Close Encounters of the Third Kind Read Online Free PDF Page B

on the floor, and took off.
    The first man picked up the pregnant lady, with many apologies, ascertained that she was all right, startled but otherwise okay, and took off after his friends. She remembered a small plastic card with his face on it, dangling from a thin metal chain around his neck.
    The first man caught up with his colleagues as they trotted through the security metal detectors. They all waved their badges on their little chains at the security personnel and were waved through. Now they started sprinting down the long corridor leading to the arrival-departure gates, as if to make up for lost time.
    But instead of running down to any of the gates, they suddenly skidded to a stop in front of a door marked only by a small number “6,” someone remembered later, and, without knocking, charged in.
    Seconds later, the front four reemerged, bringing with them three very bewildered FAA officials, wearing plastic photo IDs but having no resemblance to pro-ball players. They were angry, and getting angrier as the hastily assembled group crowded around the airport tower entrance, fumbling in pockets for a passkey.
    Aireast 31, a 727, had stopped for thirty seconds, waiting out some surface traffic. Now she was moving again, heading right for the docking area 55A. Suddenly 31 hit its brakes and lurched once before stopping. The nose wheel began to shift hard to starboard.
    Guiding the aircraft to the concourse was a ground attendant, his flashsticks frozen above his head. The jet continued to starboard. Anxiously, the ground attendant waved his flashsticks. “This way, over here!”
    A.E. 31, totally ignoring the signal, pivoted full around and headed for a private section of runway, with blue flashing dead-end lights.
    Helpless, the attendant let his sticks sag, then shrugged over toward the baggage boys, who were peering up at the control tower for signs of life.
    Meanwhile, in another part of the airport—unaware of the unseemly hullabaloo taking place—Lacombe, the proximate cause of it all, landed. His military jet taxied off a main runway to a little-used parking area and stopped next to a black Cadillac limousine. The twin jet engines screamed to a stop, the door opened, and the slight Frenchman stepped, quickly but not hurriedly, down the metal steps, across the concrete, and into the back seat of the Cadillac.
    In the front seat of the limousine were a government driver in military dress and a man dressed in a business suit. Lacombe, in his austere, controlled manner, waved aside all preliminaries about his trip, etc., and asked, “They are prepared?”
    “Yes, sir,” said the man in the business suit.
    The driver moved the limousine farther away from the passenger terminal to an area where freight was stored for trans-shipment. Four other cars were already parked there, motors running, headlights off. As the Cadillac pulled up in front of the others, a car door opened and a young man emerged and trotted over.
    He leaned in the front window next to the driver, and said, “Monsieur Lacombe?” It was Laughlin.
    Inside Aireast 31, the wilted passengers—too tired to complain any more and too relieved at having landed in Indianapolis at long last—watched bleary-eyed as the forward door was opened by a stewardess and six large men crowded up the movable stairs that had been pushed up to the side of the plane, through the hatch and into the compartment. Two of the men, in business suits, disappeared into the flight crew’s cabin while the other four—dressed in unmatching slacks, ties and jackets, their plastic badges dangling over their ties—stood by the open door and in the aisle, as though to block any exit.
    By this time, all forty-four passengers had become more curious than tired, when the next thing they saw was their pilot, copilot, radio man, and flight engineer leaving the cockpit under the escort of the two men in business suits. Those passengers able to look out the starboard windows watched