A moment later he had the answer as his restless gaze alighted on the nearby men's room. Swiftly he moved to a window ledge, laid the case flat, raised the hasps, and lifted the lid. From the pouch he took the left glove and slipped it on, then carefully fitted his hand into the right one, his fingers closing around the hypodermic. The camera he had already reloaded, which gave him a choice of two methods: hypo or dart, it was all the same to him.
The attache case in his left hand, his other hand splayed and stiff-fingered hanging free and ready by his side, Sturges crossed the terrazzo floor and pushed with his broad shoulder through the toilet door.
Chase washed his hands at the row of washbasins, shook the moisture off, and shuffled his briefcase to the hot-air dryer in the corner. He hardly felt at ease with it out of his grasp, never mind his sight. None of the other four or five men looked like a criminal, but you could never be sure. Airports bred distrust as moldy cheese did maggots.
As he held his hands beneath the jfets of air and dried them, he looked absently into the mirror in front of him, which in this room of mirrors gave him a kaleidoscope of assorted views from different angles. In one of them a young man with lank black hair to his shoulders and an Asiatic cast to his features, wearing a creased and wrinkled leather jacket, was sidling up, hand outstretched, behind somebody drying his hands at one of the machines. Fascinated, Chase watched this performance. It was only when the young man straightened up, hefting a briefcase that was the spitting image of his own, that the light clicked on in his brain. Stupidly he looked down between his feet to confirm the fact that he'd been robbed.
Chase spun around. "Stop him, he's got my briefcase!"
Heads turned, eyes glazed with surprise and alarm. But nobody moved.
By then the young Asian had reached the door, his hand clawing for the handle when the door was shouldered open by a big man in a black vinyl hat and a gray suit edged with a thin pink stripe. The two collided with considerable force. Instinctively the big man raised his gloved hand to take the brunt of the collision but was still thrown back by the impact, the door crashing against the wall, and a sharp metallic crack, as the handle smashed into the tiles, reverberated around the mirrored, tiled room.
Instantly the young Asian recovered and barged past and was gone, leaving Sturges with his back to the open door, momentarily stunned.
As Chase followed, his face contorted with an almost manic desperation, Sturges saw his chance. This is it, my friend. And as Chase tried to push through he brought up the glove with its stiffened fingers, his own fingers clutching the syringe inside, and jabbed it against the victim's upper arm in a gesture that to an onlooker must have appeared as nothing more than a defensive reaction. Exerting the full pressure of his thumb on the plunger, Sturges wondered why it wasn't moving-- stuck, or what? Inexplicably the plunger had been rammed home already. He couldn't believe it. Then he saw the tiny hole in the index finger of the glove where the needle should have been.
After the brief hindrance of the man at the door--he'd registered only a black-gloved hand and chunky gold jewelry on a hairy wrist-- Chase raced for the escalator, scattering a knot of people who got in his way.
Damn! The bastard was already halfway down. Little wonder--for using the heavy briefcase like a scythe to clear a path he was laying waste to the downward escalator, leaving women screaming, people hanging on to the moving rubber hand support, and bodies sprawled on the serrated metal treads.
For Chase it was the old nightmare of being hampered and obstructed, unable to make headway, and with it came the sick despair of knowing he was in real and actual danger of losing his notebooks and tapes, two months of expensive, irreplaceable research, all gone because of a single stupid careless moment. Once the Asian reached the lower level he wouldn't have a cat in hell's chance of catching him.
An elderly man who'd received a nasty clout was swaying in the middle of the escalator, waving his hands feebly like someone struck blind. He grabbed hold of Chase's jacket as he wormed past and Chase lost precious seconds in having to turn and disengage the amazingly strong grip before plunging recklessly on, leaping over bodies.
Even now the Asian was only strides away from the bottom of the escalator and almost certain escape in the milling crowd.
In those last few strides, however, something odd happened.
The Asian seemed to falter and his legs went rubbery as if drunk. He stumbled on, feet climbing an invisible hill in slow motion, his free hand raking the air like a swimmer battling against a fierce current. Then his legs gave way altogether and he fell headfirst with a hollow clunk, carried forward by his own momentum and sliding facedown across the scuffed marble floor of the transit lounge.
Panting heavily, Chase went for his first priority, the briefcase, which had landed on its side several feet away. He then knelt down by the motionless young man and was about to turn him over when a harsh, commanding voice rang out. "Hold it there! Don't move!"
An airport security guard in peaked cap and shiny blue uniform was standing above him, an automatic in his meaty fist. The crowd surged around curiously, agog at the spectacle; this was better than television.
"My briefcase," Chase said breathlessly, patting it as if to corroborate his story. "This man stole it." There was a look in the guard's eye that made Chase feel as if he were the guilty party.
"All right, take it easy now." The guard, a burly fellow in his fifties, crouched down on one knee. When he turned the young Asian over his look became positively suspicious. Sticking out of the Asian's T-shirt, just below the left collarbone, was the broken end of a hypodermic needle, still seeping pinkish fluid.
The guard looked at Chase warily. "You made damn sure he didn't get far. What are you, a doctor or something?" He pressed three fingers to the side of the Asian's neck, feeling for his pulse.
Chase blinked. "Wait a minute, that wasn't me. I only ... is he dead?" Chase asked, hollow-eyed, as the guard straightened up. The Asian's sallow complexion had turned gray. His lips were tinged with blue.
Watching Chase closely the guard undipped a transceiver from his breast pocket, thumbed a button, and spoke into the grille. "Control, this is blue nine-three. We have a homicide in the transit lounge." The barrel of the automatic was pointing at the middle of Chase's chest. "Suspect apprehended. Get the rush squad here right away."
"Officer, you've got this all wrong. You can't hold me, I've got a plane to catch in"--he looked at his watch--"eight minutes. This man is a thief, he stole my briefcase, this bloody thing here!"
The guard wagged his head. "What kind of score do you think this is, fella--I find you next to a dead man and you just take your flight as if nothing had happened?"
"It leaves in eight minutes!"
"Right, it leaves in eight minutes without you. Now just take it easy."
Chase sagged helplessly. What a ludicrous situation to have become embroiled in, and all for the sake of a piss. It was going to take hours to explain and sort out a simple sequence of events. Simple, that was, except for the broken needle protruding from the Asian's chest. What was he, an addict? Impaled himself on his own hypodermic? No, Chase recalled, that wasn't how it had happened . . . he'd definitely seen the Asian stagger before the fall. Then how . . . ? It didn't make sense.
Knowing it was futile, he tried one more time.
"Officer, there are people up there in the men's room who saw everything that happened. All you have to do is ask one of them--" He turned and pointed up the escalator and his arm remained frozen in midair. He'd seen, for just a moment, the big man in the black vinyl hat before he'd ducked out of sight.