Chapter 17

Without wanting to, Helen kept her eyes on Peno’s falling body as he plummeted straight down, descending rapidly with no end to the journey in sight.

Her heart pounded in fear and shock. She stepped forward, took hold of the edge of the door and began to move it closed. Dennis came alongside her and added his weight to the work.

In the interior of the cabin, all was calm. Helen wondered if Peno remained airborne—he might be—or if he had struck the ground, and where he had come to rest—on a treetop like Adams?—or on a well-traveled highway?

The whole episode seemed like a dream. She felt as if Eric were here beside her, telling her reassuringly, “It’s okay. The punishment fit the crime.” She shook her head. Of course Eric wasn’t here. She must have gotten a bit oxygen-deprived with the thin air coming in the open door.

She smiled weakly at Dennis who had sat heavily on the aisle floor beside Joan. “Look after her,” Helen said in a gravelly voice.

She moved toward the cockpit, stepped in and took Joan’s chair, then put on the headset. To tell the truth, she didn’t know exactly where in the world they were, but the air controllers at the nearest airport would give her that scoop.

Looking over at the co-pilot, she guessed from the way he was positioned, he was going to have one hell of a neck pain when he got up. A sudden horror ran through her. The two of them were going to wake up, weren’t they?

Helen called out a Mayday. She was getting tired of asking for others to rescue her. Charleston came on the air waves. In very cool tones, she explained that she was in no immediate danger, but that she wanted to make an unscheduled landing there, and could they please have two ambulances on the scene and contact the ATF with a special alert for agent John Garcia or Carlis Losada.

She was given her approach to Charleston, an airport that apparently had a lot of traffic, because they put her in a holding pattern briefly, despite her request for immediate medical help. She had more than enough fuel to waste, it was true, since this flight was supposed to go a lot further west than South Carolina, but she was eager to get out of the sky and to tell someone what had happened. Anyone she could trust.

Now she wasn’t holding her breath, but she was holding her mind in place, trying not to think about what had just transpired. The image of the moment in which she had shoved Peno out was entirely too unsettling but seemed to want to replay itself in her head.

The air controller gave her instrument approach coordinates and she became busy enough with the job of landing a large commercial airliner to halt all the thoughts that had been crowding in. “Good plane,” she encouraged the 727, bringing down the landing gear with a thump.

Dennis crawled into the cockpit and lay practically underneath her feet. “Are we in trouble?” he asked, worriedly.

She didn’t answer for a second or two, occupied conversing with the tower below. “We’re out of trouble,” she finally responded.

“Can you fly this yourself?” he fussed.

“You don’t think I need two or three big strapping guys to help me?” she asked. All this was being picked up by the flight recorder, she mused. She spoke calmly into her headset to the man in the tower.

“It’s a pretty big plane,” Dennis considered.

She was too busy to take the time needed to tell him to relax, that she wasn’t flapping her own arms to keep the darn thing aloft. She kept reducing her air speed and descending. “Size has nothing to do with it,” she finally grunted out.

She didn’t admit that it really was nice to have at least a co-pilot, even a flight engineer on a plane like this one, or that when she had flown the big transport planes, she hadn’t acted as captain, as she was today. She had been the co-pilot herself—not that she wasn’t actually capable of running the show.

They dropped further toward the tiny target that was the Charleston airport. An image of Peno falling through space popped into her mind. She pushed it away. The ground rushed up toward them and Helen concentrated entirely on her job: Bring it down without a bump, she instructed herself. That was her trademark.

Well, she felt a little thump at the bottom, and the jet rushed forward as she worked with it to reduce all speed. Knocking down her hosts’ terminal building wouldn’t do.

That was it. She cut off the engines. Totally routine. She looked over at the co-pilot, poor guy, then glanced down at Dennis. “Good enough?” she asked triumphantly. “We’re on Mother Earth, buddy. You can get up off the floor.”

The hospital staff had awakened Joan and her co-pilot with stimulants and Helen and Dennis walked into the room where Joan was propped up against several pillows. “How are you feeling?” Helen asked.

Joan looked at her blankly, as if something was wrong with this picture. “What are you doing here?” she finally questioned. “You’re the woman who came to my house with Robert the other day.” She didn’t seem to remember Helen’s name.

“Yes,” agreed Helen. “That was part of Robert’s sense of theater, I guess, but today his nephew tried to hijack your plane. I was supposed to fly it after he got rid of you. I don’t know the intended destination. But I thought you flew for Points West. What were you doing in a MountainAir plane?”

Joan shook her head in wonder, trying to take in the unbelievable information that Helen had handed her. “Points West bought the 727 from MountainAir. We were flying it to our shop in Denver to look it over, put on our corporate logo, and such. I had told Robert about it. He must have told his nephew in all innocence.”

“Innocence had nothing to do with it,” Helen retorted. “Avilla is a mighty bad hombre, Joan.”

“Is my co-pilot, Stan Hefner, okay?”

“Tip top, I hear. We’ll go and check up on him now and let you rest. I think they’ll just keep you a little while for observation and some federal law enforcement debriefing. This is Dennis Malloy from the FAA, by the way. He helped me save your life, so you might want to grant him a first interview before you talk to the ATF or any of the others.” Helen smiled cheerfully.

This whole thing might turn out to be good for Dennis’s career, after all. He’d be a legend in the FAA, a hero who had faced the skyjackers one on one.

Still, anxiety gnawed at her gut. Something was bothering her. What was it? Oh, yes, she had killed a man earlier today. A very bad and nasty man, but a human being, nonetheless. She hadn’t been brought up to do such things. She hadn’t even been trained in the military to do it—not really.

Her gun was back in her purse. She clutched the bag to her. She felt safer cradling it next to her like that, but she also felt sinful. She went around ready to kill if need be, and today she had done just that—although not with the gun. A tear leaked out of one eye. She wondered what her father would say if he knew what had happened.

They went in the co-pilot’s—Stan’s—room. He was sunk down in the bed seeming to be a little depressed. “What happened?” he asked them. “I don’t understand.” Helen snapped out the story with truncated military precision. He took it in, nodded, but still seemed unable to digest the facts. The events had been pretty bizarre, all right.

A nursing aide entered with lunch. The morning had simply flown by, no pun intended. They ought to go to the cafeteria and get some food, too. Dennis probably was hungry.

Garcia and Carlis found them there, shoveling in the low-fat, vegetarian version of the hospital meal. “I can believe it isn’t butter,” Helen told the three men.

“How do you get into these scrapes?” Garcia asked. “I thought you were headed back home to Westchester.”

“With Dennis held captive by rebel forces? I don’t think so.”

The two ATF agents conversed in Spanish. Hearing that gave Helen an unpleasant chill because it reminded her of Avilla and Peno’s little talks. These were the good guys, she reminded herself, despite what Grenade said. Being Hispanic didn’t make someone a bad guy. Being a bad guy made someone a bad guy. Each of these men had saved her life once.

She grimaced at the two of them. “I thought you were watching Avilla’s house. Where the hell were you?” she griped.

“Sorry about that,” apologized Garcia. He looked embarrassed. “We had the phones bugged and an observation post on the house, but we missed the action. You must have entered from the rear entrance.” He looked her in the eyes. “You were in the house with Avilla for the entire night?”

“I slept in the dungeon with Dennis here,” she clarified, lest there be any doubt.

Garcia gave the two of them a speculative look.

“I was in chains,” asserted Dennis, as if his own virtue had been assailed.

Garcia dismissed that avenue of investigation. “If we can just grab hold of Peno, we have a major charge against him,” he commented happily.

Helen and Dennis looked at one another, dismayed. She turned to Garcia. “I don’t think we can expect to hear from Peno ever again. He’s just scraps somewhere along the countryside. He went over the side without a chute. If you give me a map, I can guess the coordinates.”

“Decided to bail out, or you pushed him?” Garcia wanted to know.

She debated telling him that Dennis had shoved out Peno. The story would be good for the Malloy legend, wouldn’t it? But lies never worked to anyone’s advantage—as her dad had told her time and time again. “As temporary captain of the aircraft, I decided he was too unruly a passenger to allow to remain on board.” She tried to smile.

“Wow,” exclaimed Carlis. “Peno was a really sick son-of-a-bitch. I can’t believe you did it, though. Pretty gutsy, lady.” He seemed pleased. She took it as high praise, but still felt discomforted.

Locating the remains was a priority, but not the highest. “We’re got to find Avilla,” Garcia declared.

“He’s probably at work,” Helen guessed. “After all, what worries has he got? Everyone who could testify he’s a bad guy is presumably dead. All you have to do now is arrest him.”

“The only thing we can get him for, as things stand, is unlawful imprisonment of Dennis Malloy,” Garcia mused. “I think any other charges, including conspiring to hijack the plane would be a long shot in terms of a prosecution and conviction.”

“I don’t see why,” Helen protested.

“Trust me,” said Garcia. “I’ve been through it all. I’ve seen the worst scum walk for lack of nail-down evidence. What I want to do is get a top-notch surveillance team on him, then you give him a ring on the telephone and stampede the bastard.” He turned to Carlis and began speaking in Spanish.

“That’s so rude,” Helen broke in. “Don’t you know that? It’s rude to speak in front of people in a language that they don’t understand.”

Garcia stopped mid-sentence and turned to her in some surprise. “I’m sorry,” he acknowledged. “But this is ATF business.” Carlis gave her a wink.

“We have a chopper to take us to Roanoke,” Garcia announced.

“Leave me out,” inserted Dennis quickly. “I can walk back. It’s only about a hundred and fifty miles. I’ll pick up my car.”

Garcia stared at him. “You don’t like helicopters,” he concluded.

“Ground transportation is my preferred mode of travel,” Dennis stated with dignity.

“All right, then. We’ll cancel the chopper and get a car. It’s not that long a trip.”

Dennis was surprised. “You’d do that just for me?”

“Aw,” said Helen. “That’s so nice.”

In Roanoke, they took over some space in the local FBI field office. As soon as a phone line was set up, they let Helen place a call to Avilla’s office. The time was a little past five, but Robert Avilla was still at work, and after the secretary took Helen’s name, he picked up at once. “Where’s my nephew?” he asked more tensely than seemed to be his habit.

“You mean why am I still alive?”

Avilla laughed. “Well, of course you’re alive,” he responded, but he waited for her answer to his own inquiry.

“Ernesto is dead,” Helen stated at last. “The federal authorities are looking for the pieces not too far from where you are now. Ironic, isn’t it?”

“He’s dead?” repeated Avilla. Helen heard no mockery in his voice this time, and she was struck by what she read as his feeling of grief at the loss. Unreasonably, it saddened her. What horrors of childhood betrayal had created these two? They were both evil men, but in the end, they had cared for one another. Surely their lives had a value at least in that respect. Or was she merely being sentimental?

“He’s dead,” Helen said firmly. “The rest of us are alive. I’d suggest that you turn yourself over to the FBI,” she added recklessly. She saw Garcia frown. “No proof exists that you were involved in the skyjackings, so you probably can get off on some minor charges.”

“Your advice is gratuitous, Miss Robbins. Because you’ve been lucky once or twice, you imagine it must be due to some great intellectual ability on your part. That is not the case. You are a stupid little bitch and I think your luck is soon about to run its course.” Avilla slammed the phone in her ear.

“I guess I got him going,” Helen bragged to the assembled law enforcement crew.

“FBI,” muttered Garcia darkly. “Why would you suggest he turn himself over to them?”

Helen, Garcia, and Dennis sat in Dennis’s car down the road from Avilla’s house. An ATF team watching Avilla at his office had followed him here. The light was on; Avilla was inside.

“This car is great cover,” said Garcia. “No one would ever suspect that a person sitting in a car like this belonged to a straight-laced government agency.”

“What’s wrong with this car?” Dennis was curious.

“It’s seen better days, hasn’t it?”

“I don’t drive all that much. I live in Washington. I work in Washington. I hardly go anywhere. Until lately.”

“I’m not getting the sense that anything is going on in that house,” broke in Helen. “He’s not turning lights on or off or anything. I certainly don’t have the impression of frantic, get-out-of-town activity.” She took a spyglass from her purse, unfolded it, and peered through it. The two men turned to the back seat where she was ensconced and stared at her. She scanned the windows, trying to catch a glimpse of their suspect.

“He’s probably around the other side of the house,” Garcia suggested. “Carlis and Fred Morgan are back there. Morgan went in this afternoon and planted some additional bugs, so we should be able to hear anything at all that happens in the house. Except the cellar. They weren’t able to enter down there.”

“Too bad you didn’t hear me while I was being tortured,” Dennis said.

“You were tortured?” interrupted Helen. “You didn’t say so.”

“I didn’t mean literally,” he explained. “But it isn’t exactly pleasant to be chained to someone’s basement wall.”

A man approached out of the shadows. Helen clutched her Beretta. The figure was only Carlis. He leaned his head in the window and looked around. “A classic American car,” he said. “A mid-90s gas guzzler gone to seed.”

“What’s happening back there?” asked Garcia.

“Nothing. That’s what has us worried. He was seen going into the house. His car is still parked out there, but there hasn’t been a peep out of him in the last hour. Eight in the evening is a little early for bed. Maybe we should say the hell with it and go on in and arrest him. Kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, hijacking of a CitationJet. He forced you to fly to Richmond, didn’t he?” He glanced at Helen.

“I think something’s wrong,” she agreed. “Maybe he shot himself in the basement and we couldn’t hear.

“Get on the radio for backup,” Garcia told Carlis, “and we’ll go on in.” Carlis departed.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, then Helen opened the door. “Let’s hit it,” she said. “There’s one of him and five of us. How much backup do you guys need?” She restrained herself from saying a word about the Waco fiasco or reciting a litany of Grenade condemnations.

“All right,” concurred Garcia. He got out of the car, pulling his own 9-millimeter out of his shoulder holster. “I’ll let Carlis and Fred know. But you two stay here.”

“I’d be glad to wait in the car,” Dennis told him. “I left my armaments back home. You know, the Howitzer and stuff.”

“We’ll get you a gun,” said Helen as Garcia disappeared into the darkness.

“Dear young lady. The last thing I want or need is a gun by which to threaten, murder, or maim my fellow man. I have lived more than fifty years without one and I’m not about to pick up one now.” He had conveniently forgotten holding an AK-47 on the two guards in Mexico.

“You think I’m a terrible person because I threw Peno out of the plane,” Helen concluded, stricken.

“No, of course not.”

Someone ran toward them—Garcia. He looked at Dennis. “Are you coming? We can call it a joint FAA-ATF raid.”

Helen didn’t utter a word condemning ATF raids. She stepped out of the car.

“Not you,” ordered Garcia brusquely.

“Yes, me,” she insisted with force.

“I’m not armed,” argued Dennis. “And even more importantly, I’m not authorized.”

Garcia handed him a small H&K, which he pulled from an ankle holster. “All right. Maybe you’d better stay here, but if Avilla comes out, you might need this.”

Dennis took the gun and held it gingerly.

“We’re coming with you,” Helen persisted. She beckoned to Dennis, encouraging him to get out of the car. As she moved forward toward the front of the house, he trailed along behind her. Garcia hurried to precede the two of them.

“We’ll shoot out the lock,” Helen whispered to Garcia. She swatted at a mosquito that had landed on her cheek.

They came to the door and heard a whistle from one of the ATF agents around the back. Garcia rang the bell. “So polite,” Helen mumbled. She was sure they simply ought to bust right in, as law enforcement often did in the movies.

They waited in the silence. “ATF agents,” Garcia called in a loud voice, ringing the bell again. “We have a search warrant and a warrant for your arrest.”

Helen covered both her still-recovering and her good ear, as Garcia fired two explosive shots into the lock. Then she pushed in the door, which swung open to her touch. The three stepped cautiously over the threshold, guns at the ready.

“May be booby trapped,” Helen warned belatedly. “He does know something about armaments.”

She turned at the sound of a car arriving in the drive. Three men in suits jumped out of a neat grey Chevy. Either their backup, or rebels posing as government agents. Garcia looked out the door and motioned the strangers forward.

The entire group rushed in the house and ran into Fred and Carlis entering from the back. “Spread out,” someone called.

Helen took Dennis by the arm and led him around to the basement door. She tried pushing it in. It was locked, as it had been last night when she had attempted to get out.

“I don’t want to shoot this thing by accident,” Dennis told her, indicating the gun in his hand. “It won’t just go off, will it?”

“Don’t press anything,” she suggested, then told him, “hold your ears.” She aimed for the lock on the basement door and squeezed the trigger on her own gun twice in succession.

They entered the basement, followed by one of the ATF agents who had arrived moments ago. Looking around curiously, she saw that everything was much as they had left it early this morning.

Except for one thing. A door stood open within the basement and it appeared to lead to a passageway.

They peered down the long corridor that lay revealed. “I’m not surprised,” Helen observed. “Here’s a guy who likes technology and loves Byzantine gadgets.” The ATF agent walked back to the basement entrance and shouted up the stairs. They stood, waiting for the others.

Garcia came down, gun still in hand. “Avilla’s not in the house,” he informed them. Helen pointed dramatically at the underground hallway.

As they stared into Avilla’s escape route, Carlis hurried down the steps into the basement. “We’ve gotten a message on the radio,” he said in urgent tones. They looked up expectantly.

“Avilla is at the airport in Richmond. He’s on a Points West 747 on the runway. He’s taken over the plane!”

“He’s armed?” asked Helen, trying to understand the situation.

“Nearly three hundred passengers are on board the flight,” answered Carlis. He paused. Sweat dripped down his face and he seemed upset. “He has a gun, but he’s also armed with a box. He says it contains plutonium. He’s threatening to open it and make sure that everyone on that plane is exposed to enough heavy-metal toxins to give them, at most, thirty days to live. He’s told the tower if they don’t let him take off soon, he’s going to make the Chernobyl cleanup look like a picnic.”