I hit the gas and Jennifer clawed at my waist, almost falling off the back. When she was seated again I said, “Get the tablet up. Where’s the phone?”
She fiddled with it a bit, waiting on the 3G connection to lock, then said, “He’s no longer at the warehouse. He’s on the move. Coming down the tarmac.”
“Are we going to pass him?”
She studied the track, which wasn’t real-time. There was a delay, forcing her to predict. “Yeah, he’s driving north. We’ll hit him when we make the turn toward terminal two.”
Vehicles were passing us left and right, but so far nobody thought it odd that a baggage cart was riding two-up with a man in the front, without a uniform, and a chick on the back looking like she was going to a motorcycle rally.
We rounded the corner, passing terminal two, and Jennifer said, “He’s here. Right here.”
I started looking back and forth, seeing vehicles from pickups to fire-rescue, all with Filipinos driving. We’d both seen Bayani’s picture, but it was hard identifying the drivers at speed.
Jennifer jerked my arm, “There! Right there. The guy on the Gator.”
I looked and saw a man driving a four-by-four vehicle with a bed in the back. Something that looked like a cross between an ATV and a golf cart. I continued forward and focused on the face.
That’s him.
He was approaching at an angle, and I went through options. We were out on the tarmac, so any action would cause a reaction from the official folks who worked the airport.
Unless you make it look like an accident.
I veered toward the Gator and floored it. He saw me coming and tried to avoid the accident, but I anticipated and caught him turning right. I slammed into his left rear tire at the relatively slow pace of about fifteen miles an hour, throwing us both forward. I started cursing immediately, pointing at him and waving my arms.
He studied both of us, his eyes seeing things that I’d hoped to hide. He grabbed a black Cordura nylon bag and took off running. I leapt out of the saddle, hitting the ground and feeling my thigh scream.
“Jennifer, get him!”
She was already on the pavement, running flat out. I followed as fast as I could, hating my damn wound and willing Jennifer to take him like she had Chase. I needn’t have worried.
She caught him, clamping an arm on his shoulder. He wheeled around, shouting and swinging a fist. She ducked and nailed him underneath the chin, dropping him flat out. She was searching him by the time I got my gimpy leg to the fight. I went to the bag. And felt the fear spread at what was inside.
Chapter 9
It was a bomb. But not just any bomb. An improvised explosive device with a barometric trigger, set to fire at thirty thousand feet. Designed to remain inert until the aircraft crested that altitude, with the unpressurized cargo hold causing the death of everyone aboard. At first, I breathed a sigh of relief, because the cargo holds of all commercial aircraft were pressurized, just like the passenger section. Then I remembered where he worked. What he did for a living. He would know that, which meant he’d found a way to emplace it into a section of the plane that wasn’t pressurized.
And there was only one.
I turned to Jennifer, seeing she’d subdued Bayani by holding him on the ground with a joint lock. I strode over to him and said, “Where’s the other one?”
He said nothing. I leaned in and punched his face. “Where’s the fucking other one?”
He shouted in Tagalog.
I grabbed the arm Jennifer held, telling her to back off. I began to work it against the joint.
“You’re done. The only thing remaining is whether you get to use this arm in prison. Where is it?”
He screamed but said nothing. I felt the time ticking, wondering if there was an aircraft now floating to earth in pieces. I cranked again. “Where the fuck is it!”
Jennifer shouted. “Pike, I’ve got his phone. He’s got text messages in it with flight numbers.”
“What are they?”
She ran to me and I couldn’t believe what I saw.
“Jesus Christ, that’s our flight.”
I looked at my watch, seeing it was ten o’clock. “Damn. It’s on our plane and that thing is taking off right now.”
I scanned the field, seeing a multitude of aircraft, one leaving the confines of earth into the sky.
I dialed my phone. “Johnny, where are you?”
“Entering the airport. What’s the status of the target?”
“He’s down, but there’s a flight leaving with a barometric IED on it. Set to thirty thousand feet. We have to get that plane down.”
I heard him curse before coming back on. “Pike, how are we going to do that? We can’t bust in like the Lone Ranger. It’ll burn the Taskforce. There’s no way to explain how we know.”
What he said was correct. We were about to demolish an enormously complex and diverse counterterrorism apparatus and destroy a few political careers in the process. But there were probably two hundred souls on the aircraft that would appreciate the gesture.
“Fuck the Taskforce. Get to the tower. Contact that plane before it leaves radio range of Manila. Before it reaches thirty grand.”
I watched the contrails of the jet and wondered if I was going to see a fireball. Jennifer said, “Are we good?”
“No. We’re bad all the way around. That plane is probably going to explode. And bring the Taskforce down with it.”
Jennifer said, “Let’s get to the tower. The plane won’t reach thirty thousand for at least twenty minutes.”
“What, are you an airline pilot now?”
“My dad was. Remember, I know about such things.”
That was true. A few years ago, when we’d first met, we were being chased by the Transportation Security Administration inside the Atlanta airport because of mistaken identity. Jennifer had provided the way out using a Delta pilot’s lounge she knew about because of her father. I dropped Bayani’s arm, jumped on our tractor, and fired it up. He remained on the ground, wondering if the gift he was seeing was real. It was, and I’d kick myself if it ended in disaster and he was allowed to go free. I had no other choice.
We raced across the tarmac as fast as the tractor would go, finally alerting the authorities that something strange was going on as we crossed an active runway, wide-bodied jet captains screaming into their radios. I saw lights on vehicles and wondered how long it would take to get the plane to level off once I got someone with an official radio.
We might make it.
Behind me, Jennifer leaned into my ear, “Pike, tell them we’re Department of Homeland Security. Tell them we’re on the trail of a terrorist. Let the Taskforce clean up the mess.”
I kept driving, saying, “Department of Homeland Security? They’ll see right through that. Those guys do nothing overseas.”
I swerved around a pothole and she wrapped her hands around my chest. “Jesus. Watch where you’re going.”
I straightened out and she said, “Nobody knows what DHS does. Not even them. It’ll work. Make it out like we’ve tracked him from the States. It’s a Delta flight. A U.S. flag carrier. Just don’t let them see a passport. Nothing about Grolier Services.”
Yeah, that would be a little hard to explain. An archeological firm running around the airfield chasing terrorists.
I saw an SUV headed our way, lights spinning on top, and called Johnny, relaying the weak-ass plan. Before hanging up with him I said, “Just leave it bland. DHS all the way. When they ask questions, tell them you’ll answer after the threat’s gone. Get to a radio in the tower.”