The 19th Christmas Read online

  Thousands of people an hour had legitimate reasons to be in the airport. It took only one with a weapon to turn the terminal into hell.

  Herz said, “Along with the assigned undercover operators, we’ve got thirty plainclothes on this floor. Homeland Security is working the rest of the terminal, including all points out to the gates. TSA has been notified. Customs has been notified. SWAT is on standby.”

  I said, “Good, good,” as I stared up through the artwork hanging from the high ceiling to the mezzanine levels and then back down to the terminal’s vast Main Hall.

  “Seeing around corners is one thing,” Herz said. “Looking into the minds of psychos is something else. I’d like to shut the whole place down, but I can’t. Not based on an unconfirmed tip from an unidentified tipster.”

  I thought about that as the Ronettes’ version of “Sleigh Ride” filled the hall.

  Herz continued, “I sent a uniformed detail out to the cargo terminal.” He indicated the far end of the hall, where open-sided escalators carried passengers up to the higher floors and the AirTrain station.

  “That was fifteen minutes ago,” Herz said. “So far my guys have seen nothing suspicious.”

  I told Herz that although the phoned-in tip sounded typical of false leads we’d gotten over the past four days, sometimes the tips led to killings. I was saying, “We’ll head out to the cargo area—” when a woman yelled, “Gun!” and three sharp reports rang out across the terminal.

  Adrenaline shot through me before the echoes died out. I drew my nine and Conklin did the same. The woman yelled again, this time saying, “Police. Drop your guns.”

  I couldn’t see her. I couldn’t locate the cop.

  People screamed and dived for the floor, threw themselves on top of their children, jumped behind counters, or raced into shops for cover. Others froze, immobilized by fear.

  Conklin and I exchanged looks, each knowing what the other was thinking.

  Loman’s rumored Christmas Day attack had just become real.

  Chapter 74

  My partner and I stood shoulder to shoulder, trying to see past obstacles and through a moving scene of terrified and screaming people.

  A female cop had shouted, “Police. Drop your guns.”

  Guns had fired. Had she been hit? Where was she?

  A thin woman in tights and a long red pullover with a gun in her hand appeared twenty yards down the main passageway from where I stood and took cover in the news shop.

  Herz was barking into his phone, and I figured out that the woman was an undercover airport operator, Heather Parsons.

  Parsons yelled again, this time at passengers and bystanders, “Everyone get down on the floor and stay down.”

  Three more shots were fired, and I saw a couple of uniformed cops dash out from the souvenir store three shops down from Parsons on the concourse and go out to the ticketing area that bisected the Main Hall.

  Parsons took a stance, and, aiming at the cops, shouted, “Hands up. Stay where you are.”

  I saw that she couldn’t get a clear shot. She didn’t fire.

  I said to Herz, “We’re going after them.”

  He nodded an okay.

  The uniformed cops who had fired on the undercover were joined by two more cops looking much like them, and all four fast-walked toward the sliding-door exits.

  They had a good lead on us, and as we ran up on them, I noticed details of their uniforms that confirmed that they were all wrong. The fabric was slate blue, a color I didn’t recognize as a uniform standard. And one of the cops was wearing running shoes, definitely not acceptable in uniform.

  These cops were fake, had to be. Were they Loman’s crew?

  I had tunnel vision now; I was intent on stopping the fake cops from leaving the terminal when I took a sudden blow to my right hip. I fought to keep my balance but failed and slid on the slick terrazzo, my arms windmilling uselessly before I went down.

  I was sure I’d been shot, but as I hit the floor, I realized that a man who’d been running with his head down while pulling two heavy wheeled suitcases had T-boned me. Now he cried out apologies and fluttered around me, getting in my way and blocking my view.

  By the time I’d brushed him off and gotten to my feet, I’d lost my sight of Conklin.

  I started moving, dodging bystanders, yelling out, “Let me through!”

  Then more shots rang out, more than I could count.

  I took cover behind a shop doorway, and when the gunfire ceased, I peered out into the shrieking, stampeding crowd. I saw Conklin standing behind a column, reloading his gun. I shouted out to him. He waited for me to catch up, and then we sprinted to the next column in the line. Only a minute or two had passed since we’d raced off our mark at the travel agency into a shooting gallery.

  But as we reached the end of the Main Hall, we weren’t alone.

  As airport security and DHS streamed through the terminal, cruisers screamed up to the curb with all sirens and flashers to the max. The fake cops had seen the cars through the glass, and rather than break for the exits, they’d gone for the escalators.

  I watched them disappear as the moving staircase took the fake cops to the floors above.

  Chapter 75

  Conklin said to me, “They’re going to the AirTrain.”

  It made sense. The AirTrain was a closed-loop shuttle that took passengers around the airport to other terminals, rental-car booths, cargo storage, parking areas, and local transit. An excellent escape route.

  Herz had previously sent a detail to the AirTrain, but they had found nothing and were now, no doubt, assisting in the forced evacuation as the terminal was cleared and locked down.

  We had the up escalator to ourselves, and we rode it to the AirTrain station on level four. The station was empty when we arrived, but the stubby little shuttle was waiting at the platform with open doors.

  I peered through the tinted windows and could just make out a row of passengers huddled in their seats on one side of the train. I counted ten people, men, women, and children, and they looked terrified.

  The loudspeaker for this automated train squealed, and the mechanical voice announced, “Please hold on. Next stop Terminal Three.”

  I conferred with Conklin by hand signal, and with guns drawn, we positioned ourselves on either side of the train’s open doorway. I took a breath, let it out, looked at Conklin.

  I mouthed, One, two, three.

  And then we went in.

  A horror show was in progress.

  A passenger lay on the floor, gripping a bloody hole in his side. At the front of the car, facing us, were the four fake cops. One of them called out, “Drop your guns. Only saying this once.”

  My heart, already racing, red-lined. My ears rang, my focus narrowed, and the picture fully clarified.

  This was a hostage situation.

  The primary actor had stringy red hair and was wearing a faded cop uniform that, according to the patch on his shirt, had belonged to a cop in the Las Vegas PD.

  Reportedly, Loman had pulled off a nine-million-dollar casino heist in Las Vegas, but the getaway van collided with a gas truck.

  Judging from his shooting stance, the red-haired fake cop knew how to use a gun.

  Was he Loman?

  The other three fakers also wore LVPD uniforms. Two of them had choke holds on two real cops, while the third fake cop pointed his gun at one of the hostages’ heads.

  I tightened my grip on my nine and spoke in a loud, I-am-not-shitting-you voice. “SFPD. Guns down. Hands up.”

  A child cried out behind me, “Daddy.”

  A man’s hoarse voice pleaded with the gunman, “In God’s name, let us go.”

  Conklin was on his phone to Herz, saying, “They’re on the train.”

  This was as dangerous as it got. We were outmanned, civilians were in the line of fire, a man was dying on the floor, and we’d just executed our only plan B.

  The speaker on the platform screeched. The mechani
cal voice spoke. “Doors closing. Please hold on.”

  I had a two-handed grip on my gun, and I knew who I was going to shoot first. In that long second, as the red-haired gunman and I stared each other down, a gloved hand holding an M4 with an EOTech sight came through the open door.

  One shot was fired.

  The red-haired fake cop’s blood and brains and skull fragments splattered on the wall behind him, and he dropped to the floor.

  Had we gotten him?

  Was Loman dead?

  Chapter 76

  Herz and four SWAT commandos in full tac gear came through the open doorway, and the fake cops dropped their weapons. They were thrown to the floor hard, then frisked and cuffed. Their guns were taken into safekeeping.

  The automated voice came on: “Doors closing. Please hold on.”

  Herz opened a compartment near the door and threw a switch. A faint electric hum I hadn’t noticed before went quiet. This train would not be going anywhere.

  I knelt beside the victim on the floor.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Sandy.”

  “Take it easy, Sandy. We’ll have an ambulance here fast. Who shot you?”

  He took one of his bloody hands away from his side and gestured toward the crumpled body of the headless cop behind him. The injured man groaned and said, “Him.”

  “Why did he shoot you?”

  “I rushed him.”

  “You’re military?”

  He nodded. He was going pale, and there was a good chance he could bleed out. Conklin leaned down and told the injured man that he had called for EMTs.

  “They’re in the terminal now, on their way up to you.”

  While I took USMC sergeant Sanford Friedman’s contact information, Herz ID’d the phony cops, and the sobbing, shell-shocked passengers collapsed against one another.

  Herz was holding the fake cops for Homeland Security. They were standing with their faces against the wall, and I noticed that one of them was trembling. He was a big, imposing monster of a guy, but he looked to be the weakest link.

  After he’d puked, I told Herz, “I want this one.”

  Conklin and I took the guy who was definitely not a cop to the far end of the train and I said, “Tell me about Loman.”

  “I can’t.”

  He didn’t say, “I don’t know who you’re talking about” or “You guys just killed him.” The fake cop said, “I can’t.”

  Conklin and I kept him on the train as the flood of law enforcement cleared it. EMTs followed moments later and got the injured man onto a stretcher.

  When Conklin and I were alone with the bulked-up dude, I said in a motherly tone, “I want to help you. I’m Sergeant Lindsay Boxer. What’s your name?”

  Chapter 77

  News of the dramatic airport closing and cancellation of hundreds of flights out of SFO had flashed across the country.

  People were really frightened. They wanted answers.

  About ten minutes had passed since we’d begun our witness interview inside an airport interrogation room. The large, trembling fake cop was white, twenty-eight years old, with a thin mustache, a buzzed haircut, and a few messy tats on his neck obscured by the collar of his uniform.

  He said his name was Benjamin Wallace.

  We had put Wallace under arrest for carrying an unlicensed gun and then read him his rights. I accessed our database with my phone and ran his name through the system. Benjamin R. Wallace was clean, and his DMV photo matched his mug.

  He told us that he was currently a security guard for a clothing shop downtown, the Men’s Clubhouse. Conklin called the place, and Wallace checked out.

  My partner and I had to work fast to build a rapport with Wallace and make him see that it was in his best interests to give Loman up. Any minute now, the door to this small room was going to swing open and Homeland Security would take Wallace away before we’d heard his story, before he’d told us about Loman.

  I’d pegged Wallace as a low-level actor. Chances were this young security guard with no prior record would be open to making a deal. I took a seat across from the shivering hulk and relaxed my face, hoping to look sympathetic.

  “Ben,” I said nicely, “you understand your situation? If the victim who was shot inside the train dies, even if you didn’t shoot him yourself, you’re going to be charged with accessory to murder. If you discharged your gun at all, that’s assault with a deadly weapon. I see a real chance you’re going to be charged with kidnapping.”

  He nodded, gulped, looked like he was going to puke again. There was a garbage can under the computer stand by the door, and I brought it over to him.

  I continued. “Homeland Security is going to charge you with terrorism. That’s a federal offense. You’re still a kid. You could spend every last day of your life in a maximum-security prison with no chance of parole.”

  I let that sink in. Tears slipped out of Ben’s downcast eyes.

  I kept going. “Right now your only two friends in the world are Inspector Conklin and me. We’ve both been shot at today. Speaking for myself, I’m in a bad mood. But we need help catching Loman. You help us, we’ll help you. That’s a limited-time offer.”

  “I don’t know Loman,” Wallace said. “I know his name. That’s all.”

  Conklin, a.k.a. the good cop, said, “Ben. We know you aren’t the key man in this operation. You got swept up in something and now you’re in way over your head. You’re a small fish. But small fish sometimes end up in the boat if the big fish can’t be reeled in.”

  Ben was nodding.

  Conklin said, “Let’s start at the beginning. See where we go from there.”

  Chapter 78

  I left the interrogation room, dried the sweat from my face with my sleeve, and reset my ponytail.

  Then I wandered the hall until I found the vending machine. After three bottles of water had plunked down the chute, I picked them up and returned to the box.

  I pushed a bottle of water across the table to Wallace, handed one to Conklin. Then I sat down next to my partner and just kept quiet while he ran the interview. Wallace appeared to be responding to him.

  Wallace told Conklin, “It was my brother, Sam. He’s the one who got me into this airport job.”

  Conklin encouraged Ben Wallace to keep talking. The story he told was this: Ben’s brother, Sam, age thirty, had once been arrested for an unarmed liquor-store shoplift, caught with a bottle of ten-dollar hooch under his jacket. He was arrested, pleaded guilty, got bail, and immediately fled. There was a warrant out for Sam Wallace’s arrest, but he wasn’t one of the top ten, or even one of the top ten thousand, most wanted. So he was free, doing odd jobs, living with whoever would put him up, including Ben, but most often living on the street.

  Ben went on to say that last week he’d gotten a call from his brother about a man named Russell—whether that was a first name or a last name, Sam didn’t say—who worked with Mr. Loman, apparently as an agent or deal broker. Through Sam, Russell was offering Ben fifteen thousand dollars to be part of a robbery crew. He would be given a uniform and a gun, and all he had to do was put on that uniform and meet up with the three others in the crew at the airport outside the International Terminal. The uniforms would get them through security, and after they were in, they were supposed to take the AirTrain out to the cargo terminal.

  He went on to say, “Once we got to cargo, we had to look for a wooden box about one cubic yard in size.”

  He tried to show us, but the cuffs gave him only about twelve inches of range. “The box was, like, marked with Japanese letters, and some canvas bags of papers were inside. We were told that the papers were none of our business.

  “Once we had the bags, we were supposed to leave the cargo area and go outside to the parking lot. Russell was going to pick us up in his van and take us to a drop-off, I don’t know where.

  “It was supposed to be easy-breezy,” Wallace said, sniffling and crying now. “Look like airport cops, act l
ike airport cops. Take the train. Grab the bags. Get the hell out. A half day’s work for fifteen K. I’m happy to make fifteen thousand a year.”

  I believed that Ben Wallace hadn’t questioned his thirdhand instructions. He hadn’t doubted what he’d been told, that the job was a no-brainer.

  But I couldn’t contain myself. I had to jump in.

  “What about the guns?” I said. “What did you think about having a loaded gun in your possession?”

  “It was just for show,” he said.

  “But you fired it,” I said.

  He nodded miserably.

  Guns for show. Tell that to the former US Marine with a gut shot that might kill him.

  I’d been keeping my temper in check, but I was tired and I was convinced that Wallace knew where Loman was and how to find him.

  I said, “Ben, that’s a nice story, and I feel bad for you. You were used. But none of what you’ve told us gets us to Loman or even to his second in command. I’ll bet one of your dumb-ass crewmates might have some information for us. Maybe even be smart enough to throw you to the Feds and take any kind of deal in exchange for revealing Loman’s whereabouts.”

  After pausing to let that sink into his muscle-bound head, I said to Wallace, “Speak now, or I’m going to call, ‘Next,’ and interview one of the others on your crew. Ralph Burgess looks ripe to spill. And I’m going to launch an APB to grab up your stupid brother. There’s a warrant out for Sam. I think we can wring the truth out of him.”

  Conklin said, “I like that idea, Sergeant. Ben? Anything else you’d like to say?”

  Ben Wallace shook his head no.

  Conklin and I got up from our chairs. Conklin started to drag Wallace to his feet, but he twisted, bucked, started yelling, “Okay, okay. Please. I have a pacemaker. I could die right here.”

  I believed that. Steroid abuse could do major damage to vital organs.