Time of Terror (16 page)

“And save the children and Miss Horn,” I said. “You’d be gambling on a few seconds, as you say.”

He shook his head. “If I had the decision to make, Haskell, I would have some kind of sympathetic person on hand to console the children’s grief-stricken mother. I’m afraid I don’t think you’ll ever get them out in one piece—I mean, alive.”

I
T WAS A QUARTER
to nine.

A strange group of people were waiting in Chambrun’s office for the words of the President of the United States. Law and Order was represented by Gus Brand of the FBI, Assistant Commissioner Treadway, Captain Valentine of the bomb squad, Lieutenant Hardy of Homicide, and our own Jerry Dodd. There was Jim Priest of the State Department. The victims—the Cleaveses and Buck Ames—waited on opposite sides of the room, Buck with his arm around Connie, whose eyes were hidden by those black glasses, Cleaves playing that detached and expressionless Coldstream Guardsman. Miss Ruysdale stood behind Chambrun’s desk, ready for any orders that might come. Chambrun was in his desk chair, apparently shut away inside himself. I knew him well enough to be certain that failure was eating away at his gut. All the people around him, with all their skills, with courage to spare, were helpless. Not one of them had the authority to meet any one of Coriander’s demands. Buck Ames, looking drawn and pale, might find the money, but with unacceptable conditions attached.

At a couple of minutes to nine, Miss Ruysdale turned on the portable TV set that had been brought into the office and placed it against the far wall. Commercials for some underarm spray were on. And then, from the Oval Office of the White House, the chief executive’s press secretary introduced the President.

His speech was short, delivered in a low, concerned voice. His listeners, he was certain, were all aware of the kidnapping of the Cleaves children and Miss Horn, and of the ransom demands being made by a man who called himself Colonel Coriander and the Army For Justice. The President said he felt certain the money demands could be met. But, he said, the other demands were far more difficult to meet in any reasonably short period of time. They involved diplomatic negotiations that must take place halfway round the world. He urged Coriander to give him the necessary time to carry out those negotiations. He urged the “thousands of demonstrators” who were expressing their sympathy with Coriander’s political demands to recognize their complexity and to be patient while he gave the problem his “best efforts.” He suggested prayers for the children and for their parents and relatives, “sick with anxiety.” Time and patience were the key to the problem, he told his audience.

That was it.

There was an instant babble of conversation in the room, interrupted by the blinking red eye on Chambrun’s telephone. Miss Ruysdale switched off the TV set on which some news analyst was paraphrasing the President’s speech.

“Quiet!” Jerry Dodd called out.

Chambrun leaned forward and switched on the squawk box on his desk. “Chambrun here,” he said.

Coriander’s mocking voice came through the box. “Having listened to that remarkable double-talk from the Great White Father,” he said, “it is time for action. Send Haskell up here and I’ll tell him exactly what must be done and how. Ten minutes from now.”

Connie Cleaves broke away from her father and ran toward the desk. “He’s got to let me go up with Mark!” she said. “I’m happy to be an extra hostage, but please, for God sake, let me be with the children.”

“You heard, Coriander?” Chambrun asked.

“I heard, but the answer is no,” Coriander said. “I don’t choose to have a pleading and weeping woman hanging around my neck. Haskell, and nobody else.”

The phone clicked off.

“He saw through it,” Gus Brand said. “That leaves us only one choice.”

“What choice?” Connie asked.

“We go in praying,” Brand said.

“You’ve got to wait to hear what he tells Mark!” she said. “You’ve got to!”

“It will take us a while to get organized, Mrs. Cleaves.”

“You’ve got to give my children a chance,” she said, desperate. “If you try to force your way in, he will kill everyone before you can reach them.”

“Would you prefer to have them killed inch by inch, piece by piece?” Brand asked in a cold voice. “There’s not very much chance our way, Mrs. Cleaves, but it’s better than having your children tortured while we do nothing.”

“He’s right, Baby,” Buck Ames said. He had reached Connie and had his protecting arm around her again.

Gus Brand was confronting me. “You will of course listen carefully to what he has to tell you, Haskell. But almost more important is for you to be able to tell us every detail of what you see. Are the girls and Miss Horn being kept in the same room where you saw them before? Most essential for us to know, is the detonator still in the same room where you saw it yesterday morning? Count heads. How many people do you see this time? Are the hallways guarded now. Approach it as though it was your first time up there. Understand? Because when we move, we’ll want to hit the detonator and the children without making any false moves.”

“I understand,” I said. “But I’ll see just what Coriander wants me to see—no more, no less.”

“Get clever,” Brand said.

Chambrun looked up at me from his desk. “Pay careful attention to Coriander,” he said.

“I will.”

“I don’t mean to what he says, Mark. I want you to use your eyes. Is he the same man you talked to the first time? Is that sleeve empty because he has no arm, or is it part of the disguise and does he have an arm held against his body inside the robe? We’re checking army records for an amputee. He may not be an amputee at all.”

“Interesting point,” Brand said, “but it isn’t going to make much difference who he is when we go in.”

“Just in case he comes out and you don’t,” Chambrun said. He sounded suddenly very tired. “There are two things I don’t believe, Mr. Brand. I don’t believe you can surprise him, and I don’t believe he hasn’t planned an escape route for himself.”

“You think—?”

“I think he may kill the children and blow up the hotel,” Chambrun said, “but I don’t think he’ll be in the wreckage.”

“We’ve got every possible way out covered, boss,” Jerry Dodd said.

“All he has to do is get to another floor,” Chambrun said. “Without the kid’s mask, the fright wig, and the empty sleeve he can walk right past us like any other hotel guest.”

“The fire stairs from Fifteen, up and down, are guarded,” Jerry said.

“So we may wind up with some dead security men,” Chambrun said. “I wouldn’t bet a plugged nickel against his chances of getting away if he wants to.”

“No one is going to get past us without proper identification,” Brand said.

“You’re going to check on a thousand guests coming and going?” Chambrun sounded bitter. “You don’t have the manpower. It will turn out he’s already registered as a guest in the hotel and he will have the proper credentials to prove he’s one of a thousand innocent bystanders.”

“He said ten minutes, Mark,” Connie said. “Please, please try to see Liz and Mariella.”

“I’ll do my best,” I said.

“What you see and hear may be the difference between success and failure, Haskell,” Brand said. “Good luck.”

“I’ll see you around—I hope,” I said.

The lobby was buzzing with excitement again. I suppose everyone in the hotel had heard the President’s speech. I was instantly surrounded by the ladies and gentlemen of the press. We were supposed to have had a press conference at nine o’clock. The President’s speech had put that off, and as a matter of fact I’d forgotten all about it. Now they were thirsty for information. I told them I was on my way up to talk to Coriander. After that there might be news.

I had to fight my way through them to get to the west wing elevators. The operator took me to Fifteen. This was my third trip up there and the sensation of panic I felt was no less from having done it before. The corridors were still deserted. The linen room door on the west side swayed slightly in a gentle breeze from an open window.

I walked around to the north side, to the door of 15 A. I knocked. The delay was longer than it had been the other times. Finally the door was opened and I was confronted by the bizarre image of Coriander in his false face, the wild wig, and the empty sleeve. I found myself staring at that sleeve, telling myself if he really had an arm he couldn’t help moving it inside the robe—unless it was strapped to his side. The robe was a loose-hanging thing. I couldn’t tell anything for sure.

“You took your time,” Coriander said.

“I had to fight my way through an army of newspaper people,” I said.

“And of course there were your instructions from Chambrun and Gus Brand and the tears and pleas of Connie-baby.”

The sonofabitch knew everything. He gestured me into the living room.

“I’ve been very patient, Haskell,” he said. There were no overtones of mockery in his voice now.

“You’re asking for a lot. It takes time trying to meet your demands.”

“That’s a lot of balls and you know it,” he said. He sat down on the end of the stretcher table, one leg swinging free. “The only person who has made any kind of an effort is Buck Ames, and he’s come up with impossible demands. As impossible as mine.”

“So you know you’re asking for something we can’t deliver,” I said.

“Oh, you could deliver if there was a spark of honesty in any of you,” he said. “You have allowed thousands of decent, honest men to be thrown into torture dungeons in Indochina. If you had a spark of honesty you would admit you were wrong and set them free. You brought our prisoners of war home, and to hell with anyone else. That is called honor!” His laugh was bitter. “The men who ordered the coldblooded murder of civilians in Vietnam are sitting in their plush offices laughing at me and my demands. Buck Ames can find the money I ask for if he will sell out his country to the private bandits. But you could find clean money for me if there was a drop of compassion in any of you. Because I will destroy those children, Haskell.”

“I want to see them,” I said.

“You’ll see them,” he said. “But it will be the last time anyone will see them alive and whole unless I’m given what I ask for by the end of the business day today.”

“You know that’s simply not possible,” I said.

“Oh, I’m reducing my demands,” he said, cheerfully swinging his leg. “I give you till the end of the business day today to raise the money. If you have raised it and it’s in my hands, you will give us free passage out of the hotel, a plane to fly us to Cuba. We will, of course, have the two little girls and Miss Horn with us. One false move and we will spatter their little brains on the sidewalk.”

“When do you turn them loose?” I asked.

“When at least some portion of my other demands are met—a portion satisfactory to me.”

“I can try,” I said.

He leaned forward and I could see the glitter of eyes behind the holes in the false face. “I want you to understand just what cards I hold, Haskell. I know, for instance, that you were ordered to look me over very carefully to make certain that I really don’t have a left arm. I know that you were ordered to make sure of where the girls are kept, and whether the detonator you saw on your first visit is still in 1507. I know that Gus Brand and his FBI boys are planning a break-in and they want to be certain where those key locations are. I know that your very wise Mr. Chambrun thinks I have arranged a way out of here for myself. Since I know all those things, Haskell, do you imagine I won’t know of any double-cross you’re planning for me? Are those cards enough to make for a winning hand, would you say?”

I think my jaw must have sagged open. He might just as well have been in Chambrun’s office twenty minutes ago. The only explanation I could think of was that Chambrun’s office was bugged. Why would he tell me all this if that was so? He must know that the minute I got back downstairs—if I got back downstairs—the bug would be discovered and put out of commission.

“The money thing is quite simple,” Coriander said. His voice was amused again. It must have been the expression on my face. “They will get it—all of it—in hundred-dollar bills. That’s a fashionable denomination these days. It will be packed in no more suitcases than you can carry up here by yourself. With the money you will bring arrangements I can believe for our safe way out of the hotel with the hostages.”

“And if you’re not satisfied?” It was a mouse squeak from me.

“If I’m not satisfied, friend, I will avail myself of the escape route Mr. Chambrun imagines I have, but not before I blow up this floor of the hotel with the hostages and you on board, Haskell. I urge you not to involve yourself in tricks. I have nothing against you. But the bearer of false promises will be dealt with like the old-time Greek bearer of bad news. Now, come have a last look at the girls. You haven’t much time to waste. The end of the business day for the money, remember.”

I was taken down the corridor to the bedroom where I’d first seen them. Elizabeth and Mariella were there alone, huddled together on a small love seat. Twenty-four hours had sapped them of most of their courage, I thought. The look of hope and expectation they gave me made me feel a little sick.

Katherine Horn wasn’t with them.

“I’m happy to tell you,” Coriander said at my elbow, “that the dark lady of the sonnets finally opted for pleasure.”

I moved dry lips. “Your mother and father send their love,” I said to the girls.

“You haven’t come to get us?” Elizabeth asked.

“We still have to stay here?” Mariella asked.

“It takes time to make arrangements,” I said. “You haven’t been treated unkindly, have you?”

“We heard the President’s speech,” Elizabeth said.

“They don’t think he was telling the truth,” Mariella said. “I have told them if someone has to be hurt, it should be me. I can stand pain better than Liz.”

God, they knew the whole thing, all the threats. I saw the TV set in the corner of the room. They must have been allowed to listen to it round the clock. The news media hadn’t left out a single gory possibility in their coverage of the story. These kids knew exactly what was in store for them if Coriander’s demands weren’t met.