California Schemin' - Kate George [30]
The car pulled slowly out of the hangar and made its way toward a military-style gate surrounded by chain link fence with razor wire running along its top. As we approached, Hambecker turned to me, an EpiPen in his hand.
“I really don’t want to stick you with this thing again, so give me your word you’ll be quiet, and I won’t.”
Hell no, I’m not going to stay quiet.
“You’d better stick me, because I’m sure as hell not going to stay quiet.” Shit. I should have lied to him.
“Nah,” said the driver named Moose. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll just raise the privacy window. He hit a button and a tinted window rose in front of me.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” I said aloud.
“Now, now. No need to be rude.” The voice came through a speaker. “There’s no point in yelling, because all I have to do is hit a switch, and the guy at the gate won’t be able to hear you.
We pulled up to the guardhouse where a uniformed young man looked at a clipboard and made as if to wave us through. Then his hand went to his belt, and my hopes climbed into my throat. He talked for a minute on his two-way radio and walked to the window.
I slid over next to the door, ready to roll. I didn’t think either of the guys in the front seat could see me through the privacy window. If this was like most cars, then it was the passenger’s privacy the window was in place to protect, not the driver’s. I slid my fingers under the handle and pulled. Nothing. I pulled harder. Still nothing. I pulled and pushed on the door at the same time.
“Shit!”
I stared at the guard standing at the driver’s window. He looked overheated in his uniform. Heat waves were radiating off the tarmac making the chain link fence shimmer.
“This Senator Wallace’s car?” The guard’s voice was tinny and far away through the speaker.
“Yes.” The driver’s voice.
“There’s something going on at the main terminal, but I was told that the senator was cleared. So you can go.”
The gate slid back and we rolled forward onto a deserted surface street.
“Sorry about that,” Hambecker’s voice came through the speaker this time. “The rear doors have child locks on them. We don’t use them for the senator, of course, but they do come in useful on occasion.”
I stuck my tongue out at him through the tinted window and looked out on the world. All the windows were tinted, fading color and reducing the contrasts of the world outside. A thrill of recognition ran through me. I knew where we were. Of course, it helped that it hadn’t been that long since I came to get Beau. I was in Sacramento.
I wondered if Sheriff Fogel had been at the airport when we landed. How had we gotten out of the plane?
“Hey!” I yelled at the guys in the front. “I want to talk to you.”
The privacy window slowly descended, and Hambecker turned to me.
“Yep?” He said.
“Hammie, how’d we get out of the airplane? Wasn’t there someone there to meet us?”
“What did you call me?” A flush was showing above his collar.
“Uh, Hammie?” There was a red flush crawling up my neck now, too.
“Don’t do it again. What did you ask me?”
“What happened back there?”
“You’ve got a wire in your neck brace. I heard you talking to the flight attendants.”
Figures. He had me wired. What a schmuck I was.
“I still don’t understand how we got out of the plane.”
“They asked me to let everyone else off the plane before we got you out. So I let about half of them go. Then I hoisted you out of your seat, created a huge traffic jam, and forced my way toward the back of the plane. Caused a huge commotion. Popped an emergency door, and we slid to the tarmac where I stole a luggage tram which I drove as far as I thought was safe and then hoofed it the rest of the way to the VIP hangar. Not how I expected I’d be using my many skills.” There was a tinge of regret in his voice.
“You make it sound like you didn’t enjoy that.”
“I don’t usually find myself on the wrong side of the law. It goes against my nature.”
“Then why do it?”
“Good question.” But he didn’t tell me, and I couldn’t get him to say anything else.
Thirty minutes later we drove into an underground lot