Dortmunder and the Major strolled away down the long corridor overlooking customs, with the duty-free shops on one side of the corridor and on the other side the railing where people can stand and look down at their returning relatives and visiting foreign friends being degraded.
The Major said, "Dortmunder, Talabwo is a poor country. I can get you some more money, but not two hundred thousand dollars. Perhaps fifty thousand, another ten thousand per man. But we just couldn't afford any more."
"So you figured this doublecross from the beginning," Dortmunder said.
"I won't lie to you," the Major said.
Back in the main waiting room, Prosker was saying to the three black men, "If we take off in four different directions, they won't dare shoot."
"We don't want to die," one of the black men said, and the others nodded agreement.
"They won't shoot, damn it!" Prosker insisted. "Don't you know what Dortmunder's up to? He's going to take the emerald away from the Major!"
The black men looked at one another.
"If you don't go help the Major," Prosker said, "and Dortmunder gets that emerald away from him, you'll get worse than shot and you know it."
The black men looked worried.
"I'll count three," Prosker said, "and on three we'll take off in different directions, then all circle around and go down that way after Dortmunder and the Major. I'll go back and to the left, you go straight ahead, you go at an angle to the left that way, and you go right. You all ready?"
They hated it, but the thought of the Major in a bad mood was even worse. Reluctantly they nodded.
"One," Prosker said. He could see Greenwood sitting behind a copy of the Daily News way over there. "Two," he said. In another direction he could see Kelp. "Three," he said, and started to run. The black men went on standing there a second or two longer, and then they began to run.
Running people in an airline terminal tend not to be noticed very much, but these four had started so abruptly that a dozen people looked after them in astonishment. Kelp and Greenwood and Murch looked after them too, and then all of a sudden they started running, toward one another, for a quick conference.
In the meantime, Dortmunder and the Major were still walking down the corridor, Dortmunder trying to find an unpopulated corner in which to relieve the Major of the emerald and the Major talking on at great length about the poverty of Talabwo, his regret at trying to dupe Dortmunder, and his desire to make amends to the best of his ability.
A distant voice cried, "Dortmunder!" Recognizing it as Kelp's voice, Dortmunder turned and saw two of the black men pelting his way, bouncing customs-oglers left and right.
The Major thought he was going to join the track team, but Dortmunder closed a hand on his elbow and locked it there. He looked around, and just ahead was a closed golden door marked "No Admittance" in black letters. Dortmunder pulled, the door opened, he shoved the Major through and followed him, and there they were at the top of a grimy gray staircase.
The Major said, "Dortmunder, I give you my word-"
"I don't want your word, I want that stone."
"Do you think I'd carry it?"
"That's exactly what you'd do with it, you wouldn't let it out of your sight till you were home free." Dortmunder pulled out Greenwood's revolver and shoved it into the Major's stomach. "It'll take longer if I have to search your body."
"Dortmunder-"
"Shut up and give me the emerald! I don't have time for lies!"
The Major looked in Dortmunder's face, inches from his own, and said, "I'll pay you all the money, I'll-"
"You'll die, damn you! Give me the emerald!"
"All right, all right!" The Major was babbling now, caught up in Dortmunder's urgency. "You hold on to it," he said, pulling the black plush box from his jacket pocket. "There won't be any other buyers. Hold on to it, I'll get in touch with you, I'll find the money to pay you."
Dortmunder snatched the box from his hand, stepped back, opened it and took a quick look inside. The emerald was there. He looked up, and the Major was jumping at him. The Major jumped into the barrel of the gun, and fell backward dazed.
The door opened, and one of the black men started in. Dortmunder hit him in the stomach, remembering that they'd just eaten, and the black man said, "Phooff!" and bent over.
But the other black man was behind him, and the third wouldn't be far away. Dortmunder turned, emerald in one hand and revolver in the other, and raced away down the stairs.
He heard them following him, heard the Major shouting. The first door he came to was locked, and the second one led him outside into the chill darkness of an October evening.
But outside where? Dortmunder stumbled through darkness, rounded a corner, and the night was full of airplanes.
He had gone through the looking glass, past that invisible barrier that closes half the world to unauthorized personnel. He was back where the planes are, in pockets of bright light, surrounded by darkness punctuated by strips of blue lights or amber lights, taxiways, runways, loading zones.
And the black men were still after him. Dortmunder looked to his right, and passengers were disembarking from an SAS plane over there. Join them? Except that he would look a little strange at customs, with no passport, no ticket, no luggage. He turned the other way and there was darkness, and he ran into it.
The next fifteen minutes were hectic ones for Dortmunder. He kept running, and the three black men kept running in his wake. He was all over the territory reserved for airplanes, running now on grass, now on a taxiway, now on gravel, jumping over marker lights, trying not to silhouette himself too clearly against the brightly lit areas and also trying not to get himself run down by a passing 707.
From time to time he saw the civilian part of the airport, his part, the other side of a fence, or around the corner of a building, with people walking and taxis driving along, but every time he headed that way the black men angled to head him off and keep him in the flat open exposed area.
And now he was getting farther and farther away from buildings, bright lights, all connection with the passengers' part of the terminal. The runways were dead ahead, with the long lines of planes waiting their turns to take off. An Olympia jet would take off, followed by a Mohawk twin-engine prop plane, followed by a pop singer's Lear jet, followed by an ancient two-seater Ercoupe, followed by a Lufthansa 707, the monsters and the midgets one after another, obediently taking their turns, the big guys never shouldering the little guys out of the way, that being done for them in the control tower.
One of the planes waiting to take off was a Waco Vela, an Italian-built, American-assembled single-engine five-seater with an American-made Franklin engine. At the controls was a computer salesman named Firgus, with his friend Bullock asleep across the back seat. Ahead of him was a TWA jet, which trundled into place at the head of the runway, roared and vibrated a few seconds, and then began galumphing away like Sidney Greenstreet playing basketball. Till it became airborne, at which point it also became graceful and beautiful.
Firgus drove his little plane forward, out onto the runway, and turned right. Now the runway stretched ahead of him. Firgus sat there looking at his controls, waiting for the tower to give him the go-ahead, and regretting the chop suey he'd had for dinner, and all at once the right-hand door opened and a man with a gun got in.
Firgus stared at him in astonishment. "Havana?" he said.
"Just up in the sky will do," Dortmunder told him and looked out the side window at the three black men running his way.
"Okay, N733W," the tower said in Firgus's earphones. "Cleared for takeoff."
"Uh," said Firgus.