Tower of Terror

'You did,' Blancanales answered, his voice infinitely weary and sad. 'All right, that's it. Let's do the best we can to save the hostages that the psychos bring up here. Zuniga has just poured gasoline on the ones he left downstairs. There's nothing we can do for them now.'

16

It was happening in the auditorium on the mezzanine floor.

'You filthy Yankee scum!' Zuniga ranted from the auditorium's stage. 'I will cleanse the earth of you. I will give you a few minutes of hell before Satan takes your souls for his inferno!'

Behind their packing-tape gags, the prisoners' faces contorted in silent screams, their eyes wide.

'You will die in flames for the sins of your Empire! There! Look there!' Zuniga pointed to the projection port at the back of the auditorium. On his cue, Ana smashed out the glass. She placed a box at the edge of the port. 'You die when that bomb explodes! May your souls burn forever!'

Zuniga laughed. As he left the stage, he glanced at some prisoners who did not seem to be in a panic. Three of the young executives — two men and a woman — had already freed their hands and feet. They didn't scream or struggle. They waited for their chance to escape. They would be the leading players in Zuniga's comedy.

In the corridor, the members of his squad shoved and kicked several hostages into groups of two, then knotted nylon line around the prisoners' throats. Each squad member had two hostages who would serve as human shields when they stepped out onto the Tower's roof. The squad would take some into the helicopter, leave the others to die when the Tower exploded. The hostages in the helicopter would live only a few minutes more.

Zuniga blocked the auditorium doors and set the charges. The prisoners inside would break down the doors quickly, detonating the charges, which in turn would detonate the ton of C-4 and incendiaries.

'Fernando!' Zuniga called out.

'Yes, commander!'

'You remain here. Scream at them. Rave. When the helicopter is ready, I will signal. Then you come up to the roof. Understand?'

'I will come when you signal.'

Each with a pair of hostages, the squad waited. Rico had the young blonde woman they had captured only minutes before on the fifty-third floor. He twisted the rope savagely around her throat. He kicked her into the elevator, and jerked her to her feet when she fell.

'Careful, compadre,' Zuniga warned. He glanced at his watch. 'She must live another two minutes.'

Zuniga pressed the elevator button marked RH for roof/helipad.

* * *

Lyons felt the cables and motors start to vibrate in the elevator's housing beneath him. He spoke into his throat-mike: 'Here they come. Helicopter, come on down. Any problems with our guest star?'

'He is one very frightened man.'

'They just came out the door! Over.' Turning up the volume on Alcantara's body-mikes, Lyons heard the man's petulant voice complaining over the noise of the rotors. '... the vileness of your threats... I thought this was a civilized country... I don't believe you'd dare...' Lyons flicked off the safety on his CAR-16.

Have no doubts, Mr. Alcantara, Lyons said to himself. We have the nerve, all right.

* * *

Clutching a hostage against him and holding his M-16 at ready, Zuniga left the elevator, stepped over the filament and into the rotor storm. He scanned the rooftop for ambushers, saw no one. He motioned for his squad to follow, cautioning each one about the booby trap, then shoved his first hostage ahead and dragged the second behind him. She staggered, fell, choked as Zuniga pulled her to her feet by the rope around her neck.

He heard the second helicopter and looked up. He warily approached the helicopter on the pad. He pointed his automatic rifle through the side-door.

'Is this a trap, federates! If it is, you all die!'

Alcantara, his leader through all the months of planning and preparation — who had given Zuniga's pointless life meaning, who had brought his lifetime of hatred to flower — stepped from the helicopter. The landing lights made his coward's face seem like a mask of blood.

'Zuniga! My compatriot! Yes, they planned a trap for you! But I learned of it and changed the plans.

The helicopter will take us all to freedom! Victory is ours!'

Too surprised to speak, Zuniga said nothing. His leader, who had always been so proud and aloof, aristocratic, strangely blond, threw his arms around Zuniga, embraced him.

'Where is the detonator, my friend?' Alcantara asked him, his voice almost begging. 'May I have the honor of pushing the button?'

Lifting the walkie-talkie to his lips, Zuniga called down to Fernando. 'We are ready, come now. Viva Puerto Rico Libre!'

Zuniga turned to his leader, studied his face. Alcantara's smile quivered, became a grimace of fear. Now Zuniga knew.

'How could you have learned what the federatesintended?' And he raised his M-16 to Alcantara's throat. The burst ripped away his leader's head.

* * *

From the third-floor stairwell, Charlie Green heard the psycho screaming curses in Spanish. He inched the door open, saw a young Puerto Rican in a moving company's overalls pacing the corridor, turning every few seconds to laugh or shout at the closed doors of the company auditorium. The doors' handles were lashed together.

Across the corridor, near the elevators, Green saw stacked army-drab crates.

Through the inch-wide space, Green watched, waiting for his chance. He held the .45 pistol pointed straight up, the hammer at full cock, safety off. His sweat made the grip clammy. Sweat trickled down his arm. If the terrorist had put Sandy in the auditorium, he'd free her and any other people the terrorists might have taken prisoner. He would tell them about the commando team upstairs. If Sandy wasn't there, he'd take the psycho's M- 16 and go find her. He liked Sandy. She had introduced her husband to him at a company party: they were a beautiful young couple with a two-year-old child. It was Green who had called her to work that morning. She was his responsibility. Period.

The psycho's walkie-talkie buzzed. A few words blared from the speaker, then he slung his rifle over his shoulder, went to the elevator, pushed the 'up' button. Green knew it would take the terrorist two seconds to unsling his rifle, chamber a round and fire.

Sprinting, his running shoes silent on the corridor carpeting, Green crossed the twenty yards separating them before the young man could jerk the rifle from his shoulder. The .45 was less than a foot from the terrorist's face when Green fired. The slug entered the psycho's gaping mouth, tore his head from his lower jaw, spraying brains and blood and bone over the immaculate chrome of the elevator doors.

Pulling the rifle from the twitching corpse, Green chambered a round, flipped the lever to full auto, and watched the elevator doors. The car came, the doors sliding open to reveal the empty interior.

He turned to the auditorium. Someone on the other side pushed against the doors. Green heard a voice inside: 'Is he still there?'

'No,' Green answered. 'He's dead.'

'Who's that?' The voice called through the doors.

'Charlie Green, Eastern European Accounts. Is Sandy Robinson in there?'

'Get us out of here!' voices screamed. 'There's a bomb in here!'

Green tore at the ropes binding the door handles.

* * *

When they saw the muzzle-flash of the terrorist's M-16 on the helipad below them, the federal agents