Sin had spent a good portion of her youth in the recesses of the airport trying to escape her life on Tumbleboat. She hoped it hadn’t been redesigned in the years she’d been away.
As soon as she entered the service road, she gunned the throttle of her bike and roared down a long road of airplane hangars. Sliding her bike around a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree right hand turn she stayed on the throttle and disappeared between two buildings. She cut the engine to her bike and glided into an open hangar about fifty yards from the end of the row.
Good old, Charlie, she thought, he still leaves his hangar wide open. She quickly dismounted and threw an old painter’s tarp over her bike. She ducked low behind the tarp and watched the pick-up make its way past.
From the hangar, she heard the truck stop and both doors open.
“What the hell, the bitch couldn’ta just disappeared.”
“Shut up and check the open hangars.”
Sin recognized the voices. The first belonged to Ronnie, the guard from the church who escorted her to and from Heap’s office and the second belonged to Bubba.
She heard the crunching of footsteps on the sand-beaten asphalt as one of them neared her position. With precision movements, she withdrew her sidearm from her waist holster, thumbed off the safety, and waited for him to get a little closer. Sin’s thigh muscles started to quiver as she positioned herself on the balls of her feet. It was the beginning of an adrenaline rush. When others would be frightened, she was just getting amped up.
About to spring from her spot, she heard a familiar voice. It was Charlie.
“One move and I’ll blow the back of your head off.”
“Whoa, easy buddy, I’m here on official business.”
“Official, ha,” Charlie said, “then why don’t you drop that gun and show me a badge and a warrant.”
“It ain’t that kind of official, I’m here on behalf of Prophet Heap.”
Sin could hear the ‘thunk’ of metal on bone and she had to bite her lip from laughing.
“Damn,” the intruder cried. “That hurt.”
“Shut up.”
Sin peered around the tarp and saw Charlie take a couple of steps back from Ronnie before saying anything else.
“Put your hands on top of your head.”
Ronnie rubbed the knot on his head and kept flapping his lips. “You don’t know what yer doin’, old man. Didn’t you hear me say I was here for the Prophet?”
Charlie thumbed the hammer back on his Smith and Wesson 32 police special. “He’s just another piece of shit, money hungry, fat fuck as far as I’m concerned.”
Ronnie went to move his hands and Charlie fired a shot above his head.
Sin watched Ronnie drop to the ground in the fetal position, hands covering his head.
Charlie walked up and rolled him onto his back with the toe of his boot. Sin could see Ronnie quaking with fear.
“You’re going to stand up—slowly—and walk back to your truck and drive out of here. If I don’t hear tires squealing in thirty seconds . . .” Charlie thumbed the hammer back again, “the next one won’t miss.”
Sin watched as the guard stumbled to his feet and ran out of the hangar.
Charlie stood at the entrance and watched the man run. “One more thing,” he yelled. “Pick your fat-ass friend up off my property and haul his carcass out of here with you.”
Charlie turned to look back into the hangar. “Come on out, Sinclair.” He was the only one who called her by her full name.
Sin stood and looked at her friend, really looked at him for the first time. She could see a wide grin on his bearded face. His hair was grayer than it was seven years ago, but he was still the same old Charlie.
He gave her a crooked grin and waved her over. “You gotta see this.”
Sin stood in the shadows and watched as the guard picked up, dropped, and again, picked up an unconscious Bubba.
“I nailed the fat one with a prop wrench,” Charlie said. “He hit the ground so hard, I thought he was dead.” He glanced back at Sin, “but he ain’t.”
“Too bad,” Sin smiled. “That poor bastard has spent more time unconscious than not since I’ve been back. When he wakes up, he’ll wish he was dead.”
“Probably.”
They watched and heard the truck squeal as it thundered down the airport access road heading back toward the Overseas Highway.
Charlie slid the 32 into his shoulder holster and spread his arms out wide. Sin leaned forward and hugged the old man harder and longer than she thought possible.
“Were you even going to tell me you were back in town, or were you gonna just leave me hangin’.”
“Sorry,” Sin breathed, “things have been one big cluster since I got back.”
They walked to a small office in the back of the hangar and Charlie poured Sin a cup of coffee. He leaned back in his high-backed, worn leather chair and put his boots up on his desk. “Tell me why you’re back. Last letter I got from you, you were just east of Kabul, helping extract a bunch of women and children.”
Sin sipped her coffee, he eyes never leaving Charlie. “About the letters . . .”
“Don’t worry,” Charlie said, “no one knows we’ve been in contact. Hell, hardly anyone knows we were even friends back when you were growing up.”
Sin nodded, put her cup down and leaned forward. “Thank you.”
“Enough of the gratitude bullshit, why are you back?”
Sin knew that she could trust Charlie and she also knew that she might need an ally. “I’m back with the Bureau.”
Charlie’s eyes opened wide and a sideways smirk painted his face. “It’s about time Graham grew a pair.”
Sin huffed in silent laughter.
“But that still doesn’t tell me why you’re back.”
Sin picked up the mug and took a sip of the lukewarm, old coffee. “What do you know about the girls that have been fished out
