Megan turned her eyes on me, her smile freezing around the edges. "Excuse me?"
"You claimed 14A was occupied by an invalid swap," I said, stepping two paces toward the table, keeping my posture upright despite the metal cutting into my wrists. "The computer manifest for that aircraft locks seat assignments exactly forty minutes prior to pushback. At forty minutes, seat 14A was registered directly to Pinnacle Equity Group's corporate account. If you were clearing that seat, you were clearing it to bump someone from the standby list. Who was waiting at the boarding counter when you called Officer Miller down the jet bridge?"
Megan’s jaw tightened. She took a half-step back toward the heavy door, her eyes narrowing with genuine venom. "You don't interrogate me. I run that cabin. I have final authority over passenger safety and boarding compliance under federal aviation regulations."
"You have regulatory authority over safety," I said. "You do not have regulatory authority to commit civil fraud to seat your personal acquaintance in a five-thousand-dollar suite."
Miller stepped between us, his chest heaving slightly, caught between the institutional momentum of an arrest he had already initiated and the unmistakable reality of the credentials sitting on the table. "Enough," he growled. "Both of you. Megan, did gate dispatch officially reject her boarding token through the departure terminal, yes or no?"
Megan didn't answer right away. She looked down at the manifest sheet folded in her hand, her thumb creasing the edge over and over with nervous, frantic precision.
"The gate agent was dealing with three standby disputes," Megan said, her voice rising an octave, losing its smooth professional polish. "She told me 14A was flagged. That's all I needed to know. The passenger became combative, she refused to stand down, and she threatened my employment. That is an operational disruption."
"That is a lie," I said. "And the terminal security cameras above the forward boarding door recorded every syllable exchanged between us. They recorded me handing you my paper boarding pass. They recorded you refusing to look at it. And they recorded Officer Miller applying physical force to a compliant passenger who had committed no violation of law."
Miller turned toward the small wall-mounted terminal desk in the corner of the holding room. He pulled up the Port Authority internal interface with thick, hesitant fingers, his keycard clicking loudly into the slot.
"Run the locator code," I said quietly. "Seven letters: P-N-C-L-O-M-G."
Miller typed the letters into the transit database. For six seconds, the only sound in the concrete room was the humming ballast of the ceiling lights and the faint whine of jet engines outside on the tarmac.
Then the monitor screen flashed amber, followed immediately by a solid bar of executive red.
Miller stopped typing. His shoulders went rigid. He leaned in closer, his eyes scanning the lines of text that populated the flight logistics record. Beside him, Officer Harris stepped up to the monitor, his gaze fixing on the primary billing account and the priority security flag pinned to the reservation.
"Miller," Harris said, his voice dropping into a tense whisper. "Look at the corporate ownership ledger on the bottom tier. Look who signed the carrier debt renewal this afternoon."
Megan crossed the room, her heels clicking aggressively on the tile. "What is taking so long? We have twenty minutes until our takeoff slot expires! If we miss that slot, the delay costs the company thirty thousand dollars!"
Miller didn't answer her. He slowly took his hands off the keyboard and turned around. His face had gone pale beneath his airport tan, the aggressive certainty completely drained from his eyes.
He didn't look at Megan. He looked directly at me.
"Officer," I said, holding out my swollen wrists behind me. "Remove the restraints."
CHAPTER 2 CONTINUED
Miller swallowed, his throat making a dry, clicking sound. He stepped sideways, blocking Megan’s immediate line of sight to the monitor screen. "Megan. Back up."
"Excuse me?" Megan scoffed, her heels stopping an inch from the bolted desk leg. "We have a schedule window. You don't tell me to back up. Sign the transit custody transfer so I can get back on that aircraft."