Her bumped husband fell into an empty chair.
The fake cop pointed his gun at Middleton’s face, as the woman continued to flail at him.
The gunshot reverberated through the terminal to Gate 67 some 40 feet off to Middleton’s left where FBI Agent M. T. Connolly was snapping a handcuff onto her own wrist. The handcuffs’ other clamp already circled the wrist of Dan Kohrman, who wore a second set of handcuffs shackling his wrists in front of him. Connolly’s close-cropped brass hair came up to the shoulder of the husky Kohrman who’d been apprehended in Chicago on a federal Flight To Avoid Prosecution charge and extradited to D.C. Chicago cops passed him off.
Connolly hadn’t needed to double cuff Kohrman. True, he was a felony fugitive, but he’d embezzled funds as a lawyer. Not the kind of bad boy who’d give “14-years-on-the-bricks her” any trouble. No, she cuffed her left hand to his right hand because she didn’t feel like talking to the scum-bag. Easier to jerk him where she wanted him to go.
He’d protested his innocence as Windy City cops led him off the plane toward Connolly and a uniformed Virginia state trooper who had been assigned to accompany the FBI during custodial transferals through the state’s jurisdiction to a federal lockup. After that…
Well, after that, the state trooper had the easy smile of a Dixie scamp. He seemed like a possible diversion from the storm of empty howling in Connolly. His eyes twinkled while they waited for the Chicago plane, indicating to her that he harbored similar thoughts. He introduced himself as George, and she knew he wouldn’t be around long enough for her to need to remember his last name.
“Look,” Kohrman had said as she clicked her handcuff on his wrist. “Have you asked yourself why I would be so stupid as to steal that money?”
As she tightened the handcuff on her left wrist, Connolly replied, “Like I care about why.”
Then she heard the high-caliber pistol shot crackle behind her. Crowd reacting. Trooper George facing the sound source. Screams and she turned, her.40 Glock filling her right hand.
She saw travelers stampeding.
Sensed the taller, trooper-uniformed George draw his gun.
Glimpsed a thick, black-haired American crashing onto a cop.
The roar of the gun in Middleton’s face deafened him. The muzzle flash novaed his eyes. But as the bullet cut wide, Middleton fell onto his would-be killer and the crazed woman from first class, and they crashed to the floor. The gun flew from the killer’s hand as hordes of airline travelers panicked in a 21st century terrorism nightmare.
Middleton’s vision returned. But why can’t I hear? Why is there no noise?
He scrambled after a 9mm Beretta gliding silently across a jewel-strewn floor.
The fake cop chopped at the first-class woman’s throat. Jumped to his feet. Reached for his shoulder-holstered second pistol.
Middleton heard only the hammering of his own heart. He grabbed the Beretta and fired at the man who was drawing a second gun.
A glowing green neon Starbucks sign exploded on a wall beyond as the fake cop to a marksman’s stance and acquired his target. His black shoes crunched white pearls scattered on the floor.
The fake cop and Middleton fired at the same time.
His arm unsteady, Middleton’s bullet missed.
The fake cop’s bullet missed too because he slipped on pearls and tumbled back through the air.
Off to Middleton’s left, State Trooper George saw a uniformed police officer in trouble. Saw the cop fall. Panicked civilians ran between Trooper George and the gun battle. George glimpsed his target-tapped out two snap shots.
Missed!
Middleton saw a nearby black plastic chair shatter.
Instantly knew why, whirled. His eyes locked on a man wearing a blue uniform like the enemy’s. Middleton fired four slugs at that second uniform.
Connolly heard the whine of bullets, the roar of a gun.
As the fugitive Kohrman screamed, Connolly saw Trooper George. Flat on his back, a hole at the collar of the blue-uniformed shirt over his bulletproof vest. A red stream flowed from George’s neck. His eyes stared at the ceiling
Connolly lunged toward the fallen trooper, but Kohrman jerked her handcuffed left arm and she tipped back toward him.
“I wanted to make it big!” screamed Kohrman. “All right? I admit it! Just don’t shoot-”
“Shut up!” Connolly shouted as she broke his nose with the butt of her pistol.
Kohrman crumpled, dead weight she dragged to Trooper George bleeding on the floor. Dropped her gun, pressed her free right hand over the gushing hole in the trooper’s neck.
“You’re going to make it!” she screamed at the fallen officer.
But she knew that was a lie.
Can’t hear!
Middleton saw the second uniformed man who’d tried to shoot him crash to the floor. Middleton whirled his deaf attention to the nearby fake cop, who scrambled to his feet on the floor’s glittering debris and fled through an emergency exit door.
Get him before he gets me! Or my daughter!
Battling in a world of silence, Middleton saw men and women dive for cover behind waiting room chairs. He saw their muted screaming faces.
First-class husband slumped in a black plastic chair, his face contorted like a laughing clown, staring at the tiled floor where his buxom wife lay gasping for air.
Middleton’s eyes followed the husband’s focus.
Saw flecks of gold paint on the tiles.
Saw broken shards of red and green and white stones.
Saw glittering glass ground to dust.
Saw a fallen cell phone spinning to a stop amid the rainbow rubble.
Middleton scooped up the cell phone as he burst to the emergency exit, broke out to the night from a facility designed by Homeland Security to prevent people from storming into it and its planes, not to keep people from running away.
Swallowed by cool air, Middleton stood at the top of metal stairs leading to the vast fields of runways where jets taxied, landed, took off-all in terrible silence.
A baggage caravan rolled silently across the dark tarmac. No sign of the fake cop. Middleton suddenly realized he stood spotlighted by the door’s white light-a perfect target.
He ran down the stairs. Ran toward the glowing swoop of the main terminal.
A jumbo jet dropped out of the sky, skimmed over his head as he staggered across a runway. He ran under a second airliner as it climbed into the night. The pressure changing wakes of those jet engines popped his gunshot-deafened ears.
Suddenly, blessedly, he heard jet engines roar.
Get to Scotland, he thought. Got to get to Scotland.
The strap of his briefcase boa-constrictored his chest as he gasped for oxygen. Sweat stuck his shirt to his skin. His leg muscles burned and felt as if someone smashed a baseball bat into his right kneecap.
He knew better than to try for his car. They-whoever they were-might be waiting for him in the parking garage.
Pistol shoved in the back waistband of his pants, Middleton loped to the front of the main terminal. No one paid much attention-people run through airports all the time. A long line of people stood waiting their turn for a taxi.
To his left, he saw a young couple exiting a Town Car. He burst between them, leapt into the back seat before the driver could protest.
“Go!”
The man behind the wheel stared into the rearview mirror.
“Two-fifty,” Middleton said, digging into his pocket for U.S. currency.
He sank into the backseat cushion of the taxi as it shot away from the terminal. “Capitol Hill.”
The driver let him out in front of the Supreme Court that glowed like a gray-stone temple across from Congress’ white-castle Capitol. Middleton walked through a park and saw no one but the nocturnal outline of a patrolling Capitol Hill policeman and his leashed German shepherd.
Scotland was a hotel built back when visiting Washington wasn’t a big business. Middleton passed through the hotel’s glass doors, walked straight to the registration desk.