The Running Man

MINUS 029 AND COUNTING

The first-class compartment was long and three aisles wide, paneled with real aged sequoia. A wine-colored rug which felt yards deep covered the floor. A 3-D movie screen was cranked up and out of the way on the far wall between the first class and the galley. In seat 100, the bulky parachute pack sat. Richards patted it briefly and went through the galley. Someone had even put coffee on.

He stepped through another door and stood in a short threat which led to the pilots’ compartment. To the right the radio operator, a man of perhaps thirty with a care-lined face, looked at Richards bitterly and then back at his instruments. A few steps up and to the left, the navigator sat at his boards and grids and plastic-encased charts.

“The fellow who’s going to get us all killed is coming up fellas,” he said into his throat mike. He gazed coolly at Richards.

Richards said nothing. The man, after all, was almost certainly right. He limped into the nose of the plane.

The pilot was fifty or better, an old war-horse with the red nose of a steady drinker, and the clear, perceptive eyes of a man who was not even close to the alcoholic edge. His co-pilot was ten years younger, with a luxuriant growth of red hair spilling out from under his cap.

“Hello, Mr. Richards,” the pilot said. He glanced at the bulge in Richards’s pocket before he looked at his face. “Pardon me if I don’t shake hands. I’m Flight Captain Don Holloway. This is my co-pilot Wayne Duninger.”

“Under the circumstances, not very pleased to meet you,” Duninger said.

Richards’s mouth quirked. “In the same spirit, let me add that I’m song to be here. Captain Holloway, you’re patched into communications with McCone, aren’t you?”

“We sure are. Through Kippy Friedman, our communications man.”

“Give me something to talk into.”

Holloway handed him a microphone with infinite carefulness.

“Get going on your preflight,” Richards said. “Five minutes.”

“Will you want the explosive bolts on the rear loading door armed?” Duninger said with great eagerness.

“Tend your knitting,” Richards said coldly. It was time to finish it off, make the final bet. His brain felt hot, overheated, on the verge of blowing a bearing. Call and raise, that was the game.

I’m going to sky’s the limit right now, McCone.

“Mr. Friedman?”

“Yes.”

“This is Richards. I want to talk to McCone.”

Dead air for half a minute. Holloway and Duninger weren’t watching him anymore; they were going through preflight, reading gauges and pressures, checking flaps, doors, switches. The rising and falling of the huge G-A turbines began again, but now much louder, strident. When McCone’s voice finally came, it was small against the brute noise.

“McCone here.”

“Come on, maggot. You and the woman are going for a ride. Show up at the loading door in three minutes or I pull the ring.”

Duninger stiffened in his bucket seat as if he had been shot. When he went back to his numbers his voice was shaken and terrified.

If he’s got guts, this is where he calls. Asking for the woman gives it away. If he’s got guts.

Richards waited.

A clock was ticking in his head.