Critical Conditions

Thirty-nine

A few seconds later, I knew where the man was.

A gunshot cracked in the tunnel. The gunman had managed the same maneuver as Merritt and me and was behind us. I hoped far behind us, but I wasn’t sure.

Just as I called out, “Merritt, are you hit?” I was reassured by a piercing shriek from her direction. Again, I reminded her to stay down.

I knew that the nature of the chase had changed significantly. One, my presence in the baggage system was no longer a secret to the man who was after Merritt. And two, I was no longer trailing him; I was now a wonderful target situated conveniently between him and his prey.

I also realized that since we had changed direction and were heading back toward the terminal, I had no idea where the system was taking us. Before, I was taking solace in my hope that the Denver police would be waiting for us at the termination point of the baggage system below Concourse B. They would protect Merritt and arrest whoever it was who was chasing her.

Now? I didn’t know where these empty cars were going other than to return to pick up new loads of outbound luggage. And the Skycap had said that there were twelve different collection points on each side of the terminal. That meant there were a lot of possible destinations. I hoped that Sam could get some help in puzzling it out in time to meet us wherever we were headed.

I had a feeling Merritt and I were going to need a little assistance.

We were approaching the end of the tunnel, the spot where the tracks guiding the tele-cars would begin to climb into the bowels of the terminal. At the moment that Merritt’s tele-car began its ascent, her pursuer’s car would be below her and she would be visible to him. I was guessing she would be exposed, and vulnerable, for about three to five seconds. Shortly after that I would be exposed for target practice for about the same amount of time.

Based on the speed we were traveling, I had-maybe-thirty seconds to come up with a solution to the problem.

I crawled to the far end of the bin and raised my head so I could look back down the tunnel to see if the electric carts were keeping up with us on the roadway below. I spotted one, about a hundred yards back.

“Sam? Is that you?” I yelled. One of the most surprising things about the automated baggage system is how quiet it is. Speaking to someone next to you requires only a slight elevation in volume.

“Yeah.”

“Up ahead, when we go up that incline into the terminal, he’ll have a clear shot. You have to distract him before Merritt gets to the bottom of the incline.”

He was gaining on us; Sam’s electric cart was closer now, no more than thirty yards back.

Sam yelled, “Where is he?” and the man responded by firing a round at Sam’s cart.

“He’s behind me, in a gray tray like mine, maybe fifty yards. I don’t know.”

The gunshot helped Sam locate him. Sam said, “Got him. Merritt, stay down.”

I watched Merritt’s tele-car begin the climb from the tunnel into the terminal. The instant she was visible, gunshots began peppering the tunnel behind me. I couldn’t tell whether they were being fired by the man chasing us or whether they were being fired by Sam and the Denver police.

When I risked another look up, Merritt’s tele-car had cleared the incline. I had no idea whether she had been hit. Now, it was my turn to head up the same hill.

I felt the change in track angle and my guts seized into knots. Again, the gunfire erupted behind me. I covered my head with my hands as a slug ripped into the plastic three inches from my right hip.

The tele-car cleared the top of the incline and leveled off. I yelled, “Made it. Find us, Sam, hurry,” and sat up, looking for Merritt.

I tried, “Merritt, are you okay?”

I didn’t hear a reply.

At this stage of the system the baggage tracks have more switches and off ramps than an L.A. freeway interchange. I assumed the returning tele-cars were being automatically routed to whatever loading location required empty tele-cars.

My tele-car switched off almost immediately on a side track that angled right at forty-five degrees, and with disarming suddenness I was riding the rails upward again toward the top of one of the huge collection caverns like the one where Sam and I had begun our journey.

I looked everywhere and couldn’t find Merritt. Nor could I locate her pursuer.

After fifteen or twenty seconds, my tele-car slowed and stopped in a line behind four or five others. The gray trays were being automatically offloaded from their cradles by conveyors to await their elevator trips back to the curbside check-in area to pick up another pair of skis.

I jumped out of the tray and ducked behind an electrical equipment panel. Across the way, the tele-car transporting the man in the bomber jacket was just entering the same queue I had been in. As his tele-car bumped to a stop, he stepped out and scanned the huge space looking for Merritt. The room was so packed with lines of tracks that the task was like trying to find a specific fleck of basil in a bowl of spaghetti.

I saw the gun in his left hand.

Merritt?

He and I saw her at the exact same time. She had apparently crossed a maintenance bridge that traversed a few different tracks and was in the middle of the huge room crouching behind a stack of spare beige tele-car bins.

I was close enough to him to watch him smile.

To reach the middle of the room, he began to climb the steep steel ladder over the same maintenance bridge that Merritt had crossed. Newly loaded tele-cars zoomed past on the tracks below him. From the top of the bridge he scanned the space thoroughly, checking to see if anyone was closing in on him. From the look in his eyes, I could tell he didn’t see any cops. And he didn’t see me.

Merritt saw him approaching. Her eyes flattened. Death was coming to visit. This particular apparition had brown hair and a boxy automatic and a bomber jacket and a Lincoln Continental waiting at the curb.

The man released the clip from his weapon and checked his load. He was precise in his movements as he prepared. Satisfied, he clicked the magazine back into place and started down the other side of the bridge.

Merritt ran, jumped a track, and crouched low behind a series of track-mounted tele-cars with beige bins. The man fired. I couldn’t see Merritt, but I knew she was still moving. I could hear her feet pound against the metal grid floor.

She leapt another track. I lifted a fire extinguisher from a nearby rack and threw it as far as I could in the opposite direction. The man with the gun spun and fired at the bouncing canister before he recognized the diversion.

He looked right at the electrical panel that I was hiding behind. I couldn’t tell if he saw me. He then turned and refocused on Merritt.

She was gone. It was obvious he couldn’t locate her. Frantically, I scanned. I couldn’t locate her either.

The man in the bomber jacket jumped a track, almost getting himself clobbered by a tele-car. He checked behind him for a moment and was more careful as he crawled across the next track, to the place where he had last seen Merritt.

She wasn’t there. I started scanning the tele-cars that were scooting on the tracks around the room. He did, too. Neither of us found her.

Frustrated, he started back toward the bridge. Above me, I heard a muffled squeal and saw Merritt as she was thrown from a beige bin on a tele-car as a cam forced it to tilt down to be certain it was empty and ready for its next load. Instantly, she realized her sudden vulnerability and cowered in a tight ball. She looked like a pile of laundry on a stainless steel tray.

The man reached the top of the bridge, raised his arm, and aimed his weapon at Merritt.

I screamed, “Nooo!” as two quick gunshots exploded.

Merritt lay immobile.

The man stood immobile, too, and didn’t fire again. He seemed to lower his gun an inch or so.

Another shot rang out.

The man’s knees buckled and he pitched forward over the rail at the top of the bridge, falling head first into a tele-car that was loaded with a car seat in a plastic bag. The tele-car immediately sped up an incline and started to exit the loading area to begin its journey to the concourse.

Six inches to the left of Merritt’s buttocks I could see a bullet hole ripped in the stainless steel. I called out, “Merritt? Merritt?” and began to run toward her, dodging tele-cars and leaping tracks.

I watched as she unfolded herself and sat, hugging her knees to her chest. She wasn’t looking at me, she was looking high above me, behind the bridge. I turned, too, and saw her Uncle Sam standing on a catwalk with three uniformed Denver cops. He was holding a handgun as though it were a precious baby.

“Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam. Did you get him?”

Sam lowered his weapon and said, “Yes, babe. I got him. It’s over.”