since.
‘Agent McKuras,’ he said with a sharp nod of greeting. He always managed to make it clear that the lack of respect between them was mutual.
‘What do you need from me today, Officer Parton?’ Vivian smiled sweetly, knowing it killed him that she was the one with the power to do anything more than prevent someone getting on a plane.
Parton eyed the visitor chair opposite her desk, torn as always between the desire to sit down without waiting for an invitation that was never going to come and the need to tower over her. ‘We got us a crazy woman. She set off the metal detector, an officer put her in the box to wait for a female assist. We were running a little slow on the box, you know how busy it gets this time of day.’
‘I know,’ Vivian said, wishing she didn’t. Wishing this airport and all its internal workings were a mystery to her.
‘Out of nowhere, she launches herself out of the box.’ Parton sounded defensive, a man who expected to find himself in the wrong sooner or later. ‘Officers go to intercept her but she’s not ready to be stopped. Next thing is, I’ve got an officer down with a busted nose, blood everywhere and she’s still going forward, yelling something that makes no sense to any of my guys.’
‘She’s not speaking English?’
Parton’s mouth quirked to one side to show his distaste. ‘She’s English all right, but nobody can make out what she’s yelling. So they taser her, like they’re supposed to when they’re met with violent resistance. She goes down but she gets right back up. Like a crazy person. So they zap her with a longer blast and this time she stays down till they cuff her. Lopez took her down to the interview room.’
Vivian felt a moment’s relief. Lia Lopez might be Parton’s junior, but she had more sense than the rest of her shift put together. ‘Good move,’ she said.
‘So that’s when I get called in. And that’s where it gets complicated.’
‘Complicated how?’
‘For a start, she’s a smartass. Every time I ask her a question, she just harps on about whether she’s legally obliged. Running me around in circles. And then she starts in about how her kid’s been kidnapped. Now, we got no alert in the zone. Nobody saw any kid being abducted. The only unusual thing in my area this afternoon was this crazy-ass woman breaking out of the box. So I was disinclined to take her seriously. I thought she was trying to distract us from doing the search on her that we should be doing.’ Now his chin was up, his self-righteousness to the fore.
‘I can see why you might think that way.’
Parton folded his arms across his chest. ‘It’s gotten more complicated. Lopez got her name from her passport and checked with Immigration. Turns out she did have a kid with her when she arrived at the border earlier this afternoon.’
‘And the kid is missing now?’ Now he had Vivian’s full attention. Whatever this was, it wasn’t the run-of- the-mill that had ground her down.
Parton nodded. ‘Looks like it.’ His mouth did the wry twist again. ‘And here’s the thing. She’s not the mother. She brought the kid in with British court documents giving her authority to travel with him. So who knows what the fuck is going on here.’
The sudden rush of adrenalin galvanised Vivian as nothing had for months. ‘Jeez, Parton. We’re going to have to call a Code Adam.’ She reached for the phone, wondering who she should phone first when it came to closing down the world’s busiest airport.
Shamefaced, Parton half-turned his head away. ‘It’s too late to go to lockdown. We didn’t understand what was happening fast enough. They’ll be long gone. You can check the footage if you don’t believe me. You really don’t want to call a Code Adam unless you’re sure they’re still on the premises.’
Vivian took his point. That would be a fast way to end her career. She gave a short, sharp sigh and hit the rarely used speed-dial button for the airport CCTV control centre. Parton, looking offended, started to speak but she held up a finger to silence him. ‘Hey,’ she said when the controller answered. ‘This is Special Agent McKuras in the FBI office. I need you to send me the feed for the last hour from—’
‘Security area two, terminal three.’ Parton was eager now, sensing that Vivian’s actions might get him off an awkward hook.
Vivian repeated the details and reminded the controller of her computer ID. She hung up and attacked her keyboard, fingers deft and fast. Strictly speaking, she should bring in one of her colleagues to watch the footage with her. But the two men she shared the airport posting with inhabited a cubbyhole office in the international terminal. She didn’t want to wait for one of them to drag himself over. If there had been a kidnap, every minute counted, especially since they’d been too slow off the mark to call a Code Adam. Besides, she had a ready-made witness in the room, however low her opinion of him. She looked up at Parton. ‘We’ll have a better idea of what we’re dealing with now. Why don’t you bring the chair round where you can see my screen? Two pairs of eyes are better than one.’
Parton grabbed the chair and angled it by the corner of the desk so he could see the screen. He sat down, stretching his long legs out and folding his arms across his chest. A whiff of laundry detergent and fried meat caught her throat and without thinking she drew away from him. He caught her movement and grunted, tucking his legs under the chair to take up less space. ‘It’s a great system,’ he said. ‘When it works.’
‘Let’s hope this is one of those days,’ Vivian muttered, clicking her mouse button to open up a new window. She was offered a choice of three cameras that covered the security area. ‘Which one?’
Parton leaned forward, a long bony finger extended. ‘That one. The middle one.’
Vivian checked her watch. ‘How long ago did this happen?’
‘About twenty minutes ago.’
She pulled up the camera feed and scrolled back twenty-five minutes then set it running. They watched in silence for a couple of minutes. Then a woman and child walked into shot, filling the plastic trays on the far side of the metal detector. ‘That’s her,’ Parton said.
‘And that boy is definitely with her.’ Vivian paused the recording and studied the pair. The woman looked taller than average. Around five nine, maybe. Mid-brown hair in an untidy jaw-length bob. Striking looks, with high cheekbones, a square chin, a wide mouth caught in a smile as she looked at the boy. She looked like she had that English-rose colouring, all pink and white. The kid had a thick mop of black hair, olive skin, cheeks like apricots. He was all arms and legs, wiry and clumsy like a foal in one of those sentimental race-horse movies. He didn’t look like he’d sprung from her genes. And yet there was no denying it. ‘They’re together, Parton.’
‘Shit.’
They watched the boy move through the metal detector and over to the far side of the X-ray machine where their possessions would reappear on the delivery belt. He looked over his shoulder towards the woman, who smiled and gave him the thumbs-up sign as she entered the box to wait for a female officer to pat her down. So far, so good. Vivian realised she was holding her breath, as if she was watching a thriller.
A few seconds passed. The boy shuffled from one foot to the other; the woman watched him. Then a man dressed in what appeared to be a TSA uniform shirt and black trousers appeared from the concourse and approached the boy. Just before he reached him, Vivian paused the video. ‘What’s wrong with this picture?’
‘He’s wearing a ball cap,’ Parton said without hesitation. ‘That’s not uniform issue. We don’t wear headgear.’
‘And he’s wearing the one kind of headgear guaranteed to obscure your face when you’re dealing with overhead cameras.’ Vivian set the video running again.
‘He’s not one of my team. No way.’ Parton unfolded his arms and clenched his fists.
The man walked straight up to the boy and put a hand on his back. The boy looked up and nodded. The man in the TSA uniform picked up a backpack from one of the plastic boxes then ushered the boy away from the belt and towards the concourse. The effect on the woman was electrifying. As soon as the man put a hand on the boy, she started moving. They’d barely cleared the end of the scanner conveyor belt when she was out of the plastic box.
Vivian ignored the drama in the foreground and concentrated on the man and boy. They remained in sight for a few yards then, as the concourse curved round to the right, they cut sharply left. ‘Shit,’ Parton said again.
‘That’s an exit, isn’t it?’
