Danger Zone (Short story) Page 3

  ***

  “So, I guess no one could accuse us of profiling.” Thiggy turned the name Allen L. Ingers around in his mind. A.L.I…Ali?

  “Whatever happens, I really need to get my bag back.”

  The desperate look on Katrice’s face made Thiggy wonder what the hell she had stashed in her carry-on luggage. It didn’t matter. He’d climb Mt. Everest to retrieve anything she treasured that much.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll get it back. I promise. Come on, let’s go find this guy.” He nodded to the woman at the ticket counter when they walked by, and then he and Katrice ran down another set of white marble stairs that led to one of the lower levels, to Café Calatrava. “If he’s a legitimate member of the wait staff, we should find him in the kitchen, right?”

  Wrong. Ingers was not around. Not in the kitchen or the café. Not in the restrooms. Nor the locker room, where Thiggy noted two lockers with missing keys. Which meant they were in use—after hours—after the museum browsers had vacated the building. Visions of improvised explosive devices danced in his head. But then, he was a suspicious SOB, immersed in national security issues twenty-four-seven.

  He headed for another marble bench in a hallway that ran between the stairs and the restaurant, tossed the bag down, and pulled a small lock pick from his pocket.

  “Let’s pop this sucker open and see what’s inside.” He sat on one side of the piece of luggage and Katrice on the other.

  Short-sleeve shirts, khaki shorts, sandals, and books—five thick, heavy textbooks, subjects ranging from art history to architecture, from chemistry to electronics. A cell phone. And on the bottom, a hand-drawn set of floor plans for the Quadracci Pavilion. The muscles in his solar plexus tightened. He looked up. “Kinda seems like overkill for a waitering gig.”

  “And you’re betting he’s not an architectural design student?”

  Thiggy liked the way she thought, the way her mind tracked like his. He nodded and continued to dig around in the satchel and found a leather wallet, brimming with cash. Two thousand dollars in American currency to be exact.

  “He’s not going to be a happy camper when he realizes he’s got the wrong bag.” Thiggy’s gut muscles were working overtime, screaming W-A-R-N-I-N-G. An IED could be triggered remotely with a cell phone. And why didn’t Ingers carry his phone on him like most folks?

  He stared into Katrice’s eyes and got sidetracked by irises so deep blue they could challenge an artist’s palette, a delight he unfortunately didn’t have time to dwell on.

  Instead, he mentally reviewed the plans he’d devised for Operation Safe Passage before he’d suffered a concussion a week ago. Before the good old powers-that-be had pulled him from active duty until multiple doctors and multiple stacks of red-tape medical release forms were signed, deeming him to be a hundred-and-ten-percent good to go.

  His gut shouldn’t be clenching. A network of law enforcers, federal, state and local, were prepped to assure that Mohammad Mahid walked into and out of the Milwaukee Art Museum in one piece. And to assure that the Calatrava extravaganza remained standing.

  Cluster cells, splinters of the Islamic Reform Movement who had declared a jihad against the U.S., would prefer the opposite. They’d like nothing more than to see President Mahid’s demise on U. S. soil. What better way to strain the diplomacy between the two countries?

  But was it reasonable to suspect this Anglo American college kid of having ties to jihad extremists? Hell, yes. Until he could prove otherwise, Thiggy would operate on the assumption the guy could be as screwed up as Timothy McVeigh.

  Convinced he was not literally jumping the gun, he opened his black duffle bag and pulled out a Glock 22. “You’re an officer in the Air Force. You know how to use one of these, right?”

  “How’d you get that through security at the airport?”

  “I am security.”

  “Oh, right.” She nodded. “Yes…I know how to shoot. I’ve trained with everything from small handguns to an M16.”

  “Colt 223?”

  “Yeah. But…” Her face turned the color of bleached sheets.

  He put his sigh-of-relief on hold. “Okay, so we know you have the technical ability. But, can you use this pistol right now, tonight, if you have to?”

  Her eyes squeezed shut. “I’m not sure…if I’m psychologically stable right now, tonight. My brother was just killed. Ten days ago…on some God-forsaken mountain along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.” She studied her feet, then looked up. “He would never have been there if I hadn’t encouraged him to follow in my footsteps and join the Air Force.”

  Thiggy could relate to the shock of losing someone close. His Delta Force teammates hadn’t been blood brothers, but at heart, all ten of his friends had been closer than siblings. He’d lost them in one horrific explosion and was left filled with agonizing questions and self-doubt. Why had he and Crazaniak survived the ambush and not the others? Had their cause justified the end?

  “Jeez, I’m so sorry, Katrice…I’ve been there, too…” His gaze slid to the Glock. He checked the magazine.

  “My parents are freaking out. They want me to quit the Air Force. They’re afraid of losing both of their children. I don’t even know what I want…”

  Counting the seconds ticking by, Thiggy forced himself to keep quiet and let her talk.

  “Air support wasn’t enough to save Sergeant David Kennedy. His plane was hit, and he and his team parachuted. A Taliban launcher got them on the ground before they were rescued.”

  Thiggy swallowed hard. “Things are too raw right now. You shouldn’t make a tough decision like that when your emotions are stretched so thin.”

  She toyed with the zipper on an outside pocket of Inger’s bag.

  While searching his belt, assuring himself that his extra magazine was where it was supposed to be, Thiggy said, “You know, if it hadn’t been for air support, I would never have made it out of Afghanistan alive.” He cupped his hand over hers.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Someone just like you was there for me when I needed them.” After his team had walked into an ambush.

  “The sweetest words I ever lip-read were, ‘We’ve got air support and we are inbound.’”

  She swallowed and side-glanced him. “So that’s when you lost your hearing?”

  He nodded. “Don’t you see, Katrice, if you give up, the enemy wins.” He surged to a standing position and looked around, balancing the pistol in his palm.

  “Maybe I need a psych evaluation.”

  “Maybe. And maybe you just need a little time to heal.”

  Her gaze suddenly focused on the bag. She slid open the zipper. “My bag has a hidden flap in the pocket. I bet this one does as well.” She grappled around and finally pulled out an envelope and opened it. “A set of vouchers. Airplane tickets.” Her gaze stalled on him. “Final destination, Tehran, Iran, and the first leg of the flight leaves Milwaukee at six a.m. tomorrow.”

  That cinched it. Thiggy whipped out his customized cell phone with a digital transcribing screen and punched in one number. “This is Benjamin Thigpen, Homeland Securities-Code 39102. We have a potential situation at the Quadracci Pavilion. We are in need of additional JTTF backup ASAP. Covert approach. Proceed with caution. No sirens.”

  After reading the response on the phone’s screen, he said to Katrice, “Dispatch is alerting Mahid’s security team.”

  His hand tightened around the Glock. “Back to my question. Can you shoot this baby if you have to?”

  Her struggle within was palpable, anguish turning her eyes to glittering sapphires. But after she thought for measured seconds, she straightened and squared her shoulders. “Yes, I can do it.”

  A hollow sensation in Thiggy’s chest made him wish he was sending her on a fast track out of the building. “Are you sure you want in on this? I don’t know what’s about to go down. We can always hope it’s a false alarm. But it very well may not be.”

  “I want in.”

&nbs
p; “It’s loaded.” He nodded toward the pistol, his heart thudding when she reached for it.

  Glock in hand, she double checked the magazine. Then she clasped the grip, placing her finger alongside the barrel, and held the weapon pointed toward the floor. “What’s the modus operandi?”

  “We go find Mr. Ingers.” He slipped out the bigger, meaner semi-automatic he wore in his shoulder holster beneath his jacket. A Springfield Legend TGO .45 ACP complete with a Dawson fiber-optic front sight.

  “But—we don’t have just cause to shoot him—”

  “No, but we have just cause to get his attention and to ask him a few questions.”

  If Thiggy’s suspicions were spot on, and Ingers intended to create an international incident, the guy probably had accomplices. If that wasn’t enough to worry about, there was always the probability that components of an improvised explosive device had been stashed in the building before any of them had arrived.

  If—

  In addition to the lockers, the Quadracci Pavilion offered 142,050 square feet of hiding space—including the grand entrance and reception hall, auditorium, café, gift shop, parking garage, and two promenades.

  If—if—if.

  And, hell, his call to dispatch had confirmed that Mahid was already in the building.

  He tore into Inger’s bag one more time, focusing on the set of drawings. On the last page, the diagram of the parking level, a small yellow X highlighted a spot two levels beneath Windhover Hall.

  Windhover Hall. The heart of the Quadracci building.

  On the phone again, he informed dispatch to expect activity in the parking level. Then after riveting an anxious, second-long glance on Katrice, he took off. Despite the fact that she wore low pump heels, she followed like a locked-on missile. They sprinted, skidding down an alabaster-white stairway that led from the café level to the parking level.

  At this very moment waiters in crisp jackets were serving hors d'oeuvres to President Mahid and several hundred guests in the chancel of the ninety-foot-high, glass-roofed cathedral directly above them.

  Neither the ribbed vaults, nor the concrete buttresses, nor the steel fins of the Burke Brise Soleil could shelter the structure from PETN or whatever high explosives terrorists might use in a homemade bomb.

  Leading with his pistol, Thiggy paused before he opened the door that led to the parking garage. Katrice tapped his shoulder, and when he glanced back and locked gazes with her, she said, “I’ve got your six.”

  His gut hitched, and he forced himself to nod, then he peered through the glass and focused on how he was going to get everyone out of the building alive. Then he spotted Ingers.

  “There he is in the center of the garage,” he mouthed the words, “I’ll confront him. If he’s got a bomb, I’ll try to talk some sense into him.” He ground his teeth until a muscle in his jaw ticked. “Stay out of sight. If we’re faced with the worst case scenario, and things go south, stop him any way you can.”

  She nodded and gave him a thumbs up.

  Thiggy inched open the door.