You're Clear

by JL LeGerrette

  The ‘uniforms’ were in the bagwell ripping open bags, dumping them out, and riffling through the belongings. Peering through the gape in the bricks, Jahnni could not understand. To comprehend what was being done was not something she could grasp. All the bags had already been scanned. What are they looking for? If they knew the name of the person whose bag they were looking for, why didn’t they just read the names on the bag tags?

  “Hey, isn’t that your bag he has now?” she whispered to Mr. Harleyman.

  “How dare that man!” Mr. Tropopoulis whispered angrily. “He is holding my bag that I was to carry on plane. I leave it at gate area when all this trouble happen! I have much important things in there!”

  “Maybe, Pops. Or it might be mine. It’s okay. We will get your bag back and everything in it. Mine too. We will get both bags back,” Mr. Harleyman vowed.

  Jahnni just stared in amazement. What is it about these bags that have these two so worked up?

  Chapter 12

  Dear Whoever; I think We Need Some Help

  The five of them huddled in silence. They all watched the bumbling security guards, or whatever they were, look for something that seemed of great importance. Hearing new instructions on their odd-looking radio, they abandoned the shambles they had created and grabbed the brown plaid bag they already had in their possession and started running out of the baggage area towards the main tunnel. They began weaving their way away from Jahnni and her friends. Thinking that they might possibly return, Mr. Harleyman motioned for them to stay put for a while longer. When the ‘uniforms’ passed Southwest’s area, and kept going at a brisk pace towards the main area under the mezzanine, Jahnni looked at him and raised her eyebrows, nodding slightly as if asking if they should proceed into the First Class Air’s baggage area. Besides, she had an idea. One that doesn’t include beaches, she noted sadly.

  They all ran around the little wall towards the belt in First Class Air’s bagwell and cautiously walked against the inner walls and around the carts behind Mr. Harleyman, who had his shirt pulled up slightly on the side and his hand on the gun in its holster. They proceeded to check for unwanted company. Seeing none, they all crawled up onto the nearest cart, positioning the bags in front of them in case someone else came into the area as well. They sat in silence looking at each other and looking at all the mess that was strewn around. Clothing, deodorant, shoes, magazines, blow-dryers, toys, blankets. Anything you could possibly expect to find in a traveler’s suitcase, was on the floor. It looked like a battlefield of colorful fabric carnage. Jahnni wondered what Mr. Harleyman was thinking as he sat there silent. Always thinking, never sharing. Typical, she thought.

  Mr. Tropopoulis sat still and stared at the walls and ceiling. His head was tilted slightly and one ear turned toward the floor. He glanced down, and then up at the walls. Samantha sat next to Crutch. Crutch just sat, leaning back onto a large bag, lounging and playing his game, apparently, no worries in the world. Jahnni on the other hand had lots of worries. She was down in the bagwell, with an old man, a co-worker, a UM and a man that made her feel like she just ate chili peppers for lunch. Her body temperature rose with each passing minute she spent near him. Her palms were sweaty, and her face was flushed. She tried to keep her mind on their situation, but every time they stopped to rest, and things felt slightly calm, her mind would wander to him. Was he married? Did he have a girlfriend? Did he even notice me as anyone more than his baggage checker? Oh, what am I thinking? I need to stay on task! Get us out of here! Then she watched him as he slowly breathed in and out. Obviously, he must be calculating his options, and weighing the pros and cons of each decision he might need to make. That’s what I would be doing if I was a highly-trained FBI Agent... with secrets, she noted to herself. His jaw was set, and she could almost see his heartbeat echoing in his neck. His lips were full and pouty and curved slightly upwards at the edges in a slight smile that evoked confidence at every moment. And cuteness. Definitely, cuteness. If we get out of this, she thought, weighing her options to herself... I am for sure... going to kiss those lips someday. Maybe. I hope.

  “Uh... Mr. Harleyman?” Jahnni whispered

  “Look, at this point, you can call me Beau,” he answered. “I think we have passed the introductory phase.” He chuckled slightly and then turned to face her.

  “Okay... Beau? I’ll unlock the bagwell office door. Inside, there is a system called Flight Navigation Monitor from which I can get all sorts of information. I can track flights for any airline, any city, and I can pull up a flight manifest for all our own planes today. It can show us fuel logs, cargo load, pretty much anything. I wonder if that will help us figure anything out?” Jahnni asked.

  “Not unless I recognize any names on a manifest. Or if there is any way that someone has posted or sent information about this emergency. Maybe, this doesn’t have anything to do with flights. I wonder...”

  “Well, the sooner you brief me about what you are wondering, the better, don’t you think?” Jahnni asked.

  After giving him a bug-eyed, Well? look, Jahnni told everyone to stay together and follow her. She used her keys to open the door and with the lights off, proceeded over to the computers. She checked to see if she could access the internet, and sure enough they were online, so First Class Air’s private satellite service hadn’t failed them, just like the software engineers had promised. They were the only airline to have invested in the expensive system. Instead of investing in First Class Air’s technology, the other airlines were vehement about developing their own so they didn’t have to pay royalties to First Class Airlines. Whatever, she thought. Their loss now, obviously.

  She could see all the flights grounded at PDX. She saw their IN times, and saw that for the next few hours at least, all other inbound planes had been diverted. She made some entries and saw they were headed back to their origins, or were being rerouted, mostly to Seattle. There were some planes that had taxied out to the runway, before this all started, and here at PDX they were on a compete ground stop, loaded with angry passengers no doubt. All their planes were on an interactive program with a satellite process that “read” the planes data. It showed what time they were “out,” but it also showed what time they chocked the brakes once they were told to stop. It showed which had passengers and crew still onboard. The crew must have accessed the satellite system and posted a new passenger count and names when some were forced back onboard from the jetways during the initial lockdown, she thought. Jahnni and Beau looked at the names on all the outbound passenger lists. Nothing looked familiar to Beau so far. They looked at the names on all the inbound flights for the day. Nothing seemed of any importance to Jahnni. She didn’t even know what she was looking for.

  “What are you even looking for? How would you know any of these people?” Jahnni asked.

  “I hoped I would see a name on our wanted list,” Beau mumbled.

  Jahnni then pulled up the first inbound JFK that landed earlier that morning. “What about this name here?” Samantha interrupted, reaching over Jahnni’s shoulder and pointing. “And what about this one... here also?”

  Jahnni looked at the names. Looked at the seat numbers, but didn’t know what she was driving at. Before Jahnni spoke, Beau asked, “What about them?”

  “Well, remember when I said that the two gunmen in white were from Hungary? Well, the two gun-people,” Samantha added haltingly, “I mean, I knew, because I speak Hungarian. These two names here, although they are not seated together, are Hungarian. Oláh and Horváth. Not that it means anything, but I just thought... maybe it might? And look, one is a man, and one is a woman.” She looked back and forth between Jahnni and Beau then wiped her hands in the air as if she had solved the entire case.

  “I don’t know. It seems like a long shot. Can you pull up their reservation Jahn?” Beau asked.

  “I can do that, and tell you when they bought their ticket, where the reservation was made and how they paid for it... and even who they spoke with them to
make it if they called the reservation line. I can even tell you what computer checked them in and what agent checked their bags, if they had any,” she added as she pulled up the PNR.

  “Now this is confidential information Beau. I mean, we are only trying to ascertain what kind of situation we are in, and how to get out of it, right?” Jahnni said. “You have to forget anything you see here. I am not supposed to let you see anything in here. Geez, I’m in so much trouble already, bringing you all down here, hauling a UM into danger. I’m going to be fired, poor, and homeless. I’m really, really, gonna be in so much trouble!”

  “Look Jahn, everything that got us down here was survival. If there is nothing in this record that appears pertinent, then we can back out of it and go to plan B, C or whatever. Do we have another plan?” Beau laughed under his breath as he looked out the window into the bagwell. After a few moments, he looked back at Jahnni. She was staring at his chest.

  “What?” he asked

  “What do you mean, ‘what’?” she answered

  “What? What are you staring at?” he asked again as he glanced down at his shirt. “Is there something on my shirt?”

  “Oh, uhhh, nothing. Let me look at this res.” She turned her pink face towards the computer, knowing that it wasn’t what was on his shirt so much as how nice his shirt looked on him. What is wrong with me? Concentrate!

  “They flew in from JFK on our early morning inbound. I don’t show them on us before that. Oh wait. Their electronic tickets show they flew in to New York from Frankfurt yesterday on Lufthansa. They were on our first flight out of New York early this morning, which is why, with the time change it looks like they got here in about 2 hours, but it really takes about 5. They didn’t check bags, but these guys here in PDX had machine guns, or rifles or... whatever they are called.” She was muttering as she read everything that even appeared pertinent. “You can’t sneak those through customs. So, someone had to supply those once they landed.”

  “You mean M4’s. Those aren’t machine guns,” Beau whispered behind her ear to correct her. His breath moved across her skin and she shivered from her ears to her toes. She reminded herself once again, focus.

  She went on, “But this is weird; their tickets were purchased here in Portland. Yesterday, right before they checked in, in Frankfurt. Man... they paid enough for last minute tickets! Who has that kind of money for last minute International flights? These tickets cost like a couple month’s salary for me! And together in First Class from Frankfurt? Make that six-month’s salary... each! But they were seated apart, from New York to Portland. Maybe there weren’t any seats together at the last minute. You suppose, Samantha?” Jahnni said. Samantha shrugged affirmatively.

  “Who is seated next to them from New York?” Beau asked.

  Jahnni pulled up the passenger manifest again, choosing to send it to the second monitor next to the first one that they were initially using.

  “Pull up that reservation again,” Beau said.

  Jahnni saw his eyes scanning the history and waited to hear what conclusion he came to... about anything.

  Running his finger down the screen, he breathed out a sigh and finally spoke while pointing to the payment information in the reservation. “You know, I don’t think we need to worry. If these are the masked guys in white, then these guys aren’t the enemy. So, who are the ‘uniforms’ then? And why do they look like the Port police, but they can’t badge their own way into each area?” he asked out loud then turned to Jahnni. “You said you didn’t recognize them, right?”

  “No, I don’t, but maybe they are new, or maybe they always work the property and not the terminal. I don’t know, but it is weird,” she offered then added, “Their uniforms are slightly different too.”

  “How do you know this?” Mr. Tropopoulis asked with eagerness. “How can you know that these two guys, I mean people, from Hungary are not ‘bad guys?’ I feel much concerned that someone have my bag. It is much important to me! That is MY bag and no one has right to steal it. It is good thing pizza people find it for me... when I forget it under table.” Then he turned to Jahnni and said, “remember Janie?”

  “You know, Pops, I’ll explain later. Please, trust me. I just know. But let’s hurry and get out of here safely. In the meantime, once you all are safe, I will...” Silence fell around them before he continued in a lower voice, “I will do what I have to do to make sure we get the answers we need.” Pausing, then looking down at Mr. Tropopoulis, he added, “and your bag and everything that is in it too.”

  Jahnni stared at Beau, and then she looked at the reservation again. She tipped her head to the side while she scanned the room, the computer screen, the desk and everything on top of it, and then stared blankly at the computer. A jumble of thoughts rolled over and over in her mind but the connections were not making a conclusion. When, how, who... she couldn’t even put her questions in her mind into a complete sentence. Finally, she thought to herself, why does he think everything is going to be okay? And what did he see in the payment info? She examined the payment info he momentarily pointed at.

  “Okay then,” Samantha sighed. “Can’t we just call someone from here, or fax someone, or email someone, or...”

  “SAM! I can’t believe you thought of that! The computers are not on the phone’s cable line system during an outage, but as we can see, I still have updated access to flight status. The phones and regular cable are still out, and the cell phone and radio reception is blocked. But our computers are on the new satellite system! So, bingo! We can put an email to someone in the queue via this system,” she said as she thought through the complexities of the satellite linkage. She looked at Beau and tried to break it down as she remembered the details of it. “When it kicks into emergency mode, it can accept inbound info, and queue outbound at thirty minute increments. It has something to do with a different type of wave length, satellites, transponders, and expense but... I don’t truly understand it all. Our shortest flight is forty-five minutes, that is why they set it at thirty. That still gives the outstation enough time to work with an inbound from an emergency coded airport. When not in emergency mode, everything is in real time.”

  “Well, for whatever reason, let’s get some info to someone, then we are getting out of here,” Beau said. “Draw me a sketch of our location and the direction we are headed when we leave here. We are going straight to the carousel door and ending this crazy cat and mouse game. At least now, we are only looking to avoid the two in police-looking uniforms. The guys, or rather guy and lady in white, are not an issue.”

  “I knew I should have pressed the issue about having Skype and Facetime allowed on our computers!” Jahnni said with fake anger. “They blocked those programs so the employees wouldn’t play on them. We sure could have used something like that right about now! Wait... maybe that wouldn’t work though, since you’d have to wait thirty minutes between sentences,” she added as she realized it still couldn’t just live-stream during the curtailed access during an emergency.

  Sam looked quite perplexed. “Wait, then why do those police looking guys have radios that work?”

  Beau spoke up, “That’s not a radio. Per se. When phone lines are down, and cell reception and two-way radio is blocked... SAT phones will work. They are using a SAT phone... they’re directly linked to satellites bypassing the ordinary communication devices. Because PDX is dense, there is a PBX, I mean, private branch exchange, system located on site to allow a broader range of reception. Otherwise service is limited to direct satellite view by the phones. There is probably more than one and they are linked. The PBX is like those operators from the old days that would find out who you wanted to call, then plug you into the right line. Like a relay system. But now, it’s all computerized of course. In fact, now that you mention it, law enforcement here has probably switched out to SATs as well. That could pose a problem for the bad guys if they are on the same PBX. But with what is going on, I imagine that there must be a secondary PBX system locat
ed somewhere. Some models have the capacity to use text messaging. Those two amateurs act like they aren’t familiar with using a SAT phone. I get the idea that they were hired for their brawn, not their brains,” Beau quipped as he chuckled under his breath.

  “So, they work sort of like our satellite system here then? We must have our own PB whatever it’s called, too. But, let’s stay on topic here. Who can we send an email to?” she asked as her fingers signed into her personal company email. Better make it official, she thought to herself. Not to someone that could be at the airport cuz they can’t check their email on their phones.

  Her fingers waited as the cursor blinked in the ‘TO’ section of the email. They all stared at the blink as if it was a secret message waiting to be interpreted. Blink, blink, blink. She nervously waited as her fingers twitched. Everyone stared at the empty email. No one said anything. “It doesn’t have to be the president, guys. Just think of someone important.” Then, after much thought, she remembered the email address that she saw in the reservation. Beau had pointed at it, with a slight smile on his face. It also seemed to be a familiar name to her at this point as well.

  Thanks Carlton, she thought, thinking back on their conversations over the last couple weeks. Carlton’s voice echoed in her head, ‘I feel that everyone needs to know who to believe in,’ she remembered him telling her. Pieces were coming together and pieces were falling apart. The talk about the fountain, the name in the reservation, some type of breathing device on the people in the white jumpsuits. She couldn’t yet figure out how or why they were all thrown into this bizarre chain of events together, but somehow, she felt it was meant to be. Who was who, and what was what, was all part of this big mystery, but she vowed to get to the bottom of it. She hated missing pieces to a puzzle and this was no exception. She glanced over at Crutch. He is my first priority no matter where this day leads, she thought. I will keep him safe even if I have to give my own life to do it.