kicked the back of the agent’s leg hard enough to cause him to lean backward, with me supporting his weight. I rotated the agent away from the door, placing the front sight of the Glock on the agent behind the desk. The action happened in a blink of an eye, quick enough to prevent the agent behind the desk from getting to his feet. He held up his hands, a look of terror on his face, convinced he was face-to-face with an insane suicidal maniac.
I barked out orders quickly, intent on dominating the confrontation. “Don’t fucking move. I don’t want to hurt anyone. Put your hands on top of your head.”
60
Jennifer stood dumbfounded by Pike’s actions.
“What in the hell are you doing! Have you lost your
Pike bared his teeth at her and said, “Take a look at the computer monitor.”
The agent Pike was holding tried his hand at negotiation. “Look, we only have a few questions. Nobody’s saying you’re a terrorist. Put the gun down and we can sort this out peacefully.”
Pike laughed. “I suppose this whole hostage-taking thing would be forgotten, huh? If I give you the gun, we can start over like this never happened? Promise?”
Jennifer cut in, turning back from the monitor. “What’s this mean? Why are we on the screen as terrorists? What’s going on here?”
Pike said, “I don’t know. Something’s screwed up, and we don’t have the time to sort it out here.”
He addressed the customs agents. “Both of you listen to me. We aren’t terrorists, and I can’t have you arrest us. I’m going to have each of you take off your clothes. I’m then going to tie you both up. I’m not going to hurt either one of you. Please don’t do anything to escalate this situation. I really, really don’t want to hurt you. Do you understand my instructions?”
They both nodded. “Okay. You at the desk, take off your clothes. Once you’re done, lie down on your stomach with your ankles crossed.”
The man at the desk complied, lying down with nothing on but a T- shirt and underwear.
Pike spoke to Jennifer. “Go outside and wait for me. Alert me if someone’s coming this way.”
Jennifer started to leave, then paused
“Stop what you’re thinking. I’m not going to harm you, but I
The agent thought about it, then shook his head.
“Okay. Jennifer, please go outside.”
Jennifer left the room. She thought she’d made a mistake, turned back to reenter, and saw the cipher lock on the door.
A short time later Pike came out, holding the agents’ clothing and equipment belts, looking queasy and sweating.
“Come on. We’ve got to move. We’re about to have every policeman in the city of Atlanta trying to find us.”
Jennifer put a hand on his chest, stopping him.
“What did you do in there?”
Pike was brought up short by the ferocity on her face.
“Hey, easy. I just tied them up butt-naked. Nothing else. Made me sick to my stomach doing that to good guys.” He looked up and down the hallway. “We need to go,
She felt an enormous weight leave her shoulders.
She said, “What do you think’s going on? We’re terrorists now?”
He started moving at a fast walk back the way they had come, toward the passport area, shoving the agents’ equipment and clothing into the first garbage can he came across.
“I don’t know, but we need to get the hell out of this airport. The tricky part is going to be getting out of the customs and immigration area. With any luck, we can bluff our way through. Just remember to project an air of calm confidence. Customs agents smell fear like a bloodhound. Walk like you own the place, and we should be good to go.”
She caught up to him, saying, “ ‘Smell fear like a bloodhound’… that’s just great. It’s exactly what I thought I’d be worried about at this stage in my life. When I said this trek was the right thing to do, I didn’t mean I wanted to wear a prison jumpsuit. There is a limit.”
He jerked his head around as he fast-walked up the hallway. “What’s that supposed to mean? We’re getting arrested one way or another. I just postponed it a little bit. Hopefully a great bit.”
“I know… I know. It’s okay. I told you we Cahills do stupid shit too. Of course, I’m pretty sure you’ve just set a record… ”
Pike cut her off by raising a finger to his lips. They had reached the double doors that led back into the customs area. Pike poked his head out, then said, “This is it. A new flight’s in and the place is buzzing. You ready?”
Realizing what she was about to do, Jennifer’s bravado left her. “Pike, I don’t know if I can do this. We just broke the law in a big way. We held a gun on federal agents and threatened them with death. I don’t think I’m going to be able to remain calm.”
“I hate to break this to you, but we don’t have a choice.”
61
We slipped into the flow of people headed to the baggage claim.
“Remain calm. We’re going to walk right to the man over there taking the customs forms. He’ll let us through as long as we don’t look like we’re hiding something.”
I gave her a reassuring smile. “You ready?”
She nodded weakly, looking like she’d rather go back to the interrogation room.
We got in line behind a family of four. Acting like I was a newbie tourist, I held up our blue-and-white cards and said, “Do we give these to you?”
The man nodded, saying, “No luggage?”
“Yeah, we have luggage. It’s somewhere between here and South America. Don’t get me started.”
The man smiled and waved us through. We entered the security checkpoint and made it to the far side without any issues, now back into the airport proper inside concourse E.
“All right, we need to get out of here and get lost in the city. Unfortunately, we’re at the last terminal in this damn airport. We’re going to have to cross all five concourses to get out of here. We need to start moving faster. Sooner or later they’re going to lock this place down.”
We jogged down the escalator to the underground trains, with one pulling up as we hit bottom. I ignored it, pulling Jennifer to the moving sidewalk in front of me.
“What are you doing? We get on that and we can be at the entrance in minutes.”
“Yeah, I know, but it’s too risky. They pull the trigger on an alarm and that train’s going to stop, with us inside it and no way out. We need to run it to the end.”
