The window in the door was reinforced with wire mesh. Inside, behind a scuffed laminate counter buried under dead manifest sheets and lost-luggage tags, sat Greg Miller. He had his heavy winter airline parka unzipped, an insulated travel mug resting on a stack of carbon-copy receipts, and his eyes glued to an amber-screen terminal terminal that flickered against his bifocals.
Marcus didn't knock. He shoved the door open with enough force to bounce the brass knob against the drywall stop.
Miller’s head jerked up. His hand, thick-knuckled and stained with black belt residue, instantly dropped from the mechanical keyboard to the edge of the desk. When he saw Hendricks’s uniform and the gold Port Authority shield pinned to the officer’s chest, the loose confidence on his face vanished, leaving behind a gray, pinched mask.
"Marcus," Miller said, clearing his throat and sitting upright. "What are you doing down here? You’ve got the turnaround for the 7:10 out of Pittsburgh at Gate 12."
"Flight 2140 just pushed back with an override hold on seat 1A," Marcus said, stepping straight to the counter. He slammed the printed paper standby sheet onto the blotter between them, pointing his ballpoint pen directly at the red notation. "Logged from this desk at 5:48. You used the station master key to dump an Albany passenger and force a corporate reissue for Vance Municipal Logistics."
Miller looked at the paper, then his eyes flicked past Marcus to me. He took in my wet coat, my canvas briefcase, and the stamped boarding stub still clutched in my fingers. His jaw tightened, but he didn't lean back. "I don't know what you're talking about. Systems kick seats back to inventory on automated no-show parameters. If a passenger isn't checked through the gate reader twenty minutes before push, the regional mainframe reassigns open inventory to corporate contracts."
"I was standing at Gate 14 at six o'clock," I said, setting my briefcase down on the cold floor between my boots. "I held a valid seat assignment. You didn't wait for an automated no-show timer. You manually keyed a security deletion code using code VML-88. And you did it twelve minutes before I even reached security checkpoint B."
Miller gave a dry, dismissive snort, though his fingers began tapping an uneven rhythm against the desk rim. "Passengers get mixed up about flight times every morning. You missed your boarding window, pal. Take it up with customer service in the main lobby. File a voucher claim."
"He didn't miss his window, Greg," Marcus said, his voice rising, cutting off Miller's rehearsed dismissal. "The gate transaction history logs every single keystroke. When Arthur Cole scanned his license at my desk at 6:18, my terminal flashed a duplicate identity lock. The screen showed an active reservation already boarded from terminal B-4. That's impossible unless somebody down here printed a boarding authorization before the passenger reached the gate."
Miller stared at Marcus. "You shouldn't be poking around supervisor access logs, kid. You're an hourly agent. You want to keep your ramp clearance, you walk back upstairs and work your gate."
"He's not walking anywhere," Officer Hendricks said, stepping into the small office. The room instantly shrank. Hendricks placed one massive, leather-gloved hand flat over the keyboard Miller had been using, leaning his weight forward so Miller was forced to look straight up into his badge. "Mr. Miller, this isn't an airline customer service dispute. Mr. Cole is a sworn investigator for the state comptroller’s office. He was traveling under an active court subpoena regarding Vance Municipal Logistics. If you altered an interstate passenger manifest to keep a state officer off an aircraft, that's not an internal union grievance. That's criminal interference with an active judicial proceeding."
Miller went completely rigid. The color in his neck darkened, not with embarrassment, but with the sudden, cold realization that whatever favor he had promised his brother-in-law had just crossed the line from airport bureaucracy into a felony record.
"I didn't alter anything," Miller stammered, pulling his hands back into his lap. "I got a phone call. That's all. A call came in from the Albany regional office at quarter to six. They told me there was a ticketing conflict with a municipal priority pass. They told me to clear the seat so their representative could take the early hop."
"Who called you, Greg?" Marcus demanded.
"It was an internal extension," Miller said, his eyes darting toward the frosted exterior window where baggage tractors rumbled past in the slush. "I didn't check the caller ID. I just logged the code they gave me."
"You're lying," I said. I pulled my phone from my coat pocket and laid it beside Marcus's clipboard on the desk. The screen still showed the three missed calls from Albany and the text message received while I was standing on the jet bridge. Better check your gate, Arthur. Weather in Albany looks bad for people who travel alone.