19th Christmas

by Patterson, James

Conklin turned to me. “Ready?”

  An airport cop rounded the front of our car, banged on the roof, and, while blocking my door, shouted, “Move your vehicle. You can’t park here.”

  I tugged on the chain around my neck and showed him my badge, saying, “Sergeant Boxer, Homicide. Step aside.”

  Brady’s voice came over the radio. “Conklin. Boxer. Captain Gerald Herz from airport security is commanding this operation. Good luck.”

  Conklin crossed himself.

  I checked that my vest was lying flat under my jacket.

  Together, we got out of the car.

  CHAPTER 72

  SAN FRANCISCO’S INTERNATIONAL Terminal is an enormous structure, almost two million square feet enclosed by glass and steel. It’s got five floors, two concourses, and twenty-four gates, and it’s built to handle five thousand passengers an hour.

  After entering from the street, Conklin and I stood at the far end of the Main Hall, staring out at the hundreds of travelers crossing several football-field lengths of terrazzo flooring between the airport shops and check-in booths spanning the hall.

  We’d been here before, of course, but this time we were looking for one particular ant in this mammoth anthill. Unless that person was holding up a sign reading I AM LOMAN, I had no idea how we or any of the surveillance crew in the pit would be able to identify our suspect.

  I phoned our contact, Captain Herz of SFPD airport security. When he answered, I told him our location and gave him our descriptions. I said, “I’m five ten, blond. My partner is taller. We’re wearing SFPD caps and Windbreakers.”

  Herz answered, “Okay, good, I was told to expect you. Walk to the opposite concourse and you’ll see the travel agency.”

  Chrome letters on the overhead marquee across the terminal from where we stood spelled out AIRPORT TRAVEL AGENCY. A man in a dark-blue police uniform and a billed cap raised his hand. I lifted mine.

  We crossed the passageway from the entrance and the wall of ticketing stations and shops to where Herz waited for us in front of the travel agency.

  I took note of the twenty-five-foot-wide entrance, the size of an average airport shop. The long counter was at a right angle to the front, and a conveyor belt traveled through an opening in the back wall and out to luggage handling in the rear. I also noted a stack of six black nylon suitcases in front of the counter and two uniformed airport cops going through them.

  Herz was wiry and tanned and had a steely handshake. There were laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, but he was deadly serious as he briefed us. He explained that short-term baggage storage, twenty-four hours or less, was available only at this location. All left bags were x-rayed before being accepted for storage.

  The captain said, “We found a bag outside the doorway this morning, unlocked, no ID tags. Inside the bag were plastic-wrapped kilos of white powder. It could be anything—drugs, anthrax, talcum powder, I don’t know.”

  I thought how damned easy it was for anyone to bring anything into an airport terminal. Unknown white powder. Semiautomatic weapons. Explosives. Bags weren’t x-rayed unless people tried to check them in or take them through security.

  Herz went on. “Forensics just picked up the lot of it. We’ve now gone through all of the bags in storage. Nothing looks hazardous or particularly valuable. Everything is labeled. But …”

  I tried to wait him out, but after ten seconds or so, I had to say, “But what?”

  He said, “But a tip just came in to airport security, a woman saying that there could be a nerve-gas attack coming over the HVAC system. The operator said, ‘Please repeat that,’ and the caller said, ‘Loman is targeting the cargo area,’ then hung up,” Herz said. “We couldn’t trace the call.”

  CHAPTER 73

  I WAS STARING at Herz, imagining nerve gas billowing through air-conditioning vents, paralyzing airport personnel and travelers—to what end? I pictured rows of body bags.

  I could see it in Herz’s eyes. He, too, was trying to part the fog surrounding this terror threat, figure out what it was and how to shut it down.

  “I’ve got guys going through HVAC, and the surveillance room is working overtime.”

  Herz went over the basics, and even though I had a pretty good idea that there were cameras in every niche of this terminal, including the baggage areas and the bathrooms, it was reassuring to hear him describe the pit.

  I could see it in my mind’s eye: the whiteboards around the room covered with notations, the names of security officers and the number assigned to the unsubs—unidentified subjects—they would follow through the airport.

  Until the unsubs were cleared, they were active and would have tails listening to their conversations, looking over their shoulders to see their tickets, following them into restrooms, and staying with them to security check-ins; TSA would take it from there.

  Thousands of people an hour had legitimate reasons to be in the airport. It took only one with a weapon to turn the terminal into hell.

  Herz said, “Along with the assigned undercover operators, we’ve got thirty plainclothes on this floor. Homeland Security is working the rest of the terminal, including all points out to the gates. TSA has been notified. Customs has been notified. SWAT is on standby.”

  I said, “Good, good,” as I stared up through the artwork hanging from the high ceiling to the mezzanine levels and then back down to the terminal’s vast Main Hall.

  “Seeing around corners is one thing,” Herz said. “Looking into the minds of psychos is something else. I’d like to shut the whole place down, but I can’t. Not based on an unconfirmed tip from an unidentified tipster.”

  I thought about that as the Ronettes’ version of “Sleigh Ride” filled the hall.

  Herz continued, “I sent a uniformed detail out to the cargo terminal.” He indicated the far end of the hall, where open-sided escalators carried passengers up to the higher floors and the AirTrain station.

  “That was fifteen minutes ago,” Herz said. “So far my guys have seen nothing suspicious.”

  I told Herz that although the phoned-in tip sounded typical of false leads we’d gotten over the past four days, sometimes the tips led to killings. I was saying, “We’ll head out to the cargo area—” when a woman yelled, “Gun!” and three sharp reports rang out across the terminal.

  Adrenaline shot through me before the echoes died out. I drew my nine and Conklin did the same. The woman yelled again, this time saying, “Police. Drop your guns.”

  I couldn’t see her. I couldn’t locate the cop.

  People screamed and dived for the floor, threw themselves on top of their children, jumped behind counters, or raced into shops for cover. Others froze, immobilized by fear.

  Conklin and I exchanged looks, each knowing what the other was thinking.

  Loman’s rumored Christmas Day attack had just become real.

  CHAPTER 74

  MY PARTNER AND I stood shoulder to shoulder, trying to see past obstacles and through a moving scene of terrified and screaming people.

  A female cop had shouted, “Police. Drop your guns.”

  Guns had fired. Had she been hit? Where was she?

  A thin woman in tights and a long red pullover with a gun in her hand appeared twenty yards down the main passageway from where I stood and took cover in the news shop.

  Herz was barking into his phone, and I figured out that the woman was an undercover airport operator, Heather Parsons.

  Parsons yelled again, this time at passengers and bystanders, “Everyone get down on the floor and stay down.”

  Three more shots were fired, and I saw a couple of uniformed cops dash out from the souvenir store three shops down from Parsons on the concourse and go out to the ticketing area that bisected the Main Hall.

  Parsons took a stance, and, aiming at the cops, shouted, “Hands up. Stay where you are.”

  I saw that she couldn’t get a clear shot. She didn’t fire.

  I said to Herz, “We’re going after them.�
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  He nodded an okay.

  The uniformed cops who had fired on the undercover were joined by two more cops looking much like them, and all four fast-walked toward the sliding-door exits.

  They had a good lead on us, and as we ran up on them, I noticed details of their uniforms that confirmed that they were all wrong. The fabric was slate blue, a color I didn’t recognize as a uniform standard. And one of the cops was wearing running shoes, definitely not acceptable in uniform.

  These cops were fake, had to be. Were they Loman’s crew?

  I had tunnel vision now; I was intent on stopping the fake cops from leaving the terminal when I took a sudden blow to my right hip. I fought to keep my balance but failed and slid on the slick terrazzo, my arms windmilling uselessly before I went down.

  I was sure I’d been shot, but as I hit the floor, I realized that a man who’d been running with his head down while pulling two heavy wheeled suitcases had T-boned me. Now he cried out apologies and fluttered around me, getting in my way and blocking my view.

  By the time I’d brushed him off and gotten to my feet, I’d lost my sight of Conklin.

  I started moving, dodging bystanders, yelling out, “Let me through!”

  Then more shots rang out, more than I could count.

  I took cover behind a shop doorway, and when the gunfire ceased, I peered out into the shrieking, stampeding crowd. I saw Conklin standing behind a column, reloading his gun. I shouted out to him. He waited for me to catch up, and then we sprinted to the next column in the line. Only a minute or two had passed since we’d raced off our mark at the travel agency into a shooting gallery.

  But as we reached the end of the Main Hall, we weren’t alone.

  As airport security and DHS streamed through the terminal, cruisers screamed up to the curb with all sirens and flashers to the max. The fake cops had seen the cars through the glass, and rather than break for the exits, they’d gone for the escalators.

  I watched them disappear as the moving staircase took the fake cops to the floors above.

  CHAPTER 75

  CONKLIN SAID TO me, “They’re going to the AirTrain.”

  It made sense. The AirTrain was a closed-loop shuttle that took passengers around the airport to other terminals, rental-car booths, cargo storage, parking areas, and local transit. An excellent escape route.

  Herz had previously sent a detail to the AirTrain, but they had found nothing and were now, no doubt, assisting in the forced evacuation as the terminal was cleared and locked down.

  We had the up escalator to ourselves, and we rode it to the AirTrain station on level four. The station was empty when we arrived, but the stubby little shuttle was waiting at the platform with open doors.

  I peered through the tinted windows and could just make out a row of passengers huddled in their seats on one side of the train. I counted ten people, men, women, and children, and they looked terrified.

  The loudspeaker for this automated train squealed, and the mechanical voice announced, “Please hold on. Next stop Terminal Three.”

  I conferred with Conklin by hand signal, and with guns drawn, we positioned ourselves on either side of the train’s open doorway. I took a breath, let it out, looked at Conklin.

  I mouthed, One, two, three.

  And then we went in.

  A horror show was in progress.

  A passenger lay on the floor, gripping a bloody hole in his side. At the front of the car, facing us, were the four fake cops. One of them called out, “Drop your guns. Only saying this once.”

  My heart, already racing, red-lined. My ears rang, my focus narrowed, and the picture fully clarified.

  This was a hostage situation.

  The primary actor had stringy red hair and was wearing a faded cop uniform that, according to the patch on his shirt, had belonged to a cop in the Las Vegas PD.

  Reportedly, Loman had pulled off a nine-million-dollar casino heist in Las Vegas, but the getaway van collided with a gas truck.

  Judging from his shooting stance, the red-haired fake cop knew how to use a gun.

  Was he Loman?

  The other three fakers also wore LVPD uniforms. Two of them had choke holds on two real cops, while the third fake cop pointed his gun at one of the hostages’ heads.

  I tightened my grip on my nine and spoke in a loud, I-amnot-shitting-you voice. “SFPD. Guns down. Hands up.”

  A child cried out behind me, “Daddy.”

  A man’s hoarse voice pleaded with the gunman, “In God’s name, let us go.”

  Conklin was on his phone to Herz, saying, “They’re on the train.”

  This was as dangerous as it got. We were outmanned, civilians were in the line of fire, a man was dying on the floor, and we’d just executed our only plan B.

  The speaker on the platform screeched. The mechanical voice spoke. “Doors closing. Please hold on.”

  I had a two-handed grip on my gun, and I knew who I was going to shoot first. In that long second, as the red-haired gunman and I stared each other down, a gloved hand holding an M4 with an EOTech sight came through the open door.

  One shot was fired.

  The red-haired fake cop’s blood and brains and skull fragments splattered on the wall behind him, and he dropped to the floor.

  Had we gotten him?

  Was Loman dead?

  CHAPTER 76

  HERZ AND FOUR SWAT commandos in full tac gear came through the open doorway, and the fake cops dropped their weapons. They were thrown to the floor hard, then frisked and cuffed. Their guns were taken into safekeeping.

  The automated voice came on: “Doors closing. Please hold on.”

  Herz opened a compartment near the door and threw a switch. A faint electric hum I hadn’t noticed before went quiet. This train would not be going anywhere.

  I knelt beside the victim on the floor.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Sandy.”

  “Take it easy, Sandy. We’ll have an ambulance here fast. Who shot you?”

  He took one of his bloody hands away from his side and gestured toward the crumpled body of the headless cop behind him. The injured man groaned and said, “Him.”

  “Why did he shoot you?”

  “I rushed him.”

  “You’re military?”

  He nodded. He was going pale, and there was a good chance he could bleed out. Conklin leaned down and told the injured man that he had called for EMTs.

  “They’re in the terminal now, on their way up to you.”

  While I took USMC sergeant Sanford Friedman’s contact information, Herz ID’d the phony cops, and the sobbing, shell-shocked passengers collapsed against one another.

  Herz was holding the fake cops for Homeland Security. They were standing with their faces against the wall, and I noticed that one of them was trembling. He was a big, imposing monster of a guy, but he looked to be the weakest link.

  After he’d puked, I told Herz, “I want this one.”

  Conklin and I took the guy who was definitely not a cop to the far end of the train and I said, “Tell me about Loman.”

  “I can’t.”

  He didn’t say, “I don’t know who you’re talking about” or “You guys just killed him.” The fake cop said, “I can’t.”

  Conklin and I kept him on the train as the flood of law enforcement cleared it. EMTs followed moments later and got the injured man onto a stretcher.

  When Conklin and I were alone with the bulked-up dude, I said in a motherly tone, “I want to help you. I’m Sergeant Lindsay Boxer. What’s your name?”

  CHAPTER 77

  NEWS OF THE dramatic airport closing and cancellation of hundreds of flights out of SFO had flashed across the country.

  People were really frightened. They wanted answers.

  About ten minutes had passed since we’d begun our witness interview inside an airport interrogation room. The large, trembling fake cop was white, twenty-eight years old, with a thin mustache, a bu
zzed haircut, and a few messy tats on his neck obscured by the collar of his uniform.

  He said his name was Benjamin Wallace.

  We had put Wallace under arrest for carrying an unlicensed gun and then read him his rights. I accessed our database with my phone and ran his name through the system. Benjamin R. Wallace was clean, and his DMV photo matched his mug.

  He told us that he was currently a security guard for a clothing shop downtown, the Men’s Clubhouse. Conklin called the place, and Wallace checked out.

  My partner and I had to work fast to build a rapport with Wallace and make him see that it was in his best interests to give Loman up. Any minute now, the door to this small room was going to swing open and Homeland Security would take Wallace away before we’d heard his story, before he’d told us about Loman.

  I’d pegged Wallace as a low-level actor. Chances were this young security guard with no prior record would be open to making a deal. I took a seat across from the shivering hulk and relaxed my face, hoping to look sympathetic.

  “Ben,” I said nicely, “you understand your situation? If the victim who was shot inside the train dies, even if you didn’t shoot him yourself, you’re going to be charged with accessory to murder. If you discharged your gun at all, that’s assault with a deadly weapon. I see a real chance you’re going to be charged with kidnapping.”

  He nodded, gulped, looked like he was going to puke again. There was a garbage can under the computer stand by the door, and I brought it over to him.

  I continued. “Homeland Security is going to charge you with terrorism. That’s a federal offense. You’re still a kid. You could spend every last day of your life in a maximum-security prison with no chance of parole.”

  I let that sink in. Tears slipped out of Ben’s downcast eyes.

  I kept going. “Right now your only two friends in the world are Inspector Conklin and me. We’ve both been shot at today. Speaking for myself, I’m in a bad mood. But we need help catching Loman. You help us, we’ll help you. That’s a limited-time offer.”