The Holcroft Covenant (5 page)

Holcroft caught the eye of the stewardess chatting with two men at a table across the way and gestured for another scotch. She smiled pleasantly, nodded, and indicated that the drink would be there in moments. He returned to his thoughts.

The inevitable doubts surfaced. Was he prepared to commit what amounted to a year of his life to a project so immense that his own qualifications had to be examined before the children of Kessler and Von Tiebolt were examined—if, indeed, he could find the latter? Manfredi’s
words came back to him.
Do you really have a choice?
The answer to that question was both yes and no. The two million, which signified his own freedom, was a temptation difficult to reject, but he could reject it. His dissatisfactions were real, but professionally, things were going well. His reputation was spreading, his skills acknowledged by a growing number of clients who in turn told potential clients. What would happen if he suddenly stopped? What would be the effect should he abruptly withdraw from a dozen commissions for which he was competing? These too were questions to be considered deeply; he was not ruled by money alone.

Yet, as his mind wandered, Noel understood the uselessness of his thoughts. Compared to his … covenant … the questions were inconsequential. Whatever his personal circumstances, the distribution of millions to the survivors of an inhumanity unknown in history was long overdue; it was an obligation impossible to dismiss. A voice had cried out to him through the years, the voice of a man in agony who was the father he had never known. For reasons he was incapable of explaining to himself, he could not be deaf to that voice; he could not walk away from that man in agony. He would drive to Bedford Hills in the morning and see his mother.

Holcroft looked up, wondering where the stewardess was with his drink. She was at the dimly lit counter that served as the bar in the 747’s lounge. The two men from the table had accompanied her; they were joined by a third. A fourth man sat quietly in a rear seat, reading a newspaper. The two men with the stewardess had been drinking heavily, while the third, in his search for camaraderie, pretended to be less sober than he was. The stewardess saw Noel looking at her and arched her eyebrows in mock desperation. She had poured his scotch, but one of the drunks had spilled it; she was wiping it up with a cloth. The drunks’ companion suddenly lurched back against a chair, his balance lost. The stewardess dashed around the counter to help the fallen passenger; his friend laughed, steadying himself on an adjacent chair. The third man reached for a drink on the bar. The fourth man looked up in disgust, crackling his paper, the sound conveying his disapproval. Noel returned to the window not caring to be a part of the minor confusion.

Several minutes later the stewardess approached his
table. “I’m sorry, Mr. Holcroft. Boys will be boys, more so on the Atlantic run, I think. That was scotch on the rocks, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Thanks.” Noel took the glass from the attractive girl and saw the look in her eyes. It seemed to say,
Thank you, nice person, for not coming on like those crashing bores
. Under different circumstances he might have pursued a conversation, but now he had other things to think about. His mind was listing the things he would do on Monday. Closing his office was not difficult in terms of personnel; he had a small staff: a secretary and two draftsmen he could easily place with friends—probably at higher salaries. But why in heaven’s name would Holcroft, Incorporated, New York, close up shop just when its designs were being considered for projects that could triple its staff and quadruple its gross income? The explanation had to be both reasonable and above scrutiny.

Suddenly, without warning, a passenger on the other side of the cabin sprang from his seat, a hoarse, wild cry of pain coming from his throat. He arched his back spastically, as if gasping for air, clutched first his stomach, then his chest. He crashed into the wooden divider that held magazines and airline schedules and twisted maniacally, his eyes wide, the veins in his neck purple and distended. He lurched forward and sprawled to the deck of the cabin.

It was the third man, who had joined the two drunks at the bar with the stewardess.

The next moments were chaotic. The stewardess rushed to the fallen man, observed him closely, and followed procedure. She instructed the three other passengers in the cabin to remain in their seats, placed a cushion beneath the man’s head, and returned to the counter and the intercom on the wall. In seconds a male flight attendant rushed up the circular staircase; the British Airways captain emerged from the flight deck. They conferred with the stewardess over the unconscious body. The male attendant walked rapidly to the staircase, descended, and returned within a few moments with a clipboard. It was obviously the plane’s manifest.

The captain stood and addressed the others in the lounge. “Will you all please return to your seats below. There’s a doctor on board. He’s being summoned. Thank you very much.”

As Holcroft sidestepped his way down the staircase, a stewardess carrying a blanket climbed quickly past him. Then he heard the captain issue an order over the intercom. “Radio Kennedy for emergency equipment. Medical. Male passenger, name of Thornton. Heart seizure, I believe.”

The doctor knelt by the prone figure stretched out on the rear seat of the lounge and asked for a flashlight. The first officer hurried to the flight deck and returned with one. The doctor rolled back the eyelids of the man named Thornton, then turned and motioned for the captain to join him; he had something to say. The captain bent over; the doctor spoke quietly.

“He’s dead. It’s difficult to say without equipment, without tissue and blood analysis, but I don’t think this man had a heart attack. I think he was poisoned. Strychnine would be my guess.”

The customs inspector’s office was suddenly quiet. Behind the inspector’s desk sat a homicide detective from New York’s Port Authority police, a British Airways clipboard in front of him. The inspector stood rigidly embarrassed to one side. In two chairs against the wall sat the captain of the 747 and the stewardess assigned to its first-class lounge. By the door was a uniformed police officer. The detective stared at the customs inspector in disbelief.

“Are you telling me that two people got off that plane, walked through sealed-off corridors into the sealed-off, guarded customs area, and
vanished?
”

“I can’t explain it,” said the inspector, shaking his head despondently. “It’s never happened before.”

The detective turned to the stewardess. “You’re convinced they were drunk, miss?”

“Not now, perhaps,” replied the girl. “I’ve got to have second thoughts. They drank a
great
deal; I’m certain of it; they couldn’t have faked that. I served them. They appeared quite sloshed. Harmless, but sloshed.”

“Could they have poured their drinks out somewhere? Without drinking them, I mean.”

“Where?” asked the stewardess.

“I don’t know. Hollow ashtrays, the seat cushions. What’s on the floor?”

“Carpeting,” answered the pilot.

The detective addressed the police officer by the door. “Get forensic on your radio. Have them check the carpet, the seat cushions, ashtrays. Left side of the roped-off area facing front. Dampness is enough. Let me know.”

“Yes, sir.” The officer left quickly, closing the door behind him.

“Of course,” ventured the captain, “alcoholic tolerances vary.”

“Not in the amounts the young lady described,” the detective said.

“For God’s sake, why is it important?” said the captain. “Obviously they’re the men you want. They’ve vanished, as you put it. That took some planning, I daresay.”

“Everything’s important,” explained the detective. “Methods can be matched with previous crimes. We’re looking for anything. Crazy people. Rich, crazy people who jet around the world looking for thrills. Signs of psychosis, getting kicks while on a high—alcohol or narcotics, it doesn’t matter. As far as we can determine, the two men in question didn’t even know this Thornton; your stewardess here said they introduced themselves. Why did they kill him? And, accepting the fact that they did, why so brutally? It
was
strychnine, Captain, and take my word for it, it’s a rough way to go.”

The telephone rang. The customs inspector answered it; listened briefly, and handed it to the Port Authority detective. “It’s the State Department. For you.”

“State? This is Lieutenant Miles, NYPA police. Have you got the information I requested?”

“We’ve got it, but you won’t like it.…”

“Wait a minute,” Miles broke in. The door had opened and the uniformed officer had reappeared. “What have you got?” Miles asked the officer.

“The seat cushions and the carpet on the left side of the lounge are soaked.”

“Then they were cold sober,” said the detective, in a monotone. He nodded and returned to the telephone. “Go ahead, State. What won’t I like?”

“Those passports in question were declared void more than four years ago. They belonged to two men from Flint, Michigan. Neighbors, actually; worked for the same company in Detroit. In June of 1973 they both went on a business trip to Europe and never came back.”

“Why were the passports voided?”

“They disappeared from their hotel rooms. Three days later their bodies were found in the river. They’d been shot.”

“
Jesus!
What river? Where?”

“The Isar. They were in Munich, Germany.”

One by one the irate passengers of Flight 591 passed through the door of the quarantined room. Their names, addresses, and telephone numbers were checked off against the 747’s manifest by a representative of British Airways. Next to the representative was a member of the Port Authority police, making his own marks on a duplicate list. The quarantine had lasted nearly four hours.

Outside the room the passengers were directed down a hallway into a large cargo area, where they retrieved their inspected luggage, and headed for the doors of the main terminal. One passenger, however, made no move to leave the cargo area. Instead, this man, who carried no luggage, but had a raincoat over his arm, walked directly to a door with thick, stenciled printing on the panel.

U. S. CUSTOMS. CONTROL CENTER
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

Showing identification, he stepped inside.

A gray-haired man in the uniform of a high-ranking customs official stood by a steel-framed window, smoking a cigarette. At the intrusion, he turned. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said. “There was nothing I could do while you were quarantined.”

“I had the ID card ready in case you weren’t here,” replied the passenger, putting the identification back into his jacket pocket.

“Keep it ready. You may still need it; the police are all over the place. What do you want to do?”

“Get out to that aircraft.”

“You think they’re there?”

“Yes. Somewhere. It’s the only explanation.”

The two men left the room and walked rapidly across the cargo area, past the numerous conveyor belts, to a steel doorway marked
NO ADMITTANCE.
Using a key, the customs official opened it and preceded the younger man with the raincoat through the door. They were
inside a long cinderblock tunnel that led to the field. Forty seconds later they readied another steel door, this one guarded by two men, one from U.S. Customs, the other from the Port Authority police. The gray-haired official was recognized by the former.

“Hello, Captain. Hell of a night, isn’t it?”

“It’s only begun, I’m afraid,” said the official. “We may be involved, after all.” He looked at the policeman. “This man’s federal,” he continued, angling his head at his companion. “I’m taking him to the five-ninety-one aircraft. There may be a narcotics connection.”

The police officer seemed confused. Apparently his orders were to allow no one through the door. The customs guard interceded.

“Hey, come on. This man runs all of Kennedy Airport.”

The policeman shrugged and opened the door.

Outside a steady rain fell from the black night sky as pockets of mist rolled in from Jamaica Bay. The man with the customs official put on his raincoat. His movements were swift; in the hand beneath the coat held over his arm had been a gun. It was now in his belt, the buttons at his waist unfastened.

The 747 glistened under floodlights, rain streaking down its fuselage. Police and maintenance crews were everywhere, distinguished from one another by the contrasting blade and orange of their slickers.

“I’ll build your cover with the police inside,” said the customs official, gesturing at the metal steps that swept up from the back of the truck to a door in the fuselage. “Good hunting.”

The man in the raincoat nodded, not really listening. His eyes were scanning the area. The 747 was the focal point; thirty yards from it in all directions were stanchions connected by ropes, policemen at midpoints between them. The man in the raincoat was within this enclosure; he could move about freely. He turned right at the end of the parallel ropes and proceeded toward the rear of the aircraft. He nodded to the police officers at their posts, slapping his identification open casually to those whose looks were questioning. He kept peering through the rain into the faces of those entering and leaving the plane. Three quarters around the plane, he heard the angry shout of a maintenance crewman.

“What the fuck are you
doing?
Get that winch secure!”

The target of the outburst was another crewman, standing on the platform of a fuel truck. This crewman had no rain slicker on; his white coverall was drenched. In the driver’s seat of the truck sat another crewman, also without rain apparel.

That was
it
, thought the man in the raincoat. The killers had worn coveralls beneath their suits. But they had not taken into consideration the possibility of rain. Except for that mistake, the escape had been planned brilliantly.

The man walked over to the fuel truck, his hand on the gun concealed beneath his raincoat. Through the rain he stared at the figure beyond the truck window, in the driver’s seat; the second man was above him, to his right on the platform, turned away. The face behind the window stared back in disbelief, and instantly lurched for the far side of the seat. But the man in the raincoat was too quick. He opened the door, pulled out his revolver and fired, the gunshot muted by a silencer. The man in the seat fell into the dashboard, blood streaming out of his forehead.