“Yes. And close by. They don’t have a lot of range.” Kabakov ripped open a large manila envelope. It contained one hundred pictures of Fasil in three-quarter profile and one hundred prints of the composite drawing of the woman. Every agent in the stadium carried the pictures. “NASA did a good job on these,” Kabakov said. The pictures of Fasil were remarkably clear, and a police artist had added the bullet stripe on his cheek.
“We’ll get them around to the flying services, the naval station, every place that has helicopters,” Corley said. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Why should they get the pilot so late? It all fits very nicely except for that. A big bomb, an air strike. But why so late with the pilot? It was the chart from the boat that first suggested a pilot might be involved, but if it was a pilot who marked the chart, he was already here.”
“Nautical charts are available all over the world, David. It might have been marked on the other side, in the Middle East. A safety factor. An emergency rendezvous at sea, just in case. The chart could have come over with the woman. And as it turned out, they needed the rendezvous when they thought Muzi was unreliable.”
“But the last-minute rush for the papers doesn’t fit. If they had known far in advance that they were going to use the Libyan, they would have had the passports ready long ago.”
“The later he was brought into it, the less chance of exposure.”
“No,” Kabakov said, shaking his head. “Rushing around for papers is not Fasil’s style. You know how far ahead he made the arrangements for Munich.”
Anyway, it’s a break. I’ll get the troops out to the airports with these pictures first thing tomorrow,” Corley said. ”A lot of the flying services will be closed over New Year’s. It may take a couple of days to talk to them all.”
Kabakov rode up in the elevator at the Royal Orleans Hotel with two couples, both laughing loudly, the women in elaborate beehive hairdos. He practiced understanding their speech and decided the conversation would not have made sense if he had understood it.
He found the number and knocked on the door. Hotel-room doors all look blank. They do not admit that there are people we love behind them. Rachel was there all right, and she hugged Kabakov for several seconds without saying anything.
“I’m glad the flatfeet gave you my message at the stadium. You could have invited me to meet you down here, you know.”
“I was going to wait until it was over.”
“You feel like a robot,” she said, releasing him. “What have you got under your coat?”
“A machine gun.”
“Well take it off and have a drink.”
“How did you get a place like this on short notice? Corley had to go home with a local FBI agent.”
“I know someone at the Plaza in New York, and the same people own this hotel. Do you like it?”
“Yes.” It was a small suite, very plush.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t fix Moshevsky up.”
“He’s right outside the door. He can sleep on the couch—no, I’m kidding. He’s all right at the consulate.”
“I sent for some food.”
He was not listening.
“I said some food is on the way. A Chateaubriand.”
“I think they’re bringing in a pilot.” He told her the details.
“If the pilot leads you to the rest of them, then that’s it,” she said.
“If we get the plastic and we can get all of them, yes.”
Rachel started to ask another question and bit it off.
“How long can you stay?” Kabakov asked.
“Four or five days. Longer if I can help you. I thought I’d go back to New York and catch up on my practice and then come back on, say, the tenth or the eleventh—if you’d like me to.”
“Of course I’d like you to. When this is over, let’s really do New Orleans. It looks like a good town.”
“Oh, David, you’ll see what a town it is.”
“One thing. I don’t want you to come to the Super Bowl. Come to New Orleans, fine, but I don’t want you around that stadium.”
“If it’s not safe for me, it’s not safe for anybody. In that case people should be warned.”
“That’s what the president told the FBI and the Secret Service. If there is a Super Bowl, he’s coming.”
“It might be canceled?”
“He called in Baker and Biggs and said that if the Super Bowl crowd cannot be adequately protected, himself included, he will cancel the game and announce the reason. Baker told him the FBI could protect it.”
“What did the Secret Service say?”
“Biggs doesn’t make foolish promises. He’s waiting to see what happens with this pilot. He isn’t inviting a damned soul to the Super Bowl and neither am I. Promise me you won’t come to the stadium.”
“All right, David.”
He smiled. “Now tell me about New Orleans.”
Dinner was splendid. They ate beside the window and Kabakov relaxed for the first time in days. Outside, New Orleans glittered in the great curve of the river, and inside was Rachel, soft beyond the candles, talking about coming to New Orleans as a child with her father and how she had felt like a great lady when her father took her to Antoine‘s, where a waiter tactfully slipped a pillow onto her chair when he saw her coming.
She and Kabakov planned a mighty dinner at Antoine’s for the night of January 12, or whenever his business was concluded. And full of Beaujolais and plans, they were happy together in the big bed. Rachel went to sleep smiling.
She awoke once after midnight and saw Kabakov propped against the headboard. When she stirred he patted her absently, and she knew he was thinking of something else.
The truck carrying the bomb entered New Orleans at eleven p.m. on December 31. The driver followed U.S. 10 past the Superdome to the intersection with U.S. 90, turned south and came to a stop near the Thalia Street wharf beneath the Mississippi River Bridge, an area deserted at that time of night.
“This is the place he said,” the man at the wheel told his companion. “I’m damned if I see anybody. The whole wharf is closed.”
A voice at his ear startled the driver. “Yes, this is the place,” Fasil said, mounting the running board. “Here are the papers. I’ve signed the receipt.” While the driver examined the documents with his flashlight, Fasil inspected the seals on the tailgate of the truck. They were intact.
“Buddy, could you let us have a ride to the airport? There’s a late flight to Newark we’re trying to catch.”
“Sorry, but I can‘t,” Fasil said. “I’ll drop you where you can get a taxi.”
“Christ Jesus, it’ll be ten bucks to the airport.”
Fasil did not want a row. He gave the man ten dollars and dropped the drivers off a block from a cabstand. He smiled and whistled tunelessly between his teeth as he drove toward the garage. He had been smiling all day, ever since the voice on the pay phone at the Monteleone Hotel told him the pilot was coming. His mind was alive with plans, and he had to force himself to concentrate on his driving.
First he must establish complete dominance over this man Awad. Awad must fear and respect him. That Fasil could manage. Then he must give Awad a thorough briefing and include a convincing story on how they would escape after the strike.
Fasil’s plan for the strike itself was based largely on what he had learned at the Superdome. The Sikorsky S-58 helicopter that had attracted his attention was a venerable machine, sold as surplus by the West German Army. With its lift capacity of 5,000 pounds, it could not compare with the new Skycranes, but it was more than adequate for Fasil’s purpose.
To make a lift requires three persons—the pilot, the “belly-man,” and the loadmaster—as Fasil had learned while watching the operation at the Superdome. The pilot hovers over the cargo. He is guided by the belly-man, who lies on the floor back in the fuselage, peering straight down at the cargo and talking to the pilot via a headset.