Several minutes passed. Then, one of his men announced over the radio, “Target approaching.”
“Good,” said Verde. “We’re on schedule.”
Not far away, Cindy was still trying to decide if she was imagining it all or if something serious was really happening in this airport. “What could possibly happen in Ottawa?” she asked herself. This was not, after all, New York or Miami. It wasn’t even Toronto. This was Ottawa and everyone knew that nothing ever happened in Ottawa.
Verde spoke into his lapel again. “Status?” he queried, more as a statement than as a question. After all of his men checked in, Verde left the newspaper and his coffee cup on the table and walked out of the coffee shop into the concourse. He leaned himself up against a wall so he could watch the events unfold.
Cindy saw Verde leave the coffee shop and prop himself up against the wall. She then looked around for the men who had entered the airport earlier. Most of them took up positions through the airport concourse while a few finished speaking to some airport employees before taking up their positions. She then saw Verde look at his watch.
And then Cindy saw the gun. Through the opened jacket of one of the men she had been following she could just see a gun in a holster under the jacket. Cindy was now sure she was not imagining anything but she was unsure about what to do about it. She looked around the airport looking for someone who could help, hoping to find a policeman or airport security guard. When she finally spotted a security guard halfway down the concourse, she began walking towards him.
Even as she started toward the security guard, she knew it was too late. At the far end of the airport the outside doors swung open and a large entourage entered the airport. From this point on, everything Cindy saw seemed to happen in slow motion.
As the entourage entered through the far doors, the men Cindy had seen position themselves throughout the airport visibly stiffened. They were clearly expecting the entourage and were waiting for this moment. The outside doors had barely closed behind the entourage when a dozen different men, men whom Cindy had not noticed before because they had been seated randomly throughout the concourse, stood up and began walking towards the entourage. She could not see these men’s faces because they had all pulled balaclavas over their heads.
For a moment Cindy stopped walking towards the security guard. She could now identify four separate groups of people: the entourage which had just entered the airport, the men who had spoken with airport employees and were now spread out through the airport, the men in balaclavas who had just stood up and were heading toward the entourage, and the man who had been in the coffee shop and who was now watching the events unfold. Certain now that she had not imagined anything, Cindy started to run towards the security guard. As she ran, events unfolded around her, seeming to occur outside her timeframe.
***
Sitting in front of the carrousel and talking to each other, Jim and Ben were oblivious to the goings on in the main concourse. All that remained of their coffees were the empty cups and plastic lids but their conversation continued.
“Are we still going to the job fair together on Monday?” asked Ben.
“Sure,” said Jim. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
“Because with you nothing’s for sure until it happens,” said Ben.
“Come on! That’s not true!”
“Sure it is. Look at last night. You said you were going to meet us at the Elephant & Castle but you never showed up.”
“Oops,” said Jim, having just remembered the arrangement. “Sorry about that.”
“Yeah, well, this happens all the time with you Jim.”
“I was doing something and I forgot.”
“What were you doing?”
“Stuff.”
Ben shrugged. “I wish I knew what you were up to Jim, I really do. You never have any money. And you disappear a lot and won’t tell me what you’re up to.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Jim. “I’ll get everything sorted out.”
“Sure,” said Ben. “Sure you will.”
***
Cindy shouted at the security guard but her shouts were not heard over the din of the busy concourse. Of the dozen men in balaclavas, two men split off from the group and headed toward the Air Canada baggage claim desk. They walked past the passengers who were waiting in line with issues and then walked around the claim desk so quickly that the clerks had no time to protest. At the same time, the remaining ten men closed in on their target. Two of these remaining men split off from the others and walked to the outside doors which were now closed. The eight men left slowly began to surround the entourage.
When one of the men in the entourage saw what was happening he stopped moving and slowly began to move the group back toward the outside doors. The men who were stationed throughout the concourse also saw what was happening and began to walk, and then run, toward the entourage. Several of these men also began removing guns from holsters underneath their jackets.
The rest of the passengers and employees in the airport, including the security guards, continued to be unaware of what was happening. Passengers continued to collect their baggage and queue up in front of the baggage claim desks and security guards walked through the concourse looking for problems, oblivious to the three groups of men who were fast approaching a confrontation.
At this point Cindy was only a few steps away from the security guard but he too remained ignorant of what was going on. Just a few more steps, thought Cindy, and she could let the security guard know what was happening. She took a quick look around and confirmed that the man from the restaurant was still standing in the same spot, continuing to watch the events unfold. Cindy was sure that this man was very much part of what was going on.
Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, something happened that would change Cindy’s suspicion into certainty. A gun shot rang out through the concourse and the low murmurings of the airport were silenced. The shot had come from the Air Canada baggage desk where two men were now holding their guns to the heads of the two baggage claim clerks. One of the two men spoke into a microphone at the check-in counter, his voice transmitted through the public address system, reverberating throughout of the airport.
“Everyone stay where you are and no one will be hurt,” he informed everyone in the airport.
“Oh, my God!” screamed one woman. There were several more screams then other exclamations from passengers in the concourse. Some people began moving quickly toward the exits.
Bang! Another gunshot rang out through the concourse. Those who were moving to the exits stopped in their tracks and Cindy Lyman stopped approaching the security guard.
“If anyone moves, this woman will be shot,” said the same man, his voice again reverberating through the airport. His gun was still pointed at the baggage clerk’s head but his colleague’s gun was pointed at the ceiling, a puff of smoke rising out of the barrel. The two clerks were shaking, their faces a deathly pallor.
The concourse was virtually motionless. The entourage had stopped moving. Cindy had stopped moving. The men spread throughout the airport had stopped moving though they were all looking at one another in an attempt to communicate without words. The only people now moving in the airport were the eight men continuing to move toward the entourage. They had removed machine guns from underneath their long coats and where now pointing their weapons at the men of the entourage indicating that they should move aside one by one. As each man was moved aside, he was searched and his weapon removed. Each was then handcuffed and dropped to the floor like luggage, landing hard on his stomach.
The man at the centre of the entourage, the man whom the now disarmed men had apparently been protecting, was treated differently. A good looking man with a full head of greying hair and an oversized jaw, he was also handcuffed but he was then blindfolded and led out of the airport through the same doorway through which he had originally entered. Unlike his guardians, he did not go peacefully.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked
incredulously. He kept asking his abductors the same question, but the question was left unanswered. One of the men guarding the doorway took the man’s elbow and led him through the door. The man at the centre of the entourage was now a prisoner.
Bang! A third gunshot reverberated through the concourse and the balaclava-covered head of the man who had taken the elbow of the prisoner exploded, splattering balaclava and brain material onto the windows of the airport terminal. He let go of his prisoner and fell to the floor. Screams could be heard throughout the terminal as a pool of blood began to accumulate near what remained of the head of the fallen man. Because of the blindfold, the full face of his prisoner could not be seen completely, but his reaction was clear. Under the blindfold his eyes would have been wide open and his face completely contorted with fear. Three of the men who had disarmed the entourage turned around and quickly identified the man who had shot their colleague. He was one of the original group of men stationed through the concourse. His gun, which had appeared from nowhere, was now difficult to conceal. They each shot several automatic rounds into the man’s chest. His body shook violently as he was pummelled by bullets and then he fell to the floor.
The man who had addressed the airport previously now spoke slowly over the public address system. “People,” he began. “This violence was unnecessary. Be warned that we are professionals and that anyone who moves will be shot.”
As the message echoed through the airport, the prisoner was lead through the open doors, now splattered with blood, and to a black sedan. After the prisoner was pushed into the car, the car drove off, its wheels spinning as it accelerated away from the curb. The man who had held the Air Canada clerk released her and spoke into the public address system again.
“Do not move for twenty minutes,” he said. He then waited a moment to gauge the reaction of the people in the airport. He heard some sobbing but, for the most part, the airport was quiet. Before he turned off the microphone, almost as an afterthought, he said calmly into the public address system, “Vive le Québec libre!”
Except for the one man who had been shot dead, the rest of the kidnappers, including the two at the Air Canada baggage desk, jogged to the open doorway at the far end of the concourse with weapons at the ready and got into three more waiting sedans.
With all of the commotion no one noticed that Giuseppe Verde, who had been standing quietly near the coffee shop, now walked slowly to another exit, one much closer to where he had been standing. He quietly left the airport and opened the door of a fifth sedan. Looking back to the airport to confirm that no one had been watching him, he got into the sedan and closed the door. The sedan spun its wheels as it pulled away quickly from the curb and then disappeared from sight.
Chapter 4 - The Aftermath
Fri Apr 30th
After the kidnappers had left the airport, a feeling of relief could be felt throughout the concourse. Passengers who had been stopped in their tracks by fear were now talking quietly amongst themselves, in many cases with strangers. The men who had been stationed through the terminal immediately identified themselves as RCMP and took charge initially cordoning off the airport. Once the airport was secure, they began picking up off the floor the men who had been guarding the kidnapped man and removing their handcuffs. Within fifteen minutes the airport was well under control and the police had started moving the passengers and the airport employees into one section of the concourse where they were asked to wait for an investigation to begin. As they all made their way to the designated area, continuing to murmur amongst themselves, sirens could be heard in the distance.
Cindy Lyman fell into an airport seat, completely drained by her experience and disappointed that she had never reached the security guard. Ben Gould and Jim Kincaid also ended up sitting in seats not far from Cindy. Sheldon Mintz and Stephen Brucken had been ushered out of the restaurant where they had been chatting over coffee and they too were now sitting on seats in the concourse. The man in the grey overcoat was also sitting near Ben and Jim but neither noticed him sitting just behind them with his camera, continuing to take pictures of them.
Aside from some quiet whispering, the airport was eerily quiet. The passengers and employees all sat, waiting to be interviewed. when, suddenly, every outside door to the terminal opened at once and police filed into the airport. Some of the policemen remained just inside the doors while others marched into the concourse and received instructions from the men in charge. Soon police were moving through the throngs of seated passengers collecting names and other information.
The airport had taken on a strange feel. Clouds had appeared outside, covering the sun, so that the lighting on the inside of the airport was supplied more by the internal lighting than by the windows and skylights. But stranger than the artificial white light supplied by the concourse’s lights were the flashing lights from the multitude of police and emergency vehicles now lining the road outside the airport. Mostly red, there were a few white and blue lights as well, giving the concourse the feel of a major highway accident at dusk.
Cindy looked around her and then, spotting Ben and Jim, waved at them. Jim saw her and nudged Ben. Ben then waved back at Cindy though he wondered what Cindy was doing at the airport.
There were police from several police forces including the Ottawa municipal police force, the Ontario Provincial Police, called the OPP, and the RCMP, but it did not take long for the passengers to realize that it was the RCMP controlling the situation. They had set up a temporary interview area at the far end of the concourse where a dozen men in plainclothes sat in pairs behind desks. Constables shuttled passengers to their interviews and then to another area when they were done.
A tall, beefy, and very serious constable approached Ben and Jim. “Are you two boys together?” he asked in a deep voice.
“Yes,” said Ben.
“Fine,” said the constable. “Come on. The two of you will be interviewed together.”
Ben and Jim looked at one another and shrugged. They followed the constable to one of the interview desks behind which sat two men. Neither Jim nor Ben said anything after the constable left them there.
“Identification,” said one of the interviewers.
Ben and Jim passed their driver’s licenses across the desk. On the desk was a newspaper with the headline about the opening of the new runway. The man in front of Jim spoke first.
“Alrigh’den,” he said in a heavy French Canadian accent. “I am Inspector Roger Desjardins and this is my pardner, Inspector Charles Gordon. You are Jim Kincaid?” Desjardin, a big man with dirty blond hair and a face that looked like it was carved from granite, was looking at Jim. Gordon had wavy brown hair and a full, neatly cropped beard.
“Yes sir,” said Jim.
“And you are Benjamin Gould?” he asked Ben.
“Yes,” said Ben.
The interview lasted about fifteen minutes, during which Desjardins and Gordon verified Ben’s and Jim’s identities, their contact information, and the reason for their visit to the airport.
“Did you see anything unusual?” asked Inspector Gordon. Gordon spoke with a deep, policeman’s voice and when he spoke he spoke slowly, holding the last syllable from each word so that the words all seemed to run together.
“No,” said Jim.
“Nothing?” asked Inspector Gordon, now looking at Ben.
“Nothing,” said Ben.
Jim was annoyed that no one had yet told them what had happened. “Are you going to tell us what happened here?” asked Jim.
Both inspectors ignored the question. After the interview Gordon thanked them for their help and called a constable to escort them to a post interview area.
For two hours Jim and Ben waited with the other passengers as coloured lights continued to flash through the concourse. As the light from outside receded they speculated about what had happened.
“It’s got to be a kidnapping,” said Ben.
“Yeah,” said Jim. “But who?”
O
nce the police were certain they had contact information and statements from everyone, they allowed the arriving passengers to enter the concourse. Cindy had lost Ben and Jim when she had gone off in search of Penny. Ben and Jim did the same in going to look for Jim’s mother. As Jim was walking through the concourse a girl caught his eye. She was of medium height and of Mediterranean complexion wearing blue jeans and a sweater. Jim was pleasantly surprised when she gave him a bright smile. Jimmy’s chest fluttered at the smile but then he saw his mother waving to him and, in that instant, he lost sight of the girl. When he finally thought to look back for her, she was gone.
***
Sheldon Mintz had already escorted Stephen Brucken to the departure level as he walked through the lower concourse toward the front doors where his limousine awaited him. Mintz stopped walking for a minute to look over the airport. Security personnel and police were everywhere. Mintz frowned and shook his head with disgust and contempt. As a major contractor to both the US and Canadian governments he had a very good idea what had been spent on the airport and its security precautions and it turned his stomach to think that this kidnapping could have occurred so easily. But Mintz also knew that of every dollar that was spent by the government seventy to eighty cents was wasted in the process. Ridiculous procurement methods, over-constrained and under-constrained requirements, explicit and implicit graft, and thick, thick red tape made government spending every contractor’s dream. His frown then turned to a smile and Mintz’s contempt turned to appreciation. Thank God for governments, he thought.
***
“Mom!” shouted Jim when he finally saw his mother. “How are you?” he asked.
“Jimmy,” said his mother, arms outstretched. “Are you alright? You look very tired.” she asked. The two ran together and Jim was wrapped in a giant bear hug.
“I’m fine Mom,” said Jim, when his mother released him. He then turned to Ben. “You remember my friend Ben?”
“Oh, sure, sure,” said his mother. “Nice to see you again Benny.” Jim’s Mom seemed to turn every name into its diminutive.
White Cell Page 5