Chapter 8 - The Long Road To Terminal C
The rumbling diesel engine of an old Peterbilt flatbed truck vibrated through the floorboards of the cab.
Sarah sat pressed against the passenger door, wrapped in a coarse, grease-stained wool blanket the driver had pulled from his sleeper berth.
The heater on the dashboard blew a steady stream of dry, burning air that smelled of ancient tobacco and scorched copper.
Her hair was still damp with salt, sticking to her neck in dark strands.
Her wet clothes had dried into stiff, crusted fabric that chafed against her skin with every bump on the interstate.
Beside her on the bench seat sat her leather shoulder bag, zipped shut, resting directly against her ribs like an armored shield.
The driver was an elderly, bearded teamster named Hank who had picked her up at an all-night diner three miles south of the storm culvert.
She had peeled three crisp, water-damaged hundred-dollar bills from her bundle and placed them on the laminate counter between his coffee mug and his keys.
“Boston Logan,” she had said, her voice hoarse from saltwater and smoke.
“Terminal C.”
“Before five-thirty in the morning, and not a single question asked.”
Hank had looked at the cash, then looked at the bruises blooming along her cheekbone and the dried blood on her knuckles.
He hadn't asked who she was running from.
In coastal New England, an old teamster learned early that people carrying wet bundles of cash at two in the morning were either escaping the mob or heading to prison.
Neither topic was healthy for a man with a clean commercial driving record and three years until a union pension.
Hank spat a stream of chewing tobacco into a paper cup and tapped the steering wheel.
“We’ll make Logan by five-fifteen, kid,” he said, his gravelly voice competing with the roar of the transmission.
“Traffic on the Ninety-Three corridor doesn't back up until six.”
Sarah stared out through the bug-splattered windshield into the black highway ahead.
The digital clock on the dashboard read 04:42 AM.
One hour and thirty-three minutes until the wheels of Flight 442 touched the tarmac.
Her father was sitting in an aluminum tube at thirty thousand feet, hurtling through the sky toward the city where his past waited to slaughter him.
Did he know Marcus Reed was already hunting them?
Did he know Arthur Vance was likely lying dead among the weathered stones of Oakridge Cemetery?
She reached into her coat pocket, her fingertips finding the smooth, heavy steel of the Colt pistol.
Before leaving the diner bathroom, she had ejected the magazine, dried the wet spring on a paper towel, and loaded seven rounds of .45 caliber ammunition into the chamber.
She had never fired a weapon in her life.
Her father had taught her how to ride a two-wheel bicycle on the gravel lane behind their house.
He had taught her how to skip flat stones across the harbor shallows.
He had never placed an instrument of death into her tiny hands.
“A man only touches iron when words have completely failed, Julianne,” he had told her one summer afternoon when she found his old Marine service ribbon in a desk drawer.
“And if you ever have to touch iron, you make sure the other man never gets the chance to touch his again.”
The words felt prophetic now, ringing through the cold chambers of her mind with terrifying clarity.
The Peterbilt crossed the Tobin Bridge as the first pale, sickly light of dawn began to bleed across the eastern horizon over Boston Harbor.
The city skyline rose out of the mist like a jagged wall of grey stone and reflective glass.
Sarah looked at the towering corporate offices of the financial district.
Somewhere in one of those glass towers, Marcus Reed maintained his regional campaign headquarters.
By now, the hitmen from the cemetery had undoubtedly phoned their employer.
They would have told him that the girl had plunged into the Atlantic surf.
They would have told him that Arthur Vance was neutralized.
Marcus would assume the threat was eliminated.
He would assume the documents were resting at the bottom of the bay, lost to the tide forever.
He would not be expecting a dead man to step off a commercial airliner at Terminal C.
“Terminal C drop-off is coming up on the right, kid,” Hank said, downshifting the heavy rig as the airport access roads split into multi-level lanes.
The blue-and-white overhead signs pointed toward the departures deck of Logan International.
Dozens of yellow taxicabs and rideshare vehicles were already circling the terminal curb, their exhaust forming white clouds in the morning chill.
Sarah pulled three more hundred-dollar bills from her purse and laid them on the dashboard beside the defroster vents.
“Thank you, Hank.”
The old driver glanced at the money, then looked into her dark, hollow eyes with a flicker of genuine pity.
“Whatever mess you’re walking into in that building, girl... make sure you keep your back to the wall.”
“Terminal C has more security cameras than a federal bank, but cameras don't stop a bullet if someone really wants you gone.”
Sarah didn't answer.
She hoisted the heavy shoulder bag, pulled her coat collar high around her neck to hide the bruises on her jaw, and stepped out onto the concrete curb.
The cold airport air smelled of burning jet fuel and exhaust fumes.
She pushed through the sliding glass doors into the bustling warmth of the terminal.
Commuters in crisp suits were rushing past carrying briefcases and cardboard coffee cups.
Families with rolling luggage were queuing at the check-in counters beneath the digital departure monitors.
Sarah walked past the ticket lines, keeping her head lowered, and found the public flight arrivals board.
Her eyes scanned the rows of flickering green and amber text.
UNITED AIRWAYS — FLIGHT 442 FROM CHICAGO O’HARE.
STATUS: ON TIME — GATE C14.
ESTIMATED ARRIVAL: 06:12 AM.
Sarah checked the large wall clock hanging above the security checkpoint.
05:38 AM.
She had thirty-four minutes.
She couldn't pass through the TSA checkpoint to reach Gate C14 without a valid boarding pass of her own.
She would have to intercept him at the passenger exit corridor where arriving travelers poured out into the baggage claim concourse.
She walked toward the designated meeting area near Carousel 3, her eyes darting across every face in the crowd.
Two airport police officers in high-visibility vests stood near the central escalator, sipping coffee and watching the crowd with bored indifference.
Sarah took a seat on an uncomfortable metal bench beneath the advertising monitors, positioning herself directly beside the exit partition.
She unzipped the top two inches of her purse, letting her right hand rest casually inside the opening, her fingers curled around the grip of the Colt.
Minutes ticked by like hours.
The flight status board above Carousel 3 chimed with a soft electronic tone.
The display updated from IN FLIGHT to LANDED.
Sarah’s heart began to hammer against her ribs with such violence she could hear the blood rushing in her ears.
The passengers from Flight 442 began trickling down the glass-walled exit corridor.
First came the impatient business travelers carrying leather garment bags.
Then a young couple with a crying toddler in a stroller.
Then three elderly tourists wearing matching windbreakers.
May you like
Sarah leaned forward, her knuckles turning white inside her bag.
And then, stepping out of the frosted glass corridor into the bright morning glare of the concourse, came the man she had buried twenty-five years ago.
