The 19th Christmas (Women's Murder Club #19)(51)

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-amnot-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.”