“We’re heading for San Francisco,” McGarvey said. “But how do you intend on landing the plane… He cut himself off, and turned to look across at the flight deck and the dead officers. He took a step in that direction.
“Stay away from there or I’ll detonate the bomb now,” Nakamura warned.
“We’re on autopilot heading for San Francisco. But you don’t intend on landing. Once we’re over the city… what, five, ten thousand feet?… you’ll push the button.”
Nakamura’s eyes were mesmerizing. He was a powerful, purposeful man, and had been all of his life. But he was insane, and therefore unpredictable.
“Do you believe that I will do this thing?” he asked.
McGarvey nodded.
“I will, but it is good that you know it. It will make the remainder of the flight more pleasant.” Nakamura motioned toward the stairs. “We’ll go down to the lounge.
I would like to have a drink.”
“We should be near Hawaii,” McGarvey said. “The Navy will probably send someone up from Pearl to check us out.”
“We’re on a legitimate flight plan, approved by your traffic control authorities.
No one will bother us.”
“I’m missing.”
“You won’t be connected with this flight. In any event your government would not dare interfere with me.” Nakamura shrugged. “Even if they are suspicious, they will wait until we land to ask any questions, or to seek my permission to search the aircraft.”
The bastard was right.
“Even in that unlikely event, it wouldn’t matter,” Nakamura was saying, but McGarvey wasn’t really hearing the man. Somewhere between here and the West Coast he was going to have to take the detonator, no matter the risk.
“A drink,” McGarvey said. He uncocked the pistol and stuffed it in his pocket, then turned and went downstairs, Nakamura right behind him. The women were gone.
Nakamura stopped at the galley. “Where are they?”
“They’re hiding. They think you’re crazy.”
“Different,” Nakamura said wistfully. “I’ve always been different.”
There was no answer to that statement. McGarvey led the way into the main cabin.
Liese had evidently regained consciousness long enough to shift position. Her eyes were closed now and her breathing was labored, but she was lying on her back a few feet away from Endo’s body, her left arm twisted under her head as if she were merely lounging. Her long, tanned legs were spread, and her skirt had rucked up over her thighs, exposing a thin line of dark pubic hair. She wore no panties.
“She was a lesbian,” Nakamura said looking at her. “Ernst Spranger told me that at the beginning, though he said she would do my bidding.” He smiled fondly. “And she did. Once she unlearned her bad, Western habits, she became quite good.”
“You’ll miss her,” McGarvey said, going around to a wet bar at the rear. He poured himself a cognac. “You?” he asked over his shoulder.
“A cognac will be fine,” Nakamura said. “Yes, I suppose I will miss her, but at my age I’ll miss almost everything.”
It was the most human statement the man had made, though it was the direct opposite of what most eighty-year-olds might say. In his life he had gotten everything he wanted, and he had wanted practically everything. Now that he was at the end, he wanted even more.
McGarvey turned with the drinks, but then froze. Nakamura was kneeling at Liese’s side, the detonator still in his left hand.
“Liese,” he said gently. He touched her thigh with the fingers of his right hand, then traced a pattern on her skin.
Nakamura was looking at her legs and pubis, but McGarvey had seen her eyes flutter.
She was feigning unconsciousness.
“Liese,” the old man cooed softly. His fingertips flitted lightly over the lips of her vagina. He slowly bent forward and kissed her there.
Liese moaned softly, her legs spreading slightly, and Nakamura leaned even farther forward.
Her right hand came down to his face to guide him, and her touch spurred him on.
Suddenly she was holding a long, wicked-looking stiletto in her left hand, and before McGarvey could move or say a thing, she plunged the blade all the way to the haft into the back of Nakamura’s neck, angling it upwards into the base of his skull.
McGarvey’s breath caught in his throat. If the bomb went off now, he wouldn’t feel a thing. The entire airplane would be vaporized in a matter of milliseconds, much too fast for his senses to react in any way.
But Nakamura simply relaxed down on top of Liese, every muscle in his body instantly going limp, the detonator slipping out of his hand, the weight of his body pressing against her thighs.
McGarvey dropped the drinks, and sprinted forward to grab the detonator at the same moment Liese shoved Nakamura away and grappled for it.
She reached it first, and held it up in his face, a triumphant look in her eyes, then pushed the button.
Dimaggio came in from above and to the north of the eastbound 747, made a tight nine-G turn, cutting back on his engines and almost instantly dropping his speed out of the supersonic range.
Morgan dropped in on the starboard side of the big jetliner and together they matched speeds, hanging just a few yards off the big plane’s flight-deck windows.
For a moment or two Dimaggio wasn’t sure what he was seeing, although the tail numbers and dove insignia matched his intended target. But he could see the pilot and copilot.
“Fukai Semiconductor aircraft on an easterly heading, north of the Hawaiian Islands, please come back. This is the U.S. Naval warplane off your port side,” he radioed.
There was no answer. His communications would be monitored and recorded aboard the Vinson, just ahead of them now.
He pulled out his motorized drive Haselblad camera and took a half-dozen shots of the 747’s flight-deck area, then got back on his radio.
“Red Dog Two, this is One. Marc, what do you see over there?”
“I see the crew, but they look… dead to me, Joe,” Morgan radioed.
“Brood House, this is Red Dog One, you monitor?”
“Roger.”
“What do you advise?”
“Stand by.”
Dimaggio dropped a couple of meters lower, and mindful that the 747’s wing was just aft of his own tail, he eased in a little closer.
From here he could definitely see that the crew was dead.
“Brood House, this is Red Dog One. The crew are definitely dead. I see blood on the back of the pilot’s head.”
“Roger,” the Air Wing CO radioed. “You are authorized to arm and uncage your weapons.
Designator, Yellow Bird three-easy-love.”
Dimaggio quickly flipped through his authenticator book. “Wild Card seven-one-delta.”
“Roger,” the Vinson radioed dryly.
“Red Dog Two, I’ll take aft and starboard.”
“Right,” Morgan radioed back, and they both peeled away, making looping turns right and left, as they climbed to get above and behind the big airliner. They both uncaged their AIM-7F Sparrow air-to-air missiles.
Nothing happened. Liese pushed the button again, but still nothing happened. Nakamura had been lying. The bomb was evidently set on a timer, or there was some sort of a coded sequence in which to push the button.
McGarvey yanked the device out of her hand and got up. But again she was like a wild animal, driven by some inner compulsion to attack and kill. She viciously yanked the stiletto out of Nakamura’s skull and leaped up.
McGarvey stepped aside, pulled out the Bernadelli, cocked the hammer with his thumb and shot her point-blank in the face.