PsyCop 6: GhosTV (7 page)

“Detectives,” she said pleasantly, and she led us to the special express-lane I’d seen pilots using.

I got to go through the pilot door. Cool. I did my best to look grim, since cool guys take special treatment like that as a given.

The guards at the pilot door had a different demeanor to them than the regular guards. Most of the airport security seemed robotic and terse, like they were having a bad day, and that bad day had begun in 2002. But the express-lane guards were relaxed. They made eye contact. They smiled.

I figured they had seniority.

Jacob and I showed our service weapons and they didn’t even flinch.

We were on the list. It was expected.

Our luggage went through an X-ray machine, though we weren’t asked to take off our shoes, not like the woman in the sun hat with the beach-ball figure who was struggling to get back into her sandals ten yards away from us. “Looks like rain,” one of the guards said to Jacob, who glanced out the window and said, “Could be.” And of course neither of them gave a shit—it was more like a macho-guy way of saying, “I’m okay, you’re okay.”

In the regular-people line, more passengers scrambled in their stock-ing feet to capture their luggage from the stream that poured out of the X-ray machines, and to make sure no one else dipped into their basket of car keys and change.

A female guard handed Jacob his carry-on with a smile. Jacob stacked the garment bag on top, and my carry-on emerged. The guard handed it to me—same smile she’d given Jacob. Like she thought I was cool.

I’d caught a glimpse of us walking together in the chrome, the glass, and the mirrors. I was having a good hair day, finally. And we did look cool. Both of us.

We strode together toward the door that led to the terminal, and I felt like maybe together, Jacob and me, we could get ourselves to PsyTrain, kick some ass and take some names. Or at least figure out where Lisa was.

But then a noise rose above the crowd murmur, radio crackle and conveyor belt hum—a whine—and I turned to see a couple of airport security guards who’d been talking to each other without a care in the world, now startled, with a German shepherd between them scrab-bling at the linoleum. The dog let out another high-pitched whine.

It was looking right at me, ears pricked, tail wagging.

The whole group of guards on the VIP line who’d been smiling, chatting, acting like human beings—every one of them froze.

“I left the Florida Water at home,” I told Jacob. “I swear.” The biggest VIP guard caught up to us in long strides while we’d paused to see what the noise was about. “Detectives, if you could step over here.”

“I’ll bet he smells the gunpowder,” Jacob said, low in my ear, as we turned to face the guards. “Their sense of smell is incredibly accurate—a thousand times better than a human’s.”

We walked back to the guard station, pulling our carry-ons behind us.

I didn’t feel nearly as cool anymore. The German shepherd’s tongue lolled out, and he pranced in place beside the handler, who was holding the leash short. The dog’s toenails skittered against the floor.

“Sorry for the delay,” said the woman who’d smiled at us. “We’ll just need to check your carry-ons.”

Jacob said, “It’s probably our service weapons.”

“Detective? Please, place your luggage on the counter.” Jacob draped our garment bag over the counter, and he and I both hoisted up our carry-ons. The dog whined again. Its big brown eyes were trained directly on my face.

“I should probably take off my sidearm,” I said, figuring that obviously Lassie would be more interested in the gun than me if I separated the two of us.

The female guard picked up a clipboard and started scribbling into a form. “Do you have any substances to declare?”

“Substances.”

“Medications, pills, inhalers?”

“I’m getting out my wallet,” Jacob told the now-alert guards as he pulled out his badge. He reached behind the shield and pulled out his tiny paper PsyCop license and handed it to the big guy. “We can’t miss our flight.”

I patted down my pockets to see if maybe a stray half-tab of Auracel had stuck to the lining. “I have prescriptions…but not on me. I checked them in.”

The big guard cleared his throat and the other guards looked to him.

He cut his eyes meaningfully to Jacob’s PsyCop card. I wondered if it would help if I added that I had one of those, too.

The female guard looked from the tiny white card to her clipboard, and back to the card again. The guards, all four of them, were so still, I don’t even think they were breathing. I know I wasn’t.

“Sorry for the delay,” the woman said, once she’d weighed the pros and cons of detaining us. “Please make your way to the ter—” The dog woofed. Its tail was going like a windshield wiper cranked to the highest setting, and it stared at me as if I had a giant T-bone steak for a head.

“Drop it,” the handler said, quietly, even though there was nothing to drop. The dog touched its ass down to the flooring, then stood right back up again, gave a piercing whine, and started digging like it was trying to put a hole right through the linoleum.

The handler looked to the woman with the clipboard for guidance.

She blanched, pulled out her two-way, and said, “Code sierra bravo at Terminal 2.” Those weren’t police codes. I would’ve recognized those.

Indiscernible words crackled back. She glanced at us, then looked away fast. “Clearance nine. Yes. Over.”

The tension between the guards was thicker than day-old coffee.

They must have all understood the static—and they seemed to be communicating solely with their eyes. The big guy positioned himself between Jacob and the door to the terminal and said, “Sorry for the inconvenience. We’ll need you to step in back. The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll get you on board.”

Jacob pitched his voice low and casual. And he didn’t fool any of us.

“Start what?”

“It’s procedure,” said the big guard. “Not you,” he glanced at Jacob’s badge, “Detective Marks. But him.” He nodded at me.

“This way,” the guard with the clipboard told me. When I moved to follow her—because what else could I do?—the dog strained toward me and started doing a tapdance. The click of its claws on the floor sounded like a high-powered nail gun sealing my coffin.

“Listen,” I whispered to her, “I must’ve picked up some kind of smell in the evidence room.”

She glanced at me, but didn’t offer any words of encouragement.

“I’m a PsyCop too,” I went on. “I’ve got a card. If I show you my card, can I go catch my flight?”

“Before you do anything,” Jacob was saying, “let me call my sergeant and see if we can straighten this out.”

I heard the big guy tell him, “It’s procedure…” as the woman led me through a thick metal door into a windowless office with more doors on three sides. The walls were blue. My scalp began to prickle with sweat.

Here I’d been worrying about ghosts at the airport. Who knew I’d be revisiting Camp Hell at the security station?

“Place your weapon and your cell phone in this locker,” the guard told me. I didn’t want to, but what else was I gonna do, shoot her and then call an ambulance? “A security specialist will meet with you in room three. Step in, remove your clothing, and place it in the marked tray.”

“You’re not serious.”

“It’s procedure.”

“You can’t strip-search me,” I said. But a sick feeling in my gut told me they damn well could—because of the Patriot Act, and Terror Level Orange. Because of that fucking dancing dog.

If I’d thought it would help me to fall to my knees and implore the guard, in the name of everything that’s right and good—mom, baseball and apple pie—to take a few steps back and let me out of that damn room…I would’ve done it. In half a second. But that look in her eye, flat, closed-down—I’d seen that look too many times to count on the faces of the nameless, rotating orderlies at Heliotrope Station.

Nothing personal, man. Just doing my job.

The panic attack had Heliotrope Station all over it, no doubt, but the thought of being strip-searched threw the panic right off the charts.

The notion that had my uvula quivering and my gut clenched up like it’d just taken a sucker punch was this: I can’t deal with you strangers seeing me naked.

“Non-compliance is a federal offense,” the guard told me.

“I need to call my lawyer.” I didn’t have a lawyer, but the Fifth Precinct had one, didn’t they? I’d call Sergeant Warwick, that’s what I’d do.

And he’d figure it out.

“Look,” she said in a hushed voice. “We’re being videotaped. If you have something to declare, do it now. It’ll all go faster if you start cooperating—and maybe we can even get you on the next flight.”

“But I’m not not-cooperating. I don’t have anything on me.”

“Put your sidearm and your phone in the locker. Please.” I flipped open the phone and hoped my panicky brain hadn’t scrambled the location of my memory-dials.

“Detective,” the guard said, “if you do that, then procedure dictates we physically restrain you. Save us—and yourself—the embarrassment. The quicker we search you, the quicker you’re out of here.” Physically restrain? I’d thought I was panicked before, but now I actually couldn’t have told you Warwick’s memory dial—or my own phone number, for that matter.

My hand was shaking when I placed my phone in the locker. Great.

I’m sure that made me look totally innocent. While I wasn’t so crazy about putting my Glock away, I knew the chances of me getting shot by security (and their “procedure”) had to be less if I was unarmed.

The guard showed me to a room. My brain was in overdrive trying to find Camp Hell connections—blue wall…blue wall…blue wall—but the room smelled different, felt different, which kept me from totally losing it. I heard Stefan’s voice in my head, counting me down, calm and relaxed, deep and melodic, reassuring me that I was in the present, and Krimski couldn’t hurt me. And I knew it was bad if I was dredging up memories of goddamn Stefan for comfort.

“A federal agent has been summoned,” the guard told me, “and there won’t be any female guards present.”

And that was supposed to make me feel better?

Fuck.

There was a built-in bench along one wall of the windowless room, and that was it. Not even a hook to hang my clothes. Even though my shirt was stuck to my back with sweat, I left my jacket on, sat down on the bench and jammed my face between my knees. The little black motes dancing at the corners of my vision didn’t subside, but they did stop swarming toward the center.

A big part of me wanted to just go along with the airport guards, because I’d survived this long by going with the flow, letting my body be incarcerated, sleep-starved and drugged, but not my mind, never my mind. What’re they gonna see? A skinny naked guy. So fucking what?

That’s how I tried to talk myself into complying with them. Only I wasn’t twenty-three anymore. And I just couldn’t do it.

Time expanded for me. I could’ve been sitting there for hours with my head between my knees. Days. Weeks. Only some small part of my brain, some bundle of neurons that still had a sketchy sense of temporal reality, told me it was more like minutes.

There was a tap on the door. I looked at it, baffled. Someone was knocking? Worse—it was a “shave and a haircut” knock. I stared at the sturdy metal doorknob—sure that it was just some kind of fucked-up coincidence, that my battered brain had heard it wrong—and I waited for it.

Two bits.

The doorknob turned.

A man in sunglasses and a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up let himself in. At first I figured they’d dragged some pothead out of line and accidentally stuffed him in the same room with me. Then he slid his mirrored shades down his nose, and I recognized his eyes. Con Dreyfuss, the FPMP’s head honcho of the Midwest.

“I wondered if you’d actually strip or not.” He plunked down on the bench beside me, dug a small bottle of water out of his pocket and offered it to me.

I stared at it like he was handing me a live snake. “Who’re you supposed to be? The Unabomber?”

“Whoa. It takes a guy with major cajones to say the word ‘bomb’ at an airport. But both you and I know you’re a lot pluckier than you let on.”

“How’d you get here so fast?”

“I’d tell you…but then I’d have to kill you.” He said it with a big, cheesy smile…which didn’t really reassure me. “Listen, Bayne, you’ve had a few months to read up on exorcisms. Tell me—how’s it going?”

“It’s going.”

“Uh-huh. I thought as much.” Dreyfuss peeled off his wraparound shades and dangled them between his bent knees. “The HVAC system is still on the fritz in my office. Cold spots. I’m thinking that maybe now that you’ve brushed up on your medium skills, you could convince the causes of said cold spots to vamoose.”

“You can’t talk to them. They’re repeaters.”

Behind Dreyfuss’ easy smile, his eyes grew hungry. I recognized that look from Jacob, who got very still the minute I started talking ghost, in hopes of not spooking me out of finishing my thought. When Dreyfuss saw I had nothing more to say, he waved the water bottle at me, as if maybe I’d somehow managed to not see it. I ignored it.

He shrugged, cracked the seal, and downed it in a few pulls. Then he said, “You’re pretty calm, cool and collected for a guy who’s about to have some stranger rooting around for drugs in his rectum.”

“Haven’t you heard? I’m a faggot. I get off on that kind of thing.”

“I can dig it—when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” I stared at a spot on the wall.

“You know your plane’s boarding right now,” he said, “right?” I’ve never ground my molars, but I was tempted to start. I planted my elbows on my knees and pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. Ahh. “What is it you want, anyway?”

“Just making sure you’ve got a good overview of the situation. That right now, you’re stuck here in the bowels of Terminal 2—while who-knows-what is happening to your friend out in California.” I stopped pressing on my eyes and glanced sideways at Dreyfuss.

When the sparklies dissipated, there he was, looking at me. Dead serious now. I said, “What do you know about Lisa?”