was. None of the other TSA people wore anything on their heads. As she watched, the man reached for Jimmy’s hand.
For a split second, Stephanie couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The man was leading a compliant Jimmy away from the security area towards the concourse where dozens of people were milling back and forth. Not a backward glance from either of them.
‘Jimmy,’ she shouted. ‘Jimmy, come back here.’ Her voice rose in pitch, but it was deadened by the Perspex enclosure. Neither the man nor the child broke step. Worried now, Stephanie banged on the side of the box, gesturing towards the concourse. ‘My kid,’ she shouted. ‘Somebody’s taken my kid.’
Her words seemed to have no impact but her actions did. Two agents moved towards the box, not towards Jimmy. They were oblivious to what was happening behind them. Frantic, Stephanie thrust aside the voice in her head telling her she was crazy and made a run for it.
She’d barely made it out of the Perspex box when one of the agents grabbed her arm, saying something that didn’t register. His grip slowed her but it didn’t stop her. The prospect of losing Jimmy pushed her over her normal limits. The officer snatched at her with his other hand and without thinking, Stephanie whirled round and smashed her fist into his face. ‘They’re kidnapping my kid,’ she yelled.
Blood flowed from the guard’s nose, but he held on tight. Now Stephanie could only see the man’s hat. Jimmy was lost in the crowd. Panic gave her strength and she dragged the guard behind her. Dimly, she was aware of other officers drawing weapons and shouting at her, but her focus was total. ‘Jimmy,’ she screamed.
By now, another guard had grabbed her waist, trying to wrestle her to the ground. ‘Get down on the floor,’ he yelled. ‘On the floor, now.’ She kicked out, raking her heel down his shin.
The raised voices blurred into a meaningless noise as a third TSA officer joined battle, throwing himself on her back. Stephanie felt her knees buckle as she crumpled to the floor. ‘My boy,’ she mumbled, reaching for the pocket where she’d put their boarding passes. Suddenly the bodies restraining her melted away and she was free. Confused but relieved they were finally paying attention, Stephanie pushed herself one-handed to her knees.
That was when they tasered her.
2
Everything happened at once. Excruciating agony flashed along nerves, dancing synapses sending devastating messages to muscles. Stephanie’s collapse was instantaneous, a complete system failure, like the flick of a switch. Her mind raced in confusion, unable to make sense of the pain and the total loss of physical control. The one impulse that remained was the need to communicate what had happened.
She was convinced she was shouting Jimmy’s name, even as she hit the ground hard. But what she heard was a meaningless mangle of sound, the kind of dream-mumble people made when they were having a nightmare.
As suddenly as the pain had hit, it disappeared. Stephanie raised her head, bewildered. She paid no attention to the ring of Transport Security Administration officers surrounding her at a cautious distance. She was oblivious to the rubber - necking passengers, their exclamations or their camera phones. She strained to see Jimmy and caught a glimpse of his bright red Arsenal shirt next to the black and blue of a TSA uniform. They were turning off the main concourse, disappearing from sight. Ignoring the residual ache in her muscles, Stephanie pushed herself upright and launched herself in the crucial direction, a primal roar emerging from her throat.
She didn’t even complete the first stride. This time, the taser blast was longer, the disarticulation more thorough. This time, once the initial disabling effect was over, she remained disorientated and weak. Two officers hauled her to her feet and dragged her down the concourse in the direction opposite to where she’d last seen Jimmy. With the last of her energy, Stephanie tried to struggle free.
‘Give it up,’ one of the officers restraining her yelled.
‘Cuff her,’ a second, more authoritative voice said.
Stephanie felt her arms yanked behind her and the cold bracelet of metal handcuffs closed round each wrist. Now they were moving more quickly, hustling her down a side hallway and through a door. They dropped her on a plastic chair, her arms uncomfortably pulled over its back. Her head felt like the gears were slipping their cogs. She couldn’t get a grip on her thoughts.
A stocky Hispanic woman in TSA uniform stepped in front of her. Her expression was rock hard and grim but her eyes seemed considering. ‘You’ll feel confused for a while. It’ll pass. You’re not dying. You’re not even hurt. Not like my colleague with the busted nose. Do not attempt to leave this room. You will be prevented if you do.’
‘Someone kidnapped my son.’ The words came out thick and slurred. She sounded drunk and incomprehensible to her own ears. She couldn’t even focus enough to read the woman’s name badge.
‘I’ll be back to interview you shortly,’ the woman said, following her colleagues towards the door.
‘Wait,’ Stephanie yelled. ‘My boy. Somebody took my boy.’
The woman didn’t even break stride on her way out.
Now the overwhelming sensation in Stephanie’s body was the cold clutch of fear in her chest. Never mind what the taser had done to her body and her mind. Terror was all she understood at that moment. Her initial panic had altered, taking with it the urgency for flight or fight. Now the apprehension felt like a chill lump in her chest, weighing down her heart and making it hard to breathe. As thoughts and emotions tumbled inside her, Stephanie forced herself to focus on one solid piece of information. Someone had walked away from the security area with Jimmy. A stranger had whisked him away without a ripple in the surface of normality. How could that have happened? And why wouldn’t they listen to her?
She had to get out of there, had to make someone in authority understand that something terrible had happened, was still happening right now. Stephanie struggled against the back of the chair, trying to release her arms. But the more she wrestled against the rigid plastic, the more trammelled she felt. At last, she realised the design of the chair meant she couldn’t push her arms far enough behind her to clear its back. The fact that it was bolted to the floor meant she couldn’t even get to her feet and take it with her like some bizarre turtle shell.
She’d no sooner reached that conclusion than the woman who had spoken to her walked back into the room. She was followed by a lanky middle-aged man in the now-familiar TSA uniform who sat down opposite Stephanie without greeting her. Greying dark hair in an immaculate crew cut framed a face that was all hollows and angles, like something constructed from a kid’s magnet modelling kit. His eyes were cold, his mouth and chin too weak for the image he was trying to project. His name badge read Randall Parton and there were two gold stripes on the shoulder board of his blue shirt. Stephanie was relieved to find she could make sense of what she was seeing this time around.
‘Somebody kidnapped my boy,’ she said, urgency tumbling her words together. ‘You need to sound the alert. Tell the cops. Whatever it is you do when a stranger steals a kid.’
Parton kept up the stony stare. ‘What is your name?’ he said. Stephanie recognised the tight twang of New England in his speech.
‘My name? Stephanie Harker. But that’s not important. What’s important—’
‘We decide what’s important round here.’ Parton straightened his shoulders inside his neatly ironed shirt. ‘And what’s important right now is that you are a security risk.’
‘That’s crazy. I’m the victim here.’
‘From where I’m standing, my officer is the victim here. The officer you assaulted in your attempt to escape the security screening area before you could be searched. After you had set off the metal detector.’ Behind him, Stephanie could see the woman shift from one foot to the other, as if she was uncomfortable in the moment.
‘I set off the metal detector because I have a metal plate and three screws in my left leg. I was in a bad car accident ten years ago. I always set off the detectors.’
‘And as of now we have no way of determining the truth of that. Now what we need to establish before we go any further is that you are no risk to my country or my team. We require that you submit to a thorough search.’
Stephanie felt pressure building up inside her head, as if a blood vessel was about to burst behind her eyes. ‘This is crazy. What are my rights here?’
