The Hunters

10

The early-morning sun streamed into Terminal 1 at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. The overworked air conditioner tried to compete, but it was fighting a losing battle. During the summer months, the local weather forecast rarely changed: temperature in the mid-nineties with a chance of afternoon thunderstorms. And when it did change, it was only because a hurricane was passing through.

Needless to say, Cobb wasn’t thrilled about the locale.

He had spent enough time in Iraq to be an expert on stifling heat, but there was something about the shirt-drenching humidity of Florida that really pissed him off. He was dressed comfortably — black T-shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers — yet he could already feel his clothes sticking to him as he strolled up the walkway.

Of course, Cobb had no one to blame but himself. If he had used the first-class ticket that had been bought for him, his flight from LaGuardia wouldn’t have landed until later that afternoon. But due to his careful nature, he decided to fly in several hours early under an assumed name. And he wouldn’t be traveling from New York.

This was his first chance to meet the man who had assembled the team for the job in Brighton Beach. Having passed that test with flying colors, Cobb had been summoned for a meeting with his new employer. Perhaps to discuss another job.

Cobb planned to control the terms as much as possible.

In the military, this kind of advance jaunt was known as a ‘rekky’ or ‘recce’, short for reconnaissance. As time went on, a rekky came to mean any preceding trip to scope out the locals, but originally it meant surveying a region to obtain information specifically regarding enemy troops.

With that in mind, Cobb had used money from his personal stash to purchase the redeye ticket from Las Vegas, where he had been decompressing for the past few days. He spent the majority of the flight learning as much as he could about the airport and region from the mini-computer that was still laughably called a cell phone.

Within minutes of takeoff, Cobb knew he’d be landing in Broward County, three miles southwest of Fort Lauderdale’s central business district and twenty-one miles north of Miami. Although his arrival in Florida would be well concealed — the airport was ranked the twenty-second busiest in the US and one of the fifty busiest airports in the world — he knew he had a full day of work ahead of him.

Why couldn’t it have been Sarasota instead?

If it had been, he could have checked out the much smaller airport in ten minutes and would have had plenty of time to grab a newspaper at Circle Books and an early lunch in Saint Armand’s Circle before his original flight had even landed. But here in Fort Lauderdale, he’d have to cover four terminals, six concourses, and fifty-seven gates. He’d even have to ‘look for a friend’ in three private airline clubs. Not bad for a place that was originally built on an abandoned nine-hole golf course.

While deplaning, Cobb didn’t race ahead with all of the others. Instead, he stepped out of the crush of passengers and took a moment to get his bearings.

‘May I help you?’ someone said.

Cobb wasn’t surprised by the question, but he was pleasantly surprised by the woman asking it. He turned to see an attractive ground attendant standing beside him at the line where the gate becomes the concourse. In the earliest morning light, her red hair was lustrous, and her green eyes sparkled. She looked professional but sexy in the blue skirt-suit and starched white shirt of the airline uniform.

He read her nametag. It said TIFFANY.

‘I’m okay. Just trying to get my land legs.’

‘So,’ she said, ‘what brings you to Florida?’

‘Work,’ he answered. ‘Were you on this flight?’

She nodded. ‘I worked the first-class cabin. I saw you through the curtain. You were the only one not sleeping.’

‘Who can sleep when he has three flight attendants all to himself?’

‘Three? There were only two in the rear cabin.’

Cobb shrugged. ‘Math was never my strong suit.’

In reality, his math skills were fine. He was simply testing her. He hadn’t noticed her on the flight, and he wanted to make sure that she had actually been on it.

She laughed and handed him a business card with her cell phone number written on it. ‘Well, I’m stuck in town until tonight. If you’re bored or need some help with your land legs, just give me a call. Maybe I can show you a thing or two.’

He took the card with a suspicious smile. It could be the layover loneliness that he knew all too well. Or it could be that his new employer had anticipated Cobb’s rekky and had sent Tiffany to meet him at the gate. Although it wasn’t likely, it was possible.

Mercenaries survived by considering everything.

‘Thanks, Tiffany. Maybe I’ll give you a shout.’

‘Great,’ she said. ‘I hope you do.’

Cobb moved away, cursing his luck. It would have been nice to get to know her better. On any other day, at any other time, he would have. But due to his circumstances, he had other things to worry about, including miles of reconnaissance before he circled back to the gate where he was ‘supposed’ to land that afternoon.

In the next six hours, he had to eyeball all of the escape routes and avenues of attack at that terminal. He wanted to watch the limos as they arrived out front. He wanted to look for men or women who might be watching his gate.

His phone was programmed with facial recognition software that was linked to a database of domestic and foreign reps who hired American talent. To improve his odds of survival, it would help to know who hired him before he actually met the man.

Cobb was a shade over six feet tall. His hair was short and a lighter shade of brown, almost reddish in color. His handsome face was somewhere between triangular and oval. For some reason, people always told him that he looked like a racecar driver. He didn’t know what that meant, but he was assured it was a compliment.

Of his features, what stood out the most were his eyes.

They were gun-gray and piercing.

They were so distinct that he was forced to wear colored contact lenses on missions for fear of recognition. In Brooklyn, they had been blue. Today, they were hazel. Just to be safe, he wore aviator sunglasses to hide his eyes completely.

Cobb did a full circuit and saw nothing suspicious. So he planted himself on the periphery of Terminal 3, Concourse E to scope out the disembarking American Airlines passengers. No one there looked familiar or set off any mental alarms. If he was supposed to be seated next to a particular first-class passenger, no one caught his attention.

Furthermore, he didn’t see Tiffany anywhere. He had been watching for her legs — since her red hair could have been a wig and the uniform could have been discarded — and listening for her voice. But she was nowhere to be found.

Eventually, he trailed the passengers from ‘his’ plane to the baggage claim area. He stayed against the back wall, his eyes constantly moving as he tried to watch everyone. When the luggage conveyer clanked to life, he shifted his gaze toward the approaching travelers and spotted one person of interest. Not because he recognized her — he didn’t at first — but because she was staring at him.

‘I’ll be damned,’ he mumbled to himself.

Thanks to her disguise — complete with ponytail, headphones, oversized sunglasses, and a local college backpack — Sarah Ellis looked like a demure, eighteen-year-old student, not the half-naked operative he had parted ways with in New York.

On the beach, she had been a fearless woman.

Here, she resembled a lost teenager.

The difference was truly remarkable.

Sarah nodded subtly toward the parking garage, then strolled in that direction. At no point did she turn around to see if Cobb was coming.

She knew he would be close behind.

After all, she was the one carrying the merchandise.