That’s good, Kabakov thought, that’s good.
Fasil and Awad walked over to Jackson. Fasil was introducing Awad. They shook hands. Jackson was nodding his head. They walked toward the helicopter, talking animatedly, Awad making the hand gestures that mark all pilots’ shop talk. Awad leaned into the fuselage door and looked around. He asked a question. Jackson appeared to hesitate. He looked around as though checking on the whereabouts of the boss, then nodded. Awad scrambled into the cockpit.
Kabakov was not worried about Awad trying to take the helicopter—he knew Jackson had a fuse from the ignition in his pocket. Jackson joined Awad in the cockpit. Fasil looked around the pad, alert but calm. Two minutes passed. Jackson and Awad climbed down again. Jackson was shaking his head and pointing to his watch.
It was going well, Kabakov thought. As expected, Awad had asked to go up on a lift. Jackson had told him he couldn’t take him up during working hours for insurance reasons, but that later in the week, before the boss showed up for work in the morning, perhaps he could arrange it.
They were all shaking hands again. Now they would go to the plastic.
Maginty came around the corner of the construction shack, rummaging in his lunch pail. He was in the center of the pad when he saw Fasil and froze in his tracks.
Kabakov’s lips moved soundlessly as he swore. Oh, no. Get out of there, you son of a bitch.
Maginty’s face was pale, and his mouth hung open. Fasil was looking at him now. Jackson smiled broadly. Jackson will save it. He’ll save it, Kabakov thought.
Jackson’s voice was louder. Moshevsky could hear him. “Excuse me a minute, fellas. Hey, Maginty, you decided to show up, baby. It’s about time.”
Maginty seemed paralyzed.
“Drinking that bug juice and laying out all night, you look awful, man.” Jackson was turning him around to walk him to the construction shack when Maginty said quite clearly, “Where are the police?”
Fasil barked at Awad and sprinted for the edge of the pad, his hand in the camera case.
Corley was screaming into his radio. “Bust ‘em. Bust ’em, Goddamn it, bust ‘em.”
Kabakov snatched back the curtain. “Freeze, Fasil.”
Fasil fired at him, the magnum knocking a fist-sized hole in the truck bed. Fasil was running hard, dodging between piles of building materials, Kabakov twenty yards behind him.
Awad started after Fasil, but Moshevsky, bursting out of his hiding place, caught him and without breaking stride slammed him to the ground with a blow at the base of his skull, then ran hard after Kabakov and Fasil. Awad tried to rise, but Jackson and Corley were on him.
Fasil ran toward the Superdome. Twice he stopped to fire at Kabakov. Kabakov felt the wind of the second one on his face as he dived for cover.
Fasil sprinted across the clear space between the stacks of materials and the yawning door of the Superdome, Kabakov laying a burst from his submachine gun in the dirt ahead of him. “Halt! Andek!”
Fasil did not hesitate as the grit kicked up by the bullets stung his legs. He disappeared into the Superdome.
Kabakov heard a challenge and a shot as he ran to the entrance. FBI agents were coming from the other way, through the dome. He hoped they had not killed Fasil.
Kabakov dived through the entrance and dropped behind a pallet stacked with window frames. The upper levels of the vast, shadowy chamber glowed with the lights of the construction crews. Kabakov could see the yellow helmets as the men peered down at the floor. Three pistol shots echoed through the dome. Then he heard the heavier blast of Fasil’s magnum. He crawled around the end of the pallet.
There were the FBI agents, two of them, crouched behind a portable generating unit on the open floor. Thirty yards beyond them at an angle in the wall was a breast-high stack of sacked cement. One of the agents fired, and dust flew off the top tier of bags.
Running low and hard, Kabakov crossed the floor toward the agents. A flash of movement behind the breastwork, Kabakov was diving, rolling, hearing the magnum roar, and then he was behind the generator. Blood trickled down his forearm where a flying chip of concrete had stung him.
“Is he hit?” Kabakov asked.
“I don’t think so,” an agent replied.
Fasil was hemmed in. His breastwork of cement protected him from the front, and the angle of the bare concrete wall protected his flanks. Thirty yards of open floor separated his position from Kabakov and the agents behind the generator.
Fasil could not escape. The trick would be in taking him alive and forcing him to tell where the plastic was hidden. Taking Fasil alive would be like trying to grab a rattlesnake by the head.
The Arab fired once. The bullet slammed into the generator engine, releasing a steady trickle of water. Kabakov fired four shots to cover Moshevsky, charging across the floor to join him.
“Corley’s getting gas and smoke,” Moshevsky said.
The voice from behind the cement bag barricade had a weird lilt. “Why don’t you come and get me, Major Kabakov? How many of you will die trying to take me alive, do you suppose? You’ll never do it. Come, come, Major. I have something for you.”
Peering through a space in the machine that shielded him, Kabakov studied Fasil’s position. He had to work fast. He was afraid Fasil would kill himself rather than wait for the gas. There was only one feature that might be useful. A large metal fire extinguisher was clipped to the wall beside the place where Fasil was hidden. Fasil must be very near it. All right. Do it. Don’t think about it anymore. He gave Moshevsky brief instructions and cut off his objection with a single shake of his head. Kabakov poised like a sprinter at the end of the generator.
Moshevsky raised his automatic rifle and laid down a terrific volume of fire across the top of Fasil’s breastwork. Kabakov was running now, bent under the hail of bullets, hard for the cement bags. He crouched outside the breastwork beneath the sheet of covering fire; he tensed and, without looking back at Moshevsky, made a cutting motion with his hand. Instantly a new burst from the Galil and the fire extinguisher exploded over Fasil in a great burst of foam, Kabakov diving over the bulwark, into the spray, on top of Fasil, slick with the chemical. Fasil’s face full of it, the gun going off deafeningly beside Kabakov’s neck. Kabakov had the wrist of the gun hand, snapping his head from side to side to avoid a finger strike at his eyes, and with his free hand broke Fasil’s collarbone on both sides. Fasil writhed out from under him, and as he tried to rise Kabakov caught him with an elbow in the diaphragm that laid him back on the ground.
Moshevsky was here now, raising Fasil’s head and pulling his jaw and tongue forward to be sure his air passage was clear. The snake was taken.
Corley heard the screaming as he ran into the Superdome with a teargas gun. It was coming from behind the stack of cement, where two FBI agents stood uncertainly, Moshevsky facing them, full of menace.
Corley found Kabakov sitting on Fasil, his face an inch from the Arab’s. “Where is it, Fasil? Where is it, Fasil?” He was flexing the fractures in Fasil’s collarbones. Corley could hear the grating noise. “Where’s the plastic?”
Corley’s revolver was in his hand. He pressed the muzzle to the bridge of Kabakov’s nose. “Stop it, Kabakov. Goddamn you, stop it.”
Kabakov spoke, but not to Corley. “Don’t shoot him, Moshevsky.” He looked up at Corley. “This is the only chance we’ll have to find it. You don’t have to make a case against Fasil.”
“We’ll interrogate him. Take your hands off him.”
Three heartbeats later: “All right. You’d better read to him from the card in your wallet.”
Kabakov stood. Unsteady, splattered with fire extinguisher foam, he leaned against the rough concrete wall, and his stomach heaved. Watching him, Corley felt sick as well, but he was not angry anymore. Corley did not like the way Moshevsky was looking at him. He had his duty to do. He took a radio from one of the FBI agents. “This is Jay Seven. Get an ambulance in the east entrance of the Superdome.” He looked down at Fasil, moaning on the ground. Fasil’s eyes were open. “You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent,” Corley began heavily.