Hard Fall (46 page)

Having extracted the toilet paper from the crack in the door, Duncan unfolded it and read the message. From his perspective on the floor, as he rocked his head to look, the white smoke alarm mounted in the ceiling seemed about as far away as the moon on a clear night. It wasn't until he heard her scratching again that he saw the cigarette, and it wasn't until he took the cigarette from her and saw it burning that he realized what was expected of him. The moon, hell—it looked more like Pluto.

As he lay there thinking about it, feeling the impossible was being asked of him, the cigarette's ember spit fire and some ash floated to the carpet like fresh snow. Then he understood: He only had a few minutes in which to accomplish this. The cigarette was half burned.

He tried to carry it by pinching it between his knuckles, but with his hands his only means of propulsion, he resorted to sticking it into his lips, squinting away the smoke and hurrying to the bookshelf. By the time he had dragged himself to the bottom of the bookshelf, his eyes stung and he was coughing. He hauled himself up to a sitting position using the first few shelves. Now, the face of the bookshelf appeared to him a multicolored sheer granite wall stretching impossibly into a sky of white Sheetrock clouds far, far overhead.

Initially, he didn't think about the task before him as a series of pull-ups, which in fact was exactly what it was. Instead, he thought about the task in terms of the goal: to reach the smoke alarm before the cigarette burned out. With his mind focused on this end, he stuffed the smoking cigarette back between his lips, having taken a moment for fresh air, and began his journey, the dead weight of his legs following behind him like an old dog on a long leash. To him, the shelves were merely rungs to a ladder, and it didn't occur to him that by the time he reached Hemingway he had the equivalent of two complete pull-ups behind him. Fully airborne, and with two shelves to go, the smoke alarm suddenly seemed no closer, and it was then, as he placed his hands next to each other and began to grunt and heave, that it occurred to him that he couldn't do this. This was a pull-up and he couldn't do a pull-up. This consideration, which had the impact of a startling discovery, served to weaken not only the strength in his trembling arms but his resolve. Impossibility had no shades of gray, and for weeks he had proven this impossible.

But then again, he thought, if this was impossible, how had he climbed this far already? A quick glance down confirmed his substantial elevation as well as delivered another stream of stinging smoke into his eyes, which he huffed and blinked away and corrected by looking up again. If he could do two pull-ups, why not four? His father's voice spoke to him as clearly as if he were standing right there in the room with him:
The only way there is through
. Now Duncan understood. His attention had been on the smoke alarm, not on his own strength, his own weakness, not on his journey but his destination. Hot ash glancing his chin and falling like stones from the face of the mountain, he refocused his attention on that alarm, and drew himself up. His arms burned and shook like rubber, but he paid no attention. He pulled and strained and lifted himself another shelf higher. Victory was but a single shelf away. His fingers found it and he grunted loudly. Nothing could stop him now. His eyes crept past the final shelf and he snagged his belt on a shelf below. He had reached the summit.

With one hand craning him out toward the center of the room, the other waving the cigarette immediately beneath the vented grate of the plastic smoke alarm, Duncan took his first and last drag of a cigarette in his life, kissing the end as he had watch Carrie do, and drawing the smoke into his cheeks and down into his virgin lungs. He exploded into a ferocious cough, spraying out smoke and spit until the alarm disappeared in his cloud.

His fingers lost purchase and he fell.

Those few seconds of his descent seemed to him like long hours. He had no legs with which to brake his fall. In fact, his legs seemed more like anchors that only served to accelerate him. He had no chance to defend himself. His attention fixed not on the floor below him but on the smoke alarm overhead, where the results of his cough still swirled.

Then, like the buzzer sounding the end of the game, the shrieking electronic cry of the alarm split the air, signaling victory. This stole all of his attention. He hit the floor hard—too hard—headfirst.

It was only as he came to that he realized he must have blacked out, for above the shriek of the alarm he heard sirens in the distance. But he savored this moment of singular victory as no other. His neck hurt like hell, but the scream of the overhead alarm was sweet music to his ears.

No one charged through the door to silence it. No one came in to kill him. “Duncan! Duncan!” he faintly heard Carrie hollering from her side of the door. “You've done it!”

As Daggett turned onto the George Washington Memorial Parkway it became immediately clear to him not only that Lynn Greene would be delayed by unexpected bridge construction but that he, too, was about to slow to a crawl. Having left the congestion at the bridge behind, he focused instead on the snarl of vehicles up ahead and was reminded of the recent August afternoon when Bob Backman had lost his life. He wasn't driving a company car, so he lacked any form of communication, as well as a police bubble, both of which might have served him well, though he wasn't sure how. In a progression of events all too familiar to any urban driver, distances between vehicles shortened, as did tempers. A chorus of discordant car horns, like white-plumed steam whistles, vented some of this anger. Windows rolled down; heads leaned out. Brake lights flared, blinking in matching pairs, bleeding toward Daggett like a string of Christmas lights, as he, too, found his foot tapping the brake, continuing the chain reaction.

Traffic stopped.

The multicolored necklace, of which his van was but a single bead, lay dormant on the hot pavement, alive, impatient and anxious, restlessly surging forward but without any measurable progress. And whereas the last time he had found himself in this same predicament and had taken several minutes to make his move, this time he hesitated only long enough to force his van through gaps left by unwilling neighbors and onto the freshly mowed grass, where he subsequently abandoned it.

Of the thirty minutes he had given himself at the start of this journey, he now counted only twelve remaining. He had not gone for a run since the morning of discovering Duncan's abduction two days ago, and this painful reminder of his son's perilous condition served to lengthen his strides and increase his pace. He ran faster than he had in ages, even fully clothed as he was. Within minutes, he was jumping dividers and crossing lanes, precariously dodging the hazards of moving traffic, the industrialized section of the airport just ahead. He saw the sign for Federal Express. He saw
AVIS
and
HERTZ
. He high-jumped a low steel fence on the run, slapped a car on the hood as it nearly hit him, and ran against traffic. He could just make out the sign for Quik-Link Courier, a hundred yards away.

This time, when Kort examined the wind sock, high above the hangars, he noted with satisfaction that it, too, reflected the change in direction he had first observed out at the gatehouse. Monique, with her position as a vice-president of In-Flite, was to have escorted him onto the field through one of the four vehicle entrances to National's tarmac. Knowing that she had been a subject of the FBI's investigation, he could only assume that those at In-Flite would be well aware of the chaos she had caused, and would more than likely detain her for authorities were she to show herself there. However, as she had been quick to point out, at National she was something of a fixture with the gate guards, coming and going as many as several times a day. The possibility that the FBI would have contacted the subcontracting security companies at both airports seemed slim, especially given Kort's “death” the night before. Nonetheless, the possibility remained, and so, as she drove up to National's remote east gate, Kort's hand remained fixed to the butt of his weapon.

“Hi, Charlie,” she said, rolling down her window. Kort unfastened his seat belt and prepared to use the weapon. Monique stopped him with a casual touch.

“New car, Miss Cheysson,” he said.

“Mine is in the shop.”

“Even so, you don't have a sticker.”

She handed the guard Kort's guest identification tag and he looked it over, handing it back. “He's okay. But I don't know about the car,” he said. “You're supposed to have a sticker.”

“What should I do? Do you have the authority to look it over, or do I have to check with Airport Police?”

Kort delighted in her choice of tactics. Resentments and jealousies ran high between the various subcontracted security agencies and the ubiquitous Airport Police, who oversaw, but did not directly manage, all security subcontractors. By challenging this man's authority, she forced him into a decision.

“Let me have the keys to the trunk,” he said.

She turned toward Kort and smirked. The guard popped open the trunk. As he did, Monique slipped out of the shoulder restraint, leaned forward, and grabbed Kort's flight bag. She quickly unzipped the bag and placed the fire extinguisher between the bucket seats, in plain view. Charlie slammed the trunk shut and came around the car, peering into the back. When he reached the front and looked past Kort, he said, “What about that?”

She replied, “For one of our trucks.”

Apparently satisfied, he came around the front of the car and leaned down on one knee. Kort was thinking how simple it would be to run him over. A moment later he entered the guard booth and lifted the phone.

“What now?” Kort asked.

“He probably has to get permission from his people, but at least we kept Airport Police out of it,” she said in a self-congratulatory tone.

It was only then that Kort realized the guard was all alone in the booth. He pointed this out to Monique.

“That happens now and then. They must take turns going to the bathroom or something.”

“I don't like this phone call,” Kort said.

“Be patient.”

“He's not even talking. What if he's stalling?”

“He's not stalling. He's getting permission.”

“There's nobody out here. I can take him out.”

“Have some patience.”

“I don't like the way he's looking at us.”

“Please!” she scolded.

Kort looked around quickly. They were at the far end of the field, a good quarter-mile from the center of activity. The nearest building had something to do with maintenance for one of the shuttle companies and it was at least fifty yards away. He didn't like this phone call. He had plenty of patience, but this was taking too long. “Something's not right,” he said. “He's stalling.” He climbed out of the car. She leaned across the seat and grabbed for him, but missed. He checked the immediate area one last time. All clear. “Excuse me, sir,” he said. Charlie the guard was just hanging up the phone.

“You see,” Monique said conspiratorially, still leaning toward Kort but seeing for herself that Charlie was off the phone. “Get back in here.”

“Miss Cheysson,” the guard said, viewing Kort somewhat suspiciously. “If you'd just back it up and pull it over there, please. The line's still busy. I can't get through, and I've got to get an authorization number before admitting your car onto the field.”

Kort put the first and only bullet necessary into the man's nose, taking a piece out of the back of his head and knocking him down as if he were made of cardboard. Monique barked with horror but quickly controlled herself. Kort hurried to the guard booth. He hit the switch that opened the red-and-white-striped boom and waved Monique through. He stuffed the body inside, tripped the switch again, lowering the boom, and slid the booth's metal door closed. He took one step toward the Toyota, reconsidered, and tried the plastic sign that was framed on the front of the booth.
PLEASE HAVE IDENTIFICATION READY FOR GUARD
, it read in big bold print. It moved. He slipped it out of its frame and flipped it over.
GATE CLOSED
. He returned it to the frame, ducked under the boom, and joined her.

She drove away at an incredible speed.

“Slow down,” he said. “No need to attract attention.”

Her lower jaw was trembling. “They'll find him.”

“Maybe not for a while. These are the chances we take.”

“And how do
I
get back out, please?
You
have the mechanic's identification. You can slip out without any problem—”

“Anyone can slip
out
without a problem. It's getting in that's the problem.” He placed the fire extinguisher back in the bag, and removing the coveralls from it, slipped them on. He clipped Boote's ID crudely to his pocket, though he faced the man's photograph against his chest so that only the backside of the ID showed. Identification tags, especially on baggage handlers and mechanics, often ended up clipped on this way, hastily returned to clothing after falling off. “Park it over by the terminal somewhere. You've got your ID. You can get out any door you want.”

“You shouldn't have done it.”

“We're fine. Five minutes is all I need. We're going to lose the car, so we'll meet at the Pentagon Metro stop in one hour.”

That turned her head. “What, are you kidding?”

“I want to see my work,” he said, motioning for her to pull over. The tailfin of the huge 959, with red-white-and-blue letters spelling
QUIK-LINK
, lay waiting for him, twenty yards to their left. It was scheduled for takeoff in a matter of minutes.

Daggett arrived at the entrance to Quik-Link Couriers out of breath and in a full sweat, his watch showing less than five minutes of his estimated thirty remaining. To his frustration, he found himself in the midst of a shift change, at the back of a long line of fresh employees stretching from the company's self-provided security check-in. He quickly broke out of the line and reached the bottleneck, where employees were individually showing their ID tags to either one of the two guards who manned the station. Daggett removed his ID and allowed it to hang open.