One Rough Man - Brad Taylor [104]
“That figures. Everyone has to swipe their badge before keying in a code.”
The good news was that the door was down a small hallway, so we wouldn’t be seen doing something unless someone was in the hallway with us. The bad news was that Delta Airlines was serious about security. Nobody entered the door without badging in. Not even when someone already had the door open. Everyone waited, one at a time, to key in their code. Fucking pilots never listen to anybody. Why now?
“We need a reason for someone to hold open the door. And we need to do it quick, before the police realize we aren’t at Concourse B. They’ll be back in force.”
“What are we going to do?”
I watched a purser push an old man down the concourse in a wheelchair, and came up with an idea. It worked on the exercise before Tbilisi. Nobody suspects the disabled.
“Follow me.”
I hugged the walls, staying out of the fisheye of the cameras every thirty feet. Getting to a smoking lounge, I found what I was looking for.
“Get in.”
“What?”
“Get in and act like you need this chair.”
Jennifer scrunched up her eyes, clearly wondering if maybe we weren’t now on the desperate side of things, which we were. She sat down in the wheelchair.
“I’m going back to the ATM next to Gate 19. I’ll mess around there until someone goes into the hallway. If he’s alone, I’m going to wait until he opens the door, then holler at him to hold it.”
“This will never work. Delta doesn’t have pilots in wheelchairs.”
I began pushing. “Yeah, you might be right, but you’d be surprised at the number of times ridiculous shit I’ve pulled out of my ass has worked.”
“Ahh . . . no. I don’t think I would. Pulling stuff out of your ass seems to be your way of life.”
We reached the ATM just as a single pilot began walking down the hallway. I pushed her forward.
“It’s worked out pretty well so far.”
63
“Hey! Hold that door, please. Let me get her through and I’ll badge in.”
The pilot looked at me, trying to decide, then held it open.
“Thanks. I appreciate it. Just let me get her inside.”
I could tell he was wondering why a guy in civilian clothes wanted to take a female in a wheelchair into the pilots’ lounge, but his chivalry took precedence.
He said, “You sure you’re in the right place? You know there’s no elevator in here, don’t you?”
I pushed Jennifer through, saying, “Yeah, I know. She can walk short distances. She’ll be okay. We’re just catching the bus.”
I saw the door close and said, “Give me a hand with her leg braces, will you?”
He came to the front of the wheelchair, where I was fiddling with the leg platforms. I stood up and grabbed the conveniently thick polyester collar of his uniform and cut off the blood flow to his brain. Once he was down, I ripped off his badge and stuffed him into an empty closet designed to hold the carry-on luggage of pilots coming and going.
“Okay. What now? Where do we go?”
Jennifer was stunned, looking at me like I was the Terminator.
“Come on! Where do we go?”
She snapped out of it, saying, “Down. There’s a stewardesses’ lounge on the right and a pilots’ lounge on the left. Once we get in there, we need to move straight to the exit. There’s a bus stop underneath the concourse.”
Two minutes later we were waiting with a bunch of other Delta employees for the shuttle to the Delta parking lot, me wearing the pilot’s badge around my neck with the picture side conveniently against my chest. After the longest three minutes of my life, we were on the next bus headed out of the airport. We sat in the back, away from anyone else, Jennifer still trembling from our narrow miss.
She said, “I don’t think I’m cut out for this law-breaking stuff. It’s going to give me a nervous breakdown.”
I said, “Trust me; I didn’t think it was fun either. You get used to it.”
“What do we do now? Are we still going to D.C., or are we headed to Mexico to find a cheap house to spend the rest of our lives?”
“If you’re game, I think we should continue on to D.C. Still want to do that?”
“Well, shit, we