“That is very interesting, this waterfall system and pipes. Do you have any idea what he could have been looking for, or why he would be looking for, whatever it was?” Pahlavi asked.
“Not really. Except the old rumors of a secret basement or something, having to do with the fountain. But I really don’t think it’s true. How could it be? I’ve always assumed it was folklore, exaggerated stories,” Carolyn answered, shrugging her shoulders.
“Well, I’ll put that on the back burner until I see how it figures into something. In the meantime, could you look at some video feed for me and identify anyone in this section?” Pahlavi asked.
They rewound the video about twenty seconds and they started watching it together.
“OH, MY GOD! That’s Jahnni! She is one of my best agents, the one I was telling you about,” Carolyn said, pointing with her finger and tapping the screen. “Jahnni Dawson. Though, I don’t know who those men are that are holding her arm and the arm of the older gentleman. I can’t see their faces since they have their backs to the camera. Wait. Are they forcing her along? What’s happening here?”
“Agent Pahlavi, come look at this. Here is one with the same lady but it appears that she is with another airline agent. Well, at least their uniforms look the same. Plus, a kid, an old man, and... Hey! Grayson! Come here! Quick! Who does that look like? Wait... let’s rewind it a bit,” he ordered the tech as he motioned his hand like he was trying to wind it up in the air. “Now look, watch this. Here she comes, and then the others, and then... Freeze it,” the FBI agent monitoring the video yelled to the operator. “Right there. Who does that look like?”
Grayson and two other FBI agents said, almost in unison, “That’s Harleyman! What the...? Why is he with them?”
Grayson stared at the screen then added, “He’s one of us, ma’am. This keeps getting stranger by the hour, huh.”
“Okay,” Carolyn chimed in, “Then that’s our AI from the SFO flight we were wondering about. The child must be our U.M. we have been scrambling to account for. There is Jahnni, and it looks like... yep. That’s Samantha. She is another good agent of mine.”
Pahlavi looked around at the monitors that they were watching. “What’s the time stamps on these? Start putting a timeline together so that we can see the order that these took place. Anyone else have anything?”
Pahlavi was beginning to form a plan when another agent monitoring a feed called out. “I found something you might be interested in Delaram, I mean Special Agent Pahlavi.”
She hurried back through the room and had the tech replay the feed. “Well I’ll be damned,” she said out loud.
Then, looking at the other agents said while tapping the screen on Craig’s face, “Isn’t this the guy that Perry Prattle said was attacked by Jahnni and her ‘co-conspirators,’” she said while making tags in the air around the words co-conspirators, “when they burst into his office? That doesn’t look like any bursting I have ever seen. More like they are the ones doing the dragging?”
Everyone stared at the screen. They were watching Jahnni and an older gentleman being strong-armed as they waited for an elevator door to open. Pahlavi wrote some notes on her pad then motioned for everyone in the room to stay put. “I’ll be back in 10 minutes. I need to speak with Liam to see what he found out from the techs.”
Chapter 27
Someone Always Knows Something
Agent Pahlavi went upstairs looking for Agent Liam Anthony, her partner. She was now standing before a large copy of the entire airport’s blueprints using a restaurant table in the food court to lay out the different elevations. Crowded around the plans were FBI agents, electricians, plumbers, techs, and Special Agent Liam Anthony was taking notes. The Port Police officers who patrol the entire PDX property as well as inside the airport, were also waiting for Special Agent Pahlavi’s update. The head of maintenance, was combing over the blueprints and marking various points of facts with small red removable arrow stickers as they identified the new assigned areas. They used yellow stickers to mark the areas that were already being monitored by the Port of Portland Police as possible areas of escape from behind security.
People stood staring at the blueprints, running their eyes all over the different elevations, pointing and discussing their different perspectives of knowledge. While they conferred in low tones, asking questions and answering others, a Port officer came to Agent Pahlavi and handed her a note. She unfolded it, read it, and then tapped it against her palm as she decided. “Okay, bring him up. Has he talked to anyone else about this?”
The officer shook his head no, and added, “Not that I am aware. He told me he hadn’t when I asked him.”
“Good, bring him up and of course, search him first. And if you don’t mind, could you please bring us two cups of coffee. I am sorry to ask, but I don’t know where they have set up the energy table,” she said with a half-smile, knowing that he would understand the inside joke.
Delaram took out her note pad and added more notes. She walked to a table that overlooked the fountain out in the courtyard and sat down. The area by the fountain was cordoned off and guarded by two Port officers. Beside them walked two beautiful German Shepherds full of poise, continually watching every portion of the area, as were their handlers. If the handlers stopped, the dogs stopped and sat. If the handler started walking, the dogs would just start walking without being told what to do. They remained alert every moment. Beautiful, intelligent creatures, she thought, as she waited for the person who claimed he had some information about the Port, and the underground mystery that she needed to know.
She sat there, running the facts she had so far, around and around in her head. They were waiting for her back at the Port Office and she knew they would have the timeline of the videos for her. She squinted her eyes as she kept thinking about everything. It narrowed her thoughts so she could block out any interfering random ideas or pictures that wanted to sidetrack her. She had questions for herself. Where is the tall guard that was with Craigs when they were forcing Jahnni into the elevator? Where is Mr. Perry Prattle? He is coming and going, yet no one sees him traverse the regular corridors, open areas, or even talking to the FBI, Homeland, or Port Police anymore. It must have to do with the green area on Doris’ property security map. I bet that isn’t a mistake. It was planned.
She stood up as the Port Policeman walked the man towards her. Each were holding a cup of coffee. The man moved the coffee to his left hand then extended his right hand to introduce himself. She shook his hand, exchanging introductions, took her cup from the officer and thanked him before returning to her guest. She invited him to sit by pointing to the chair opposite of her then said, “Please. What can you tell me?” She sat back as The Cart Man began telling her the story about the acquisition of the Port of Portland property that now encompassed PDX.
She took notes as he spoke and answered her follow-up questions. After a while she turned the pad to him and he started perusing the account as she understood it. Then he signed it, noting that in the agreement she had offered her full support and his full cooperation would release him from liability in the ensuing investigation, provided he has been truthful and had not purposefully held back any pertinent information.
“You know, this is not a promise, as we may find that you are not telling me everything. But if you are, I will do what I can to fulfill this agreement between you and me. I promise that if you are straight with me, I’ll be straight with you.”
“I fully understand. That is why I came forward. To help,” he said.
She smiled, held out her palm in a gesture to ask him to wait, then suddenly jumped up and walked briskly over to everyone gathered around the blueprints. “Hey, the airport employees... you all have access badges, right?” she asked them all, and waited for whoever answered first.
“You,” she asked Allen, the Port Policeman who escorted Carlton to her, “could you stay with Carlton until I say otherwise? Then she paused to listen to what they were t
alking about as they gathered around the blueprints.
“That’s Carlton,” someone in the group finally said. “He has worked here since, well for as long as I can remember. The guy just liked to be here. Nice man,” he added.
“Why would anyone want to work in the same job for so many years doing the same thing over and over, day in and day out?” asked Mike, one of the techs in the group.
“Well, whatever he had to talk to her about, it must be important. Nothing gets past him,” Rick mumbled, then nudged the person next to him and added, “We jokingly call him the walking check point. He has pointed out people to the screeners that he felt were sketchy and sure enough, he was right. Of course, now, the screeners are called T.S.A.” Rick turned to the group to finish his story in case they may have overheard his brief factoid. “A few years ago, The Port actually caught an Al-Qaeda operative that had explosives strapped to him. Carlton noticed him at his vehicle and followed him in the parking garage... at a distance, of course. Thanks to his quick thinking, it took the Port Police thirty seconds to get officers to the garage and they intervened before the guy accessed the airport. The fortunate point of the whole thing, is that the suicide bomber was doing a dry run and his explosive vest was not hot; totally fake and filled with kid’s kinetic sand, playdoh, and fake wiring from stripped electrical cords. But no one had any reason to think it wasn’t a live vest at first. Bomb squad and the robot came and everything. Even still, Carlton was a hero but refused to let us identify him to the press. He wanted no credit for it. Just said he is very observant and liked to help.”
After a few seconds of silence, Mike looked around at everyone in the group and asked, “Have any of you ever had a long conversation with him? Smart ol’ guy! Sometimes I think he should have been a professor. He’s very intelligent.”
Before she left the group, Agent Pahlavi looked at the Policewoman’s badge, “Come with me, Officer Lansing. I need a female officer downstairs. And you too, Rick. As head of maintenance, I have some more questions for you.” Then Pahlavi turned to the whole group. “Everyone else, wait here please, until I have confirmation on a couple things.” She looked at the Port officers and added, “We may have to take new positions. I’ll know more in a few minutes. Wait here.”
Everyone was nodding at the appropriate time in answer to her fired off questions and orders. The others stayed with the blueprints and Agent Pahlavi took off at a quick pace back to the security office with Rick and Officer Lansing.
Chapter 28
Unraveling
Perry Prattle was pressed against the walls of the bagwell as he wound his way from section to section, looking for Jahnni and her friends. He knew that he would find them. I know you are here somewhere. You can’t hide from me. I know every inch of this place. “Stupid old man,” he whispered out loud. “Arnie should have told me what I wanted to know when I asked him the first time.” Then he crept further along the wall, now turning the corner to the actual roadway the tugs normally drove on when the place was used as an actual ‘up and running’ airport. “Now I’m just gonna kill him after I force it out of him. Oh wait. Silly me,” he mumbled out loud. “I was going to do that anyway.” He began chuckling under his breath like he was answering his own joke. He slowly pulled out a gun he had strapped to his side and noticed a sound behind a dumpster.
Perry crept towards the corner, stopping to listen, then crept further towards the sound. He walked sideways with his back to the wall as he held his gun in front of him, faced up slightly so he was ready to move it in any direction should he need to quickly. A little further. A little further, quiet now! I got ya. I know where you are hiding, he was thinking in a sing-song voice in his head, all the while wearing an open-mouthed smile on his face. He swung his arm around the corner, holding tight to his gun and yelled, “I GOT YOU!” But only a couple little sparrows that had been feeding on tiny bread crumbs flew rapidly away from the danger.
He stood there for a few seconds before he jumped towards the dumpster and looked behind and beside it on the other side. Undeterred, he threw open the lid and pointed his gun inside the dumpster to catch whoever was hiding in it. But no one was there. Only some paper garbage, old lunch wrappings from the ground crews, and some old shredded up bag tags. Okay, okay, he thought. I’m still coming for you. I will find you! “I bet you are over by the fountain!” he whispered as he looked around to see that it was clear to leave the area the dumpster was tucked into. “Yes! That’s where you are. You can’t outsmart me. I knew the key was used there somehow. Ha, ha. I get it now. I get it,” he added to himself, as it seemed to give him courage. He began slowly working his way towards the other side of the bagwell to get to the fountain area. He knew he could access the area. He would simply detonate the final distraction he planned so the ones guarding the fountain would run to help their buddies.
Wait, how am I going to do that if my cell phone is blocked from sending a wireless signal? Dammit! What was I thinking? Okay, I’ll think of something else. I’ll think of something really, really, good. I’m very smart! Don’t, for a second underestimate me, you stupid people. You wait. By the time I’m done, you will think I’m the one that saved the day. I got this.
Chapter 29
Are the Rumorssssss True or Falsssssse?
Agent Pahlavi entered the Port Security Office with the head of maintenance following close behind. She walked straight over to Carolyn first. She was standing by the wall but waiting to the side so she didn’t interfere. Pahlavi asked her, “Does anyone know if the U.M.’s parents have been contacted yet?”
Carolyn bowed her head and then looked back up to answer her. “Yes. I sent word to the stations that were waiting for UM’s later this evening, coming from us that is. Seattle has taken over the follow-up on all our SSR’s. We now have our UM finally narrowed down to one young man coming into PDX who was supposed to transfer to a flight heading to San Fran. He’s the one in the video. I told the San Fran station that our regular communications were down here, but if they can’t get through to the SAT phone, they could send word through my liaison who will run back and forth off the property to relay messages. Our station manager in San Fran will not leave the parent’s side. That is, until we can safely confirm his escorted arrival into SFO... once we have him again in our custody. I have not relayed details though. I am waiting for clearance once we know more.
“Okay, good. I need to send a team to them in San Fran. What do you know about him, like name, age, etc... I’ll set that in motion right away.” Pahlavi began taking more notes. Then she walked over to Officer Boulder.
“Tell me what you found with the time stamps on the videos. I just saw Doris and she told me she matched the agents with the badge numbers that had been used to access the doors. She also confirmed for me that the green area is indeed accessible. I sent two more techs back up to Prattle’s office to try to confirm how he bypassed the system. The rest of the airport will remain in lockdown so spread the word. Here, she printed the security map showing the accessible points and the points of entry that were used. I’d like some of your officers to be stay posted at these doors. My FBI agents will begin another interior team sweep. I need your officers to also continue patrolling the common areas this side of security here inside the airport and continue the entire property monitoring; except for the officers you chose to accompany my agents for the interior sweep, of course. I don’t care what anyone says; if they manage to sneak out one of those doors, they are to be disarmed and detained until we can ascertain their identity and question them. I can confirm that we are looking for seven people for sure.”
Agent Pahlavi turned to make eye contact with the team that was in front of her. “Now, besides Mr. Prattle and a possible tall companion dressed as a security guard, name unknown yet,” she said as she started handing out photos to help explain what they looked like, “we are looking for Jahnni Dawson, and Samantha Morrison-both agents for First Class Air. They are with an elderly gentleman who we h
aven’t identified yet, and Beau Harleyman. Mr. Harleyman is an AI with the FBI, so he will be armed. We think he’s caught up in this by accident, but still…disarm. They also have in their custody one UM, an Unaccompanied Minor named Eddie Link, traveling under the guidance of airline personnel. Again, disarm and detain. Remember... There is a 13-year-old child somewhere on the other side of security. His safety comes first. Am I clear?” She spoke in exact words that would leave no question as to their orders. Everyone answered affirmatively.
“Good. Now,” she pointed to two of her FBI agents, “I understand you know the AI involved. Tell me how you know him, for how long, and where is he stationed?”
She listened to them describe a very loyal team player with whom they trained at the Academy. They gave her what information they knew for sure and one of them ended with, “We went through the Academy maybe eleven, twelve years ago. With Harleyman, you never have to worry about your back.”
Delaram Pahlavi looked at them and asked the obvious question. “Why is that? Isn’t that a given?”
“Because he’s not a hot-head,” the blonde one answered.
“And he holds the highest score at the Academy, ever, for marksmanship,” the red headed officer said with a cheesy grin. “He’s very professional and focused. You may want to see about transferring him to PDX from Seattle when this is over. We’d love to work with him.” He raised his eyebrows.
Agent Pahlavi regarded their words, then asked, “What do you mean ‘holds the highest score?’ You mean in your class at the Academy?”
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