Now that it was done, Guerrero relaxed and lit a cigarette. He smiled sardonically as he reflected again on how much more complicated the public---including writers of detective fiction---imagined the manufacture of a bomb to be. In stories he had read there were always elaborate mechanisms, clocks, fuses, which ticked or hissed or spluttered, and which could be circumvented if immersed in water. In reality, no complications were required---only the simple, homely components he had just put together. Nor could anything stop the detonation of his kind of bomb---neither water, bullets, nor bravery---once the string was pulled.
Holding the cigarette between his lips, and squinting through its smoke, D. O. Guerrero put some papers carefully into the attache case, covering the dynamite, clothespin, wires, battery, and string. He made sure the papers would not move around, but that the string could move freely under them. Even if he opened the case for any reason, its contents would appear innocent. He closed the case and locked it.
He checked the cheap alarm clock beside the bed. It was a few minutes after 8 P.M., a little less than two hours to flight departure time. Time to go. He would take the subway uptown to the airline terminal, then board an airport bus. He had just enough money left for that, and to buy the flight insurance policy. The thought reminded him that he must allow sufficient time at the airport to get insurance. He pulled on his topcoat quickly, checking that the ticket to Rome was still in the inside pocket.
He unlocked the bedroom door and went into the mean, shabby living room, taking the attache case with him, holding it gingerly.
One final thing to do! A note for Inez. He found a scrap of paper and a pencil and, after thinking for several seconds, wrote:
I won't be home for a few days. I'm going away. I expect to have some good news soon which will surprise you.
He signed it D.O.
For a moment he hesitated, softening. It wasn't much of a note to mark the end of eighteen years of marriage. Then he decided it would have to do; it would be a mistake to say too much. Afterward, even without wreckage from Flight Two, investigators would put the passenger list under a microscope. The note, as well as all other papers he had left, would be examined minutely.
He put the note on a table where Inez would be sure to see it.
As he went downstairs D. O. Guerrero could hear voices, and a jukebox playing, from the greasy-spoon lunch counter. He turned up the collar of his topcoat, with the other hand holding the attache case tightly. Under the carrying handle of the case, the loop of string like a hangman's noose was close to his curled fingers.
Outside, as he left the South Side building and headed for the subway, it was still snowing.
PART TWO Chapter One
8:30 P.M. - 11 P.M. (CST)
Chapter One
ONCE MORE, Joe Patroni returned to the warmth of his car and telephoned the airport. The TWA maintenance chief reported that the road between himself and the airport was still blocked by the traffic accident which had delayed him, but the chances of getting through soon looked good. Was the Aereo-Mexican 707, he inquired, still stuck in mud out on the airfield? Yes, he was informed, it was; furthermore, every few minutes, everyone concerned was calling TWA to ask where he was, and how much longer he would be, because his help was needed urgently.
Without waiting to warm himself fully, Patroni left the car and hurried back down the highway, through the still falling snow and deep slush underfoot, to where the accident had occurred.
At the moment, the scene around the wrecked tractor-trailer transport looked like a staged disaster for a wide screen movie. The mammoth vehicle still lay on its side, blocking all four traffic lanes. By now it was completely snow covered and, with none of its wheels touching ground, seemed like a dead, rolled-over dinosaur. Floodlights and flares, aided by the whiteness of the snow, made the setting seem like day. The floodlights were on the three tow trucks which Patroni had urged sending for, and all had now arrived. The brilliant red flares had been planted by state police, of whom several more had appeared, and it seemed that when a state trooper lacked something to do, he lit another flare. As a result, the display of pyrotechnics was worthy of the Fourth