8

Nervously, 1). 0. Guerrero lit another cigarette from the stub of his previous one. Despite his efforts to control the motion of his bands, they trembled visibly. He was agitated, tense, anxious. As he bad earlier, while putting his dynamit,,- bomb together, be could feel rivulets of perspiration on his face and beneath his shirt.
The cause of his distress was time-the time remaining between now and the departure of Flight Two. It was running out, remorselessly, like sand from an hourglass; and much-too much-of the sand was gone.
Guerrero was in a bus en route to the airport. Half an hour ago the bus had entered the Kennedy Expressway, from which point, normally, there would have been a swift, fifteen-minute ride to Lincoln International.
But the expressway, like every other highway in the state, was impeded by the storm, and jammed with traffic. At moments the traffic was halted, at other times merely inching along.
Before departure from downtown, the dozen or so bus passengers-all destined for Flight Two-had been told of their flight's

delay by one hour. Even so, at the present rate of progress, it appeared as if it might take another two hours, perhaps three, to get to the airport.
Others in the bus were worried, too.
Like D. 0. Guerrero, they had checked in at the Trans America downtown terminal in the Loop. Then, they had been in plenty of time, but now, in view of the mounting delay, were wondering aloud whether Flight Two would wait for them indefinitely, or not.
The bus driver was not encouraging. In reply to questions, he declared that usually, if a bus from a downtown terminal was late, a flight was held until the bus arrived. But when conditions got really bad, like tonight, anything could happen. The airline might figure that the bus would be held up for hours more-as it could beand that the flight should go. Also, the driver added, judging by the few people in the bus, it looked as if most passengers for Flight Two were out at the airport already. ThaL often happened with international flights, he explained; relatives came to see passengers off, and drove them out by car.