Pied Piper

CHAPTER 71

LaMoia pulled into short-term parking and snagged an automated ticket.

He stowed the handgun and cuffs under the front seat but kept the stun stick wedged between his calf and his right boot. It would have to be removed before he passed through security, but the idea of going naked was beyond him-he’d spent fifteen years with some form of self-defense pressed against his skin. The loading areas outside the terminal were crowded with travelers avoiding the storm. LaMoia shoved his way through the crowd and rode an escalator to obtain a view of the entrance ramps, crowded with cabs, vehicles and buses. He could just make out the entrances to the short- and long-term parking lots.

The combination of rain and traffic limited his chance of identifying Crowley’s Taurus. He waited there for less than a minute, abandoned the effort and headed inside.

LaMoia snagged an abandoned USA Today-McPaper-and took a seat with a view of the ticket counters, a set of escalators and the terminal’s central security station. He expected Boldt and Daphne, who had left ahead of him, to be checking in for their flight to Houston, but he didn’t see them, which meant they were probably already at their gate.

According to the video monitors, the next flight to Houston didn’t leave for an hour and a half-gate 14. Flights to Dallas- Fort Worth, a hub for several major carriers, left regularly. He suspected Crowley would ticket one of those flights, knowing firsthand that American flew several nonstops between Dallas and Seattle.

Five minutes lapsed. LaMoia nervously checked his watch and then tried the cell phone. NO SERVICE. Hovering on the edge of panic, he took up position, the paper held as a prop as he scanned the terminal. Two bus groups crowded the Delta ticket line, filling the area with chatter and too much luggage.

A moment later, a woman arrived in the terminal via the baggage claim escalator. Outwardly, this was not the same woman he had watched climb into the Taurus, but he took a mental snapshot of her just the same. She wore a blue skirt, not khakis, as Crowley had; a white cotton T-shirt, small black boots that laced up over her ankles and a French beret pulled down on her head. She carried herself in a fluid feminine walk that shared nothing with the woman outside Chevalier’s office. But the dark wraparound sunglasses were the same, as was the general shape and size of the overnight bag slung from her shoulder. That bag caught LaMoia’s eye.

He lowered his head back into the sports pages, the presence of that bag suggesting she was there not to observe the Brehmers but, indeed, for a flight of her own. The change in disguise, accomplished in the rental’s front seat or in a baggage claim washroom, contributed to her confidence. She walked with her back straight, her chin held high, and yet she failed to disguise the pain that each step cost her. He could sense her measuring the remaining distance to the security check, like an exhausted boxer heading to his corner.

The sunglasses not only obscured her injuries but prevented others from knowing where she was looking. For this reason, LaMoia remained slouched in his seat, his long legs crossed straight in front of him, his casual attention alternately divided between the terminal and the newspaper. He sized up every skirt that passed by. In character, he told himself. Some things came easily.

Hale appeared in the center of the ticket terminal, wet and bedraggled. LaMoia, distracted by Crowley, had missed his entrance, though he had expected him. Looking like a businessman in a hurry, Hale checked the departure monitors, his wristwatch, and then the monitors a second time. LaMoia looked left to Crowley, right to Hale, encouraging Crowley to get through the security check.

When Hale made for a bank of pay phones across the terminal, LaMoia knew instinctively the man had to be stopped, knew what had to be done.

Boldt, Daphne and Trudy Kittridge waited amid a clutter of people and carry-on luggage, their flight more than an hour away. The public address announced a white courtesy phone call for “Scott Hamilton.”

“That’s for me,” Boldt informed her.

“You know how many Scott Hamiltons there are?” she asked.

“The cell phones are out. How else is LaMoia going to reach me? He can’t page me by my name.”

“And what if it’s Hale?” she asked, stunning him. “What if Hale recognized us?”

“Not in that rain.”

“What if he did? He probably knows everything about you, including your love of jazz, even Scott Hamilton. What if all he wants is to flush us?”

Boldt stood, eyes searching for the nearest white phone. “Then I guess I let the caller speak first,” he said.

“Don’t do this. It’s what he wants. He’s a federal agent. He can arrest us for kidnapping, don’t forget-we haven’t reported this to anyone. If he’s part of this, if he’s trying to buy time, that’s exactly what he’ll do. Don’t play into that.” She added, “For Sarah’s sake, please don’t play into that.”

Boldt hesitated. Daphne was right more often than not. He met eyes with her-the public address repeated the page-and he hurried toward the white phone on the far wall.

LaMoia’s talk with Boldt lasted all of twenty seconds, at which time he hung up and hurried toward Hale, whose back was to him as he approached the pay phones.

Panic stole through him as he realized he had spent too much time trying to contact Boldt. Hale could not be allowed to reach Flemming! LaMoia, midstride, stopped abruptly, as if to adjust his pant leg, and slipped the stun stick out of his boot and up into his shirt sleeve.

One didn’t step lightly into assaulting an FBI agent. It wasn’t the best career move. LaMoia reached up his right sleeve and twisted the round cap on the butt end of the stun stick, two clicks to LO.

Hale reached the phones, picked up the receiver and dialed.

He might have been calling Roger Crowley, Chevalier, Judge Adams, Flemming or Kalidja-it didn’t matter; he had to be stopped.

LaMoia rarely submitted to panic; he had been given the gift of cool. As situations became more frantic, John LaMoia became more relaxed. There was no wasted effort, no wasted time in his movements. No regrets or indecision. Hale was talking into the phone-he could not turn back the clock, he could only take action.

Over a few beers, cops talked about time standing still, of an eerie slow motion that overcame their situation. LaMoia experienced no such distortions. Time neither slowed nor sped up as he crossed the terminal. He glanced back to see Boldt approaching at a jog.

Hale was apparently focused on his conversation, the receiver held to his ear.

LaMoia took in his surroundings, aware of two couples and a family walking through the terminal to his left; a teenager at the next kiosk of phones, with her back to him; a newsstand agent, a woman, twenty yards ahead, manning a cash register with a view of the pay phones. LaMoia slipped the stun stick from his sleeve and reversed it, aiming it at Hale’s spine. At that same moment, Hale sensed someone approaching and glanced back in time to identify LaMoia’s face. His startled eyes went white with surprise.

LaMoia needed a clean shot with the stun stick. He bought himself a diversion with a left-handed palm slap to the phone receiver, crushing the agent’s ear and focusing the man’s attention on that pain. With his right hand, he jabbed forward strongly to insure the stun stick’s probes made contact. It fired off its jolt of voltage, but Hale remained unfazed and standing-LaMoia had hit the leather strap of the man’s shoulder holster.

The stun stick required fifteen seconds to reset its charge. LaMoia thumped the outside of the man’s knee with his own, staggering him; rabbit-punched him low under the rib cage with his left, bending him; and threw his right elbow into the base of the agent’s skull, numbing him. LaMoia caught the man as he slumped, wrenched Hale’s arm behind his back as the phone’s receiver dangled and swung like the pendulum.

… twelve … thirteen … fourteen … he counted silently in his head.

He released the agent at the count of fifteen and Hale grabbed for support, latching onto the phone box. Without looking behind him, LaMoia warned Boldt, “Clear!” swinging his left arm out like a gate and stopping Boldt. He delivered the stun stick again, this time finding the man’s skin through his clothes. The pulse of high voltage caused the phone to ring despite the receiver being off-hook-one long peal of bells echoing into the terminal. Hale stiffened with the initial jolt, tight as steel. LaMoia pulled back the stick, and he and Boldt caught the man as he sagged.

“You certainly have a knack for timing,” LaMoia told Boldt, who, looking around, replied calmly, “His wallet.” LaMoia slipped the billfold out of Hale’s rear pocket and into his own.

Boldt found the man’s FBI ID wallet, opened it and then kept it in his left hand.

LaMoia asked, “What now?”

“Security,” Boldt said.

“You fucking nuts?”

“By now they’re already on their way,” Boldt advised him.

“Cameras,” LaMoia realized aloud.

“Exactly.”

“But-”

“For once, let me do the talking. And stay with the game, damn it all.”

“Me?”

“Here they come,” he said, indicating two men in gray pants and blue blazers.

Boldt held Hale’s ID wallet open from a distance, his thumb conveniently curled around the wallet and covering Hale’s photo. He knew the psychology of rent-a-cops: overly self-important but with an urge to play with the big boys. Daphne would have played to that urge, and so Boldt did. “FBI!” He snapped the wallet shut with a flip of his wrist and stuffed it into his inside breast pocket alongside his SPD ID. “This bozo’s involved in a kidnapping. Been posing as one of us,” he said in a low voice, because the sagging Hale was already drawing the attention of the curious like moths to a light. “No ID on him, but he’s carrying.” Boldt slipped the man’s sport coat open just enough to reveal the holstered semiautomatic. “Take that for me, would you?” Daphne would have fed their egos by giving them responsibility immediately, making certain they felt included.

“Son of a bitch,” the one who looked like a surfer gasped. He stepped forward and slipped the weapon out of the shoulder holster.

“You mind cuffing him and giving him a hand?” Boldt said. “We’re gonna need a little privacy here.”

LaMoia asked, “You got four walls and a door?”

The two glanced at each other. “Conference room?” Surfer asked. “It isn’t very big,” he apologized. “It’s upstairs.”

Boldt said, “Where this guy’s going, the rooms are a hell of a lot smaller, I guarantee you that.”

The two security guards cuffed Hale and took him under both arms. The man was not unconscious, but severely dazed and incapable of walking or speaking.

He tried to get words out, but gibberish and a trickle of drool took their place. His feet dragged heavily. Boldt and LaMoia followed the two security guards to an elevator and up one floor.

Hale was assisted down the long hallway to an unmarked door that Surfer’s assistant keyed open. “This okay, sir?” he asked Boldt.

“Do just fine.” Hale was deposited into a chair. Boldt eyed both men. “Now listen,” he said. “News like this travels fast, and that’s exactly what we don’t need. A little girl’s life is at stake here. You understand that? A human life,” he said, choking on the expression. “It’s imperative that we do this quick and dirty. After that, we turn him over to you. Your story is this: You saw the piece, you asked for ID, he didn’t have any. You took him in.”

LaMoia said, “He’ll blow smoke up your skirt about being a Fed. That’s his cover.”

Boldt added, “This girl has a chance if you lose him for a day or so until he gets his phone call. Someplace no one can find him, you know? That way, no news leaks, no inside information, and this little girl has a fighting chance. If this guy surfaces within the system-”

Surfer said, “We got a drunk and disorderly tank right here on airport. It’s run by NOPD, but we know all those boys.”

“Thanks,” LaMoia said.

The two men insisted on shaking hands all around, as if the four of them had just won a touch football game. They left the room and pulled the door shut securely. LaMoia locked it. Looking at Hale, Boldt said, “Time to have a little chat.”