They moved carefully up the winding passageways with Paul Talbot securely strapped to the stretcher. He had opened his eyes a few times and had moaned once or twice, but other than those few indications his body appeared ominously lifeless.
"Do you think he'll make it?" Janet Holbrook asked after she had let the men carrying the stretcher get far enough ahead to guarantee that Talbot would be out of earshot.
"Can't say. Not for sure." The ever-present smile on Benny Randolf's round and puffy face had faded. He fidgeted with his bow tie, then looked back to where Janet stood. "I know a little first aid, that's all. His injuries are way out of my league."
"Take a guess." Drew O'Brien put his hand on Benny's shoulder. "I heard you say that you've seen wounds like that during the war."
"That was forty years ago." Benny shrugged. He knew that he was evading the issue because he didn't want to say what he already suspected. "Not good," he finally added after a long silence. "The fact of the matter is that everyone I saw with wounds like that eventually died."
"Damn." O'Brien began to walk up the corridor slowly. The others followed. He had nearly reached the base of the next set of steps when James Westcott rushed down the steps toward him.
"I told you this would happen," Westcott said, out of breath. "We were lucky as hell that no one else got hurt."
"Yes, we were. Lucky as hell." O'Brien tried to turn away and climb the stairs, but Westcott stepped in front of him.
"That answer is not good enough. You've got to do something to prevent anything else from happening." Westcott swept his arm around him in a gesture meant to point at the knot of passengers who milled around the Yorktown's corridors. They were working their way back to the hangar deck, as O'Brien had instructed them to. "I hear them talking. They don't know when they're well off. They want to try to start the ship's engines again in a half-baked idea of trying to ram the submarine. Some of them want to try to launch an attack on that submarine with a small boat. It's all crazy." Westcott wrinkled his nose in a gesture of deep disapproval. "We've got control of the ship, that should be enough." If we launch an attack, the defense attorneys will call it an act of provocation and recklessness. Then I'll have an uphill battle in court. "You've got to stop that sort of talk."
"If we left it up to you, we'd still be locked in the hangar bay and be at the mercy of that gang of madmen. Is that what you want?" Janet surprised herself by coming forward and speaking before O'Brien had answered, but she couldn't help herself from doing it. For the first time in her life she felt an urge that translated to mean that, if she were bigger and stronger, she would have taken a swing at the obnoxious man in front of her. "Is that what you want?" Janet repeated scornfully.
"Don't get flippant with me, young lady." Westcott turned from her and faced O'Brien again. "The point is, if you had followed my advice that old man would still be unharmed."
"But not for long." Nat Grisby walked slowly down the stairway to join the other three at the base of the corridor. When he reached the spot where they were, Grisby turned and glared openly at Westcott. "I thought attorneys knew enough to wait until all the evidence was in before it was time for the verdict."
"Now wait a damned..."
"What's up?" O'Brien asked as he interrupted Westcott's objection. He pointed up the stairwell where the group carrying the stretcher had disappeared.
"A great deal." Grisby edged forward, then positioned his body in such a way that he spoke with his back facing Westcott. "The old man came around long enough to tell me a few things. Before he released the boiler steam to do away with that fellow he called Yang, he had evidently confirmed again the fact that the terrorists intend to kill us at dawn whether or not they received the ransom payment."
"You can't believe what the old man says, he's delirious." Westcott rocked back and forth on his heels, as if he were standing in front of a courtroom bench addressing a judge and a jury.
"The old man was perfectly rational." Grisby ran his fingers through his bushy beard, then turned back away from the attorney again. "As we already knew, the airliner was carrying a great deal of gold in its cargo compartment. The terrorists have that gold onboard their submarine, which is sitting several hundred yards to our left." Grisby gestured toward the blank gray steel wall of the ship's corridor, as if the submarine would be plainly visible in that direction. "At dawn, they intend to sink the Yorktown as they begin their escape, just like the old man told us when he first came to us."
"Yes." O'Brien rubbed his hand nervously along the edge of the stair handrail. "I've been thinking about that. At first, I didn't believe him either — but now I do. We have to assume that the terrorists are serious about sinking us at dawn because, either way, they would win."
"Why do you say that?" Janet asked.
"Because it makes sense, in a perverted sort of way. They come out of this with either twenty-five million or thirty-five million, depending on whether or not the ransom is paid. The twenty-five million is probably enough to satisfy them, so the extra ten million is overtime pay. Besides, for all they know of the current situation, some of the men we overpowered might still be alive. If they left us free and those men were turned over to the authorities, they would probably know a great deal about the people onboard the submarine — more than the people on the submarine want anyone to know."
"I told you we shouldn't do this!" Westcott kicked his foot loudly against the side of the staircase. "We've captured their people, so now they'll need to kill us!" He didn't believe that line of reasoning for a minute since his own courtroom experiences had convinced him that criminals were big talkers and little else — nothing but brainless buffoons with big mouths.
"Shut up, for Christ's sake." Grisby shook his hand threateningly at the attorney. "You don't know what you're talking about. According to the old man, the terrorists were going to kill us anyway."
"They wouldn't," Westcott retorted.
Grisby frowned at the attorney, then turned away. "But the big news," he began again as he faced O'Brien, "is that the old man. .."
"Talbot."
"... yes, Talbot, he says that he's got an idea for our escape. It's our only chance, he says."
"What is it?" O'Brien stepped toward Grisby. He could feel the press of Janet's body behind him as she, too, moved closer.
"He's very weak. I told him to wait, to save his strength until I got you over to listen."
"Let's go." O'Brien led the procession by taking the steps ahead of him two at a time. He turned quickly down the new corridor, just in time to see the men carrying the stretcher work their way through the hatchway that led to the hangar deck. In just a few seconds more O'Brien had joined up with them. He motioned for the men carrying it to put the stretcher down on the hangar deck floor. He knelt beside Paul Talbot. "Can you hear me?" O'Brien asked in a low, steady voice as he placed his hand gently against the old man's arm.
Talbot slowly opened his eyes. For several seconds he looked up at the man who hovered over him before he began to speak. "Yes," he finally said in a low, thin voice. "I hear you — we have almost no time left."
"I know. What's your plan?"
"There." Talbot picked his arm off the stretcher and, with a trembling hand, pointed toward the rear of the hangar bay toward the B-25. "That's a real airplane... not an exhibit. It was donated two years ago. They flew it into Charleston. We hoisted it on a barge to bring it to the Yorktown." Talbot laid his arm back down. He coughed once, the sound of the fluid in his lungs now unmistakable. "Engines are real... all we did was drain the fluids." Talbot closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them up again. "We have gasoline and oil in the storage tanks beneath the workshop... you can clean the plugs... put in a battery from the tractor... it should be able to fly."
"We'll never get everyone into that thing!" Westcott had shouted out his interruption so quickly that most of the crowd had missed the old man's last few words. "I, for one, do not want to entertain any idea that benefits only a handful of us," Westcott added as he addressed the crowd that had circled around where the old man lay on the stretcher. "It's crazy. Totally crazy." Westcott turned away, as if his words had been the closing argument on the discussion. Several of the passengers began to agree with Westcott as they looked first at the old man on the stretcher, then across the hangar bay toward the World War II twin-engine bomber.
"Too small to carry us," the man next to Westcott said. "No good."
"It's also too big to get off the carrier. It's a land-based bomber," another man from the group chimed in.
"Wait." O'Brien held up his hand for silence. The murmur of the crowd died away. "He's trying to say something else." Except for the sounds of the old man's labored breathing, the entire hangar bay had become silent again.
"Not true... it can fly... from the Yorktown." A sudden attack of coughing seized Talbot and it caused him to rock his head back and forth.
"Lie back. We'll talk later." O'Brien shook his head in sympathy as he tried to soothe Talbot. He reached down to readjust the blanket that lay across him.
"Is there any chance that it might work?" Even as he asked, Grisby looked skeptical.
"No," O'Brien said.
"That's what I figured."
"You figured right." O'Brien sighed with resignation, he had hoped that something in the old man's idea would be useful. "Even if we managed to get the B-25 to be flyable again — a job that, in itself, might be possible — we couldn't get more than a dozen people into it." O'Brien scanned the faces of those who stood around him. "We've either got to do something as a group or not at all. We can't spend time on a plan to get only a small percentage of the people to safety. It stands to reason that as soon as we flew off the deck, that would be the submarine's signal to sink the Yorktown and begin its escape. That would mean certain death to everyone we left behind." O'Brien heard the startled murmurs from the assembled group, but he had no intention of lying to them. They had gone too far together to be given anything but the hard truth.
"Don't forget that it's a land-based bomber," Westcott announced to seal the vote against the old man's plan. "I know for a fact that it wasn't meant to operate off an aircraft carrier."
"That's typical of what you know," Nat Grisby said curtly. "You're wrong again."
"What?"
"One of the most famous attacks of World War II was flown with B-25's — and off an aircraft carrier of the same class and size as this ship."
"I find that difficult to believe."
"The Doolittle raid on Japan. Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, or haven't you heard of it? They launched from the carrier Hornet — which happened to be the Yorktown's sister-ship." Grisby waved his hand toward the B-25. "Anyone who's old enough would remember that, or at least they should." Grisby watched as the older people in the crowd began to slowly murmur their recognition of the truth in what he had said. "If we got that airplane to run, we could get it off this ship. At least I think so. What do you say, Captain?"
O'Brien rose to his feet. He turned and looked at the B-25. "Probably." He knew that two years of dry storage would do nothing harmful to an airplane, that the machine should still be fly able. "We'd need to push the airliner overboard first to clear the deck, but that wouldn't be too much of a problem if we use the onboard tractor." Yet even while he spoke, O'Brien had begun to shake his head negatively. "But like I said before, the B-25 does us no good. We can't escape in an airplane far too small to do the job."
"What about the airliner — any chance of using it again?"
"Absolutely impossible." O'Brien looked up at the overweight, middle-aged man at the rear of the group who had asked the question. "For several reasons. The landing gear is broken away and, from what I recall, I think the left wing is cracked at the root. Even if the airliner weren't severely damaged, a jet that size couldn't get half of its required takeoff speed before running off the deck."
"Oh." The man who had asked the question looked down at the decking plates, embarrassed.
"But it was a good question," O'Brien added. He didn't want them to hold back ideas, no matter how silly they might sound. "Keep trying, maybe there will be something else we'll come up with."
"Listen to me... please..." Talbot had forced himself to open his eyes and focus on the pilot. He gestured weakly for the man to come nearer to him. When he had, Talbot raised himself slightly on one arm and, after coughing once to clear the mounting taste of bile from his throat, attempted to muster enough to say what was on his mind. "Not for flying people off... to attack... everything in here is real." Talbot gestured feebly around the hangar bay, toward the exhibit of torpedoes. "Build one torpedo from parts of the others... attack the submarine ... before they shoot."
"But we have no explosives. None of these torpedoes have any live explosives in their warheads." O'Brien kept his ear close to the old man's lips so he could hear his way out of that unsolvable dilemma, even though he knew there wouldn't be one. Putting together one usable torpedo from all the old relics on the hangar floor might be possible, but it wouldn't mean a damn thing without an explosive tip on it — something that an exhibit ship obviously wouldn't have onboard. Launching a non-explosive torpedo at the submarine would be the equivalent of throwing a pebble at an elephant.
Paul Talbot lay perfectly still for what seemed an eternity. Twice he opened his eyes slightly, but the pain and the fatigue from his wounds caused him both times to close his eyes again before he could speak. His head seemed to swim in giant, lopsided circles. The burning in his stomach was almost more than he could bear. But finally the sensations backed away long enough for him to open his eyes again. "Explosives." He had said that one word clearly. "You had them...Yang put them... somewhere..." Talbot's head fell back to the stretcher before he could add any more.
"We had them?" O'Brien stood up, puzzled. He turned to the others. "Does anyone know what he means?"
"I think he's delirious," Westcott hurried to add.
"I hate to admit it, but I think that for the first time I have to agree with the attorney." Nat Grisby glanced over his shoulder at the gloating smirk on Westcott's face, then back at O'Brien. "The old man isn't making sense anymore."
"You're wrong — he's making a great deal of sense." Janet Holbrook stepped up to where O'Brien hovered over Talbot. "Don't you see what he's saying?" She had begun to talk excitedly. "The explosives that the terrorists had planted on the airliner — they must have taken them off and hidden them somewhere on this ship!" Janet waved her hands in a widening circle. "Somewhere onboard the Yorktown is that last ingredient we need! We've got a bomber that flew as recently as two years ago, a stack of old torpedoes that we can combine to make one functional torpedo — and now some explosives to put inside!"
"But if they hid the explosives, we'll never find them. This is an enormous ship, and we've only got until dawn."
"That should be more than enough time." The man who spoke the line was one of the passengers. He stepped into the center of the group. Trailing a few feet behind him was his ten-year-old son — and the boy's dog. "Aquarius is a retriever. A damned good one." The man pointed to where the golden-colored dog sat on the floor at the boy's feet, her tail wagging slowly back and forth in a steady, rhythmic beat. "Michael and I trained her to do just the kinda' thing you're talkin' about."
"The dog can find the explosives?" Janet asked.
"That’s right." The man motioned for the dog, and it obediently rose to its feet and walked slowly toward him. "All we need is a sample of what we're huntin' for. Aquarius can sniff it out easy."
"I'm not so sure," Westcott said in a loud voice from the far side of the group he had moved to. "This isn't a duck hunt. A dog might not be any good at it."
"That's not true." O'Brien faced Westcott directly. "You're obviously not aware of the fact that security people at most airports use trained dogs for precisely that purpose — to comb a bomb-threat area for explosives."
"The odor of the explosives should be strong enough for Aquarius. She'll be able to tell if there's any in a room as soon as she goes in." The man reached down and patted the dog on the head, an act which caused her tail to begin to slowly wag again.
"We can take her to the airliner. She can smell the galley area where the first explosion occurred, that should give her the scent," Nat Grisby added.
"It sure would." The man turned to O'Brien. "What do you say, give it a try?"
"Absolutely." O'Brien rubbed his hands together enthusiastically. At long last they seemed to be getting somewhere. "Take half a dozen people with you. Do a patterned search, beginning at the forward end of the ship. It stands to reason that they'd put the explosives up forward to keep them as far from us as possible."
"Will do." The man snapped his fingers and the dog rose to its feet again, then began to follow him and the young boy as they walked rapidly across the hangar bay. On the way, the man picked several others from the dozens of volunteers that he passed.
"The rest of you, give me your attention," O'Brien announced after he was satisfied that the explosives-hunting group was headed in the right direction. "Let's get a few more assignments out. These are the working groups we'll need, so I want you people to decide for yourselves which ones you're best suited for." O'Brien scanned the faces of the men, women and children around him. For the first time in a long while he thought he could see a spark of genuine hope in their eyes. "To work on the B-25, we'll need people who know mechanics. If you're good with your hands and understand machines, gather over by the airplane." O'Brien watched as, one by one, twenty or so of the people on the floor hurried over to where the historic bomber sat in the hangar bay.
"Looks like we got a good number of mechanics," Grisby said with a relieved smile.
"Yes. That should be enough, as long as nothing is broken beyond repair." O'Brien hated himself for bringing up a negative factor, but he was trying to cover all bases. "Now, what else do we need?"
"Volunteers to get the airliner off the flight deck." Grisby looked around the group. He nodded toward the people who raised their hands. "That should be enough. Meet up on the flight deck above us — I'll be there in a minute."
Benny Randolf stepped into the inner circle and walked up to O'Brien. "I think the hardest job is going to be the assembling of the torpedo." Benny turned half-around to face the crowd. "I've got a little background with torpedoes from World War II, but I'm sure going to need help from knowledgeable people." Benny waited several seconds, but none of the remaining passengers raised their hands to volunteer to join him. "Come on, let's go, I need straight men for this act," he said in a singsong voice as he shuffled his feet in the opening steps of a comic dance. "Who wants to participate in our version of the torpedo follies?" Several people began to laugh. "This is no time for stage fright," Benny added with a smile. "If you've got basic mechanical knowledge, come over to my group — we'll be gathering together near that collection of torpedoes at the far end of the hangar."
"Please excuse me, but your torpedoes were very much different than ours," Takeo Kusaka said as he stepped up from the pack of passengers still left in the center of the hangar bay. The elderly Japanese man bowed slightly toward Benny. "If you will be kind enough to indulge my ignorance, I would be most pleased to assist in whatever way I might."
"Great." Benny put his arm on Kusaka's shoulder. The two of them began to head for the group of display torpedoes on the far end of the hangar. By the time they had gone no more than thirty feet, a couple of dozen other men and women had decided to join them.
"What about him?" Janet asked O'Brien in a low voice. She pointed to Talbot, his body motionless on the stretcher, his eyes tightly shut.
"We should get him out of here." O'Brien could easily read the pained expression on the old man's face. "Too noisy, too much activity around him."
"I'll pick a group to take care of it." Janet gestured toward several women who were standing close by. "Where do you want him?" she asked as the women came up to take charge of the critically wounded man on the stretcher.
"It doesn't make any difference. Someplace quiet. Out of the way — but someplace where the people with him can see what's going on." O'Brien thought it over for a few seconds. "Bring him up to the ship's bridge," he said to the group of women who had gathered around the stretcher. "He said earlier that he had been on the bridge when we landed. It should be relatively comfortable up there — and you'll be able to see what's happening." O'Brien knew that when the action began there would be no time left to retrieve anyone from the bowels of the ship. But he decided to cut his remarks off at that point since there was no need to get too graphic about the horrible possibilities that could lay ahead for them. "Any questions?" They had none, and he and Janet stood silently as the women picked up the stretcher and took Paul Talbot off in the direction that would lead to the Yorktown's bridge.
"Wait." James Westcott stepped out from behind the few people who still remained in the center of the hangar bay. "I have one question."
"What?" O'Brien waited patiently for the question, knowing full well it would be something he didn't want to hear.
"My question is, who, exactly, has designated you as our sole boss?"
"The airline." O'Brien looked Westcott squarely in the eye. "The flight you purchased a ticket on was under my command. By extension, the problems that have come from that flight are still my responsibility."
"I'm glad that you see it that way." Westcott took a pad out of his coat pocket and scribbled a quick note. "Your admission to responsibility — liability, actually — is a point worth making a note of. I'm only sorry that you didn't use more prudence in allowing those passengers," Westcott continued as he waved toward where Benny and the others hovered over the display torpedoes across the room, "to talk you into a senseless, dangerous course of action."
"I'm sorry you feel that way," O'Brien answered coldly.
"I do." As he spoke, Westcott noticed that the young Japanese man who stood on the periphery of the group a few dozen feet away was motioning discreetly to catch his attention. That young fellow was, as Westcott recalled, the assistant to the older Japanese man who had made that silly speech about perseverance a few hours before. Westcott turned back to O'Brien. "But I can see that nothing I say makes a damned bit of difference to you."
"I'm taking all factors into account before I make any decisions," O'Brien replied.
"Clever of you to say that, but we both know that it isn't true." Westcott continued to drone on to O'Brien, but his real attention was now focused on the young Japanese assistant. He hoped that this man wasn't foolish enough to ask him to help with their ridiculous torpedo project. The man gestured once more, then began to walk toward a hatchway on the other side of the hangar bay. "From this point on, I'll simply stand aside and watch you as you continue to jeopardize our hard-won safety." Without waiting for a reply, Westcott marched away from O'Brien and directly toward where the young Japanese man stood, alone, by the far hatchway.
"I bet he's a very successful lawyer," Janet said after the attorney had walked away. The tone of her voice left no doubt that she wasn't paying him a compliment.
"Forget him." O'Brien looked up at the B-25. "I'm going to climb inside the cockpit. I want to see if I can figure out how to fly it."
"Do you think it'll be very difficult?" The two of them began to walk toward the nose of the World War II bomber. "It looks like a vicious sort of airplane," Janet said. "Especially when I compare it to the little Pipers I usually fly."
"I hear that a B-25 can be a real tiger," O'Brien answered. "But I've flown a number of similar-sized airplanes in my career. I imagine I'll be able to keep it in tow."
"I look forward to watching you do it." Janet eyed him carefully, to see if he had picked up on her meaning. Obviously, he had not. "You'll need a copilot. I'm going with you," she blurted out after she could figure out no other way to approach the subject.
"No."
"Yes."
"It's too dangerous."
"Then it's too dangerous for you." Janet stopped beside him. "It's not any less dangerous being aboard the Yorktown — not if they torpedo it."
"They might not. You never can tell." O'Brien shuffled his feet nervously.
"Cut out that line of garbage. You and I both know that you're lying."
"Yes, I am." O'Brien ran his tongue across his dry lips. If this were any other time and place, he would have sorely wanted her company. In the short time he had known her, Janet seemed to be everything that most of the women he had met in his life had not been. But now was not the time — and this was certainly not the place. "I can fly it by myself. There's no need to have you with me." Against his better judgment, O'Brien found himself reaching out and placing his hand on her arm.
"That's where you're wrong." Janet motioned to the B-25, its flat-sided nose section only a few feet from where the two of them stood. "Except for our attorney friend, we all seem to agree that this torpedo attack might be our last chance. Our only chance."
"Yes, but..."
"So if it's our only chance, we've got to make it as complete a chance as we can." Janet took O'Brien's hand off her arm, but she continued to hold his fingers in hers. "Anything could happen. A stray bullet." She squeezed his fingers as she spoke. "But if you... fell unconscious," she said, half-choking on the words, unable to phrase it any other way, "then there would be no one left to fly the airplane, no one left to finish the attack. I might be able to do it — at least I'd have a chance."
"Are you sure?" O'Brien stepped closer to her, even more aware now of the tiny freckles on her cheeks, the richness of her smile, the gentle lines of her neck. "It's not going to be pleasant."
"Believe me, I know that." Janet laughed once, then looked back at his eyes. "I'm scared to death. That probably means that I realize how dangerous this really is. I can hardly keep my stomach down. But the bottom line is that if something... happened to you... then I might be able to finish the job. Everyone else in the group is doing what they can. I'm the only other pilot, even if I am a rank amateur. But my qualifications to be your copilot are far better than anyone else's in the group. I need to do my share."
O'Brien stood silently for several long seconds, his eyes roving over the drab fuselage of the old B-25. Finally, he turned back to Janet. "Okay," he said in a flat, emotionless voice. His forced tone was an effort to obscure how very much concerned he was over this decision, no matter how logical and inescapable it might have been. "Okay," Drew O'Brien said again. "You and I will fly the attack together."
<>
Shojiro Ichiki was not certain that the thing he was about to do was correct, but he was certain that it did indeed need to be done. As the American attorney walked up to him from across the hangar bay floor, Ichiki motioned to indicate that the man must remain silent but that he should follow. Ichiki turned and led the way into the interior of the Yorktown. In less than a minute they had reached a passageway that led below, and Ichiki began to descend the staircase.
"Wait." Westcott had called out in something between a whisper and a shout. "Where are you taking me? What's this all about?"
"Very soon. My English much limited. I must show you."
"Tell me first, there's no one around." Westcott scanned the gray, shadowy corridor that they stood in just to be sure. It remained empty.
"Too complex. But I agree, you are right. I will show you." Ichiki did not wait for the American's reply, but instead began to march down one passageway and then another, until they were on a lower deck three levels below the hangar bay.
"This has gone far enough. I'm not moving another damn inch until you give me an idea what this is about." Westcott stood his ground at the base of the stairs that they had just descended, even though the young Japanese man had continued to move quickly down the corridor ahead.
"Almost there." Ichiki waved his hand in rapid motions. "Much worth the walk."
"Where are we going, for chrissake!"
"To print shop. Very interesting information, you will enjoy very much." Ichiki turned and began to walk again, although he took the precaution to peek over his shoulder a few seconds later to verify that the American had followed. He had. After they had gone another hundred feet down the dimly lit corridor that led toward the Yorktown's bow, Ichiki stepped across the sill of the hatchway he had been looking for. "We are here."
"It's about damned time, I'll tell you that." Westcott stepped into the room quickly. "Now, what's this all about?"
"Do not move. I have gun."
It took Westcott a few seconds before he realized what the young Japanese man had said, and a few more seconds to verify the fact by looking down at the man's hand. Even in the low level of light that came from the single lightbulb in the corridor, the outline of the dark-metal pistol could be seen in the man's grip. "What's the meaning of this? Put that damned thing down. Where did you get it?" Westcott took one step forward, as if he intended to take the weapon from the Japanese man.
Ichiki raised the pistol. "I do not want to kill you, but I will if the need arises. Stand quietly."
Westcott froze in position. Blood began to rush to his stomach and for an instant he felt as if he might faint. In all his years of dealing with and defending criminals, he had never been on this end of a weapon. "What do you want from me? They've already taken my money." Westcott made a tentative motion toward where his wallet had been before the terrorists had robbed him but a slight movement from the barrel of the pistol stopped him.
"I will answer your question," Ichiki said. "I found this weapon on the dead body of the one terrorist I was instructed to search. I kept the weapon for myself, for solely this purpose."
"But what do you want from me?" Westcott repeated, his voice now pleading.
"You are a poison to the group. I have watched and listened while you have nearly changed the minds of too many of our good people. It is dangerous to leave you up there," Ichiki said as he gestured to the corridor down which they had come from the hangar bay.
"Don't be ridiculous."
"It is you who takes the meanings of things until they have become ridiculous. When my company's president, Mr. Kusaka, spoke against you hours before, what he had said was much true, yet you gave him no acknowledgment of that. It was then that I understood how dangerous you might become to group."
"This is nonsense. I've done nothing except point out the facts." While he spoke, Westcott continued to watch the barrel of the pistol. A few times the idea of rushing the young Japanese man crossed his mind, but his own deep-seated fear allowed that impulse to slide away before it had developed into a conscious plan.
"The courage of passengers from airline flight is thin covering over raw element of own fear." Ichiki spoke clearly and distinctly, his words reverberating off the enclosed space they stood in. "You, with sharp tool of words learned for that purpose in American law school, scratch too deeply in cover of our courage. That leave us exposed. I cannot allow that."
"You're going to kill me?" Westcott could hardly believe that those words had come out of his own mouth, yet the evidence of the pistol aimed at him was more than enough to show their validity. "Don't do it. Please."
"I will not kill you — unless you foolish enough in attempt to overpower me." Ichiki wondered for a moment what he would do if the man lunged toward him, since he had already emptied the bullets from the gun and left them hidden in the far corner of the hangar bay. Ichiki had done that to prevent any accidents, to prevent an accidental killing of either himself or the American attorney if there would have been a struggle between them. So far, his plan to remove this man from the hangar bay had worked very well, the bluff had worked. "Behind you is room that we have been in search for."
"What room?" Westcott spun around and read the stenciled labeling above the hatchway. His heart sank.
"Yes. Ship’s jail, which is marked as brig. There are five cells inside. Kindly step into one." Ichiki motioned with the unloaded pistol and was pleased to see that the American attorney had begun to step forward in compliance. "I will lock you in. Then I will sit out here with the key. If we are struck by a torpedo, I will immediately unlock."
"Why are you doing this to me?" Westcott's voice was quivering. He stepped inside the barred door of the first cell and watched as the Japanese man swung the lock shut.
"I know nothing of torpedoes or airplanes," Ichiki answered as he pulled up a chair and sat himself down across from the prison cell, the key to the cell in his hand. "But I do know of people. I know of courage. At this moment the people in group work very hard to complete their plan. This will be my contribution. It is in the hope that group will be successful in the fight for our lives."