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.
Fasil was held on charges of illegal entry and conspiracy to violate Customs regulations. Awad was held for illegal entry. The embassy of the United Arab Republic arranged for them to be represented by a New Orleans law firm. Neither Arab said anything. Corley hammered at Fasil for hours Sunday night in the prison infirmary and received nothing but a mocking stare. Fasil’s lawyer withdrew from the case when he heard the nature of the questions. He was replaced by a Legal Aid attorney. Fasil paid no attention to either lawyer. He seemed content to wait.
Corley dumped the contents of a manila envelope on a desk in the FBI office. “This is all Fasil had on him.”
Kabakov poked through the pile. There was a wallet, an envelope containing twenty-five hundred dollars in cash, an open airline ticket to Mexico City, Fasil’s fake credentials and passport, assorted change, room keys from the YMCA and the Bienville House, and two other keys.
“His room is clean,” Corley said. “A few clothes. Awad’s luggage is clean as a whistle. We’re working on tracing Fasil’s gun, but I think he brought it in with him. One of the holes in the Leticia was a magnum.”
“He hasn’t said anything?”
“No.” By tacit agreement, Corley and Kabakov had not referred to their angry clash in the Superdome again, but for a moment they both thought about it.
“Have you threatened Fasil with immediate extradition to Israel to stand trial for Munich?”
“I’ve threatened him with everything.”
“What about sodium pentathol or hallucinogens?”
“Can’t do it, David. Look, I have a pretty good idea of what Dr. Bauman probably has in her purse. That’s why I haven’t let you in to see Fasil.”
“No, you’re wrong. She wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t drug him.”
“But I expect you asked her.”
Kabakov did not reply.
“These keys are for two Master padlocks,” Corley said. “There are no padlocks in Fasil’s luggage or in Awad’s. Fasil has locked up something. If the bomb is big, and it would have to be big if it’s in a single charge or even two charges, then it’s probably in a truck, or close to a truck. That means a garage, a locked garage.
“We’re having five hundred of these keys made. They’ll be issued to patrolmen with instructions to try every padlock on their beats. When one clicks open, the patrolman is to lay back and call for us.
“I know what’s bothering you. Two keys come with each new padlock, right?”
“Yes,” Kabakov said. “Somebody has got the other set of keys.”
24
“DAHLIA? ARE YOU HERE?” THE room was very dark.
“Yes, Michael. Right here.”
He felt her hand on his arm. “Have I been asleep?”
“You’ve slept for two hours. It’s one a.m.”
“Turn on the light. I want to see your face.”
“All right. Here it is. The same old face.”
He held her face in his hands, gently rubbing his thumbs in the soft hollows beneath her cheekbones. It had been three days since his fever broke. He was getting 250 milligrams of Erythromycin four times a day. It was working, but slowly.
“Let’s see if I can walk.”
“We should wait—”
“I want to know now if I can walk. Help me up.” He sat on the side of the hospital bed. “Okay, here we go.” He put his arm around her shoulders. She held him by the waist. He stood and took a shaky step. “Dizzy,” he said. “Keep going.”
She felt him trembling. “Let’s go back to the bed, Michael.”
“Nope. I can make the chair.” He sank back in the chair and fought down a wave of nausea and dizziness. He looked at her and smiled weakly. “That’s eight steps. From the bus to the cockpit won’t be more than fifty-five. This is January fifth, no, the sixth, it’s after midnight. We’ve got five and a half days. We’ll make it.”
“I never doubted it, Michael.”
“Yes, you did. You doubt it now. You’d be a fool not to doubt it. Help me back to bed.”
He slept until midmorning, and he was able to eat breakfast. It was time to tell him.
“Michael, I’m afraid something is wrong with Fasil.”
“When did you talk to him last?”
“Tuesday, the second. He called to say the truck was safe in the garage. He was scheduled to call again last night. He didn’t.” She had not mentioned the Libyan pilot to Lander. She never would.
“You think he’s caught, don’t you?”
“He wouldn’t miss a call. If he hasn’t called by tomorrow night, then he’s taken.”
“If he was caught away from the garage, what would he be carrying to give it away?”
“Nothing but his set of keys. I burned the rent receipt as soon as I got it. He never
even had that. He had nothing that would identify us. If he had anything and he was caught, the police would be here now.”
“What about the hospital telephone number?”
“Only in his head. He picked pay telephones at random to call here.”
“We’ll go on then. Either the plastic is still there, or it’s not. The loading will be harder with just the two of us, but we can do it if we’re quick. Have you got the reservations?”
“Yes, at the Fairmont. I didn’t ask if the blimp crew was there. I was afraid—”
“That’s all right. The crew has always stayed there when we flew New Orleans. They’ll do it again this time. Let’s walk a little.”
“I’m supposed to call the Aldrich office again this afternoon and give them your condition.” She had introduced herself on the telephone as Lander’s sister when she reported him ill.
“Say I’ve still got the flu and I’m out for at least a week and a half. They’ll keep Farley on the schedule as chief pilot and Simmons as second officer. You remember what Farley looks like? You only saw him once, when we flew the night-sign run over Shea.”
“I remember.”
“He’s in some of the pictures at the house, if you want to look at him again.”
“Tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll go to the house tomorrow. You must be sick of this dress.” She had bought underclothing at a shop across the street from the hospital, had bathed in Lander’s bathroom. Otherwise, she had not left his side. She laid her head on Lander’s chest. He smiled and rubbed the back of her neck.
I can’t hear him bubbling, she thought. His chest is clear.
25
THE PRESENCE OF FASIL AND Awad in New Orleans left no doubt in the minds of the FBI and the Secret Service that the Arabs had planned to blow up the Super Bowl. The authorities believed that with the capture of Fasil and Awad the prime threat to the Super Bowl was blunted, but they knew they still faced a dangerous situation.
Two persons known to be at least peripherally involved in the plot—the woman and the American—were still at large. Neither had been identified, although the officers had a likeness of the woman. Worse, more than a half ton of high explosive was cached somewhere, probably in the New Orleans area.
In the first few hours after the arrests, Corley half-expected a shattering blast somewhere in the city, or a threatening telephone call demanding Fasil’s release as the price of the guerrillas not detonating the bomb in a crowded area. Neither occurred.
New Orleans’ thirteen-hundred-man police force passed the duplicate padlock keys from shift to shift. The instructions to try them on warehouses and garages were repeated at every roll call. But New Orleans has a small police force for its size, and it is a city of many doors. Throughout the week the search went on, amid the Super Bowl ballyhoo and the crowds that swelled as the big weekend approached.
The crowd coming in for the Super Bowl was different from the Sugar Bowl group that preceded them. This crowd was more diversified in origin, the clothes were smarter. The restaurants found their customers less relaxed and more demanding. Money always flows freely in New Orleans, but now there was more of it to flow. The lines outside Galatoire’s and Antoine’s and the Court of Two Sisters stretched for half a block, and music spilled into the streets of the French Quarter all night long.
Standing-room tickets had been sold, bringing the total expected attendance at the Super Bowl to eighty-four thousand. With the fans came the gamblers, the thieves, and the whores. The police were busy.
Kabakov went to the airport on Thursday and watched the arrival of the Washington Redskins and the Miami Dolphins. Itchy in the crowd, remembering how the Israeli athletes had died at the Munich airport, he scanned the faces of the fans and paid little attention to the players as they came off their planes, waving to the cheering crowd.
Once Kabakov went to see Muhammad Fasil.
He stood at the foot of Fasil’s bed in the infirmary and stared at the Arab for five minutes. Corley and two very large FBI agents were with him.
Finally Kabakov spoke. “Fasil, if you leave American custody you are a dead man. The Americans can extradite you to Israel to stand trial for Munich, and you will hang within the week. I would be happy to see it.
“But if you tell where the plastic is hidden, they’ll convict you here on a smuggling charge and you will serve some time. Five years, maybe a little more. I’m sure you believe Israel will be gone by then and will be no threat to you. It won’t be gone, but I’m sure you believe it will. Consider that.”
Fasil’s eyes were narrowed into slits. His head jerked and a stream of spittle flew at Kabakov, speckling the front of his shirt. The effort was painful for Fasil, strapped in his shoulder braces, and he grimaced and lay back on his pillow. Corley moved forward, but Kabakov had not stirred. The Israeli stared at Fasil a moment longer, then turned and left the room.
The expected decision came from the White House at midnight Friday. Barring further developments, the Super Bowl would be played on schedule.
On Saturday morning, January 11, Earl Biggs and Jack Renfro of the Secret Service held a final briefing at New Orleans FBI headquarters. Attending were thirty Secret Service agents, who would supplement the squad traveling with the president, forty agents of the FBI, and Kabakov.
Renfro stood before a huge diagram of Tulane Stadium. “The stadium will be swept for explosives again beginning at sixteen hundred today,” he said. “The search will be completed by midnight, at which time the stadium will be sealed. Carson, your search team is ready.” It was not a question.
“Ready.”
“You will also have six men with the sniffer at the president’s box for a last-minute sweep at thirteen forty tomorrow.”
“Right. They’ve been briefed.”
Renfro turned to the diagram on the wall behind him. “Once the possibility of concealed explosives in the stadium is eliminated, an attack could take two forms. The guerrillas could try to bring in the explosive in a vehicle, or they could settle for coming in with as much as they can conceal on their bodies.
“Vehicles first.” He picked up his pointer. “Roadblocks will be prepared here at Willow Street on both sides of the stadium and at Johnson, Esther, Barret, Story, and Delord. Hickory will be blocked where it crosses Audubon. These are positive roadblocks that will stop a vehicle athigh speed. I don’t want to see anybody standing beside a sawhorse waving down traffic. The roadblocks will dose tight as soon as the stadium is filled.”
An agent raised his hand.
“Yeah.”
“TV is bitching about the midnight setup rule. They’ll have the color van set up this afternoon, but they want access throughout the night.”
“Tough tit,” Renfro said. “Tell them no. After midnight nobody comes in. At ten a.m. Sunday the camera crews can take their places. Nobody carries anything. Where’s the FAA?”
“Here,” said a balding young man. “Considering the persons already in custody, the use of an aircraft is considered highly unlikely.” He spoke as though he were reading a report. “Both airports have been checked thoroughly for hidden ordnance.” The young man hesitated, choosing between “however” and “nonetheless.” He decided on “however.” “However. No private aircraft will take off from New Orleans International or Lakefront during the time the stadium is filled, with the exception of charter and cargo flights which have already been cleared individually by us.
“Commercial flights remain on schedule. New Orleans police will man both airports in the event someone should try to commandeer an aircraft.”
“Okay,” Renfro said. “The Air Force advises no unidentified aircraft will get into the New Orleans area. They’re standing by as they did on December 31. Naturally, they would have to solve that kind of problem well outside the city. The perimeter they are establishing has a 150-mile radius. We’ll have a chopper up to watch the crowd.
“Now, about infiltration of the stadium. We have announcements on the media r
equesting ticketholders to show up one and one-half hours before game time,” Renfro said. “Some of them will, some won’t. They will have to pass through the metal detectors provided by the airlines before they enter the stadium. That’s you, Fullilove. Are your people checked out on the equipment?”
“We’re ready.”
“The ones who arrive late will be mad if standing in line at the metal detector makes them miss the kickoff, but that’s tough. Major Kabakov, do you have any suggestions?”
“I do.” Kabakov went to the front of the room. “Regarding metal detectors and personal searches: No terrorist is going to wait until he’s in a metal detector with the bell going off to go for his gun. Watch the line approaching the detector. A man with a gun will be looking around for an alternate way in. He’ll be looking from policeman to policeman. Maybe his head won’t move, but his eyes will. If you decide someone in the line is suspect, get him from both sides suddenly. Don’t give any warning. Once he knows his cover is about to be blown, he’ll kill as many as he can before he goes down.” Kabakov thought the officers might resent being told their business. He didn’t care.
“If possible, there should be a grenade sump at every gate. A circle of sandbags will do; a hole with sandbags around it is better. A grenade rolling on the ground in a crowd is hard to get to. What’s worse is to get to it and have no place to put it. The fragmentation grenades they use usually have a five-second fuse. They will be attached to the guerrilla’s clothing by the pin. Don’t pull a grenade off him. Kill him or control his hands first. Then take your time removing his grenades.
“If he is wounded and down, and you cannot get to him instantly and control his hands, shoot him again. In the head. He may be carrying a satchel charge, and he’ll set it off if you give him time.” Kabakov saw expressions of distaste on some of the faces. He did not care.
“Gunfire at one gate must not distract the men at another. That’s the time to watch your own area of responsibility. Once it starts in one position, it will start elsewhere.”