Miller straightened up instantly, clutching his injured wrist to his stomach, trying to pull his uniform jacket into some semblance of captain's dignity. "Officers, thank God. I have an unauthorized civilian who boarded during final dispatch, assaulted my person, and incited a near-riot among the passengers. I want her removed and taken into custody immediately."
Lindquist didn't look at Miller. He walked straight past the captain, his heavy boots squeaking on the wet rubber thresh-plate, and stopped directly in front of me. His gray hair was plastered to his forehead with melted sleet, and his eyes were hollow with the kind of exhaustion that comes from working forty-eight continuous hours on a major incident.
"Claire," Lindquist said quietly.
"Frank," I answered.
Miller blinked, his head darting between the inspector and me. "You know each other?"
"I've known David Vance for fifteen years, Captain," Lindquist said, turning his head slowly to look Miller in the eye. "And I was the inspector who took his call at eleven o'clock Tuesday night, three hours before his truck went over the bridge rail on Highway Fifty-Three."
Cross took half a step backward, his hand subtly drifting down toward the nylon duffel straps. The second airport police officer stepped smoothly into the gap behind him, blocking the forward avionics bay.
"Inspector Lindquist," Cross said, modulating his voice into the calm, authoritative tone of a senior corporate counsel. "I am Arthur Cross, managing director of Sterling Horizon Capital. There has been a serious procedural breakdown between North Star's dispatch desk and our regional handling crew. We are attempting to rectify an equipment repositioning order to ensure holiday travel continuity. Ms. Vance has suffered a profound personal loss, and her emotional state has unfortunately disrupted—"
"Save the corporate deposition, Mr. Cross," Lindquist interrupted, cutting him off with the flat, tired disdain of a seasoned civil servant. "I just spent the last two hours in hangar three with the Duluth fire marshal and two certified airframe mechanics. We pulled the inspection logs on airframe November-Nine-Two-Seven—the plane your dispatch system claims is currently ferrying south under Flight Four-Twelve."
Lindquist pulled a sealed plastic evidence envelope from inside his coat. Inside was a charred, half-melted digital flight data recorder and a stack of yellow carbon work orders.
"Hangar three is completely empty," Lindquist said. "Airframe Nine-Two-Seven was stripped for spare parts three weeks ago in Minneapolis. The tail number sitting out here at Gate Three, with twenty-one ticketed holiday passengers buckled into their seats, is November-Four-Zero-Eight. An airframe that had its operating certificate suspended under an emergency grounding directive signed by my office at zero-eight-hundred this morning."
Miller swallowed. The sound was audible in the small galley. "Inspector... the ground cycle was nominal. Hayes did the ultrasonic inspection at the line hangar yesterday. The carbon sign-off is right here in the jumpseat pouch—"
"I have the jumpseat pouch right here, Inspector," Elena Ramos said. She stepped between the two police officers, her hands steady now as she held out the yellow slip she had broken from the red emergency box. "Thomas Hayes's signature. License number four-eight-one-two-nine. Stamped yesterday at fifteen-hundred hours."
Lindquist took the carbon slip, held it under the dim emergency cabin light, and gave a short, bitter chuckle that had no humor in it at all.
"Thomas Hayes was arrested by federal marshals in Superior, Wisconsin, three hours ago," Lindquist said. "He was sitting in a motel room with an envelope containing fifteen thousand dollars in cash and an airline ticket to Miami. He’s already given a sworn statement to the United States Attorney's Office."
Miller's knees buckled. His right shoulder struck the cabin bulkhead, and he had to brace his uninjured forearm against the ceiling handrail to keep from sliding down to the floor. "Garrett," Cross snapped in a low, furious hiss. "Shut your mouth."
"He told them everything, Garrett," Lindquist continued, stepping directly into Miller’s personal space. "He told them how you and Cross bypassed the maintenance lockout at the maintenance depot on Monday night. How you swapped the digital transponder module from Nine-Two-Seven into this bird so Duluth ground control would see a cleared aircraft on their radar screens. And how you intended to fly this uninspected airframe through an active blizzard to Minneapolis, park it in Sterling's private hangar, and torch the engine records before the probate court could execute the trust audit."
"That's a lie," Cross said, his voice finally losing its cold polish, tightening into the sharp, defensive snarl of a cornered predator. "You have no physical evidence connecting my firm to any mechanical sign-off. Those statements are uncorroborated hearsay from a disgraced mechanic trying to cut a plea deal."
"Then what's in the bags, Mr. Cross?" I asked, pointing directly down at the two heavy nylon duffels at his boots.
Cross didn't move. "Those are proprietary corporate instruments. Protected work product. Private documents under active lien litigation."
"You brought those bags aboard this commercial airframe through the tarmac service door without passing through airport security screening," Elena Ramos said clearly, looking at the lead police sergeant. "I have the security camera feed on the gate console. He bypassed TSA checkpoint B with Captain Miller's crew pass."