She tried her supervisor badge swipe through the magnetic reader beside the keyboard. The terminal chimed once with a dull, flat rejection tone.
"The passenger record was just locked by the ramp control office," Miller murmured, her fingers pausing above the keys. She looked toward Holloway, then back at me. "I can’t view the seat-assignment notes or the flight manifest amendment from this desk anymore. Gate supervisor Vance flagged the file for internal audit before he cleared the aircraft for departure."
Across the concourse, through the wide floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the taxiway, Flight 842 was lining up on Runway 28-Center. Its jet turbines spun up with a distant, bone-shaking roar that vibrated through the plate glass and the soles of my shoes. In four hours, the plane would touch down in California—or make an unannounced operational diversion if the flight plan had been tampered with before takeoff.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and opened the high-resolution photo I had snapped across Vance's counter. The digital image showed Vance’s employee signature clearly legible across the bottom margin of the transit slip. Right below it, printed in microscopic company font, was the true cargo destination: PHX SKY HARBOR AIR CARGO FACILITY—PRIVATE LEASE DOCK FOUR.
I looked at Miller, whose hands were still resting uncertainly against the locked terminal keyboard, and then at Holloway, who had quietly uncrossed his arms. Waiting for an administrative review at Concourse C was no longer an option; Vance had deliberately locked the digital trail from the terminal side to buy his contact four uninterrupted hours while Apollo was trapped six miles above the ground.
CHAPTER 2 CONTINUED
"My niece is not freight," I said, laying my driver's license flat beside the torn thermal slip. "She has four hours of fuel before that airframe touches concrete in Phoenix or San Diego. You saw the cargo slip. You saw the transfer name. Gregory Vance isn't an airline employee; he’s Marcus Vance’s brother, and he operates a private transport van out of the air freight concourse at Sky Harbor."
Holloway shifted his boots on the tile. His leather belt creaked under the weight of his radio pouch and key rings, but his hands stayed loose at his sides now, not on his baton. "Supervisor Miller, is the station manager at the ramp desk right now?"
"Tom Reyes was scheduled for ramp turnover at eight-thirty," Miller answered without looking up from the locked screen. She unclipped her hard-shell supervisor badge and held it by its retractable cord. "If Marcus routed an unaccompanied ward under cargo protocol without a secondary dispatcher sign-off, dispatch headquarters in Dallas will flag the discrepancy during the mid-flight audit at ten. But that’s eighty minutes from now. The plane will be over Kansas by then."
"I am not waiting eighty minutes while my dead sister's daughter is handed off at an industrial loading dock," I told her.
Miller’s mouth tightened into a rigid, narrow line. She looked toward the sliding security doors at the end of the customer service enclosure—the frosted double doors marked AUTHORIZED GROUND CREW ONLY—BADGE ACCESS REQUIRED. A red card scanner glowed dull crimson against the brushed stainless steel frame.
"Mr. Mercer, if you step past those doors without an operational badge, Holloway is obligated by federal ramp security protocols to take you into physical custody," she said. She slid a yellow clip-board toward herself and pulled a pink operational flight-correction voucher from beneath the clip. Her ballpoint clicked once. She wrote three lines across the carbon paper: B14 MANIFEST AUDIT—REQUEST PHYSICAL INSPECTION OF SEAT 18B TRANSIT ENVELOPE. Below the signature line, she wrote: ESCORT TO STATION MANAGER REYES.
She tore the pink sheet from the pad, handed it through the counter slot, and looked directly at the transit guard. "Officer Holloway, you have an unverified passenger discrepancy involving a minor's physical medical documents. Escort Mr. Mercer down the service stair to Tom Reyes’s ramp office. If Marcus Vance is already downstairs, keep them on opposite sides of the partition."
Holloway took the slip, glanced at the signature, and tapped the card scanner with his heavy magnetic ring. "Follow me, Mr. Mercer. Keep your hands out of your pockets and do not touch the baggage conveyor belts."
The steel security door buzzed, its magnetic lock releasing with a heavy clatter. Holloway held the door open with his hip, guiding me into the concrete service stairwell behind the public concourse. The air changed instantly: the climate-controlled terminal chill vanished, replaced by the smell of burnt turbine exhaust, damp concrete, and heated conveyor rubber.
We descended two flights of open metal grate stairs. Below, the subterranean level of O’Hare stretched out in a series of vaulted, low-ceilinged concrete bays lit by yellow sodium lamps. Tug tractors pulling long chains of baggage carts rattled along marked yellow driving lanes, their diesel engines roaring against the low ceiling. Overhead, sorting tracks hummed continuously as thousands of suitcases dropped through mechanical diverters into sorting bins.
Holloway steered me along the pedestrian walkway toward a freestanding corrugated steel office labeled RAMP OPERATIONS & CARGO DISPATCH. Through the wired-glass windows, two men were standing over a wide metal drafting table covered in computer monitors and paper flight strips. One was Marcus Vance; the other was a burly man in an orange reflective vest with grease-stained cuffs and a headset slung around his neck.
Vance had his blazer off, hung over the back of an office chair. He held my blue lanyard and the original laminated custody envelope Apollo had been carrying. With his right hand, he was feeding a sheet of thick cream-colored cardstock into an industrial office shredder beside the desk.