You're Clear

by JL LeGerrette

She realized her own radio was on but people talked over each other and their voices were muddled as they were interrupted. She tried to cut in and state her position, but she was drowned out by other talkers on the radio. She just couldn’t make it out. What were they saying? She looked at Samantha’s dilated eyes and could only assume she was also filled with the worst fear as well. Jahnni reached over and touched the UM’s arm, then tried to pat it for comfort but her hands felt numb to her touch and hoped she wasn’t patting too hard.

  Jahnni saw the larger podium and fell to both knees and crawled to hide behind it, motioning Sam and the UM to follow her. She turned her radio down because she didn’t want anyone else to hear it. Then she began racing through options in her head. She briefly closed her eyes and tried to will their bodies invisible while she came up with a plan.

  Jahnni heard noise like shuffling feet, getting closer. She peeked carefully around the corner. Slowly, two people in white hooded masks attached to white clothing resembling overalls, made their way into the boarding area. They looked like they were preparing to decontaminate something. One was crouched down and the other one was crawling on the ground towards the rows of chairs. They had what looked like machine guns slung around on their backs as they clamored toward the back of the boarding gate.

  Although there was a tremendous amount of noise collecting on the other side of the checkpoint she could hear at least one helicopter coming in to land, and possibly one still in the air further away. By now, the security checkpoint gates were locked down, so she knew she had to think of another way to get out of there. Jahnni kept peeking around, trying to understand what was happening. She tried to control her breathing to calm her racing heart and hoped it would settle the whooshing sound in her ears that every beat of her heart created. Jahnni slowly turned to Sam and the UM and placed a finger on her lips, as they locked eyes. It sounded like one of the gunmen jiggled the door handle that led to the jetway from the other boarding podium. She heard shuffling, like they were crawling on their bellies, or scooting, and they were getting closer. Jahnni knew that in seconds they could be face to face. She felt ice fill her veins and had to make a conscious effort to stop her body from jumping up and running. Her joints felt like rubber, and a cold sweat was now accumulating on her back. Are they one of us or are they part of a terrorist situation?

  The gunmen stopped moving about a row of chairs away. Then she heard them just around the corner of the podium. Jahnni held her breath, and closed her eyes briefly. When she realized she was holding her breath much too long, she let it out slowly then took in a big, deep intake of air slowly through her mouth, so more air could quietly fill her lungs. In just about four to five more feet, and one more corner, they would be inches away from each other.

  She looked down and saw her radio had fallen off her waistband sometime during the commotion. She motioned for Sam and the UM to slowly crawl around to the back of the tall cabinet. They backed around the corner and she followed them, crawling so quietly, she was afraid they were moving too slowly. They knelt on their knees, frozen like statues. No words were needed between them. The two people whom she could only assume were the bad guys, began fumbling with Jahnni’s radio she had dropped. She heard the volume being turned up and down and channels clicking. If any sound came out of a channel, it was only static.

  Her ears perked up when they whispered a quick interchange. She heard them moving and held her breath as she waited for them to come around to the back of the tall cabinet. But the rustling of their clothes sounded like it was moving away from them. Still, she didn’t move. When they sounded further away, she slowly moved her head to barely glimpse where they were. A shock of white fabric caught her eye and then another patch of white entered her line of sight. The two gunmen were crouched at the opening of the gate area. Jahnni remained still, afraid that any more movement would garner their attention. She watched as they scanned up and down the concourse.

  In a sudden flurry of movement, they ran across the concourse aisle-way to the other side. Jahnni heard a verbal warning for the people in white to stop. It came from further away in the concourse and the order was obviously not heeded. Whoever shouted to them sounded far away, but loud running and stomping was getting closer. The guys in white disappeared through the bypass door; the one she used earlier to bring the new-hire to the gates. When their pursuers got closer, she saw what looked like the same two Port Policemen who had run up the concourse when this all started. Something didn’t look right, didn’t feel right. She wanted to wave them over for help but a nagging fear kept her silent. She slowly moved her head to look at Samantha and with the smallest of perceptible movement, motioned her head no.

  She watched who she assumed might be two Port Police officers talk on a radio of some type. They were describing the situation, telling who she assumed was dispatch, which door the gunmen accessed. Their radios didn’t look like the ones all the airline employees used, but she assumed, again, they possibly had a newer model. But as before, something was off. For some reason, they didn’t access the doors themselves and this made Jahnni leery and confused. All Port officers have badge access to bypass doors, she reminded herself. Why did the guys in white have access but these two policemen-looking people didn’t?

  Whoever was on the other side of the radio was yelling orders at them. “You should have grabbed them. Shoot them if you must. Don’t let them get away!”

  Jahnni felt her mouth go dry. Even her eyes felt dry. Now, after hearing they were told ‘to shoot them if you must,’ she wondered why they would be given an order like that. That didn’t sound like something the Port Police would be told to do.

  She heard the order for them to go back down to the end of the concourse again “to keep watch,” although she had no idea what they were looking for. Frozen in place, she watched them start trotting briskly back, and they were soon out of sight.

  Should I have flagged them down and let them know we are stuck in here? But why couldn’t they access the bypass door? Maybe they aren’t Port Police. Who are they then? This made Jahnni reluctant to come out of hiding. How long can we stay here? she asked herself.

  So much confusion. If we run out will WE be mistaken for the gunmen? she wondered to herself. Should we stay here and wait it out? Or should we try to access a bypass door to get out of the concourse? She had to think. Samantha whispered something.

  “What?” Jahnni whispered back with a capitalized question mark in her voice. “You’re hungry?” What a silly thing to be concerned about at a time like this, she thought to herself.

  “No. The masked guys. They’re from Hungary,” Samantha corrected, whispering a little louder.

  “The masked guys, those masked guys are hungry? This is no time to worry about their diet schedule!” Jahnni snapped, although she was trying to hold back her pessimistic feelings about such nonsensical information.

  “No! I said...” Samantha whispered as loud as she could, “They. Are. From. Hungary.” Then she said, “My grandmother and grandfather are from Hungary. It is the only language spoken in their home.”

  “And you understood them? What were they whispering about?”

  “I think they said something about keeping them from getting to the fountain’s pipes first,” Samantha interpreted using air quotes when she said the words, ‘they,’ and ‘them.’

  “Why in the hell, oops, sorry kid, what’s your name again?” Jahnni whispered.

  “Crutch.”

  “I’m Jahnni, Crutch, nice to meet you,” Jahnni said then added, “I’m sorry we are in this situation. Don’t worry, honey. We’ll take care of you.”

  “Anyway,” Jahnni continued as she turned back to Samantha, “Who in the heck would they be preventing from going to the fountain? There is nothing but water down there. And fish. Someone is after something, obviously. But at this point, I don’t care what it is. We just need to get out of here and get Crutch to safety.”

  “I don’t know if you noticed Jahn, but th
e first guy in those odd white suits just used a badge and coded them through the security door.”

  Jahnni mumbled, “Yes. I noticed. There are cameras all over the property. And the Port can check to see whose badge is scanned in and out of the bypass doors. Oh wait, maybe someone else besides the Port Police are monitoring things. Man, I don’t know! For now, be still and let’s stay hidden for a bit more while we figure out what to do. I don’t want a trigger-happy person shooting us.”

  Jahnni lowered her whisper to finish, “Do you think the masked guys in white are like some sort of SWAT? Or are they the bad guys? Maybe we could just walk slowly to the check point with our hands up? Except the security screens at both checkpoints are probably down and locked now. Even the concourse connector to the D & E gates is closed. I can’t see around the corner, but I’m sure I heard the rolling chained dividers being lowered soon after the concourse emptied. So, we can’t even get out that direction anymore either.”

  Samantha appeared just as confused. “I don’t know. Maybe the masked guys are looking for the people responsible for a security breach. But that wouldn’t make sense for them to be the ones hiding and being shot at while the guys in uniforms chase them. Would it? Hey Jahn, what about the door between the restrooms? Maybe we can get over there and snake our way down to the bagwell. Then, get to the last door in the bagwell that will spit us out by the baggage service carousels. We’ll be in the common area and by the doors that lead to the street!”

  Jahnni was silent then said, “I’m not sure yet. That door is too far away. We’d be out in the open too long and what if the doors are locked down? We saw what happened to the guys in white when they ran out there. But at least we saw that particular door can be badged through. That one is probably our best option with a direct exit out of the concourse. Once we go through the door we’ll be in the stairwell, but only a few steps to the next door that leads us into the public area. We have to do something to get out of here, as opposed to simply waiting it out though.”

  All she was concerned about was getting Sam and Crutch to safety and not get shot in the process. Things seemed to have fallen silent, at least in this part of the airport. She tried to use her cell phone one more time, but service was still disrupted.

  She assumed that the uniformed gunmen had made their way back down the concourse where they initially ran to in the beginning. She decided to crawl out and check out their options. She crawled past Sam and Crutch and slithered around the large free-standing cabinet they were hiding behind, motioning to Samantha and Crutch to stay where they were, and she crouched behind the podium. Slowly, she reached above her head for the phone that was at the center point of the podium. Jahnni hoped she could call someone from the podium phone, if it still worked. She pulled the handset down and shakily started dialing. Nothing. Maybe I forgot to wait for the dial tone. She listened and was ready to dial again. Nothing. No dial tone. Jahnni decided to crawl back to Samantha and Crutch behind the cabinet. She began crawling slowly to come around the other side, arriving behind Samantha and Crutch once again.

  She looked at them, and saw they had turned and were staring at her with their mouths open. Crutch had a wide-eyed look frozen on his face as he stared behind Jahnni. Time seemed to stand still. No one spoke. She felt the hairs on her head tingle when she searched their faces. Crutch was still wide-eyed but silent. Then she clearly heard it. She heard her name being whispered by her shoulder. It was clearly a voice of authority. It made a shiver run up her spine. She knew she had to face whatever, whoever it was and get it over with. Slowly, she turned.

  “Mr. Harleyman? What are you doing here? Where have you been all this time?” Jahnni stammered out in a most flabbergasted, breathy voice.

  “When the announcements started, I saw him going the wrong direction and by the time I worked my way back through the crowd, I couldn’t find him. Then when I did, he was back there in that alcove and it was too late to exit the concourse through the checkpoint. I decided to wait with him until things calmed down. We waited back there,” he said as he pointed over his head to the long corridor that led to another jetway. “I couldn’t just leave. And there were too many lives at risk to just start waving a gun at no one in particular when we heard the commotion. Plus, I had this guy to worry about, so this was the next best idea when they closed off the gates at the checkpoint before we could get there. I thought I could just call someone but my phone is inoperable,” he added.

  Jahnni opened her mouth to say something, but he interrupted to finish explaining.

  “You all showed up right after we made the decision that we couldn’t make it out in time, and when I saw the others... you know the ones in white, I watched the situation. I was ready, if things went south. You’re safe, at least for now.”

  “Okay... this is nice. Who is ‘him’?” Jahnni said in a whisper that got louder and firmer as she ended her sentence.

  “Ah, hi Janie. Nice to see you. Beau here is very smart boy. He will know what to do.” And without a shiny hair out of place, Brown Plaid Man was poking his head out from around the corner of the corridor that led to the locked-down jetway door.

  “So, Jahnni, what do you think? Can we go through that security door, across the way there?” Mr. Harleyman whispered as he pointed to the door Jahnni and Samantha saw the masked gunmen had gone through.

  After taking a little bit to decide whether to trust him, Jahnni realized she didn’t have much choice. I mean after all; trust is a very important issue in a relationship. Or Marriage.

  She shook her head, hoping it would stop the stuck recorder playing in her mind then explained, “Well, first, we thought if we could make it about fifty feet down the wall to a bypass door by the restrooms, we could wind our way down to the bagwell then eventually exit that area into the passenger pick-up and baggage carousel area.

  “Okay, that sounds viable,” Mr. Harleyman agreed.

  “Of course, because it’s so far away, and I don’t know if the bypass doors are locked down, I would rather go through that door you pointed at right over there to get on the other side of security. I now know that access door works. It also has a stairwell that leads down to the bagwell, you know, the entire basement floor where every airline here handles all the baggage behind the scenes. I don’t want to go down there, so we’ll then access the bypass door just a few feet on the other side of that door, to enter the common area,” Jahnni explained. “Basically, the stairwell is a secure area between two bypass doors.

  Mr. Harleyman listened with an intent look on his face as he glanced from Jahnni to the other door. When Jahnni was finished talking he added, “All I want to do is get us to safety. If that door leads immediately to another door, then let’s do it.”

  “Fine by me. It’s just a couple swipes of my badge and safety is on the other side. To be honest, I’m a little confused about who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. The gunmen in the white hazmat-looking suits just went through that bypass door with a badge, but the two guys who kinda look like Port of Portland Police officers don’t even have a badge,” Jahnni added.

  “Is that so? Considering our group here, getting to safety is number one. I’m not concerned with who they are or where they went. I have one intention and that’s to get us on the other side of this locked down concourse. We don’t have any other choices now but that one,” as he pointed to the door across the concourse walkway. “Like I mentioned already, I did try to make a call to my office with my cell phone, but the signals are blocked. They could be using an SK-4 but that would only block a radius of 60-70 feet. The airport is pretty large so they could possibly be using a TRJ-89. That is pretty strong and can keep signals blocked for about five miles.”

  “Who would block the signals like that?” Jahnni asked.

  Mr. Harleyman answered, “Hopefully, people from my agency in the Portland Division would have arrived quickly once the call went out. It’s a basic security sweep to block terrorists from communicating or using t
heir cell phones as a detonation device. It doesn’t matter who set up the block at this point. Blocked is blocked.”

  Jahnni was enraptured by every word he spoke. She watched his lips move as he contemplated the situation, probably analyzing details only he could understand.

  “Back to getting out of here. It shouldn’t be that hard. Let’s do it,” he whispered in a low gravelly voice that made Jahnni want to be stuck here with him forever.

  Sizing up her options, she decided to do what she shouldn’t ever do... escort an AI, armed Individual, or even passengers through a bypass door. It was a major security breach and she could lose her job. I suppose Mr. Harleyman is right. I should trust him. And of course, hope the consequences aren’t too severe when this is over. I mean, what could possibly go wrong just going through one or two bypass doors to get out during an emergency?

  Chapter 9

  How Hard Can It Be?

  Just Open The Door

  The rest of them crawled slowly and quietly from behind the podium. They huddled and waited. Mr. Harleyman motioned for everyone to wait there as he crawled towards the gate opening. Not being one to be told to wait, Jahnni crawled right behind him. She carefully peeked around the corner after he did. She could see a couple guys in uniforms at the complete end of the concourse. They appeared to be waiting for something, or someone, and it appeared like they were looking out the large plate glass windows that overlooked the runways. Then they would walk briskly over to the windows that gave them a glimpse at the Mezzanine. Back and forth they paced, like they knew what they were looking for. They were about twenty-four gate areas away, twelve if you figured that the gates were also numbered two at a time across from each other. The concourse was lined on both sides with food establishments and specialty shops, sometimes breaking up the flow of the gates. Jahnni thought that everything looked like a small abandoned city.

  She looked up the other way to see what Mr. Harleyman saw. She saw no one, only the cavernous space where travelers first entered the concourse and gathered their belongings after clearing the TSA checkpoint. The FIDS still glowed with flight information as if life at PDX was still flowing with a measured cadence. Looking up, she froze; the security cameras. She was just about ready to wave at the one almost facing their direction when she remembered the gunmen in white had access to the security door.