Sherry looked carefully around and behind him. There was no one close to him, and no one seemed to be forcing him toward the street.
What the hell are you doing, Sanders? she thought.
Rusty was clearing the outside door as Sherry started after him, trying not to be too obtrusive. Several people glanced at her as she hurried toward the same portal, calculating how long it would take to intercept him.
A skycap with a loaded baggage cart got in the way and Sherry had to wait for him to get by. She saw Rusty close to the curb, still moving at a rapid pace. She could see numerous cars waiting, but a black sedan in the second lane caught her attention. Its right rear door was being opened by a chunky woman with silver hair who turned around suddenly and looked in Rusty’s direction.
Sherry broke into a run and caught him before he stepped into the first lane. She swung him around to face her, aware that the silver-haired woman had turned to watch.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Sherry asked.
He was panicked. She could read the terror in his eyes.
“Rusty? What is it?”
He pulled away, trying to break her grip. “Get out of here, Sherry! They’ve got me.”
“Who? Who’s got you?” she asked, yanking him back around as he leaned in close to her right ear.
“That woman over there by the car. She injected me with a neurotoxin. She’s got the antidote in the car. Without it I’m dead meat in twenty minutes. I have to go with her.”
Rusty straightened up and looked at Sherry. He was breathing hard, and she saw his eyes glistening.
“Let me go, Sherry! Run—get out of here!”
They could both hear the sharp voice of the silver-haired agent over the traffic noise. “Last chance, Sanders!”
Instead of letting go, Sherry solidified her grip on his sleeve and almost yanked him off his feet toward the bright lights of the terminal as she snarled at him over her shoulder.
“Run! Now! FOLLOW me!”
She pulled him with surprising strength, and he followed reluctantly, then accelerated to keep up as she hauled him back into the terminal—aware that the other woman was standing and watching in disbelief by the curb.
They moved rapidly past the ticket counters and turned down a hallway. The elevator alcove they had used before loomed on the right, and Sherry pulled him into the hallway and through an open door into one of the airline offices where she flashed her badge at a secretary. “Got an office I can use for a few minutes?”
The woman looked startled.
“CIA. I don’t have time to explain.”
The woman nodded. “You can use this one. I’ll step out.”
“Don’t tell anyone we’re here, understand?”
The woman looked frightened. She nodded and left, closing the door behind her.
Sherry spun Rusty around to face her. He had been following in numb obedience, certain he was dead.
“Rusty, listen to me! You’re not going to die!”
“I don’t know what toxin that was, Sherry, but she said …”
“There isn’t any toxin! Did she use a syringe?”
He nodded.
“A sudden jab in the side or butt?”
“In my side.”
She was nodding. “I thought so.” She gripped his shoulders harder and shook him.
“Rusty, it’s an old trick, and a good one when you’re dealing with an amateur. That was water. Nothing but water! Glucose at worst. You’re not going to die!”
Rusty stared at her wide-eyed, not believing the reprieve.
“A … a … trick?” he stammered. “How can you be certain?”
“I was trained to do the same thing. That way she doesn’t have to march you out at gunpoint in front of everyone. Either you follow like a whipped puppy, or you die. The needle convinces you instantly. Clever as hell.”
He was nodding. A good sign, she thought.
“It sure fooled me!” he began. “That needle hurt. I thought I could feel the toxin beginning to work.”
“You’re a doctor. You understand psychosomatic symptomatology, right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
“Okay. That’s what you felt. You all right with this?”
“I suppose. It was such a shock!”
“I know it was! I had it pulled on me once, as a damn joke by another couple of agents. I believed them too! It was put out or no antidote.”
“They raped you?”
“Terrorized me. It was a stupid initiation game into the fraternal order of CIA spies.”
“You passed?”
“No. Women weren’t admitted. They just wanted me to think I was. You’ve heard of the glass ceiling.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I have.”
“So?” she asked, reaching up to hold his chin in the palm of her hand and looking closely at one eye, then the other. “We okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, “we’re okay. I’m not gonna die.”
She smiled. “At least not from that injection, you’re not.” She loosened her grip and looked around at the employee bulletin boards and other backroom paraphernalia, then back at him. “But if we don’t get out of here fast, they’ll be hunting us down with less sophisticated methods. I’ll bet grandma out there has already called for reinforcements. We’re in desperate trouble, Rusty, I won’t kid you. I’m not sure whether they’re trying to kill us or bring us in first, but either way, if they succeed, Jon will get away with mass murder.”
He filled her in on the CNN reports. She didn’t seem surprised.
“I suspected Roth would be named Director,” Sherry said, “but I didn’t figure on a clean bill of health for Flight Sixty-six. It could be a ploy to get Holland to surface.”
“I know. I thought of that. But even if it’s true, I’m sure Holland doesn’t know about it yet, either.” He looked at the floor and sighed, the image of the Quantum 747 unshakably in his mind’s eye.
“We might lose them still, you know,” Rusty said. “He’s out there, short one engine and still a target.”
Sherry Ellis had backed up against a desk, staring at the door as Rusty fell silent for a few seconds.
“We’ve got to expose Roth,” Rusty said at last. “He set that shoot-down attempt in motion, unless I’m missing something.”
“You’re not missing anything, Rusty,” she said, “you’re dead right.” She glanced at him and grimaced. “Sorry. Poor choice of words.”
Rusty began again. “That woman out there, the one with the needle, said they only wanted to talk to me. I’m sure she’s speaking for Roth. Is there any way that could be true?”
Sherry was still staring at the door. She looked up at him, finally. “It’s possible. But are you willing to gamble our lives?”
“We are a huge threat to him, aren’t we?”
“I wish we were,” Sherry said, “but you gave the only evidence we had against Roth to Jon himself. The disk.”
Rusty smiled suddenly and turned to face her.
“Wrong.”
Sherry met his gaze with a puzzled expression. “Wrong? Why? You have something I don’t know about?”
He told her about the hidden backup program and she stood away from the desk and grabbed his arm. “Really? It’s still there? You’re sure?”
“I can’t be absolutely sure until I can get into the computer, and I’m certain our access codes are locked out for now. But there’s no way they would suspect it was there. It’s in the personal files section, but not under my normal access code. I made up a new one to keep it secure.”
“But it is likely to still be there?”
He nodded.
“Okay!” She turned away, rubbing her chin. “Rusty, there’s one guy Roth doesn’t own. Jon’s always trying to manipulate him, but he’s nobody’s fool and he rides herd on the Company.”
“Who? Not the President?”
She sneered and turned around to look at him. “You kidding? That cream
puff? Putty in Roth’s hands. No, I’m talking about Senator Moon. Jake Moon of Arkansas. Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.”
“Moon’s a legend. You know him? Well enough to call him?”
She nodded. “I think I even know how to get his home number.”
Rusty hesitated, trying to focus on the date. “Wait a minute! The Senate is still in session. It’s that pre-Christmas filibuster. They’re trying to get finished for Christmas, but the loyal opposition won’t give up.”
“Which means?” she asked.
“Which means that Moon’s probably on the Senate floor, or in his office!”
There was a sudden burst of conversation outside the door to the hallway. Rusty instantly recognized the agent’s voice. With his finger to his lips, he grabbed Sherry by the elbow and propelled her through a door on the other side of the office just as the door behind them opened with a bang.
They were in a service hallway on the second floor of the terminal. There was a stairway to their right. They ran to it and took the stairs two at a time, finally emerging in a dingy hallway between airline operations offices. Sherry moved in front and yanked open the door to one of them, moving past two startled pilots gathering their paperwork. There was a cipher-locked doorway to the ramp beyond that had just been opened by an incoming agent. Sherry flipped her identification at him as they elbowed past. The startled man yelped but stood aside as they moved into a baggage staging area where several baggage tugs sat idling, each hooked to a train of baggage carts. Sherry jumped on the nearest one and motioned Rusty onto the seat beside her. She snapped on the headlights and jammed the machine into gear, lurching out of the garage with six baggage carts in tow and several startled baggage handlers yelling and chasing their runaway tram.
“Where are we going?” Rusty yelled.
“Delta’s ramp! Fastest way out.”
She pressed the gas pedal hard, ignoring the sounds of spilling luggage and yelled epithets behind her.
“How the hell do you know so much about this place?” Rusty yelled.
“Summer job with TWA, three years running in college. I was a ramper. You learn every nook and cranny!”
At the windows of the terminal above, two Company agents spotted the purloined baggage train speeding away from the terminal just as two more of their number emerged on the ramp below. The agents above saw their comrades hesitate, then head for the first idling vehicle they could see—a set of mobile airstairs set on a modified pickup truck body. The two jumped into the airstairs truck and roared off in chase.
A Boeing 757 with its bright taxi lights on loomed ahead of them and Sherry tried to steer the shortest course between the east side of the concourse and the north-south taxiway. Hanging on tightly, Rusty looked around and spotted the mobile stairs truck coming after them. Its headlights were on too, but he could make out the vehicle in the bright lights of the nighttime ramp. Sherry sped between the right main landing gear of the 757 and a fuel truck hooked up to the right wing of the aircraft, running over the refueler’s grounding wires in the process. The refueler jumped from his ladder in shock as the tug roared by, spilling baggage everywhere. The agent driving the mobile stairs truck had been closing on them, but he realized at the last second that his vehicle was too tall to go under the wing. He braked hard and lurched to his right, losing time as he maneuvered around the 757’s right wing and the fuel truck. Within seconds, however, the airstairs truck was back on a steady course after them and accelerating once again. Rusty could see the occupant of the right seat holding something out the window, something that had to be a gun.
Sherry steered close to the edge of the terminal arm and shot just behind a push-back crew shoving an MD-80 back from the gate. The tug driver looked thunderstruck as they passed, and Rusty could hear several ground handlers yelling at them.
The mobile stairs hadn’t appeared around the corner yet, but it would be just seconds before they did. The Delta Shuttle facility was just ahead, and Sherry jogged to the right suddenly, throwing Rusty into her lap as she tried to get around another moving baggage tug, whose driver hadn’t seen them. The other driver spotted her suddenly and slammed on his brakes while swerving to get out of Sherry’s way. His four carts tumbled over, scattering their baggage.
The control tower had belatedly spotted the errant baggage tug as it left the 757 and ordered all aircraft to hold their positions. Two more push-back crews and a taxiing 727 braked to a halt as a result. Rusty looked over his shoulder again and saw the mobile stairs emerge into the clear after passing around the MD-80. The driver had it floorboarded, and the unstable vehicle was rocking left and right dangerously.
Rusty heard the ping of a bullet striking metal, and the whirr of a ricochet past their ears, a hollow sound like some incredibly large hornet passing at high speed.
He turned to Sherry.
“They’re shooting at us!”
“Keep down!” she yelled, jerking the wheel left to use the baggage carts as a shield.
Another bullet whirred past their heads just as one of the instruments on the small panel of the tug exploded. The bullet, Rusty realized, had passed right between them.
A Delta 727 had braked to a halt short of its terminal in obedience to the ground controller’s orders. Sherry steered to the right suddenly as the three-engine jetliner loomed ahead. The baggage carts followed behind them, moving into position between the tug and the mobile stairs, now less than fifty yards behind.
“Hold on to something!” she yelled at Rusty.
“I am holding!” he yelled back at her.
More bullets hit the carts behind them. The shooting would have to stop as they neared the aircraft. Even for a team of renegade Company agents, there would be no salvation if they ignited an airliner full of passengers with a runaway bullet.
Sherry was aiming at a spot beneath the empennage of the 727 right under the tail skid, her foot to the floorboard of the tug. The pinging of bullets had stopped, but the sound of the truck engine propelling the mobile stairs behind them could be heard now above the loud whine of the tug’s engine.
The 727 was just ahead of them. Sherry held a steady course until the aft end of the fuselage flashed over their heads, then she threw the steering wheel to the left, almost overturning the tug.
As she had intended, the baggage carts behind her shuddered and lurched and spewed baggage to their right as they tried to follow the errant tug, and the rearmost cart turned on its side as Sherry accelerated again and aimed halfway between the right main landing gear and the right wingtip. The aircraft’s flaps were up and she had calculated how tall the baggage carts were. The driver of the mobile stairs truck wouldn’t be able to follow without going around, buying them precious seconds.
Rusty was looking back as the baggage carts moved far enough to one side to give him a clear view of the truck behind them. The driver had been concentrating on his quarry, so the looming mass of the 727’s right wing didn’t register until the stairway riding on the modified pickup truck fairly exploded into the wing’s rear section. With a moderate amount of fuel remaining in the plane’s tank, the resulting explosion of flame and fire engulfed the truck below in a sudden fireball. The truck, stripped of its stairs and on fire, skidded to a halt, the two occupants spilling out of their respective doors, one of them with flames licking at his back. As the fireball engulfed the entire right wing, the emergency exit slides began appearing on the left side of the aircraft and the passengers began spilling out. The tower ground controller hit his crash alarm and picked up a handset to direct fire trucks to the scene.
Rusty, stunned, turned back toward the front of the tug as Sherry drove it headlong into the baggage area of the terminal and slammed on the brakes. Rusty followed when Sherry jumped off the tug and ran toward the moving conveyer belt ahead. She rolled onto the belt and pulled him with her, letting the machine carry them through the portal onto the baggage carousel beyond.
With the sound of siren
s in their ears and the attention of most of the crowd focused on the burning 727 on the ramp beyond, Sherry and Rusty jumped off the carousel, ignoring the stares of startled passengers, and raced toward the front entrance. There was a line of passengers waiting for cabs. She headed for the nearest taxi and yanked open the door, propelling Rusty inside as she turned to the dispatcher, who had turned angrily in her direction.
“U.S. government emergency!” she yelled at him, knowing the words would confuse the man just long enough.
“Go, go, go, go, go!” she said to the driver, holding out her CIA badge as he nodded and pulled away from the curb.
They accelerated into traffic and headed for the 14th Street Bridge. Rusty could see black smoke from the burning airplane rising over the park behind them and the flashing lights of a score of emergency vehicles that had converged on the scene.
Sherry pulled the phone out of her purse and dialed information. She secured the number of Senator Moon’s office and punched it in as they emerged from the eastern side of the bridge.
“Where should he go?” Rusty asked. “Which building?”
“The Hart Building!” she replied.
As they passed L’Enfant Plaza, Sherry snapped the phone shut and turned to Rusty.
“The Senator’s on the Senate floor right now. They’re going to get him back to the office. You heard what I told his Administrative Assistant. We’re to go straight to his office.”
For ten minutes they rode in silence, looking behind, fearful that they were still being chased, until the cab pulled up on the south side of the Hart Building. Rusty hurriedly paid the driver and followed Sherry into the building, past security, and up the elevator to the second floor.
They were about to round the corner of the last corridor when Rusty grabbed her shoulder and held her back.
Sherry turned and looked at him in alarm. “What?”
Rusty shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s a feeling, like it’s too easy. Half the government should be looking for us by now.”
“This is a safe haven, though,” Sherry urged. “Security would have nabbed us if that were the plan. If they knew we were here.”
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