"I thought I heard a sound from inside the truck just after they stopped," said one of the other agents. "Like a gunshot. “
"Maybe they decided to kill themselves," said another, nodding.
Margolin curtly acknowledged the two agents, then gestured for quiet. He'd heard the muffled sound too. But he found it hard to believe that their quarry would take such a cowardly exit. Not after he'd seen with his own eyes their willingness to fight.
It was far likelier that Guerin would try to set a trap for them.
"Maybe we ought to speed things along a bit, Viceroy," Bartolli said, looking impatient. "Lets force their hand. “
Margolin smirked, making an after you gesture toward the vehicle. "By all means, Dale. “
Bartolli walked cautiously around to the opposite side of the vehicle and approached the driver's side door. Though Margolin couldn't see the door from where he stood, he knew that its tinted, bulletproof window would have prevented Bartolli from seeing inside.
His pistol at the ready in his right hand, Bartolli reached for the door latch and pulled.
Surprisingly, the door swung open without any resistance. A thin plume of smoke curled upward from inside the cockpit. Margolin unconsciously tightened his grip on his weapon as he watched Bartolli, whose normally unflappable expression had abruptly changed to a look of shock. "Boss, you're not gonna believe this. “
Gathering from Bartolli's reaction that it was safe to approach, Margolin advanced quickly toward the passenger door. He pulled it open with an ease that surprised him.
The center of the bench seat was burned away, leaving a meter-wide hole that seemed to go all the way to the vehicle's undercarriage. Ignoring the lingering traces of smoke, he stuck his head into the cockpit and saw that the hole in fact extended all the way down to the tarmac.
The prisoners were gone.
"Looks like one of the girls mustVe whacked us with a Jedi mind trick," Bartolli said, a vague smirk on his face. "This looks bad, Chief." Margolin knew that what his ambitious deputy really meant was, "This looks bad for you. “
One of the other agents approached the burned-out cockpit carrying a small handheld device no bigger than a TV remote. "I can confirm that, sir," she said to Margolin. "I'm picking up electromagnetic traces that match other sites where anomalous psi-powers were documented. “
Margolin realized then that the Harding girl also must have gotten the drugs out of her system somehow. She had probably influenced the minds of her pursuers, rendering all three teens conveniently invisible just long enough for them to escape into the terminal.
Suddenly transported by an impotent rage, Margolin slammed his fist on the hood of the truck. Then he swiftly tried to compose himself.
"Alert the backup team," he said to Bartolli a moment later. "They're going to try to get through the terminal to steal some transportation. We have to head them off. “
"This is a big airport," Bartolli pointed out as he opened up his cell phone.
Margolin gestured angrily toward the electromagnetic detection device the female agent still held in her hand. "The Harding girl is going to have to keep using her abilities as long as they're here. That means she's going to leave a trail. I want it followed. “
Everyone scattered to resume the chase. Margolin swore to himself that the kids wouldn't get far.
Anthony Miller was in a hurry. His flight had arrived late, and unless everything went perfectly for the next ninety minutes or so, he was going to be very late meeting with a very important, very finicky client. And he knew that expecting perfection from the baggage carousel, the car rental desk, and the 405 freeway was asking for the impossible.
But as he left the luggage area, his suit-bag slung over one shoulder, he began feeling lucky. Maybe I used up all my bad luck during the layover at O'Hare, he thought, striding urgently toward a wide-open, relatively uncrowded array of car rental desks. No lines! I can't believe it! Coming out of nowhere, someone bumped him, making his suit-bag tumble from his shoulder and to the floor. Miller was about to say something rude when he saw the frail-looking old man with whom he'd just collided.
The old man was flanked by an equally fragile old woman and a middle-aged woman who had to be their daughter. The old man looked apologetic as he stooped to help Miller recover what he had dropped.
Then the old man lost his balance, and Miller reached out to steady him.
"I'm so sorry," said the old man.
Now feeling guilty, Miller helped the man recover his footing. Retrieving his bag, he said, "Don't mention it. It was probably my fault, anyway. I wasn't watching where I was going. Are you all right? “
The old man smiled, his eyes twinkling as though he had a secret. "Don't worry about me." Then, still flanked by his wife and daughter, the old man continued on his way.
Miller didn't realize that his wallet was missing until a minute later, after he'd reached the car rental desk.
Ducking behind a pillar beside Rath and Lonnie, Ava carefully altered the mindwarp shell she had created to cover their escape from the MiBs back on the tarmac. Ava felt sweat beginning to bead across her brow.
The image of an elderly couple and their middle-aged daughter wavered and vanished as their forms… at least in the eyes of anyone who came within fifty yards of them… quickly shifted and altered, then stabilized into entirely new configurations.
A moment later, Rath looked down at his own expensively dressed body, and then studied Lonnie and Ava, both of whom had been magically transformed into men. They all appeared to be in their mid-thirties, and bore no resemblance at all to the fugitives the MiBs were chasing.
"I always wondered what we'd look like if we swapped sexes," Rath said, grinning down at his short-skirted Ally McBeal ensemble and taking a few experimental steps in his virtual high heels. Ava was proud of the illusion. Rath looked like he'd been walking in heels all his life.
"Now we know," Lonnie said, pausing to admire her newly masculine form, as well as the sharp-looking business suit that covered it. "Too bad we don't have time to do more than just look. “
Ava hadn't thought of that. She blushed, but hoped her illusory black beard covered it. "Sorry to disappoint you guys, but this is just camouflage. Less than skin deep. I picked this illusion because the Feds are looking for two girls and a guy, not the other way around. “
"Good thinking," Rath said, meeting her gaze for a moment. Though he was still grinning, Ava thought something had subtly changed behind his eyes, turning them even flintier and more calculating than usual.
Then he looked away and the moment passed. Ava dismissed it as her imagination, or maybe even some unintended trick of the gender-bending, mindwarp-driven disguises she had created. She fell silently into step behind Rath and Lonnie as they walked back onto the main concourse, proceeded through the large glass doors, and finally came to a stop at a curbside that thronged with both human and vehicular traffic. The early autumn sun beat down on them without mercy. Ava ruefully wished the air-conditioned concourse a fond farewell.
She watched as Rath reached into his jacket pocket, withdrew the large, crumpled wad of cash he'd taken from the yuppie whose wallet he'd filched back inside the terminal, and extended a hand to flag down a cab.
We're actually doing it, Ava thought, allowing hope to return. We're going to get away.
Walking past the car rental area, Special Agent Billings glanced down at his handheld EM detector, knowing that the odds were very much against his finding the three fugitives before they made it out of the terminal. There were simply too many exits, and there just wasn't time to seal them all. Once outside, the aliens could easily get their hands on a car and make a clean getaway.