Jumper by Steven Gould
An assault by a Pearl Harbor Navy Seal unit supported by Army Special Forces from Schofield Barracks freed most of the hostages. Casualties were “light,” two tourists, one Navy Seal, and six of seven terrorists.
Honolulu was beautiful, the water incredibly blue, the mountains emerald green, but I left after acquiring a jump site, deeply depressed. One of the dead was a woman, Mom’s age.
“You can’t be everywhere.”
I sat on a sheepskin rug, pushing sticks into the wood stove. I felt cold. Every since cleaning up the hijacker’s body from the cold, dark water of the pit, I’d been unable to get warm. Even in balmy Hawaii the sweat on my skin was cold.
Millie sat beside me, her robe opened on bare skin, comfortable. I was still clothed, my coat draped across my shoulders.
“I know.” I hugged my knees. The heat from the stove was almost painful on my skin, but it didn’t touch my bones.
She wanted me to see a therapist, another painful echo of Mom. I didn’t want to.
She shifted on the rug, leaning against me, laying her head on my shoulder. I turned my head and kissed her forehead. She spoke.
“You think that if you get Matar, you’ll be done. That it will somehow make things right. I think you’re wrong.”
I shook my head, leaned closer to the fire.
She went on. “I think you’ll find that it doesn’t help at all. And I’m afraid you’ll get killed finding this out. You can jump away from guns, knives, bombs, but until you can jump away from yourself, you won’t get away from the pain. Not unless you face it and deal with it.”
“Deal with it? How?”
“You should see a therapist.”
“Not again!”
“A therapist isn’t going to kill you... not like a hijacker. Why is it easier to get men to go to war than to see a counselor?”
“Should I just let things happen? Should I let them kill innocent people?”
She looked at the fire for a moment, then said, “There was an interview with a Palestinian on CNN today. He wanted to know why this mysterious antiterrorist didn’t rescue Palestinian children from Israeli bullets.”
“I can’t be everywhere.” I winced at what I’d said.
She smiled. “So where do you draw the line? You knew that the situation in Honolulu had nothing to do with Shiite extremists before you left. You knew Matar wouldn’t be there.”
We were back where we started. “Can I just stand by? When I could do something?”
“Go to work for a fire department. You could rescue more people with less danger. I’m afraid you’ll end up like the NSA if you go this route. The more you associate with terrorists, the more terrorist your behavior.”
I pulled away from her. “Have I really started acting that way?”
She shook her head and pulled me back. “I’m sorry. It’s my fear. Perhaps if I constantly remind you of it, it won’t happen.”
I slumped into her arms, curling in on myself, my head on her shoulder. “I hope so.”
Athens, start of so many hijackings, was the site of the next one. An Olympia Airlines DC-10 took off for Madrid and, ten minutes later, requested an emergency landing due to depressurization. At the same time they switched their flight transponder to 7500, the international sign for hijacking.
The plane had been back on the ground for two hours when I learned this from Manhattan Media Services.
Units of the Greek Army were in place, surrounding the plane, when I arrived in the terminal. I went looking for the press, first, because I figured they would know something about the number of hijackers, their arms, and the demands.
The Reuters reporter from Algiers was there. His eyes got very large when he saw me and he stepped back from his front-row position and cut me out from the group of newsmen.
“You’re the one,” he said in an excited whisper. “I thought it was you from the film.” He kept looking around, anxious to scoop the others.
“What are you talking about?” I wondered if this was a disaster or if I could use it.
“Don’t go away. Let me interview you!”
“Relax. You attract all of your colleagues and I’ll leave.”
He took a deep breath, lowered his shoulders. “I knew it!” he whispered. “Why don’t we go someplace quiet?”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I said, nodding my head at the terminal window. The plane was at the end of the runway, about half a mile away.
He licked his lips. “After?”
“Depends. What’s happening with the hijacking? What can you tell me?”
“So, if I tell you what I know—”
“I can ask them,” I said, pointing at the rest of the press with my thumb.
“Okay. Okay, take my card.” He handed me a white card with the Reuters masthead, his name, Jean-Paul Corseau, and a phone, fax, and telex number. “There’s three of them. They have pistols. There was a plainclothes guard who wounded one of them, but the other two killed him. In the fight, a bullet went through a window in first class. They’d only reached eight thousand feet, so it wasn’t too bad, but the pilot insisted on landing. They’re demanding a new plane. They wouldn’t let the pilot unblock the runway, either, so they’re having to route traffic to the other runways.”
“Any other demands? What nationality?”
“Nothing yet. They’re ETA, Basque separatists. Most of the passengers are Spanish.”
“Basques? Since when did Basques start hijacking? I thought they went in for bombings?”
He shrugged.
“Anything else? How badly wounded is the third hijacker?”
“We don’t know.”
“Okay, thanks. If it works out, I’ll give you something after.” I looked around. Nobody seemed to be watching us. “What’s that over there?” I asked, pointing back at the press.
Corseau turned his head and I jumped.
One of them stood in the doorway, looking out, wearing a long leather coat and holding a pistol in his hands. The rear door was shut and all the window shades. One of them also stood in the cockpit, just visible. He was using the radio. That left one more, the wounded man.
On a DC-10 the front door is behind the first-class section, with a partition forward that’s cut by the two aisles leading forward and back. A walk-through galley leads across the plane to the second aisle. I jumped to the middle of the galley, shielded from the front by the partition and the back by the galley.
I couldn’t see anyone watching the man in the door, whose back was to me, but it was possible. I decided to risk it and jumped behind him, one hand around his waist, the other covering his mouth. I jumped him to the pit and dropped him, then jumped back to the galley. I listened. Nobody seemed to have noticed. I used the dentist’s mirror to look forward.
A man in a rumpled suit leaned against the front bulkhead, a strange pistol in his right hand pointed in the general direction of the seated passengers. Blood soaked the left side of his jacket, low down, and he held that arm pressed tightly against it. His face was covered in sweat and he looked very pale. From where he stood, he could see down the aisle by the doorway.
At his feet I saw the head and arm of a still body, hand outstretched, fingers pointed up, half open, almost imploring.
I moved back to the other aisle and used the mirror to examine the cockpit door.
The door to the cockpit was open and I could see the last terrorist standing there, a radio headset on his head. He stood at the edge of the door, waving his gun to emphasize what he was saying.
From my angle the only crew I could see was the pilot, sitting still, head straight forward. He had a bald spot.
I took the steel rod out of my bag. I didn’t see how I could jump the terrorist on the radio away, without the other one seeing me. I lifted the rod above my head and jumped.
I appeared at the cockpit door and the rod cracked into the back of the terrorist’s head. I had the vague impression that he pitched forward, but I was twisting
The gun fell forward and the passenger in the front seat scooped it up. The terrorist slumped to the floor suddenly, cradling his wrist and his side. There was blood on the wall behind him.
I looked into the cockpit. The engineer and copilot pinned the unconscious terrorist to them while the pilot pried the gun from his fingers. He looked back at the door, fear and determination on his face.
“Don’t shoot,” I said, smiling. “I’m on your side.” I backed up and walked down the aisle, past the galley, into coach. I heard the pilot scramble out of his seat and follow. Everything seemed all right. The flight attendants were standing at the very back of the plane.
“Where’s the third one?” he asked.
“Oh. I, uh, put him on hold. I’ll be back with him in a second.”
I jumped away, to the cliff high above the pit.
The man in the long leather coat was on the island, shivering. He’d managed to hold on to his pistol and he was standing, arms crossed, hunched forward. Water dripped from the leather coat. He kept looking from side to side.
“Drop the gun,” I shouted.
His head jerked up, water droplets gleaming in the last of the midday sun. He pointed the gun at me and shouted something back in a language I didn’t know.
I jumped to the top of the wall on the other side, behind him. “Drop the gun,” I shouted again.
He whirled, this time firing quickly. The bullet clipped stone several feet to my left.
I jumped behind him, on the island, and hit him on the head with the rod. He screamed and fell to his knees, both hands going to his head. I hit his gun hand and the gun fell. I picked it up quickly and stepped away from him.
The gun was plastic. I’d read about them, able to pass through airport metal detectors.
He held his head and said things that sounded like swearing, whatever the language was.
I motioned for him to lie facedown and he spat at me. I raised the rod meaningfully. He winced and lay down on his stomach. I put the gun in my pocket and secured his hands behind him with a cable tie; then I stood him up and jumped him back to Athens, to the galley on the DC-10.
The captain stood there, talking to one of the flight attendants in Greek. Both of them flinched away when my prisoner and I appeared.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Here’s the third hijacker.”
The captain nodded slowly and I jumped away.
I stayed out of sight as the passengers streamed off the plane. Two of the terrorists came off on stretchers. The third one came off surrounded by police. Behind the crew and flight attendants came one last stretcher, covered. Sad, but it didn’t bother me the way the tourists in Hawaii had.
When the official statement was read to the press, I tapped Corseau, the Reuters man, on his shoulder. He turned his tape recorder in my direction and I shook my head.
“All right,” he said, turning it off. “Do I get an interview?”
I thought about it. “Where is your next assignment? Did you catch this one because you were here, in transit?”
“Yes. I was on my way to Cairo.”
“Where is your luggage?”
“It’s already there. I’d checked it and was about to board when this thing happened.”
I smiled. “Good.” I walked around behind him. He started to turn, but I said, “Hold still.” I looked around—nobody was paying attention. I grabbed him by the belt and jumped him, camera bag, laptop computer, and all, to the Cairo airport terminal, on the sidewalk behind the taxi stand.
“Merde!” He nearly dropped his laptop computer and I steadied him.
“You recognize where you are?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” I said. I jumped.
Hawaii was five hours earlier than Oklahoma, so I figured I could pick up Millie at eleven, her time, and still have a nice evening in Honolulu. I jumped there from Cairo and took a cab to the airport.
It felt funny. Except for New York City, Hawaii was the only place I’d been in the U.S. that felt like a foreign city. Even though the signs were in English, the scenery didn’t fit. But it was beautiful and for the first time in weeks, I felt warm.
I spent the afternoon walking around Waikiki. I bought a Hawaiian shirt for myself and a mu-mu for Millie, and picked out a restaurant at the Royal Hawaiian. The next day was Saturday and so she didn’t have to get up early.
I felt like celebrating.
At eleven, Central Standard Time, I jumped to Millie’s bedroom. I was dressed in white slacks and the turquoise Hawaiian shirt I’d bought. Her dress was waiting in Texas, but I carried an orchid lei with me, to put around her neck.
The bedside light, one of those gooseneck things with a metal shade, was pushed to one side, casting the bed in shadow. I took a step forward, thinking she’d fallen asleep, when something gleamed in the shadowed bed.
I twisted to the side and something struck me a glancing blow on my leg. Bang, I thought, and jumped to an alcove at Adams Cowley Shock Trauma in Baltimore.
I looked down at my leg. A silver tube, six inches long, one inch in diameter, hung from my leg. At one end, a wire-thin antenna projected. From the other, a stainless-steel rod, perhaps a quarter-inch thick, stuck in my pants, then out again, two inches later, ending in a barbed point, like a harpoon of some kind. There was a clear fluid accumulating at the tip and I bent forward. The point was hollow.
Well, Cox hadn’t lied. It was a tranquilizer. But Christ, if that barbed point had struck straight on, it would be buried in my leg and I wouldn’t be able to pull it out.
There was some blood, too, but it looked like it had just grazed me, snagging in the pants. And the antenna meant it was some kind of homing device.
The picture was chilling. The harpoon would bury itself in my leg and I would jump away. Before I could get the harpoon out, the tranquilizer would put me under. And the homing device would do the rest. Could they track it by satellite?
How long before they would get here? Also, did they develop this simply for me, or were they using an existing technology for an ongoing problem, i.e., were there more teleports that they’d hunted down?
I jumped to Central Park, dark, cold, inadequately dressed in my short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt and sandals. My pocketknife cut the harpoon free. I considered smashing it.
What have they done with Millie?
I waited five minutes, then jumped again, to the truck stop in Minnesota. A large gravel truck, empty, was pulling out of the lot. I jumped across the gap and threw the harpoon into the back. I heard it clang hollowly; then the truck accelerated down the access road toward the on ramp.
I wondered where it was going.
It wasn’t a pleasant night. What little sleep I got was punctuated by nightmares. Dawn found me curled before the wood stove breaking kindling I didn’t need into smaller and smaller pieces.
Millie’s apartment complex was lousy with NSA agents that morning, but if she was there, she didn’t go to class. I watched from a rooftop, with binoculars. When I phoned, a woman answered the phone but it was neither her nor her roommate so I hung up without speaking.
In Topeka, Kansas, I phoned Millie’s brother-in-law, the lawyer. I gave the receptionist a false name.
“Your sister-in-law, Millie Harrison, was kidnapped yesterday by agents of the National Security Agency.”
“Who is this?”
“A friend of Millie’s. They’re all over her apartment complex and neither her or her roommate are at home.”
“What’s your name?”
“Please do what you can.” I hung up.
An aquarium supplier in Manhattan sold me a two-thousand-dollar cylinder of three-eighths-inch clear Lexan plastic. It stood five and a half feet tall and was three feet in diameter. He wanted to sell me the gasketed steel bottom, with fittings for filter tubes, but I declined. I wasn’t using it for an aquarium.
I jumped to Perston-Smythe’s office in D.C.
A harpoon hit the plastic shell and ricocheted off at an angle. Dr. Perston-Smythe wasn’t in his office, but a man in the corner dropped the harpoon gun in his hand and dove at me, arms outstretched.
I jumped sideways four feet, next to the bookcase. The man passed through the space I vacated and slammed into the desk, hands trying to fend himself off at the last second. He failed and his head and left shoulder struck the edge of the desk. He fell to the floor, moaning.
I jumped out of the tube and listened at the door. There didn’t seem to be anyone coming. I took the gun from his shoulder holster, then grabbed him by his belt and lifted. He began to struggle. I jumped him to the beach in Tigzirt, Algeria, and left him facedown in the sand.
I was behind Perston-Smythe’s desk when he came back to his office. He was alone. I pointed the agent’s gun at him and asked him to shut the door. Then, after frisking him, I jumped him to the desert, in the foothills of El Solitario.
He fell to his knees when I released him. I walked ten feet away from him and sat on a rock.
He was looking around, his eyes squinting in the bright sunlight. “How do you do that?”
If my mind hadn’t been on Millie, I might have found his expression amusing. “Where’s Brian Cox?”
“Huh? In his office, I suppose. Did you try him there?”
“Where is his office?”
He hesitated a moment. “Well, he’s listed in the Government Directory. I guess I can tell you. He runs his own little show out of the Pierce Building, over by the State Department.”
“He’s not at Fort Meade?”
“No. NSA has offices all over the place. What did you do with Barry?”