…Minus 033 and COUNTING… The red second hand on his watch mad

Ben Richards watches time pass inside the damaged car and continues the bluff that he will detonate Dynacore unless Chief Hunter Evan McCone meets his demands. When McCone calls to him, Richards answers with a strict deadline, knowing he must keep playing the threat until McCone either yields or orders the Hunters to shoot.

McCone replies that the authorities need at least three hours because the proper aircraft is not on the field and must be flown in. Richards realizes Amelia Williams has repeated his false story convincingly enough to create doubt, even though the authorities almost certainly do not believe her outright.

Richards reasons that McCone is using the delay to break Amelia's account in private. Richards imagines interrogators isolating Amelia, pressing her with repeated questions, intimidation, possible drugs, or violence until she admits Richards has no explosive at all.

Richards refuses the request for more time and gives McCone only seventy-five minutes before threatening that everything will go up. The crowd, drawn by fear and excitement, begins creeping back toward the scene as spotlights illuminate the car and the broken windshield.

Richards hears a Lockheed carrier warming up beyond the terminals, then stopping, and concludes that fueling has begun. While the airport waits in tense stillness, Richards understands that every visible card has been played except whether McCone can expose Amelia's story before the deadline.