweated off. She just looked tired, terrified, and worn out — she looked like everybody else on the plane.

The two hijackers were feeling the heat as well. Even the icy Lars was beginning to wilt. He had taken off his jacket and tie. Habib had his shirt unbuttoned all the way down the front, and his shirttails were hanging out of his pants.

Once an hour, the hijackers had been allowing the flight attendants to serve water, one row at a time. They had also allowed people to go to the rest rooms, one every fifteen minutes. Otherwise, no one was allowed into the aisle — on pain of death.

Pauline Fox had filled Callie in on what had happened in the outside world up to the time of her own capture, whispering in short bursts while Lars and Habib weren't near. Callie had found it especially interesting that the hijackers had made no effort to deal with police or government negotiators. And certainly in the time that followed, Lars and Habib hadn't done any negotiating.

"If anything is going on," she had whispered, "it's not being handled from here. Somebody outside must be cutting the deals."

But as the hours dragged on, Callie found it harder and harder to think of a world outside the plane. Her universe had shrunk to a seat, the heat, the damp, and the odors. If Lars and Habib start shooting, they may be doing us a favor, she found herself thinking.

Finally, Lars made an announcement. "We have been here a long time, and I know you are hungry and thirsty. When we took over this aircraft, I told the attendants to turn off the ovens that heat the meals." He paused for a moment to give them an icy smile. "We did not need more heat."

Callie had to agree with that.

"Now we will ask the negotiators outside for food — sandwiches and cold drinks."

Involuntarily, the captives let loose a heartfelt "Ahh."

Lars looked almost human as he smiled again. "Soon a van will come with these items. I will ask for them now. Habib will guard you." His smile disappeared. "I need not remind you to remain quietly in your seats."

He certainly didn't have to remind them of what would happen if they didn't. Habib stood in the back of the cabin, his machine gun ready.

Lars pulled his mask over his head and went outside to negotiate for food. He returned looking very pleased with himself. "The food will be here within the hour."

Now that they had something to look forward to, all of them were sneaking peeks at their wrist-watches. But the time moved so slowly that Callie soon grew bored.

Anyway, she was far more interested in the reactions of the hijackers. They were excited. Habib especially seemed to glance at his watch constantly.

Callie began to wonder. These guys aren't charged up about getting a ham sandwich and a root beer. Something else is going on here.