Cost of Life (7 page)

Hayley navigated them through the airport's choose-your-own-adventure maze of inroads until they reached the short-term parking deck. There they encountered further difficulty, as the police had, with red-orange traffic cones, cordoned off much of the usable space. At the epicenter of this police zone, a forensics team was working its scientific magic on Larry Walder's Audi. There were four technicians in all—two documenting the German car's exterior and two combing through its interior.

The maze deposited Hayley and Xana a good football field's length away from the airport terminal. Together, the two women traipsed across the hot pavement, past row upon row of sedans, motorcycles, SUVs, and all manner of hybrids in between, toward the ramp leading down to the street level. The area of demarcation was, by design, well out of their way…but Xana steered them there nonetheless, coming to a stop not far from the fence of red-orange cones. If she couldn't drink—lest she end up behind bars—and she couldn't smoke—lest she end up killing the intern—a third distraction would have to suffice.

“What do you see?” she asked Hayley.

“What do I see?”

“Inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning. You want to work in intelligence? Tell me what you see.”

“I see a car.”

“Be more specific.”

“I see a parked car. A car involved in a crime. An expensive car.”

“So what doesn't fit?”

“What doesn't fit?”

“Tell me what you see,” Xana repeated. “I'll give you thirty seconds.”

Xana crossed her arms. The summer sun was beginning to cook the parking garage, and no wonder, for what was it but a slab of cement cluttered with steel? She longed for the A/C of the airport, but she needed a minute or two more out here in the fresh air. Once she was inside, there would be no easy escape. Nearly every restaurant in the airport commissary sold booze, and sure, she had full faith in her ability to shake off her teenage chaperone and slink to Houlihan's or something and down a few shots of—what—yes—Johnnie Walker Red, no rocks, straight up, served in a bottom-heavy scotch glass…

“OK,” said Hayley. “I think I've got something.”

Xana wiped a ball of sweat from the dark hair of her brow. “Go for it.”

“OK. A police officer pulled over this car and the driver—or someone else inside the car—shot the police officer and drove off. We're here because one or more of the people who was in the car is being detained and that person doesn't speak any of the twenty-four common languages in daily use at the airport so they brought you in to translate. So: How did I do?”

“You overheard about the shooting already, didn't you?”

“I can't help it. I like to pay attention to details.”

Xana gently clocked Hayley upside the head and then added with a smile: “Brat.”

“But there are a few things that don't make sense. Like—why did they park here? Why not park in the employee lot?”

“That actually is a very good question.”

“Really?” Hayley blushed. “Thanks. Actually—”

But she was interrupted by one of the traffic cops, who yelled out to them: “OK, ladies. This isn't a spa. Get a move on!”

Xana once again swallowed her God-given belligerence and strolled peacefully with Hayley toward the North Terminal.

Aside from the TSA, security at the airport was provided by a full division of the Atlanta Police Department, and they were headquartered on the third floor of the North Terminal. This APD substation was accessible via one of several inconspicuous elevators; Xana and Hayley took the one nearest to baggage claim, both of them noting—not for the first time—the array of giant ants stuck along the ceiling, a sculpture project someone with a bizarre sense of humor had approved.

On its busiest days, like the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Hartsfield-Jackson had more people per square inch than anywhere else in the country, but on this morning, on the Fourth of July, the foot traffic at 8:47
A.M.
was minimal. Xana and Hayley got off the elevator on the third floor and headed straight to the glass-walled substation and to the dumpy, cheery receptionist behind the counter.

“Hi,” said Xana. “I'm the FBI translator.”

The receptionist checked her computer. “Honeydew Marx?”

“Xanadu Marx.”

“See, I
thought
that was what they said, but it
couldn't
be, am I right? Guess I was wrong.”

“Yeah.”

“So somebody's parents were really into Olivia Newton-John, am I right?”

Xana was not amused.

“Right,” said the receptionist, flustered. “I'll, um, let Lieutenant Dundee know you're here.”

They took a seat on a wooden bench.

“Do you get that a lot?” Hayley asked Xana.

“Yeah.”

“Does it bother you?”

“Yes.”

“I'm not a fan of my name either. I don't even know why my parents named me Hayley. It's not like it's a family name or anything. I think they enjoyed the sound of it. So what's, like, the hardest language you ever had to learn?”

“Silence.”

“Ooh, profound.”

“Want me to teach it to you?”

Hayley opened her mouth to respond, then understood Xana's subtext, then shut up.

Shortly thereafter, they were joined by Lieutenant Elvis Dundee and his lackey for the day, Officer Angelika Chiles. Both were in uniform. Lieutenant Dundee was paring a red apple with a Swiss Army knife.

“Well, what we've got here is genuine celebrity,” Dundee declared, sliding an apple slice into his mouth. “Welcome.”

Xana and Hayley stood up.

“We get our share of famous folk here at the airport, as you might expect, they don't impress me. I'm not easily starstruck. Am I easily starstruck, Officer Chiles?”

Officer Chiles shook her head. She was carrying what appeared to be a remote control with a short hollow antenna.

This, Xana knew, was no remote control, and that was no antenna.

“When I heard that it was
you
that the Bureau was sending, I almost floated out of my boots, because for weeks—weeks!—you were all that I talked about around here. Isn't that right, Officer Chiles?”

Xana glared at the device—the Breathalyzer—and then at Lieutenant Dundee. “Is all this really necessary?”

“Necessary? No. But if you're going to be working with this department, you need to be vetted. Open wide.”

Xana gritted her teeth—and then parted her lips in an O. Chiles slid the straw end between her lips.

“Pretend you're whistling. ‘You know how to whistle, don't you, missy?' ” said Dundee. “ ‘You just put your lips together and blow.' ”

Sucking down her tears of humiliation, she blew into the straw while Chiles glanced at the digital readout.

“Boy, I am glad the detective working this particular homicide is off counseling the victim's family and you get to spend this time with me. I am a glad, glad man. You see, missy, for the longest time, you were all I talked about, because here's the funny thing. That house you struck—you know whose house that was? Of course you do. But I bet you don't know who at that very moment was in the house right next door with his kids…although I'm sure you can guess…just like I'm sure you can guess how traumatic a thing like that could be to a six-year-old and a four-year-old, the nightmares that they would have—all full of the noise of steel smashing into brick—but what a comfort it is to know you're back on the street.”

“Oh, she didn't drive here,” said Hayley. “I did.”

The girl then puppy-smiled for approval at Xana—but by now Xana's eyelids were shut. Lieutenant Dundee wiped the knife clean on a napkin from his pocket. “So what's her score, Officer? Does she pass or does she fail?”

“Zero point zero,” Chiles replied, and removed the device from Xana's mouth. “Clean and sober.”

Of course Xana knew she'd test negative—she hadn't so much as licked a drop of anything stronger than Coca-Cola in months—and yet, hearing those words, that confirmation, lifted a weight of stress off her shoulders such as she had not felt in a long, long time. She opened her eyes. She exhaled.

Dundee, however, didn't appear the least bit relieved. “Come on.” He scowled and led them through the sparsely populated main squad floor first to his bland metal desk, into the top drawer of which he placed his folded knife, and then to a bland metal door labeled
INTERVIEW.

“You, teenage chauffeur,” he said to Hayley, “sit.”

He then turned to Xana. “You, these are the rules, and they are to be followed or your ass is gone. Got me?”

“Lieutenant, if you can make my ass vanish, I'll kiss you.”

Officer Chiles was unable to conceal her grin.

Lieutenant Dundee soldiered on:

“First rule is this: You only speak when it is to translate what either Officer Chiles or I have said to the prisoner or what the prisoner has said to us. You do not add commentary. You do not add your two cents. You don't even introduce yourself.”

“In case he's heard of me too?” asked Xana.

“Missy, whoever told you that you were funny owes you a sincere apology. Now rule number two is this: You are not to approach the prisoner in any way. He may whisper to try to get you to lean in. Don't lean in.”

“Can I lean back? Like if I get a cramp or something?”

“Listen, bitch, a good police officer is dead and—”

“She gets it, Lieutenant,” said Chiles. “This isn't her first rodeo. She knows the stakes.”

At which point Xana quietly nodded, Dundee huffed out his exasperation, and then he opened the door to the interview room, where it took Xana eight seconds before she spotted the barcode tattoo on the thug's neck and then, recognizing with horror what the tattoo signified, promptly broke Lieutenant Dundee's Rules #1 and #2.

“Flight attendants,” said Larry, “prepare for landing.”

The runway at the given coordinates appeared to be little more than a dirt road in the middle of an orange grove, but Larry trusted his abilities and experience in executing a safe short-field landing. This was not the problem. The problem was that, in landing the plane, Larry would have to use both of his hands, and this meant putting down the gun he currently had trained on his fire-eyed number two, Reese Rankin.

Larry flicked a switch and engaged the landing gear.

“You don't have to do this,” said Reese.

“I don't have a choice.”

“Because of your family? Buddy, have you even stopped to consider the fact that they might already be dead? Don't get me wrong—I hope they're alive—but from what you just told me, are these the kind of people you can take at their word?”

Larry gritted his teeth. He had expected resistance—but hearing his own insecurities parroted back to him did nothing to steel his resolve. And then there was the intercom, buzzing every few minutes for the past half hour, reminding him that on the other side of the steel cockpit door was a flight crew desperate for—and deserving of—answers.

“You're going to get that, skipper? 'Cause it's only a matter of time before the crew starts panicking—if they haven't already. In our business, no news is actually bad news. I'm surprised they haven't started banging on our door.”

“They're professionals.”

“Right. Because professionals never lose their shit. Look in a mirror much?”

“I—”

“You don't think they have a right to know what their situation is?”

“I don't know what their situation is!” Larry growled back. “I was told to bring the plane here. I don't even know where ‘here' is or what happens after we land. But if there's a chance—
if
there's a chance—that doing this will keep Marie and Sean from harm, then this is what I'm going to do.”

“Then do it,” replied Reese. “Set her down. By the way, when was the last time you performed a nonprecision approach with a fully loaded Airbus? Was it never? I'm guessing it's never.”

“If you're offering to help—”

“Help? Help what? Help you hijack a plane? Oh sure. That way, we can have adjoining cells at Guantánamo.”

The weight of a fully loaded Glock 17 was two pounds. Larry had had his aimed at Reese for thirty-three minutes now, and the tendons in his wrist were screaming. Oh, if only he could lay it down for thirty-three seconds…

If only he could lie down for thirty-three seconds.

“I'll tell you one thing, skipper. You pull that trigger and you better not miss. Can you imagine what a bullet through the cockpit glass would do to the air pressure? And wouldn't it be ironic if Marie and Sean survived the day but their father ended up in pieces at fifteen thousand feet?”

“Then I better not miss,” muttered Larry.

And he lowered the weapon and shot Reese in the left thigh.

“OW-JESUS-WHAT-THE-FUCK!”

Reese clutched at his perforated limb. Blood quickly seeped through the fabric of his blue pants and soaked his fingers.

As he tucked the gun between his back and his upright seat, Larry felt his wrist muscles sigh in relief. He shook away any residual cramps and with both hands angled the plane into its final descent.

Back in the main cabin, the overall decorum could best be described as disoriented. Aside from one or two passengers who had their sleeping pills to thank for their placidity, the crowd was buzzing for answers.

“Are we out of fuel?”

“Are we heading back to Atlanta?”

Marco and Maria Ortiz, Seats 23A and 23B, had no such concerns. This was their seventh trip flying this particular route. Their daughter Conchita had landed a straight-out-of-college job as an animator at Cartoon Network, located in midtown Atlanta, and since it kept her too busy to return home, Marco and Maria visited her as often as their combined pensions could afford. Seven visits over two years. They had gotten to know the people at Pegasus Airlines quite well and they had nothing but the best faith in them. If the airplane was descending, there would be an excellent reason.

Not everyone aboard was as clearheaded.

For example, there was aged Erskine Faulks, whose seat near the left wing afforded him the authority to declare with both lungs: “I think the left wing's on fire!”

Within seconds of his proclamation, dozens crowded his and other nearby windows to behold the fiery spectacle of their doom.

“That's not fire. That's the sun reflecting off the metal.”

“Are you sure?”

The airplane shifted downward into a deep cloud. Erskine's fire did not follow.

“What's going on?”

“Why won't you tell us?”

“Are we going to crash?”

Lucy Snow and her troopers were doing their best to mollify the mob with empty promises like “Nothing's wrong” and “Everything's going to be fine” but the fact of the matter was that something had to be wrong and if something had to be wrong, everything was not going to be fine.

“Please.” Lucy took to the speaker. “You must return to your seats and fasten your seat belts. Failure to comply with these air traffic regulations will result in a federal fine.”

That last bit was bullshit, but she sold it well, and the passengers nervously obeyed her command. Meanwhile, she tried again to patch in to the flight deck.

Larry ignored her.

Five thousand feet. Four thousand feet. Thirty-five hundred feet.

He hated this lack of information just as much as everyone else, but his primary concerns were about the landing. Would the runaway wind conditions even be manageable? For all he knew, he was flying into a sea-level gust that would wallop them into the trees.

Meanwhile, Reese bayed like a hound dog.

Larry checked the attitude indicator and the airspeed and began to pull back on the throttle. And he prayed.

He wasn't the only one. Near the back of the main cabin, Murray Bannerman, lapsed Jew, surprised himself with his word-perfect recitation of the Shema. One seat behind him, Leticia Morgan murmured the Lord's Prayer.

Frank Brown simply shook his head in confusion. How could this be possible? He was on his way to meet his soul mate. What kind of God would tease him like this?

Teenage Davey Wood thought about his funeral, and not for the first time.

Twenty-five hundred feet. One thousand feet.

The starry round tops of the citrus trees would soon be within tickling distance.

Five hundred feet.

One hundred feet.

The treetops prostrated themselves before the mighty Airbus. Oranges bounced against one another like bells.

Fifty feet.

Larry tugged on the yoke and raised the nose of the plane twelve degrees. As soon as he felt the wheels touch earth, he eased back on the thrust lever.

The seventy-five-ton aircraft scudded and skimmed along a dirt path at a brisk hundred miles an hour. Its wings smacked through countless leaves and branches and dislodged countless more oranges. The oranges smacked against the sides of the airplane, smeared against the windowpanes. Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump! It was a hailstorm of oranges, cannonballing from all sides. Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump! Oranges bowled into the engines and burst. Oranges fell to the ground and rolled-rolled-rolled into one of the two deep and muddy gorges the airplane's wheels were gouging into the soil.

Far up ahead—but not far enough up ahead—sat a large barn. Larry eased his foot down on the brake. The airplane's ground speed dropped to double digits, but this makeshift runway just wasn't long enough. No amount of skill count surmount Newtonian physics. They were going to hit the barn and they were going to hit the barn soon.

What Larry hadn't calculated for, though, was the possibility that the barn doors would yawn open, which they did, revealing a cavernous interior aglow with klieg lights.

This was no barn at all. This was a hangar.

Four sun-kissed men in dingy custodial uniforms stood by the hangar doors, having hefted them ajar, and four additional men, similarly attired, were perched inside the hangar behind the magnificent lights.

Reese's braying, which had diminished to an intermittent moan, now became intelligible words:

“You're going to let them lock us in there like cattle, aren't you, you son of a bitch?” He then spat out grunts of anguish. “You're going to let them cage us, you bastard?”

By now most of Reese's trouser leg had darkened with blood. The bullet may have nicked the femoral artery, and if so…

“Reese…I'm so sorry…as soon as we're stopped, I'll…I'll make you a tourniquet and…”

“Fuck you and fuck your tourniquet.”

Fine.

Larry rolled the plane into the hangar.

The plane came to a stop.

The barn doors creaked shut behind them.

If not for the anti-glare coating on the cockpit glass, the glow of the klieg lights would have blinded them. As it was, Larry still had to squint as he unlocked his safety harness, quickly tucked his Glock into the waist of his slacks, and snagged the first-aid kit from the wall. He set the kit on his seat and pulled out a coil of gauze and a spool of medical tape.

Reese's gaze set on the grip of the gun.

Larry leaned toward Reese and unrolled the gauze.

“Everything's going to be all right,” he assured his copilot. “I'll make things right.”

Reese lifted a bloody hand from his thigh. His wet-red fingers danced toward the Glock.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Someone was pounding on the cockpit door—in waltz time, no less.

“Captain Walder,” called the old man, “would you be so kind as to open this for me? I want to congratulate you face-to-face on an exemplary landing.”

Both Larry and Reese paused, momentarily distracted.

And then Reese dived for the gun.