'There's at least one child in there, McCloskey,' Garth said evenly, 'and probably more. If you bomb Eden, you'll kill children.'
The muscles in McCloskey's jaw clenched, and he looked away. 'I know that-but it won't be my decision. That's certainly what they'll have to do. It's the only course of action that makes sense. You said you don't know exactly where Eden is, and you don't even know where the transmitter is inside Eden. The Air Force certainly isn't going to want to waste time looking for it; there's too much risk, and too little time.'
'There's already too little time for us to waste any of it standing around here and having this conversation,' I said. 'The place to establish communications is in the air, away from this storm. There'll at least be military planes in the air. We can communicate with them, and they'll find a way to get through to Shannon or Mr. Lippitt.'
'For Christ's sake, Frederickson, you've got eyes! Can't you see what's going on out there?!'
I turned to one of the air traffic controllers, a slight, blue-eyed man with blond hair that was now greasy and plastered to his forehead. 'The Concorde. Does Air France or British Airways have one parked here now?'
The blue-eyed man looked at his equally disheveled companion, who nodded. 'Yes,' he said, turning back to me. 'British Airways-it was the last plane in before we closed down the airport. But I don't see how. . Even if the captain agreed to make the attempt, it would be suicidal to try to take off in this storm. The wind shear factors alone would be almost beyond belief, and-'
'Where are the captain and his crew staying?!' I snapped, grabbing Garth's wrist and bending it around in order to look at his watch. It was 4:28.
'The International Hotel, up the way.'
'I know where it is,' I replied, turning to the senior
National Guardsman. 'Captain, do you suppose you could round up some of your men and plow out a corridor of sorts in front of the British Airways hangar?'
The guardsman looked at McCloskey, who nodded. 'I can try,' the guardsman replied tersely.
I said, 'I don't want it plowed right down to the tarmac; it would only drift in again. See if you can level off the drifts and leave a cushion of, say, two or three feet. The path should be at least as wide as the hangar doors, and as long as you can make it. And make sure there are no buried planes or machinery out there. Okay?'
'I'll do my best, Frederickson. Good luck to you guys.'
'And to you.' I turned back to the blue-eyed air traffic controller. 'Can I borrow your watch?'
Without a word, the man removed the stainless steel watch from his wrist, handed it to me. I put it on.
'Let's get going,' Garth said. 'We've got to get up the road to the hotel.'
Leaving the two stunned air traffic controllers staring after us, the two policemen, Garth, and I hurried back down the stairs. Once again Garth picked me up and carried me up the side of the drift to one of the two snowmobiles. It was almost completely dark now, and I huddled in my silver wrap behind Frank Palorino as the snowmobile engines roared to life and we raced ahead through the blizzard.
The International Hotel was bathed in a dim, eerie glow, the power supplied by emergency generators which I was vaguely surprised to see were still working. We drove right up to the entrance, got off, and walked into a lobby that was overflowing with men, women, and children huddled in overcoats, blankets supplied by the Red Cross, whatever they could find. We went to the front desk, where McCloskey showed his shield to a weary-looking middle-aged man who looked about to fall asleep on his feet. McCloskey asked what room the British Airways captain was staying in, and after some fumbling through file cards the desk clerk found the information. The elevators had been shut down to conserve emergency power; we hurried up the stairs to the third floor, where Garth knocked on the door to Room 315.
I glanced at the loose-fitting watch the air traffic controller had given me; it was 5:30.
Six and a half hours.
The door was opened by a bleary-eyed, unshaven man in a thoroughly rumpled flight attendant's uniform. McCloskey showed the man his shield. The man turned on the light, and we stepped into the first of what was actually a suite of rooms in which all of the dozen or so crew and flight attendants of the British Airways Concorde were sleeping on beds, couches, in chairs, or on the floor. The attendant stepped over three snoring men on the floor, shook the shoulder of a man who was sleeping in a chair with a yellow blanket wrapped around him. He stirred; the attendant whispered something in his ear, and he sat up quickly, then stood up.
The man was about six feet tall, with sharp features, deep brown eyes, and a firm set to his jaw and mouth. Even dressed only in boxer shorts and an undershirt, he had the bearing of a man used to command.
'I'm Captain Jack Holloway,' the man said as he came across the room to us. 'Which of you is the police lieutenant?'
'I am,' McCloskey said, and then proceeded to tell Captain Jack Holloway the purpose of our visit.
McCloskey spoke unhurriedly, but in a firm, clear voice as he related the events that had occurred in the past few days, concluding with his description of finding us strapped to a B-53 hydrogen bomb-which, by now, we hoped had been deactivated-in a penthouse suite at the top of a skyscraper in the middle of Manhattan, and the existence of at least two other such bombs, on opposite sides of the world, that would explode unless a way was found to destroy the transmitter that would send the signal to set them off.
By the time McCloskey had finished, all of the people in the suite were awake. Female crew members who had been sleeping in the other room were huddled just inside the doorway, eyes wide with shock and faces pale. One of the women suddenly began to sob uncontrollably.
'Captain,' I said when McCloskey had finished, 'the whole idea is to somehow find a way to get up in the air- high enough and far enough away from the storm so that Garth-my brother here-and I can make contact with certain powerful people we know in Washington; even if the phones there are still out-and we don't know that they are-there should still be lines of military communication that can be used. If we can get through to them, either of the two men will act as quickly as humanly possible to mobilize forces to infiltrate the structure that houses the transmitter, which is somewhere outside Boise, Idaho. But it's going to take time for us to get them the message, and it will take them time to get planes into the air, and then find the place. Time is something we're rapidly running out of.'
'Are you sure of your information?' Holloway asked in a firm voice.
'Yes,' Garth replied in an equally firm voice. 'We all saw the bomb in Manhattan, and there's absolutely no reason to doubt the existence of at least two others-in Detroit, and near Israel.''
I said, 'Captain, right now there are men plowing snow in front of the hangar where your Concorde is parked. Not all of the snow-they're trying to plow it down to a level of two or three feet, enough to belly-slide on if that's what has to be done. My thinking is that if there's one plane that's sleek and powerful enough to slice its way up and out of this blizzard, it's the SST-if we can only get it going, and off the ground.'
'And you think we might be able to do that by sliding the plane on its belly in the snow?' Holloway asked evenly.
'You're the only man who can answer that.'
'It's impossible, Captain,' a very thin, tall man standing over in a corner said in a tense voice. 'Even if you could gain enough speed to lift off the ground, which is unlikely, the wind shear out there would certainly tip your wings, or even slam you right back into the ground. It would be suicide to even try.'
I swallowed hard, licked my cracked lips. 'Is that right, Captain?'
Jack Holloway drew back his shoulders and adjusted his boxer shorts. 'Frankly,' he announced in his clipped British accent, 'the odds of us even getting off the ground before we tip over and explode are not at all favorable.'
'Captain,' I said with a heavy sigh, 'naturally, we have no right to-'
'But we must attempt it, of course,' Holloway continued as if I hadn't spoken. 'After all, the lives of millions of people depend on us, no?'
'Yes,' Garth said softly. 'You're a good man, Captain.'
'Captain Holloway,' one of the women in the doorway said, 'I'll go.'
There was a chorus of murmured assents as every member of the British crew started forward and pressed around us.
Holloway held up his hand, and everyone fell silent. 'That won't be necessary, Evelyn,' he said in an even voice. 'After all, we're not carrying the Queen, are we? None of you will be going on this trip.'
'I will be going, sir,' the tall, thin man who had described the attempt as impossible said. 'Although it's possible for you to pilot the plane alone, that certainly won't increase your odds, will it? I suggest you could use a
