She found the checklist taped to the nacelle. She read it over quickly. First the detonators. She removed them from their packing and, reaching into the middle of the nacelle, she slid them into place, one in the exact center of each side of the charge. The wires from the detonators plugged into the wiring harness with its lead-in to the airship’s power supply. Now the fuse and its detonator were plugged into place.
She cut all the rope lashings except two. Check the bag for Lander. One .38 caliber revolver with silencer, one pair of cable cutters, both in a paper sack. Her Schmeisser machine pistol with six extra clips and an AK-47 automatic rifle with dips were in a duffle bag.
Getting out, she laid the Schmeisser on the floor of the truck cab and covered it with a blanket. There was dust on the truck seat. She took a handkerchief from her purse and wiped it carefully. She tucked her hair into a Big Apple cap.
One fifty. Time to go. She swung open the garage doors and drove outside, blinking in the sunshine, and left the truck idling as she closed the garage doors.
Driving toward the airport, she had an odd, happy feeling of falling, falling.
Kabakov watched from the command post at the stadium as the river of people poured in through the southeast gate. They were so well dressed and well fed, unaware of the trouble they were causing him.
There was some grumbling when lines formed at the metal detectors, and louder complaints when now and then a fan was asked to dump the contents of his pockets in a plastic dishpan. Standing with Kabakov were the members of the east side trouble squad, ten men in flak jackets, heavily armed. He walked outside, away from the crackle of radios, and watched the stadium fill up. Already the bands were thumping away, the music becoming less distorted as more and more bodies baffled the echoes off the stands. By one forty-five most of the spectators were in their seats. The roadblocks closed.
Eight hundred feet above the stadium, the TV crew in the blimp was conferring by radio with the director in the big television van parked behind the stands. The “NBS Sports Spectacular” was to open with a shot of the stadium from the blimp, with the network logo and the title superimposed on it. In the van, facing twelve television screens, the director was not satisfied.
“Hey, Simmons,” the cameraman said, “now he wants it from the other end, the north end with Tulane in the background, can you do that?”
“You bet.” The blimp wheeled majestically northward.
“Okay, that’s good, that’s good.” The cameraman had it nicely framed, the bright green field, solidly banked with eighty-four thousand people, the stadium wreathed with flags that snapped in the wind.
Lander could see the police helicopter darting like a drag onfly around the perimeter of the stadium.
“Tower to Nora One Zero.”
Simmons picked up the microphone. “Nora One Zero, go ahead.”
“Traffic in your area one mile northwest and approaching,” the air controller said. “Give him plenty of room.”
“Roger. I see him. Nora One Zero out.”
Simmons pointed and Lander saw a military helicopter approaching at six hundred feet. “It’s the prez. Take off your hat,” Simmons said. He wheeled the airship away from the north end of the stadium.
Lander watched as the landing marker was deployed on the track.
“They want a shot of the arrival,” the cameraman’s assistant said. “Can you get us broadside to him?”
“That’s fine,” the cameraman said. Through his long lens, eighty-six million people saw the president’s helicopter touch down. The president stepped out and walked quickly into the stadium and out of sight.
In the TV van, the director snapped, “Take two.” Across the country and around the world, the audience saw the president striding along the sideline to his box.
Looking down, Lander could see him again now, a husky blond figure in a knot of men, his arms raised to the crowd and the crowd rising to their feet in a wave as he passed.
Kabakov heard the roar that greeted the president. He had never seen the man, and he was curious. He restrained the impulse to go and look at him. His place was here, near the command post, where he would be instantly alerted to trouble.
“I’ll take it, Simmons. You watch the kickoff,” Lander said. They switched places. Lander was tired already, and the elevator wheel seemed heavy under his hand.
On the field, they were “reenacting the toss” for the benefit of the television audience. Now the teams were lined up for the kickoff.
Lander glanced at Simmons. His head was out the side window. Lander reached forward and pushed the fuel mixture lever for the port engine. He made the mixture just lean enough to make the engine overheat.
In minutes the temperature gauge was well into the red. Lander eased the fuel mixture back to normal. “Gentlemen, we’ve got a little problem.” Lander had Simmons’s instant attention. He tapped the temperature gauge.
“Now what the hell!” Simmons said. He climbed across the gondola and peered at the port engine over the shoulders of the TV crew. “She’s not streaming any oil.”
“What?” the cameraman said.
“Port engine’s hot. Let me get past you here.” He reached into the rear compartment and brought out a fire extinguisher.
“Hey, it’s not burning, is it?” The cameraman and his assistant were very serious, as Lander knew they would be.
“No, hell no,” Simmons said. “We have to get the extinguisher out, it’s SOP.”
Lander feathered the engine. He was heading away from the stadium now, to the northeast, to the airfield. “We’ll let Vickers take a look at it,” he said.
“Did you call him already?”
“While you were in the back.” Lander had mumbled into his microphone all right, but he had not pressed the transmit button.
He was following U.S. 10, the Superdome below him on the right and the fairgrounds with its oval track on the left. Bucking the headwind on a single engine was slow going. All the better coming back, Lander thought. He was over the Pontchartrain Golf Course now, and he could see the airfield spread out in front of him. There was the truck, approaching the airport gate. Dahlia had made it.
From the cab of the truck, Dahlia could see the airship coming. She was a few seconds early. There was a policeman at the gate. She held the blue vehicle pass out the window and he waved her through. She cruised slowly along the road flanking the field.
The ground crew saw the airship now, and they stirred around the bus and the tractor-trailer. Lander wanted them to be in a hurry. At three hundred feet he thumbed the button on his microphone. “All right, I’m coming in 175 heavy. Give it plenty of room.”
“Nora One Zero, what’s up? Why didn’t you say you were coming, Mike?” It was Vickers’s voice.
“I did,” Lander said. Let him wonder. The ground crew were running to their stations. “I’m coming to the mast crosswind and I want the wheel chocked. Don’t let her swing to the wind, Vickers. I’ve got a small problem with the port engine, a small problem. It’s nothing, but I want the port engine downwind from the ship. I do not want a flap. Do you understand?”
Vickers understood. Lander did not want the crash trucks howling down the field.
Dahlia Iyad waited to drive across the runway. The tower was giving her a red light. She watched as the blimp touched down, bounced, touched again, the ground crew grabbing the ropes that trailed from the nose. They had it under control now.
The tower light flashed green. She drove across the runway and parked behind the tractor-trailer, out of sight of the crew milling around the blimp. In a second the tailgate was down, the ramp in place. She grabbed the paper bag containing the gun and the cable cutters and ran around the tractor-trailer to the blimp. The crew paid no attention to her. Vickers opened the cowling on the port engine. Dahlia passed the bag to Lander through the window of the gondola and ran back to her truck.
Lander turned to the TV crew. “Stretch your legs. It’ll be a minute.”
/> They scrambled out and he followed them.
Lander walked to the bus and immediately returned to the blimp. “Hey, Vickers, Lakehurst is on the horn for you.”
“Oh, my ass—All right, Frankie, take a look in here, but don’t change nothin’ until I get back.” He trotted toward the bus. Lander went in behind him. Vickers had just picked up the radio telephone when Lander shot him in the back of the head. Now the ground crew had no leader. As Lander stepped off the bus he heard the putt-putt of the forklift. Dahlia was in the saddle, swinging around the rear of the tractor-trailer. The crew, puzzled at the sight of the big nacelle, made room for the forklift. She eased forward, sliding the long nacelle under the gondola. She raised the fork six inches and it was in place.
“What’s going on? What’s this?” the man at the engine said. Dahlia ignored him. She flipped the two front damps around the handrail. Four more to go.
“Vickers said get the shot bags off,” Lander yelled.
“He said what?”
“Get the shot bags off. Move it!”
“What is this, Mike? I never saw this.”
“Vickers will explain it. TV time costs $175,000 a minute. Now get your ass in gear. The network wants this thing.” Two crewmen undipped the shot bags as Dahlia finished fastening the nacelle. She backed the forklift away. The crew was confused. Something was wrong. This big nacelle with its network markings had never been tested on the blimp.
Lander went to the port engine and looked in. Nothing had been removed. He shut the cowling.
Here came the TV cameraman. “NBS? What is that thing? That’s not ours—”
“The director will explain it. Call him from the bus.” Lander climbed into his seat and started the engines. The crew skipped back, startled. Dahlia was already inside the gondola with the cable cutters. No time to unscrew anything. The TV equipment had to go before the blimp would fly.
The cameraman saw her cutting the equipment loose. “Hey! Don’t do that.” He scrambled into the gondola. Lander turned in his seat and shot the cameraman in the back. A startled crewman’s face in the door. The men closest to the blimp were backing away now. Dahlia undamped the camera.
“Chock and mast now!” Lander yelled.
Dahlia jumped to the ground. She had the Schmeisser out. The crewmen were backing away, some of them turning to run. She pulled the chock away from the wheel and, as the blimp swung to the wind, she ran to the mast and uncoupled it. The nose boom must come out of the socket in the mast. It must. The blimp was swinging. The men had fled the nose ropes. The wind would do it, would twist the blimp free. She heard a siren. A squad car was screaming across the runway.
The nose was free, but the blimp was still weighted with the body of the cameraman and the TV equipment. She swung into the gondola. The transmitter went first, smashing to the ground. The camera followed it.
The squad car was coming head-on with the blimp, its lights flashing. Lander slammed the throttles forward and the great ship started to roll. Dahlia was struggling with the body of the cameraman. His leg was under Lander’s seat. The blimp bounded once and settled again. It reared like a prehistoric animal. The squad car was forty yards away, its doors opening. Lander dumped most of his fuel. The blimp rose heavily.
Dahlia leaned out of the gondola and fired her Schmeisser at the squad car, star fractures appearing across its windshield, the blimp rising, a policeman out of the car, blood on his shirt, drawing his gun, looking up into her face as the blimp passed over. A blast from the machine pistol cut him down, and Dahlia kicked the cameraman’s body out the door to fall spread-eagled on the hood of the patrol car. The blimp surged upward. Other squad cars were coming now, growing smaller beneath them, their doors opening. She heard a thock against the gas bag. They were firing. She aimed a burst at the nearest police car, saw dust kick up around it. Lander had the blimp at fifty degrees, engines screaming. Up and up and out of pistol range.
The fuse and the wires! Dahlia lay on the bloody floor of the gondola, and hanging outside she could reach them.
Lander was nodding at the controls, near collapse. She reached over his shoulder and pressed the syringe beneath his sleeve. In a second his head was up again.
He checked the cabin light switch. It was off. “Hook it up.”
She pried the cover off the cabin light, removed the bulb and plugged in the wires to the bomb. The fuse, to be used if the electrical system failed, must be secured around a seat bracket near the rear of the gondola. Dahlia had trouble tying the knot as the fuse became slippery with the cameraman’s blood.
The airspeed indicator said sixty knots. They would be at the Super Bowl in six minutes.
Corley and Kabakov sprinted to Corley’s car at the first confused report of shooting at the airfield. They were howling up Interstate 10 when the report was augmented.
“Unknown persons shooting from the Aldrich blimp, the radio said. ”Two officers down. Ground crew advises a device is attached to the aircraft.”
“They got the blimp!” Corley said, pounding the seat beside him. “That’s your other pilot.” They could see the airship over the skyline now, growing larger by the second. Corley was on the radio to the stadium. “Get the president out!” he was yelling.
Kabakov fought the rage and frustration, the shock, the impossibility of it. He was caught, helpless, on the expressway between the stadium and the airport. He must think, must think, must think. They were passing the Superdome now. Then he was shaking Corley’s shoulder. “Jackson,” Kabakov said. “Lamar Jackson. The chopper. Drive this son of a bitch.”
They were past the exit ramp, and Corley turned across three lanes of traffic, tires smoking, and shot the wrong way down the entrance ramp, a car was coming, big in their faces, swerving over, a rocking sideswipe and they were down into Howard Avenue beside the Superdome. A screaming turn around the huge building and they slammed to a stop. Kabakov ran to the pad, startling the stakeout team still on duty.
Jackson was descending from the roof to pick up a bundle of conduit. Kabakov ran to the loadmaster, a man he did not know.
“Get him down. Get him down.”
The blimp was almost even with the Superdome now, moving fast just out of range. It was two miles from the packed stadium.
Corley came from the car. He had left the trunk open. He was carrying an M-16 automatic rifle.
The chopper settled down, Kabakov ducking as he ran in under the rotor. He scrambled up to the cockpit window. Jackson put his hand behind his ear.
“They got the Aldrich blimp,” Kabakov was pointing upward. “We’ve got to go up. We’ve got to go up.”
Jackson looked up at the blimp. He swallowed. There was a strange, set expression in his face. “Are you hijacking me?”
“I’m asking you. Please.”
Jackson dosed his eyes for a second. “Get in. Get the belly man out. I won’t be responsible for him.”
Kabakov and Corley pulled out the startled belly man and climbed inside the cargo bay. The helicopter leaped into the air with a great blatting of its blades. Kabakov went forward and pushed up the empty copilot’s seat.
“We can—”
“Listen,” Jackson said. “Are you gonna bust ‘em or talk to them.”
“Bust ‘em.”
“All right. If we can catch them, I’ll come in above them. They can’t see above them in that thing. You gonna shoot the gas bag? No time for it to leak much.”
Kabakov shook his head. “They might set it off on the way down. We’ll try to knock out the gondola.”
Jackson nodded. “I’ll come in above them. When you’re ready, I’ll drop down beside them. This thing won’t take a lot of hits and fly. You be ready. Talk to me on the headset.”
The helicopter was doing 110 knots, gaining fast, but the blimp had a big lead. It would be very close.
“If we knock out the pilot, the wind will still carry it over the stadium,” Jackson said.
“What about the hook? Could
we hold him with the hook, pull him somewhere?”
“How could we hook on? The damn thing is slick. We can try if there’s time—hey, there go the cops.”
Ahead of them they could see the police helicopter rising to meet the blimp.
“Not from below,” Jackson was yelling. “Don’t get close—” Even as he spoke the little police helicopter staggered under a blast of gunfire and fell off to the side, its rotor flailing wildly, and plunged downward.
Jackson could see the movements of the airship’s rudder as the great fin passed under him. He was over the blimp and the stadium was sliding beneath them. Time for one pass. Kabakov and Corley braced themselves in the fuselage door.
Lander felt the rotor blast on the blimp’s skin, heard the helicopter engine. He touched Dahlia and jerked his thumb upward. “Get me ten more seconds,” he said.
She put a fresh clip in the Schmeisser.
Jackson’s voice in Kabakov’s earphones: “Hang on.”
The helicopter dropped in a stomach-lifting swoop down the blimp’s right side. Kabakov heard the first bullets hit the belly of the helicopter and then he and Corley were firing, hot shell casings spattering from the automatic weapons, glass flying from the gondola. Metal was ringing all around Kabakov. The helicopter lurched and rose. Corley was hit, blood spreading on his trousers at the thigh.
Jackson, his forehead slashed by the glass in his riddled cockpit, mopped away the blood that had poured into his eyes.
All the windows were out of the gondola and the instrument panel was shattered, sparks flying. Dahlia lay on the floor; she did not move.
Lander, hit in the shoulder and the leg, saw the blimp losing altitude. The airship was sinking, but they could still clear the stadium wall. It was coming, it was under him, and a floor of faces was looking up. He had his hand on the firing switch. Now. He flipped the switch. Nothing. The backup switch. Nothing. The circuits were blasted away. The fuse. He dragged himself out of the pilot’s seat, his lighter in his hand, and used his good arm and leg to crawl toward the fuse at the rear of the gondola, as the blimp drifted between the solid banks of people.