‘It’s not my job to inform you of your legal rights. It’s my job to maintain airport security.’
‘So why aren’t you searching for the kidnapper who stole my son? Jesus Christ.’
‘There’s no need for language like that. For all I know this story of a kidnap is an elaborate ruse. I’m still waiting for you to confirm you will submit to a thorough body search.’
‘I’m confirming nothing till you start dealing with what has happened to Jimmy, you idiot. Where’s your boss? I want to talk to someone in authority here. Get these handcuffs off me. I want a lawyer.’
Parton’s lips compressed in a tight smile that had nothing to do with humour. ‘Non-US citizens selected for a longer interview generally do not have the right to an attorney.’ There was more than a hint of triumph in his voice.
The woman officer cleared her throat and took a step forward. Lia Lopez, according to her name badge. ‘Randall, she’s talking about an abducted kid. She has the right to an attorney if we’re asking her about anything other than immigration status or security.’
Parton swung his head round portentously, as if it were as heavy as a bowling ball. ‘Which, as of right now, we are not doing, Lopez.’ He held the glare for a long moment then turned back to Stephanie. ‘You need to confirm your consent,’ he repeated.
‘Am I legally required to submit to a search?’ It had dawned on Stephanie that if this idiot wasn’t going to listen to her, somehow she had to get in front of someone who would. And quickly.
‘Are you refusing to confirm?’
‘No, I’m seeking clarification. Am I legally obliged to submit to a search? Or can I refuse?’
‘You’re not helping yourself here.’ There was a pale pink flush on Parton’s cheeks, as if he’d been out in a cold wind.
‘I don’t know the law here. As you have already noticed, I am not a US citizen. I’m simply trying to establish what my rights are.’
Parton’s head jutted forward, aggressive as a farmyard rooster. ‘You’re refusing to confirm your consent to a search? Right?’
‘Do you actually know the law? Do you actually know what my rights are? I want to talk to someone in authority, someone who knows what’s what.’
‘Listen, lady. You wanna play smartass, I’m not going to play your game. If you don’t give me the answers I’m looking for, the next person you’ll be talking to will be from the FBI. And that’s a whole other ball game.’ He pushed back from the table and turned to Lopez. ‘What have we got on her ID?’
Lopez muttered something into her radio and turned away. Parton spoke again, obscuring the other conversation. ‘Like I said, you’re not helping yourself here. You assaulted one of my officers. That’s all we know. Nobody witnessed any incident. Nobody reported a child being abducted. All I know, lady, is that you just went crazy on us. Why the hell did you break out of the box? Why did you assault that officer?’
Answering that question once had achieved nothing. There was no reason to suppose that repeating herself would take them any further forward. If she could have folded her arms across her chest, that’s what Stephanie would have done. There was no available body language for her to convey ‘enough’. She swallowed her panic, cocked her head and met his eye. ‘Am I legally obliged to answer that question?’
Exasperated, Parton slapped his hands on the tabletop. Lopez moved forward and said, ‘She entered the US half an hour ago here in Chicago. She came in on a flight from London Heathrow.’ She cleared her throat. ‘She was accompanied by a minor child.’
The silence expanded to fill the space available. In a voice cold with rage, Stephanie said, ‘Now can we get a real law-enforcement official in here?’
3
Parton’s bluster did not survive Lopez’s information. He ordered the cuffs to be removed, but couldn’t resist barking at her. ‘Keep your hands out of your pockets. And don’t use your phone.’
‘I don’t have my phone. It’s in a plastic box with all the other stuff that went through the X-ray machine. Which presumably includes Jimmy’s backpack. All you had to do to establish I was telling the truth was to take a look at what was sitting on the scanner belt.’ Stephanie didn’t even try to hide her disdain.
Parton said nothing more on his way out of the room. Lopez gave her a rueful smile. ‘Is he going to get someone in here who can do something about my child being kidnapped?’ Stephanie demanded, rubbing her wrists.
Lopez looked away as the door opened. A TSA officer brought two grey plastic trays into the room and dropped them on the floor. Stephanie could see that one contained her carry-on bag, while the other held her jacket, shoes, toiletries in clear plastic for easy examination and the assorted jumble of items from pockets. ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘There should be another. With Jimmy’s backpack and his hoodie.’
The officer shrugged one shoulder. ‘That’s all there is.’ He closed the door behind him.
The absence of Jimmy’s possessions sent a fresh shiver of fear through Stephanie. Somehow, that spoke of chilling calculation, a targeted move rather than a spontaneous random selection. She had never been more aware of time passing. ‘Does nobody have any sense of urgency round here?’ she demanded. ‘Do you have children? Would you not be losing your mind if somebody kidnapped your child and nobody paid any attention?’
Lopez looked uncomfortable. ‘You have to be patient. We’ve got a job to do and it’s got a very narrow focus. We’re obliged to act inside tight limits. And I shouldn’t even be talking to you.’
Stephanie put her head in her hands. ‘Every minute that passes, Jimmy’s in danger. I promised . . . I promised . . . ’ Her voice stuck in her throat. Her fear and rage couldn’t maintain their adrenalin-fuelled level for ever. Now it was her sense of failure that choked her. She’d given her word. And it seemed her word was worthless.
Being posted to the Chicago Field Office had felt like a promotion to Special Agent Vivian McKuras. But when they sent her out on permanent attachment to the office at the airport, she understood that she was actually being punished for the sins of her previous boss. Jeff was now serving time in a federal penitentiary for his novel methods of funding his gambling addiction. She’d known there was something off with him, but she’d thought it was to do with his marriage, not a surreptitious arrangement with the local mob. A fine detective she’d turned out to be.
To an outsider, the airport posting might have looked like a plum job, out there on the front line against the terrorists seeking to undermine the American way of life. The perfect place for an agent to redeem herself, to show she was really a class act. The reality was about as unglamorous as it could get. Most of the people pulled out of the line by the TSA were about as close to terrorists as her grandmother. On second thoughts, that wasn’t such a great analogy. Her grandmother could get pretty fired up these days about Scottish independence. Never mind that she’d left Rutherglen when she was five months old.
The problem for Vivian McKuras was boredom. Every interview she’d carried out as the result of a TSA stop had been entirely pointless. Mostly she’d known within three minutes that the men, women and children detained for her attention were, in terms of the security of the state, entirely harmless. Disabled veterans, the incontinent elderly and the Sikh with the black plastic copy of a ceremonial dagger were not going to hijack a plane or raze the airport to the ground. And on the few occasions when she thought further investigation was merited, protocol required that she bring the Chicago office into the circle. Her potential suspect would be whisked off for questioning by officers who had fewer black marks on their record than she.
The tedium was killing her. So many times in the past weeks she’d stood in the shower composing her letter of resignation from the Bureau. But always she came back to the practicalities. What else could she do for a living? There was a recession on. Nobody was hiring. They especially weren’t hiring people who had no vocational training. Five years in the FBI didn’t qualify you for anything except more of the same. And more of the same was precisely what she didn’t want.
And now, just to make her day complete, Randall Parton was walking through her office door. Vivian had tried not to let the instinctive dislike she’d taken to Parton interfere with their professional relationship. But it was hard, given the perfect storm of arrogance and stupidity that had been obvious at their first encounter and at every one
