COPS SPIES & PI'S: The Four Novel Box Set Page 9

  “Please,” Hyte asked, his voice gentle. “Don’t kill him. We can talk. Your men are on their way. The money is almost here.”

  “Lies.”

  Hyte’s experience, and Mohamad’s eyes, told him what the terrorist’s next move would be. Haller’s chances were bad, unless Hyte could distract the terrorist long enough to make Mohamad back down without appearing to give in.

  Hyte moistened his dry lips. “Mohamad, if you kill him, it will turn the people away from you. Mohamad, it’s not too late to talk to me, we can work something out. Isn’t part of the reason for what’s happening tonight to let the people of the world see your plight and sympathize with your desperation? If you kill again, you’ll turn those people away from your cause.”

  Mohamad seemed to be listening. “Perhaps you are right…but perhaps you are wrong.”

  He pulled the trigger.

  Chapter Eleven

  Mohamad laughed into the camera. The sound grated on Hyte’s ears. Behind him, William Haller stood stiff, his face parchment white. A puckered bullet hole marred the wall, an inch from his left ear.

  “You have fifteen minutes to deliver our brothers and the money,” Mohamad said. “In fifteen minutes and one second the captain will die. After that, there will be one dead passenger for each minute you keep our brothers from us. Believe my words, Lieutenant.”

  Hyte turned cold. The coldness carried through in his voice. “We’re moving as fast as we can, but we need the time schedule you gave us in the beginning.”

  “I thought my example made it clear that there is no more time!”

  Hyte stared at him, revolted by the scene he had witnessed. Talk to him, he told himself. Do your fucking job! “Mohamad?”

  “Yes?” Mohamad said. His voice was soft and calm.

  “Give me a moment to check on the copter’s location.”

  “Take all the time you want. Or at least the next fourteen minutes.”

  Hyte held the mouthpiece to his side and called out to Atkins. “Get that copter up. Now!” He looked at Rosenthal.

  Rosenthal picked up the phone. “Mr. Mayor ...”

  “The money’s here!” Harvey Bennet cried as he burst through the door. Two uniformed men followed. Brachman held a suitcase.

  Hyte had two almost instantaneous thoughts. The first was of Emma Graham in the lunchroom on the second floor. The second was of Lea D’Anjine, sitting almost catatonic in seat 5D.

  Hyte saw Rosenthal hang up the phone and turn to him. “The mayor has authorized the use of the Counter-Terrorist Tactical Unit.”

  Hyte picked up the field phone. He didn’t have to ask how long the copter would take to get to Kennedy; he knew. It took exactly twelve minutes, from takeoff to landing, which left him with time to reason the hostages free.

  “Mohamad. The copter is thirteen minutes away. The money is here now. Shall we deliver it?”

  “No. Bring it with our brothers.”

  Hyte felt relief. He’d gotten his door opener. “All right. Don’t harm anyone; you’ll be on your way home soon. We have a fresh flight crew standing by. Shall we send them with your men?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Hyte shrugged. The flight crew was a way to get three more police on the plane. He hadn’t really expected Mohamad to take him up on the offer.

  Hyte watched Mohamad carefully. The terrorist turned to the passengers, but still held the field phone. “Your Lieutenant Hyte says our brothers are almost here. Somehow, I doubt him. However, we shall see. If he is lying, it is you shall pay for his hoax. After all, he is safe from our bullets. He has you people as a shield for his deceptions.”

  “But,” Mohamad said, his voice expansive, a trace of humor lacing his tone, “since the United States of America is a democracy, and since we of the PLO respect this…” Mohamad looked up at the camera. He smiled. Hyte knew he was speaking to him.

  “He’s rambling,” Sy Cohen said. “He’s over the edge.”

  Hyte cut Cohen off with a wave of his hand. “No. This is a message for me.”

  “…since we respect this democracy, we will allow you to decide who shall die, one minute after the pilot, if Hyte and your great democratic country does not have our brothers here in”—he looked at his watch—“thirteen minutes and twenty seconds.”

  “Who will it be?” Mohamad asked.

  Hyte wrenched himself from the madman’s gaze. To watch any longer would strip away the calmness he needed to maintain. He turned to Cohen, Rosenthal, and Arnel. “I’ll be making the money drop.”

  Arnel stepped away from the wall. “Don’t forget the senator. Nothing is to happen to him.”

  Hyte ignored the FBI agent. “Sy, you’re manning the phone. When the copter is over the airport, I’ll bring the money to the plane. I’ll use a baggage truck. I’ll take a second field unit as well as my walkie-talkie. We’ll land the copter where they can see it. Mohamad will accept my offer of personally bringing him the money. It’s his wisest move.”

  “Contingencies?” Cohen asked.

  Before Hyte could answer, Atkins went to the window.

  “I’ve got a clear line from here,” he said.

  “If it’s necessary,” Hyte said to the sharpshooter before speaking to Cohen. “We’ll have one chance. I’ll put a pistol inside the suitcase, under the money. When Lacey’s boys board, I’ll try to take out Mohamad before he hits too many of the hostages.”

  “If he’ll let you in,” Cohen said.

  “He’ll let me in. He wants me there,” Hyte said, looking at the monitor. He was certain that former Senator J. Milton Prestone was Mohamad’s escape route. Prestone wasn’t the secondary fail-safe, as Hyte had earlier told Jerome Rosenthal, he’d been the primary all along.

  With that thought, the elusive ideas Hyte had been reaching for came together and he was able to envision Mohamad’s plans. The terrorist’s tirades and threats to the passengers were challenges to Hyte. An integral part of Mohamad’s plan, was to prime the hostage negotiator for the moment the terrorist released the passengers—all except for Prestone. Mohamad was counting on two things: Hyte’s relief at getting the hostages free; and, his willingness to allow Mohamad and his people to leave with Mohamad’s assurance to release Prestone when they landed.

  It made perfect sense. Every promise Mohamad had made so far, he’d kept. He’d released the coach passengers. He would release the first-class hostages, too, once his men were on the plane. He had even spared the captain’s life.

  He realized that by not killing Haller—by staging his theatrics—Mohamad had finally given him something important. Rashid Mohamad was keeping his word because the terrorist wanted it all. He wanted the money, his men, and he wanted to get away…with Prestone.

  However, Mohamad’s plan would not work, because his men were still in Sing-Sing. When he discovered that…

  “Ray, I don’t think you should go in there,” Rosenthal said.

  “I have to. It’s the hostages’ only chance.”

  <><><>

  In the first-class section of the plane, the passengers had long since ceased to notice the smell of fear, sweat, and death. Only the odor of cordite lingered in their awareness.

  Jonah Graham had his arm around his wife, comforting her against the occasional tremors that shook her.

  “Attention!” Mohamad barked. “You have all heard what I said. Now it is time to choose. Who will die after the captain, if your government fails you? Who? Will anyone volunteer?”

  Jonah’s recorder clicked off when the terrorist stopped talking. Irrationally, he was pleased the device was holding up the way the manufacturer promised.

  Prestone stood. His arms hung before him, his wrists still taped together. “Me.”

  Mohamad laughed. “You are brave, but stupid. Perhaps that is why you stand now. Can you really be so simple as to not know that you must be the last to die? You are the reason your police have not stormed the plane. Why else would we have sabotaged your private plane?
We planned your presence here! Your government cannot take the chance of losing so vital a link between them and the Israelis. Because of that, you will watch everyone die before you do. Sit down!”

  “You’re wrong. I’m not that important.”

  “It is easy for someone who knows his life is not yet over to be brave,” Mohamad told the passengers. “He knows we cannot kill him…yet.”

  Prestone glared at him. Hatred poured from his eyes with such fury that even Mohamad turned away. He signaled the man with the Uzi, who stepped up to the bound senator and shoved him back into the seat.

  Mohamad looked at the hostages. The only passenger he did not glare at was the child. “Is there no one else who will offer his life for the others?” When no one did, he went back to Cristobal Helenez. “You?” he asked the financier.

  Helenez tried to speak. His lips moved soundlessly. He shook his head and closed his eyes.

  “You?” Mohamad asked, moving the pistol to Helenez’s wife, shoving it into her breast.

  “N-n-no,” she stammered, her voice shrill in the confines of the plane. “Please. No. Not me.”

  Mohamad looked at the Portuguese financier. “You will withdraw all financing from the Israelis. You will close your factories. You will call in your loans.”

  “I…I can’t do that.”

  “You will do that or I will kill you and then your wife.”

  Helenez swallowed. “All right.”

  “If you fail to keep your word,” Mohamad warned, a smile breaking his lips, “you and your wife will die. Do not think that if I die tonight, your words will go unheard. You and your wife will be dead if your promise has not been fulfilled in thirty days.”

  Mohamad straightened. He looked at the man sitting behind the Helenezes. “You?” he asked Michael Barnes, the redheaded businessman sitting in the aisle seat.

  The man shook his head quickly. “I don’t want to die.”

  “Should it be someone else?” Mohamad asked.

  The man bent his head. “Yes,” he whispered, “someone else.”

  “See,” Mohamad declared. “We Palestinians know the workings of democracy. We value the freedom of choice denied us since 1948.

  “You?” Mohamad asked as he moved across the aisle to silver-haired Sylvia Mossberg. Mohamad stared pointedly at the gold Star of David hanging from her neck.

  “You,” he said. “It will be you.”

  Sylvia tried to speak. She couldn’t.

  “Stand up!” Mohamad ordered. He grabbed her hair and yanked her to her feet. The woman screamed in pain. Mohamad jammed the pistol into her chest. “You?” he asked again, his face not two inches from hers.

  Sylvia began to hyperventilate. “N-n-not me—”

  “Yes,” Mohamad whispered, cutting her off.

  Mohamad jammed the pistol harder against her chest.

  She fainted.

  Mohamad sneered at the unconscious woman. He looked around. There were four passengers and three crew left. His eyes fell on Sonja Mofferty’s face. He smiled again.

  He looked at Jack Mofferty. “You?”

  Mofferty clutched his wife’s hand reflexively.

  The pistol veered toward Sonja. Smiling, Mohamad reached out with his free hand and stroked one breast. His hand rose upward along her trembling body. It snaked along her neck, traced her mouth.

  He turned to Jack Mofferty. “You have a beautiful wife. A desirable woman. Will you offer yourself to save her?”

  Sonja saw her husband start to move. She knew he would do what the terrorist asked.

  “No!” she cried.

  “No?” Mohamad asked.

  Sonja swallowed. She moistened her lips with her tongue. “You want me,” she whispered. “Take me. Let us live.”

  Mohamad smiled again. “We value our women, for they are the comfort and promise of paradise on this earth. However, I have no need for a woman’s comfort now. Yet...” Mohamad paused. His mouth formed a half smile. He glanced toward the back of the cabin to the two men holding Uzis. He raised his eyebrows in question.

  When he received the response he sought, he smiled and looked down at Sonja Mofferty. “I will accept your offer. But you must say the words.”

  Sonja Mofferty looked at him uncertainly. “What words?”

  Mohamad pressed the barrel of the pistol to her cheekbone. “Will it be you?”

  Unable to meet his eyes, Sonja Mofferty whispered, “Not me. Please, someone else, not me.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Hyte prepared himself to go to the plane. A phone rang.

  “Lieutenant,” Moran called.

  “What?”

  Moran met Hyte’s gaze. “Trouble with the copter.”

  Hyte grabbed the phone. “What the hell’s going on?”

  A harried sergeant explained the helicopter’s fuel line blocked up during takeoff. They had stripped and cleaned it and would be ready to leave in half a minute.

  Hyte checked his watch. Four minutes and thirty-four seconds had elapsed since Mohamad’s newest deadline. “That’s fucking great!”

  “We’re doing the best we can,” the sergeant said.

  Hyte slammed down the phone. He turned from the eyes that watched him. “The helicopter will be delayed five minutes.”

  No one said anything. They were all thinking the same thing. Five minutes could mean five deaths.

  Hyte tried to figure out how he could stall Mohamad for another five minutes.

  “The vest, Lou,” Junior Atkins reminded him, holding up the bulletproof body armor.

  “What’s the point of the vest if he’s going to make you strip?” Arnel asked.

  “That was to make us feel exposed. That part of the game’s over now. But if he makes me strip, so be it,” Hyte said as Atkins helped him on with the equipment. When Hyte had the vest fastened, he put his shirt over it, and then his jacket.

  Then Junior Atkins taped a Beretta 9-millimeter automatic to the bottom of one suitcase, hidden by two million five hundred thousand dollars in twenties, fifties, and hundreds.

  Hyte hefted the suitcases. They weighed less than he’d expected. He clipped the walkie-talkie to his belt.

  “Oh shit,” came Joseph Moran’s low voice.

  Hyte turned to the monitor and watched Sonja Mofferty moving along the aisle. “What?” he asked Moran.

  “She traded her body for her and her husband’s lives.”

  Hyte swallowed. No matter what the terrorist had promised, he would kill whomever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

  “The commissioner,” Moran called. The detective held out the phone.

  Hyte stared at him, and then took it. “Yes?”

  “I heard about the helicopter, I’m sorry.”

  “Tell that to the victims’ families,” Hyte snapped.

  “There’s no need for that,” the commissioner said in a low tone. “What’s happening in the plane?”

  Hyte didn’t bother to hide his anger. “Rashid Mohamad is trying to get a volunteer to be the first passenger to die if we don’t have the helicopter here by his deadline. Another terrorist is raping one of the women.”

  Silence. Then, “What are you going to do?”

  “Whatever I can.”

  “The mayor is on his way to Kennedy—with McPheerson. Lieutenant, ah, don’t forget about the senator.”

  Hyte handed the phone back to Atkins and looked at Sy Cohen. “It’s going to be tricky. If we call Mohamad now, he might blow someone away before schedule. We’ll wait until the last minute to tell him about the delay. While I’m gone, I want no contact with the plane. Once I’m in place, I’ll see if I can get an extension. Listen in and follow up accordingly.”

  Hyte started out. Behind him, Atkins opened the window and set up the sniper rifle. A scream of pain and terror exploded from the speaker. Everyone in the room turned to look at the monitor: The passengers, their expressions frozen, stared at the coach section, to where Sonja Mofferty and the terrorist had gone.


  Outside, Hyte smelled exhaust fumes, oil, and salt air. Overhead, clouds rolled in, hiding the stars. Hyte tasted the edge of humidity. He thought about Carrie and wondered if he would see her in the morning. Then he wondered if his daughter would forgive him if he didn’t come home.

  He thought of Lea D’Anjine. For a few seconds he pictured his own daughter sitting on the plane, not the seven-year-old. He sensed that if he were to die, the only way Carrie would ever forgive him, was if he managed to save the little girl. It was an irrational thought, yet it helped settle his nerves.

  He went to the luggage scooter, which had been detached from its freight car. The cop standing next to it took the two bags of money from Hyte and set them in the back. Hyte placed a field phone on the floor of the scooter. He studied the gearshift and controls for a moment and then started the scooter.

  “Good luck,” the policeman said. Hyte saw relief in the cop’s eyes. The policeman was glad he wasn’t going out to the plane.

  Hyte looked at his watch. Three minutes. His stomach tightened. He floored the accelerator. The drive took a minute.

  He stopped the scooter twenty feet from the cockpit and picked up the walkie-talkie. “I’m going to try and reach him,” he told Cohen. “What about the copter?”

  “It’s coming. They’re pushing it as fast as they can. At least five minutes.”

  Hyte got out of the scooter. He unloaded the two suitcases and set them down a yard from the vehicle. He went back and lifted the field phone. The phone rang five times before Mohamad answered.

  “There’s been a problem, Mohamad.”

  “Of course, Lieutenant. Problems come with lies.”

  Hyte didn’t like the calmness in Mohamad’s voice. “The copter developed engine trouble—a blocked fuel line. It took five minutes to clear. Your men are almost here.”

  “Almost here is not here. You have one minute left.”

  Hyte used the only thing that remained. “I have your money. Good faith, Mohamad. Just like when you gave us the coach passengers. Let me give you the money. It will prove I’m not lying.”