Authors: Sydney Bauer
He passed another multicoloured rocking chair. Some bright spark with nothing better to do had decided to justify his or her salary by starting an initiative whereby local artists painted the chairs for display in the terminal. The chairs were supposed to reduce traveller stress but he did not need the chairs to relax him. He was light on his feet. His bank account had swollen into the tens of millions thanks to the latest deal and the double-cross he had pulled on Davenport. He knew his friend was bailing. He had chosen the baby over the cash. He was like the dimwit who came up with the rocking chairs.
He took the last available seat at the gate. He was travelling business class so he would get to board very soon. He checked his boarding pass. He was booked under the alias of John Wilcox. His profession was listed as a US marshal, which was why he was allowed to carry his gun. He looked at his watch – another minute or two. And then his attention was caught by a newsflash cutting into local programming on the fuzzy TV hanging on the far wall. And for the first time in his entire life, he hated himself for being right.
3.59 pm
Davenport had decided to fly her out of the US to Ottawa for five reasons. One, he had been savvy enough to arrange precautionary fake passports for himself and Sophia so he knew it was safe to fly international. Two, he knew it was easy to get on a last-minute Air Canada flight to Ottawa's McDonald Cartier Airport. Three, he did not want to be in the air for long in case Sophia went into labour, and the flight to Ottawa was only one and a quarter hours long. Four, he knew he needed some distance between himself and the US of A, and five, because he knew a man in the seedier end of Ottawa's Byward Market who could provide him with a new passport for his soon-to-be-born baby daughter.
They were at an Au Bon Pain. It was packed, but they managed to snaffle two seats in a far corner. Sophia was eating a muffin. She looked pale and confused but he had spun some story about the baby being in danger and that the only one that could help it was a specialist he knew in Canada. He knew the girl was suspicious but her desperation to protect her baby overrode her sense of reason so, so far so good. Until his cell began to ring.
‘Have you seen the news?’ said the voice – the last he wanted to hear.
Davenport said nothing.
‘There was another. A boy. Your screw-up was even bigger than we first thought, Dick. You put the wrong fucking embryo in the wrong fucking woman.’
Dick Davenport went cold, trying to take it in. Oh god, he thought then, this was my mistake after all.
‘I didn't know,’ he said.
‘Well you do now, and as such you can understand that this changes things a little.’
Davenport knew what he was saying and was trying desperately to work a way out. ‘Eliza was enough,’ he said. ‘I can't do this anymore. I don't even care about the money from the latest exchange. You can take it. I will walk away.’
‘Don't be an idiot, Dick. I already took it, so you have nothing to bargain with bar your life.’
Davenport swallowed. ‘You'll never find me.’
‘Au Bon Pain, Terminal B. I've always admired the efficiency of an airport like Logan,’ he added, ‘domestic, international, the terminals interlocking, connecting both services with aplomb.’
Davenport shot to his feet, knocking over a sugar container on their little table as he did so. He turned his head left and right. Sophia looked up at him. He took a few steps away from her.
‘There were three, Dick, three pieces of evidence – which is not good, my friend, not good at all.’
‘That's not possible. There were only ever two. I may have confused the sexes but …’
‘Best to quit while you're ahead, Dick. The way you are trying to cover your screw-ups – in all honesty, it is kind of pathetic.’ He laughed.
Davenport swallowed. ‘There is nothing you can do to us, not here.’
‘Are you willing to take a chance on that, Dick?’
Davenport took a breath.
‘I can hear it, you know, your brain working in overdrive. You're thinking about the opportunity you missed. You're thinking about the little boy, the genetic complement to the girl your swollen friend there is carrying? You're imagining having the twin-set, playing father to two of the finest genetic specimens on the planet.’
It was true. He was.
‘It isn't going to happen, Dick. None of it is going to happen.’
‘Listen …’ said Davenport, now starting to panic. He was pivoting on his feet, moving around a column, trying desperately to spot the caller. ‘This doesn't have to end this way. I can help you find him – the boy – perhaps the clients are still interested. Perhaps they will pay a premium for him.’
‘Not going to happen, Dick, not after the publicity this case has received. Besides, it's time I finished what I started. I should never have agreed to let you keep the girl, Dick. Eliza, the girl inside your friend Sophia, the missing boy – they all track back to me genetically, and I am afraid that is unacceptable.’
‘For god's sakes – you're talking about your children.’
‘They are evidence, Dick, little time bombs just waiting to explode. They will grow into walking, talking pieces of proof of what we have been up to, Dick, and I for one am not about to let that happen.’
‘But you've gone too far, you –’
‘I've gone too far, Dick? I must say, I find your moralising amusing given you are the one with blood on your hands.’
Davenport's heart sank. His eyes went to his free hand. It was clean and yet it was not. ‘You expect me to stand by and watch you eliminate your two remaining offspring?’
‘Oh come on, Dick, I am not that heartless,’ he said.
Davenport froze, understanding what his friend was saying. And the next thought to rush through his brain would have been that now was the time to run – if the bullet had not beat him to it.
4.11 pm
Joe was the first to see him fall.
He ran forward.
He had met up with Arthur and Madonna, who, under Joe's instructions, had been shadowing Davenport and Sophia from a distance. He had positioned his men and told them to wait, to watch, to see if Davenport's accomplice Daniel Hunt – who was not at work or in his vast harbourside condominium – had arranged to meet them.
Davenport and the girl were booked on an Air Canada flight to Ottawa under aliases and Joe knew that Hunt could well have arranged to fly with them. But the surveillance was not easy given the crowd on the terminal floor. In fact, after Davenport took the call on his cell, Joe lost sight of him twice as he stepped behind a column. Then he saw him fall.
‘
All units, move in, move in
,’ Joe barked into his radio. He was sure Davenport had been shot and he knew that Hunt was behind it. But Hunt had used a silencer, which meant the crowd's reaction was delayed, which also meant that Joe had a small window to get his men through the masses so that they could protect the girl.
Joe's eyes scanned the space around him. He had his gun out at the ready. He could not see her, the girl named Sophia. There were too many people and they were starting to panic. They were jostling and pushing and running in all directions. The presence of the uniforms did not help things. The scenario reeked of a counter-terrorism manoeuvre. He knew Hunt was out there and was concerned that the girl was already being lined up in the crosshairs of his semi-automatic. He also feared that Hunt was dressed as a law enforcement officer, given he had somehow gotten through customs carrying a goddamned gun.
‘Go left,’ he yelled at Frank, who immediately changed direction. They were surrounding the café, their badges held high. They screamed at people to move. They elbowed and shoved and knocked over chairs and tables as they sprinted to the back of the café.
And when they reached it, the table she had been sitting at, she was gone.
4.15 pm
‘Davenport's dead,’ said Joe down David's cell phone.
David and Sara were in Leo King's FBI-issue Crown Vic. David was in the passenger seat, Sara in the back with Lucas Cole. David held his hand over his left ear so as to block out King's shouting. He was barking orders into his radio – telling someone back at his field office to get onto traffic control and give them green lights all the way to Logan, ordering up agents left, right and centre, getting everyone on the road.
Joe's words hit him like a train. David was running on adrenalin. His heart was pumping so hard that it felt like it was banging against his rib cage. ‘Jesus, Joe, he might be the only one who can give us a lead on the couple.’
‘
What
?’ yelled Sara from the back. She was shaking, hysterical. She threw herself forward in between the two front seats. She grabbed onto David's arm and pulled it, demanding to know what was going on.
David put Joe on speaker, knowing there was no way he could protect her from the truth at this point. ‘Davenport's dead,’ said David.
‘Hunt shot him,’ finished Joe. ‘He took the girl, Sophia.’
‘
What
?’ she yelled again. ‘But he was the only one who knew them – besides Hunt,’ she spat his name. ‘What about the couple?’ said Sara. ‘Leo said their taxi went to the airport. You have to find them, Joe. They are there, somewhere, with Lauren. They could be getting on a plane as we speak,’ she screamed at the cell phone. She grabbed at Leo's arm. ‘You have to ground all flights, Leo. You have to keep them here.’
King took a hard right onto Storrow Drive. ‘I'm trying, Sara,’ he said before, ‘Mannix, did you get a visual on Hunt?’
‘No. But …’
‘
Just say it
,’ screamed David, knowing Joe too well.
‘But we think he is dressed as law enforcement. We spoke to security. They said a US marshal by the name of Wilcox went through customs forty-five minutes ago. He didn't check any luggage but was carrying a small bag … containing a Glock 22.’
Sara let out another moan.
‘Sara,’ said David, turning to her then. ‘Listen to me. Hunt won't hurt Lauren. She's worth too much to him. Lauren is with the couple, not with Hunt.’
‘But what if the couple already paid Hunt? He knows that everything's gone wrong. He has nothing to lose, David. He killed Eliza to cover his tracks and now he's silenced Davenport. He's probably killing Sophia as we speak – and the couple, Lauren, they are just more evidence of his part in this.’
The hammer that was David's heart wrenched up a notch. ‘Joe, we're almost there,’ he said. ‘I want Madonna with me. She is the only one who can ID the couple.’
‘This is not what you do, David. It's what
I
do and I am good at it. You and Sara need to stand down.’
‘No way in hell, Joe,’ said Sara as King swerved his sedan up toward the terminal.
‘You need to listen to Mannix,’ said King.
‘And you need to ground the goddamned flights, Leo,’ said Sara.
‘We're coming in, Joe, and we want Madonna with us now,’ repeated David. ‘I want that couple, and I want my daughter, and then … I want Hunt.’
4.17 pm
‘David,’ said Arthur as David and Sara reached him. ‘Son, just tell me … what else do you need?’
David was not sure how to answer. Nora was holding a now shuddering Sara, a red-cheeked Madonna standing by her side. Leo King had broken off to seek out his airport-based FBI unit. The whole damned place was in chaos, so they had to yell above the hubbub.
‘He needs to stand down,’ yelled Joe approaching them now. He was wearing a bullet-proof vest.
David moved toward him. ‘I'm in this, Joe, whether you like it or not. So stop wasting time and tell me what you've got.’
Joe shook his head, as a sweating Frank McKay moved up behind him. ‘Leo's grounded most of the international flights but I gotta be honest with you, David, some got away. We have a dilemma in that protocol says we should be evacuating the entire airport given shots have been fired. But if we evacuate, we let people out – do you see what I am saying?’
David did. It meant the couple who had Lauren could get away.
‘So we lock people in,’ said David.
Joe nodded. ‘Which causes us a whole new set of problems given this place is packed. Visibility is poor, passengers are pissed. And … if Hunt is dressed as a US marshal, he has the upper hand when it comes to gaining someone's trust. We have a lot of ground to cover here, David,’ he added.
Too big
, thought David again. This place is
too big
.
‘What areas are you prioritising?’ he asked, knowing Joe would have formulated an order of precedence.
‘Those associated with departures. Hunt, the Yorks, they were on the way out of Boston when this whole thing went down.’
David nodded. ‘Do your people have a reliable description?’
‘We're keeping it fairly broad so as not to miss anything. They're searching for all families travelling as threesomes – specifically, those with a small child, most likely a boy.’
‘They are claiming Lauren's a boy?’ Sara asked.
‘We think so. Madonna said she was wrapped in blue. It's the smart thing to do.’
David turned to Madonna. ‘Madonna,’ he said. ‘You know what this couple looks like. I need to you think,
hard
, remember every detail. You said they came to the surgery – once.’
‘Twice,’ she said. ‘And the second time I could have sworn they gave their first names, but I have been racking my brain and I
can't remember
.’ Madonna's breath caught in her throat. ‘Arthur says it doesn't make any difference, that their names would have been false, but what if they used the same false names on their passports? I'm not sure, but it might help.’
David knew she was right. He took both of her hands. ‘Madonna, I know we have asked so much of you, but this …’ his voice wavered. ‘This is …’
‘
I know
,’ she said. Her hair was a mess, falling in clumps around her shoulders. ‘I should have noticed it was Lauren earlier, but she was sleeping, and wrapped in blue, and we were too far away.’
She was sleeping
?
Not his Lauren
, and in that moment David knew that his daughter had been sedated.
‘For some reason I keep thinking of Texas,’ Madonna continued. ‘But they weren't Texan. No way. He was black, she was white. They were – you know, kind of posh, but not in a southern way, in a Hampton's way. So why the
freak
do I keep thinking of Texas?’