Chapter 15

Someone was knocking loudly and persistently. Where was she? She looked at the clock. Five in the morning. She stumbled to her feet, gun in hand, and opened the door to Garcia. She had her sweatshirt and underpants on, nothing else. He didn’t seem to notice that, only the weapon.

“Why are you always pulling a gun on me?” he asked. The question was rhetorical. She stared at him, bleary-eyed. “We’d better get out of here,” he said. “It seems that your friend Dennis Malloy has been kidnapped. Carlis was knocked out by someone. They had to take him to the hospital. He has a concussion.”

She left the door open and started to pull on the sweatpants that lay on a chair. “I’m ready,” she announced, turning back toward him.

He had averted his eyes. “I’m not,” he said. “I’ll pick you up in five minutes.”

On the trip to the airport, they debated whether Avilla was the one who had taken Dennis. She knew he had done so. Or the kidnapper might have been Peno. Which brought up another question: Were Avilla and Peno working together? They must be. Then was Peno a true revolutionary, or a capitalist gone mad like his uncle? But maybe that was where the two had diverged. If so, could they possibly play each side off against the other?

Helen was miserable. Dennis wasn’t the sort of person suited to being taken prisoner. He was a government bureaucrat, for God’s sake. He knew how to get to his office by subway, how to access information on the computer, and the best place to eat his lunch. He wasn’t geared to a crisis mentality. She didn’t know if he could handle the situation he was in. She didn’t even know if he was still breathing—just the small ordinary breaths that most of us take, much less the deep ones with which he might ward off all terror.

They touched down at National, but Helen didn’t get out of the plane. “This isn’t my stop,” she told Garcia as he came forward into the cockpit. “I have other things on my mind now.” They had refueled midway, and she had fuel left, not a lot, but more than enough to get her to her destination. “Shut the door on your way out,” she joked.

“Are you headed back home?” he asked her suspiciously.

“Yes,” she agreed. “I’ve had it.” She looked into his eyes. He still didn’t believe her. But why should he? She was lying. “I’m flying to Westchester,” she said firmly. “I haven’t seen Eric in a while. After all, he is my fiancé.” Was she reminding herself? Garcia certainly didn’t seem to need reminding. He had been a perfect gentleman, to say the least.

He backed away from her. “All right then. Stay out of trouble.” She waited for him to leave, got up, pulled the door shut properly and radioed the tower. She was ready to roll as soon as the controller gave her the high sign.

At Roanoke Regional, she dialed Avilla’s office. He wasn’t in. Okay, that was fine. She had another number for him, a home phone number that she had gotten from Viscotti. Ironically, Avilla was a member of the Private Plane Pilots Association.

A woman answered. She must be the maid. Or could someone like Avilla actually be married? Anything was possible, even that long-shot.

Avilla’s voice came on next.

“It’s Helen Robbins, Mr. Avilla. You left so abruptly the other day, I wondered if everything was quite all right.”

“Oh, Helen, how kind of you to call to let me know what happened with you.”

Neither of them said anything else for a long, curious moment.

“I’m looking for a friend of mine,” Helen finally continued. “Dennis Malloy. I think you remember him. He and I talked to you in your office a week or so ago. I seem to have misplaced him. You wouldn’t have any idea where he is right now, would you, Mr. Avilla?”

“Well, my dear, you don’t imagine that I have him in my basement or anything, do you?”

“No,” she concurred. “Not your basement.” Then she realized that not only was the ATF listening on the line, but that Avilla was probably aware that they were. “Why don’t we meet and talk about it? I’d very much like to see my friend. If you know where he’s gotten himself to, try to bring him along. I’ll give you my phone number here. Call me when you’re out of the house and feel freer to speak.” She hung up. She had handled this in a very effective way, she thought.

The only problem was, she had no bargaining chip. Avilla held all the cards.

She stood at the phone, guarding it jealously from all incursions as she waited for Avilla to ring her back. Yes, she didn’t have her cell with her. No longer had any idea where it was now. She nearly got into a fistfight with a sweating businessman. “Use your cellular phone, mister,” she suggested with some venom.

Knowing how rude she was being brought to her conscious awareness just how aggressive she often was. Obviously, John Garcia couldn’t be interested in any woman like that, not even for a one-night sexual interlude. Or could he have been thinking about his friend Eric and restraining himself? she pondered. She wouldn’t have actually slept with Garcia anyway, would she have? She searched her wallet to find the picture of Eric she thought she carried with her, but she couldn’t locate it. Maybe Peno had stolen it from her in Mexico, not that it mattered. Given a struggle between Peno and Eric, she knew Peno would be face down dead on the floor in about a minute and a half.

Was her vision of who Eric was really accurate? Was he the invincible, conscienceless killer that she believed him to be? He certainly could be very sweet and decent, she knew.

The phone began to ring, and she waited for a second ring before picking up the receiver. “Helen Robbins,” she announced in mentholated tones.

“Where are you, Miss Robbins?” No more Helen from Avilla.

“I’m at Roanoke Regional. Where can I meet you?”

“I think you may have the wrong impression of me, Miss Robbins. I don’t mean you any harm. And I certainly don’t know where your friend is. But I will pick you up at the airport because I would like to talk to you and explain.”

“Good,” she agreed. “I’ll wait outside.”

She bought a Dixie cup of ice cream and stood in front of the terminal building eating, thinking of Dennis Malloy. Funny how they had become such friends. She had been trying to con him at first, but he was so trusting that she wound up buying into her own act, too. Explaining their relationship would be difficult—they were so different—but she liked him a lot.

A Mercedes pulled up to the curb. Helen peered inside and saw that the driver was Avilla. She then opened the door and slid into the seat, and he drove off at once. She barely glanced at him but turned her attention to the scenery instead.

“If I do have your friend, aren’t you a little foolish getting in my car with me? Now I have you also.”

She glanced over at him. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said. That was the funny part. What she said was true; she wasn’t afraid of being alone with him. She had her gun and was a good fighter, hand to hand. He was out of shape, she knew, having heard his breathing accelerate after he had climbed only one flight of stairs. She might be frightened of any hirelings he had, of course, which was another matter entirely. “Is Dennis Malloy still alive?” she wanted to know. She swallowed hard because her throat was dry.

“I don’t see why he wouldn’t be,” answered Avilla. “Maybe we can find him.”

“Yes. I’d like that.”

They drove on in silence, leaving the main highway for a diverging, two-lane road. In a couple of minutes, they were in the country.

“What does Beaumont sell anyway?” she asked. “Nuclear secrets?”

“I don’t think nuclear secrets exist anymore, Helen. Everyone knows what everyone else knows about that sort of thing nowadays. That box has been opened. You can’t get the demons back in.”

“I’m sorry,” she amended. “I meant nuclear materials.”

He laughed. “No, Beaumont wouldn’t do something like that. Beaumont is building super planes for the Air Force. Some people would like to stop that construction. I believe that’s why I have enemies spreading very unkind rumors about me. Do they say I’m selling nuclear secrets or heavy uranium?”

“Plutonium,” she corrected.

He laughed again. “Plutonium,” he repeated, admiringly. “Where in the world would I get hold of that?”

“Hanford,” she suggested.

“Hanford? Why not Fernald? Why not Rocky Flats? Why not Oak Ridge? Why not Savannah River? Why not the Idaho National Engineering Lab? Or why not them all?”

The Mercedes glided along a narrow road in the mountains. The day had turned out fresh and springlike and Helen’s window was open wide. A lovely outing.

Avilla pulled well up into the weeds on the side of the blacktop. “We walk from here,” he informed her. He got out and Helen followed suit. They started hiking away from the road.

Helen’s outfit was appropriate for their jaunt since she had on her sweats, but she could see that Avilla was going to regret wearing his nice city clothes into the forest.

Suddenly, a two-story beauty of a home loomed in front on them. “My getaway,” explained Avilla. He took some keys from his pocket, walked up to the front door, and let them both in.

Helen wasn’t going to be tricked by his nonsense twice in a row. Her gun was out and in her hand. No way she would turn her back on him. “Mr. Malloy?” called out Avilla. He thought that he was being funny, it seemed, because he chuckled to himself.

But a door was flung open from one of the rooms, causing Helen to start. Her gun automatically came up until she saw whom she was facing. The inhabitant of the house was a woman, a young, beautiful woman, and although she appeared pleased to welcome Robert Avilla, she turned and looked at Helen in some puzzlement.

The three of them sat in the sunlit garden drinking tea. So long as they stayed in the sun, the temperature was wonderfully comfortable. A step away and the day was too chill for sitting out of doors.

Helen played along with the game because, for the moment, she was intrigued. But she didn’t want too much time to go by. She must find Dennis Malloy before anything happened to him.

“You two women have something in common,” Avilla told them casually. “Joan is a pilot. Yes, a jet pilot, too. She flies for Points West Airlines. The company is a start-up, flying from Richmond to…points west, I guess.”

“I generally fly between here and San Francisco through Salt Lake city,” Joan told Helen. “Sometimes I take the Denver route or go up to Portland, Oregon. I love it. Being an airline transport pilot was always my dream.” She and Helen smiled at one another. “Robert is so kind to loan me his summer house while I’m settling in.”

Helen talked a little bit about her own flying adventures and explained that presently she was doing some work for the PPPA and had the use of a CitationJet. They talked shop. Avilla listened in bemusement, adding only a word or two now and again. After a while, Helen looked at her watch. She was whiling away the day in congenial surroundings while her friend’s whereabouts were still unknown.

“Helen is such a disciplined person,” interrupted Avilla. “She has to get back and so do I, but I wanted the two of you to meet. I had a gut feeling that you ladies would get along famously.”

As they left, Helen shook hands with Joan, looked her in the eye and nodded. She was mystified. Who was this woman? Why had they come here? What kind of joke was Avilla playing on her? Or on them both.

Once they were in the car, Avilla laid his proposal out for her. “I suppose you would like to see Dennis Malloy again, alive. Well, I think we can drop by where he is staying. I might even give him back to you. Eventually. But I want you to do me a favor. I admire you, Helen. I think you have guts. I think you also must be a fairly good pilot.” He paused and actually smiled at her.

“What occurred to me recently was that I could do better than simply collecting a few business jets from time to time, when all about us are lovely large airliners for me to get hold of. I thought we could start with the 727 that Joan will fly from Richmond to San Francisco tomorrow. The theft of a commercial airliner is a new sort of venture for me, and I think an exciting one. What do you say? Can I count on you? Or shall I make sure your friend is never seen or heard of again?” He glanced at her and raised his eyebrows, inquiringly.

“You can count on me,” Helen replied automatically, but her mind reeled. The details of what Avilla was talking about eluded her. She tried to understand his plan. The man was totally fucking nuts; that was all the situation came down to. He was completely out of any earthly orbit. They were going to hijack a passenger airliner? And then what? Did he expect to return to work at Beaumont the next day? “But first, I have to see my friend. I have to make sure that he’s still okay.”

“I told you I’d take you to him.” Avilla was annoyed. This was the first time Helen had seen him the tiniest bit out of sorts, she realized. His mouth tightened and his chin pulled together. His face was that of a truculent little boy. He would brook no opposition, that was clear. Or else he would throw a tantrum.

“This is my house,” Avilla told her when he pulled into the drive of an elegant mansion. “I am keeping your friend in my basement.” He laughed delightedly. “This is the ideal spot. Convenient. And well-outfitted for that sort of thing.”

By well-outfitted, Avilla meant that he had a regular prison cell down below the ground. No prison bars, perhaps, but everything else. Chains extended from the wall to steel wrist bands, allowing the prisoner either to use a near-by toilet or to lie on his cot, no more. Helen could only hope that meals had been served with as much forethought as the other provisions.

Dennis stared at Helen in amazement, anger, and resignation simultaneously, or at least that was how she read him. She brought her gun out in the open and held it on Avilla.

“No, no, naughty girl. I have a guard in the next room armed with a Remington shotgun. He’s watching us now. If you shoot me, he’ll kill both you and your friend through a slot in the wall.”

Helen turned to look, but she was uncertain where the slot in the wall might be located.

“Put down your gun, dear, and everything will turn out nicely.”

She wasn’t willing to take the chance that Avilla was bluffing. He could easily have armed banditos in the house. She put down the Beretta.

Avilla picked up the gun and placed it in his pocket. “Very sensible,” he said. “Much less dangerous this way. For me, anyway. I lied this time. I don’t have a guard on duty. But look, notice the slot in the wall.” He went to the far wall and put his hand on a long observation hole that had been installed there. “I’ve been making this place up to be completely cozy. A little fortress. The renovation has been a kind of a hobby of mine. But I can see that things haven’t worked out quite as well as I’d planned on. I may have to sell the house soon.”

“Don’t you ever shut up?” asked Helen in sudden anger. She was pissed off in the extreme—mostly at herself for falling prey to his lie. She had been confused for a moment. He had thrown her off. She tried to think of something she could have done to retain her weapon without any risk to her life or Dennis’s. Nothing came to mind. She exhaled. Maybe she hadn’t made a mistake, considering the circumstance.

Avilla escorted Helen up into the main house for dinner, which apparently had been left behind by the woman who had answered the phone earlier—the housekeeper. The entree was—as could sometimes be expected when a daytime servant “did” for the master—a casserole. Helen rather smiled to see the meal and the way it was packaged for ease in handling.

None of the domestic details bothered the lunatic criminal. He was perfectly housewifely in his use of the microwave and, prior to serving the food, gave Helen a nicely chilled glass of chablis.

“We’ll eat first, then give your boyfriend the scraps. Don’t worry. We’ll have sufficient leftovers, I’m certain.” Avilla had put on a tape of Mozart for their listening pleasure.

Helen thought the scene grotesque in the extreme. Avilla had killed at least nine human beings in the course of seven skyjackings. He held a prisoner in chains in his basement. And he played Mozart, no doubt thinking himself to be the soul of culture. The occasion grated on her, to put it mildly.

She ate the spicy chicken casserole and the salad that went along with the meal. She had learned long ago not to let her emotions rule her appetite. If she was to get up and fly the next day, she ought to eat now. That had been her way since joining the military. She could be fearful of a test flight, heartbroken because of a failed romance, jubilant because she had received a requested transfer to another base, but she would sit and calmly eat her dinner, knowing that the demands about to come would require her strength.

“Did you say grace before eating, Helen?”

“Excuse me?” He was ever so whacked out. What the heck did he mean by that?

“Your father is a minister in Newton, Massachusetts, isn’t he?”

Her stomach turned and she nearly put down her fork. “Tell me, Robert. Tell me all the things you’ve accomplished. Gathering information about others is easy. I’ve done it for a living myself. Learning people’s secrets isn’t difficult. But you’ve accomplished a great deal more than that, haven’t you? And no one knows or appreciates what you’ve done. Let’s have our meal, drink our wine, and listen to Mozart. Tell me your story, Robert. I really want to hear.”

“You tempt me,” said Avilla, “because you’re correct. No one knows how far I’ve gone, and I would enjoy telling someone who could understand. But I’m not sure that this is the moment to reveal myself fully. Even to my new partner in crime.”

He rose from the table, came around to where she sat and put his hands on her shoulders. She repressed a shudder. She was in the presence of something she knew to be vile beyond her ability to comprehend. Such people are common. They are the stuff of newspaper stories. But to be in the same room with someone who could commit such crimes and smile was repugnant to her. To be touched by him nearly made her crazy.

“Go sit down, Robert,” she told him with firm dignity. “We’re having a lovely dinner now. Don’t do anything to spoil it.”

If he hadn’t had the gun in his pocket. If he hadn’t had her gun, she would be willing to bet on herself in hand-to-hand combat with him. She was a lot younger, and she was in good condition. She was well-trained. But now wasn’t the time to risk all—not yet. In flying, in fighting, in making love, timing was everything. She was often too tempestuous to hold on until the exactly perfect spilt second arrived, but a lot was riding on her doing so here—Dennis’s life, her own, and maybe the lives of others.

The tape played until the end. The silence was eerie and uncomfortable. Helen sipped her wine. Avilla looked at her with glassy eyes. She stood, spooned half the casserole onto an empty plate, added some salad and headed toward the door.