Ordway paused perceptibly before asking, “Does your husband know a lot about explosives?”
“I think so. He always liked using them. But …” Abruptly, she stopped.
“But what, Inez?”
Suddenly there was a nervousness to Inez Guerrero’s speech which had not been there before. “But … he handles them very carefully.” Her eyes moved around the room. “Please … what is this about?”
Ordway said softly, “You have an idea, Inez; haven’t you?”
When she didn’t answer, almost with indifference he asked, “Where are you living?”
She gave the address of the South Side apartment and he wrote it down. “Is that where your husband was this afternoon; earlier this evening?”
Thoroughly frightened now, she nodded.
Ordway turned to Tanya. Without raising his voice, he asked, “Get a line open, please, to police headquarters downtown; this extension” — he scribbled a number on a pad. “Ask them to hold.”
Tanya went quickly to Mel’s desk.
Ordway asked Inez, “Did your husband have any explosives in the apartment?” As she hesitated, he bore in with sudden toughness. “You’ve told the truth so far; don’t lie to me now! Did he?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of explosives?”
“Some dynamite … and caps … They were left over.”
“From his contracting work?”
“Yes.”
“Did he ever say anything about them? Give a reason for keeping them?”
Inez shook her head. “Only, that … if you knew how to handle them … they were safe.”
“Where were the explosives kept?”
“Just in a drawer.”
“In a drawer where?”
“The bedroom.” An expression of sudden shock crossed Inez Guerrero’s face. Ordway spotted it.
“You thought of something then! What was it?”
“Nothing!” Panic was in her eyes and voice.
“Yes, you did!” Ned Ordway leaned forward, close to Inez, his face aggressive. For the second time in this room tonight he exhibited nothing of kindness; only the rough, tough savagery of a policeman who needed an answer and would get it. He shouted, “Don’t try holding back or lying! It won’t work. Tell me what it was you thought.” As Inez whimpered: “Never mind that! Tell me!”
“Tonight … I didn’t think of it before … the things …”
“The dynamite and caps?”
“Yes.”
“You’re wasting time! What about them?”
Inez whispered, “They were gone!”
Tanya said quietly, “I have your call, Lieutenant. They’re holding.”
No one among the others spoke.
Ordway nodded, his eyes still fixed on Inez. “Did you know that tonight, before your husband’s flight took off, he insured himself heavily — very heavily indeed — naming you as beneficiary?”
“No, sir. I swear I don’t know anything …”
“I believe you,” Ordway said. He stopped, considering, and when he spoke again his voice grated harshly.
“Inez Guerrero, listen to me carefully. We believe your husband has those explosives, which you’ve told us about, with him tonight. We think he carried them onto that Rome flight, and, since there can be no other explanation for having them there, that he intends to destroy the airplane, killing himself and everyone else aboard. Now, I’ve one more question, and before you answer, think carefully, and remember those other people — innocent people, including children — who are on that flight, too. Inez, you know your husband; you know him as well as anyone alive. Could he … for the insurance money; for you … could he do what I have just said?”
Tears streamed down Inez Guerrero’s face. She seemed near collapse, but nodded slowly.
“Yes.” Her voice was choked. “Yes, I think he could.”
Ned Ordway turned away. He took the telephone from Tanya and began speaking rapidly in a low tone. He gave information, interspersed with several requests.
Once Ordway paused, swinging back to Inez Guerrero. “Your apartment is going to be searched, and we’ll get a warrant if necessary. But it will be easier if you consent. Do you?”
Inez nodded dully.
“Okay,” Ordway said into the telephone, “she agrees.” A minute or so later he hung up.
Ordway told the D.T.M. and Mel, “We’ll collect the evidence in the apartment, if there’s any there. Apart from that, at the moment, there isn’t a lot we can do.”
The D.T.M. said grimly, “There isn’t a lot any of us can do, except maybe pray.” His face strained and gray, he began writing a new message for Flight Two.
9
The hot hors d’oeuvres, which Captain Vernon Demerest had called for, had been served to the pilots of Flight Two. The appetizing assortment on a tray, brought by one of the stewardesses from the first-class galley, was disappearing fast. Demerest grunted appreciatively as he bit into a lobster-and-mushroom tartlet garnished with Parmesan cheese.
As usual, the stewardesses were pursuing their campaign to fatten the skinny young second officer, Cy Jordan. Surreptitiously they had slipped him a few extra hors d’oeuvres on a separate plate behind the two captains and now, while Jordan fiddled with fuel crossfeed valves, his cheeks bulged with chicken livers in bacon.
Soon, all three pilots, relaxing in turn in the dimly lighted cockpit, would be brought the same delectable entree and dessert which the airline served its first-class passengers. The only things the passengers would get, which the crew did not, were table wine and champagne.
Trans America, like most airlines, worked hard at providing an excellent cuisine aloft. There were some who argued that airlines — even international airlines — should concern themselves solely with transportation, gear their in-flight service to commuter standards, and dispense with frills, including meals of any higher quality than a box lunch. Others, however, believed that too much of modern travel had become established at box lunch level, and welcomed the touch of style and elegance which good airborne meals provided. Airlines received remarkably few complaints about food service. Most passengers — tourist and first class — welcomed the meals as a diversion and consumed them zestfully.
Vernon Demerest, searching out with his tongue the last succulent particles of lobster, was thinking much the same thing. At that moment the Selcal call chime sounded loudly in the cockpit and the radio panel warning light flashed on.
Anson Harris’s eyebrows went up. A single call on Selcal was out of the ordinary; two within less than an hour were exceptional.
“What we need,” Cy Jordan said from behind, “is an unlisted number.”
Demerest reached out to switch radios. “I’ll get it.”
After the mutual identification between Flight Two and New York dispatch, Vernon Demerest began writing on a message pad under a hooded light. The message was from D. T. M. Lincoln International, and began:UNCONFIRMED POSSIBILITY EXISTS … As the wording progressed, Demerest’s features, in the light’s reflection, tautened. At the end he acknowledged briefly and signed off without comment.
Demerest handed the message pad to Anson Harris, who read it, leaning toward a light beside him. Harris whistled softly. He passed the pad over his shoulder to Cy Jordan.
The Selcal message ended:SUGGEST RETURN OR ALTERNATE LANDING AT CAPTAIN ’S DISCRETION.
As both captains knew, there was a question of command to be decided. Although Anson Harris had been
