The two men surveilling them approached hastily, caught unawares by Simon’s attack. Simon brought the pistol to bear. “Don’t even think of it,” he said, in German, walking toward them. “Down on the floor. Now. On your belly, arms extended.”
The men raised their hands and complied. Simon kicked the younger man in the ribs, crouched, took their pistols, slid them across the floor. “Put them in the trash,” he called to London.
London gathered up the guns, holding them by the muzzle as if they might scald her, rushing to the trash, dropping them in.
By now, several passengers had gathered, concerned. Simon fired a shot into the ceiling. The people took off running. Europeans knew how to react to an active shooter. He found a pair of handcuffs and cuffed the men together, then struck the younger man at the base of his skull, rendering him senseless.
Simon scrambled to his feet.
“Now what?” said London.
“Outside. Follow me.”
Simon headed down the concourse, London at his shoulder, passengers peeling out of their way. He pushed through a set of double doors leading to a gate on the lower level and descended a flight of steps to a waiting area. The room was deserted. Windows on all sides. The tarmac and runways beyond. He tried the doors. Locked. He kicked the handle and hopped back. “That hurt.”
A folded wheelchair was propped near the agent’s desk. He hurled it at the window, shattering it, then finished the job with a cylindrical metal trash receptacle, wielding it to clear off the remaining shards of glass.
Footsteps behind them.
“They’re coming,” said London, glancing over her shoulder.
Simon jumped over the transom, helping London. They were outside. He headed left toward the bonded warehouses, delivery docks. He hugged the terminal building, all manner of vehicle passing them. Fuel trucks, vans, baggage carts. At the sound of a siren, he turned his head. A police cruiser, blue-and-whites flashing, barreled across the airfield, effectively blocking their path.
To their right, fifteen meters across the tarmac, was a freestanding concrete shed, candy-striped barriers surrounding it—DANGEL, a prominent construction company, stenciled across them—the shed door open.
Simon ran to the shed, vaulting the barriers. London found her way through. A sign on the door showed a lightning bolt.“Vorsicht. Heizung. Strom.”Danger. Heating. Electricity.
“In here.”
Simon entered the shed, closing the door after London, using the pistol to break off the door handle. Stairs led belowground to a high-ceilinged corridor that appeared to run endlessly in either direction, a strip of fluorescent bulbs high on the wall providing a dim, stuttering light.
“What is this place?” asked London.
Simon pointed to a large-bore steel pipe running along the center of the ceiling. “Runway heating. Hot water passing through the pipes melts the snow and ice during the winter.”
“Which way?”
Simon pointed to the right.
“But that’s away from the terminal.”
“Hope so. There has to be an access point at the other end.”
“And from there?”
“We’ll see. We have a better chance the farther away we are.”
“But they’ll know we came in here.”
“Eventually,” said Simon. “But not which way we’re going. There are three runways. That’s a lot of exits to cover. Feeling lucky?”
“You said our luck had run out.”
“Did I?”
They began to run, London setting the pace, the corridor indeed endless, passing one junction then another, similarly endless corridors stemming from each. Already fatigued, Simon began to wonder how long runways were. Two thousand yards? Three thousand?
He pulled up, placed a finger to his mouth. Voices. The patter of running feet. Closer. Closer. Fading. Fading. Gone.
