"We've assigned you a temporary handle. You're ‘Air Force 1.'" I laugh.
"Never been in the Air Force."
"I know, we were in a hurry. The rest of us are colors and numbers. Eventually, once everyone knows you, you will be too. Enjoy it while you got it. You and I are together today, but we'll rotate you around with different people and different commands on your duty days. Everyone who works LAX can work every station."
"Sounds good to me. Better," I smile at her, "than getting donuts for the asshole patrol."
Turns out, at least today, not that much better. Our patrol zone is Terminal 2, the second international terminal. We walk. We talk. I learn she has eight brothers. I learn her dad and five of the brothers are cops. I learn the other three are still in school, so they probably will be cops. I learn she's a Galactica fan. I help a little girl find her lost mother who wandered off. I help calm down a drunk passenger who got belligerent with the gate staff. I learn Kiana has a gift for dealing with people. I learn she speaks fluent Spanish, and I spend a couple hours practicing mine with her. I learn I need to put padded insoles into my shoes.
I see flight crews headed for 747s and 777s, and then to all parts of the planet. I think maybe I should check into a more global airline than Mountain Pacific, then I think: 949.
We're headed to the west end of the terminal to find our replacements at shift end when Kiana nudges me. There are four men walking down the terminal toward us, one white, two black, and one Middle Eastern. Nice grey or black suits, white or black designer shirts, some with ties, some with out. All carrying metal briefcases. It's as if Moses is leading and the sea of passengers heading from their flights to baggage claim just parts before them. The four of them all have the size and demeanor of the special forces guys in our class, or Lope. I see why they attracted her attention, and I kick myself for not picking up on it.
"Shall we launch Vipers?" That's Galactica talk for "go get them."
"No." She steers me over toward the food court, and we try to look busy while we observe. She hits my arm. "Stop staring. The uniforms are enough of an attention getter without you focusing on them." I do my best to memorize the faces without looking at them directly. I did get a 99 per cent in Patrol Procedure.
One by one, they drift away, stopping at a several different gates, all Canadian bound flights. Odd, but not illegal. And leaving, not coming in.
"Come on." Kiana's walking at high speed into the terminal. The white man stopped at the pole near gate 21, talking on his phone, we appear headed toward him, but not directly. He ends his conversation and turns into the gate, sits in one of the uncomfortable chairs, away from everyone else. She walks right toward him and then past without slowing down, me at her side, her leg six inches from his.
We make a wide turn toward the wall, and stop. She grabs her notebook, checks her watch, looks over at the flight counter, and scribbles furiously. Then we head off toward the higher number gates.
"What was that?" My question. Don't remember not talking to someone as a valid interrogation technique.
"He made a phone call at 4:42 p.m. from gate 21, he's headed to Toronto on Air Canada 213. He didn't flinch when we approached him, better not to alert him by talking to him unless I think he's nervous." Not covered in my Patrol Procedures class. Neither is her walking speed, or her neglect to tell me when she decides she needs to be somewhere.
"Now we're headed down to check out his friends?" She nods, and grabs the notebook again. One of the men appears headed to Toronto on WestJet, two gates down. We find the final two split as well, headed to Vancouver, again one each on Air Canada and WestJet. We position ourselves just off of the security door at gate 23, which gives us a good view of the gates 24, 26, and 28 where our new friends are seated. Just before boarding, the Toronto bound man in the WestJet gate goes back and joins his friend at gate 21, and the Vancouver bound man at the WestJet gate goes over to join his comrade at Air Canada. Odd.
We stand and watch. I'm not sure why until another one picks up his phone. Perez jots down the time and gate. Three of the four at these gates use their phones before departure. The last flight out is Vancouver, Air Canada. As our last two persons of interest, a black man and a Middle Eastern man, head down the jetway to the aircraft, Perez sets out at her usual ten mile an hour walk. I almost have to fly to catch up.
"We waited until neither of the others were left to see us?"
"Smart boy. I told you LAX was more fun than homicide." We don't even flash our badges, just walk past the airline staff, down the jetway, and on to the aircraft. The men we're after boarded with only a few people left, so they are still in the aisle when we get there, backs to us. They are stopping in first class at the only two open seats. I barely have time to check the numbers before Perez shoves me back off the plane. We jog up the jetway far enough that we're invisible through the window, and Perez writes in the notebook again.
She looks at her watch, then at me. "Shift was over an hour ago. You got somewhere to be, or are you up for the boring part?"
"I'll send a text. Let's go." I text Jen that I have been given homework, will be coming in late, and the usual ‘love you.' She gives me an LOL and authorizes my deployment until nine.
"I've been given three hours, is that enough?"
"Plenty. Odds are we'll find out they all work for the same company and had to make last second reservations, or some other crazy thing."
We walk back to the office in Terminal 7 and pull up chairs to the computer terminal. Perez enters her password, then calls up the phone log database. She enters the times and terminals of the three phones we saw in use, copying phone numbers into her notebook from the screens that appear. All of the calls were short, making them easy to identify from the logs. None of the phones has a name attached. I used to have a phone just like that.
Next, she pulls up the passenger lists from the flights. The last two, seated on Air Canada 550 to Vancouver, first class, seats 5A and 5B, are Sergei Romanov and his brother, Nikolai, Russian passports. Perez searches for the names on the flight database. They flew in last Thursday morning from Moscow.
"Russians? Brothers?" I am incredulous. My first day on the job, and something is up. Those two gentlemen are neither Russian, nor brothers.
"Don't be so excited. It's far more likely that Sergei and Nikolai are in the wrong seats, so our guys just took theirs, or they were no shows, and our guys got an upgrade. The airline crew may have changed it on site, but not put it into the computer. Saves them work, pisses us off."
"What next?" I still have two hours before my pass from Jen expires.
"We request the passport photos and go home."
"And if the photos aren't them?"
"We'll have to decide how much more effort we want to put into this. You see things in this job all the time, and ninety nine point nine nine percent of them are nothing, or they did something bad, but there's no way to figure out what. Odds of us seeing them again are even lower." She types for a couple minutes, and then stands up. I give her a look.
"This is not TV," she shakes her head at me, "It can take a couple days to get the photos, especially with the weekend coming."
I must have looked crestfallen. She makes a face at me.
"I put your email on the request too, you'll be able to check them out as soon as they come in. Now go home."
She heads for the door, and I follow. When we get to the end of the terminal, she wants to head left, and I want to go right.
"I parked at the airline office so I could show off my uniform," I explain.
She smiles. "I'm glad it makes you proud. I'll see you next week."
"Thursday," I agree, and stroll off into the sunset.
Chapter 11
I bore Jen to death going on and on about today's events, but I can't help myself. Here I was, all pissy about having been assigned the airport, and something cool happens the first day. She's cooking chicken stir fry in my kitchen, so she can pretend to listen and
say "interesting" every few minutes to make me happy.
She puts two plates down on the table, walks over to where I'm standing, shuts me up by kissing me, and says, "Remember, you are still a rookie reserve. Don't be disappointed if this is the most exciting day you have."
Jen's right, of course, she usually is. Doesn't stop me from packing my laptop and my badge (I know it's a plastic card, but I like to call it my badge) for the flight to Kona.
In the morning she's about to leave, but I walk up behind her, wrap my arms around her, hands clasped over her stomach, face buried in her sea of blonde hair. I kiss her neck, pull my head back, lean over to her left ear, and whisper, "Thanks for understanding."
She reaches up, pinches my nose, says, "Actually, I don't, but what matters is you do," and leaves.
The LAPD office is empty when I stop by, much to Captain Amos' disappointment, who was hoping to meet Perez. He is much more excited about my day than Jen, and we talk about nothing else for five hours of flight, and nine holes of golf. My email is empty when I get to my room, and empty in the morning after I get back from flying practice. It's still empty after I get back to LA Saturday night. I think Captain Amos is madder about it than I am. He wanted to know how the story ends.
Sunday morning is a different. There are two emails in my inbox, the first containing pictures of a black man named Sergei and a Middle Eastern man named Nikolai, and the second a note from Perez to meet her Monday morning at the main LAPD airport office, even though it's not my scheduled work day. I know I went running, but I don't remember it. I know Halloween and I had breakfast, but I might have eaten the package the oatmeal came in, I'm not sure. I know Jen and I went shopping together, but I couldn't tell you where.
She's not mad at me exactly, she knows I feel like Christmas Eve and I'm waiting for my presents, but she decides that it's better to be somewhere else than wherever I am. I can't blame her. So we have barbeque with my parents, and then she dumps me and heads home. I make an Anaheim, Oahu, Anaheim, home, circuit, naked of course, then repeat to eat up the time.
I get to the LAPD parking lot at 7, flash my badge and find myself parking next to Perez, who owns a nice new black Mustang. She walks over as I try to look strong getting out of my little car.
"A Honda Civic named ‘Starbuck?,'" she asks, shaking her head in disapproval.
"You find that amusing, do you? You never told me what your car is named."
"Doesn't need one. It speaks for itself."
I change the subject as we walk toward the building. "Nice pictures in that email."
"That's why we're here. Captain asked us to come in." So not only do we think this is something, her boss does too. Nice. Only I get a not so nice vibe off her.
We go into the second door on the ground floor, which turns out to be a meeting room, with a white board, a beat up old wood table, and a couple dozen cheap plastic chairs. We are still standing and the door has not yet closed when it pops back open and two men come in.
The older one in front, short, bald, chest full of silver, tosses a folder down on the table in front of Perez.
"What the hell were you doing? Who authorized you to contact State? Why is it that of my 300 officers, only one has never heard of the chain of command?"
He pauses for a second, then goes on without waiting for an answer.
"I should take the cost out of your salary. And, I had to spend an hour on the phone with the FBI telling there was nothing going on and to stay out of my airport."
I can see Perez get angry, then grab her anger and push it away. She really has a gift.
"Sir, I thought the questions raised by these men required immediate investigation," her voice is calm, firm, and professional. His is not.
"And what have you learned? Not their names, not where they are from, not where they went, nothing! Wasted our time and money on nothing! They were headed out of the airport. Even if they are terrorists, they were headed out! Now I have an unsolved international case on my monthly, plus the fees to the feds, plus the Fucking Bureau of Investigation calling. What do you think I should do about it?" His face got redder and redder, his voice louder and louder, the longer he spoke.
She was still just as calm as when she started. "Investigate," a pause, "sir."
"I don't know what Captain Armstrong saw in you. Your external access privileges are suspended for 30 days. Do this again and I'll have you on bike patrol, permanently. Do I make myself clear?" He's yelling now.
"Crystal, sir." She hasn't raised her voice, or an eyebrow. I see what Armstrong saw in her. Too bad her boss doesn't.
He storms out, never introducing the man with him, or acknowledging my presence.
She turns to me. "Come on, we have work to do." She grabs the folder he left on the table as we head for the door, and the walk to the terminals.
"That was your boss?"
"Yeah, Captain Spears. Your boss too. The moron following him is his assistant, Lieutenant Crane."
"So what do we do now?"
"Our jobs, Air Force, our jobs."
Turns out her assignment for the day is Terminal 7, my territory, but highly unlikely to bring on the terrorists since every flight in and out is domestic US only. I walk there with her, arriving about 7:45, and she tells McConnell, who's her actual partner today, to give us a couple minutes. We walk down the terminal, talking about the possibilities, but when we get to gate 70B, I pull her over. The flight crew isn't here yet, but they are due any time. The gate crew recognizes me, and I accept their oohs and aahs, and introduce Perez all around. Captain Amos has 461 this morning, and he just about rips his face apart smiling when he recognizes me in my new uniform. Ten minutes later, he's headed down the jetway, having nearly charmed the pants off of my partner.
All the positive reinforcement keeps her smiling about to gate 75, in other words, about two minutes, and then the depression returns to her face. A couple of minutes turns into the whole morning. About 11:45 we finish helping a family find a bag they misplaced, and I drag Kiana down to the food court.
I buy her tacos for lunch, and tell her to follow me. We walk to 77, where a Mountain Pacific bird is parked, two and half hours before it's heading to New York. I use my card to open the jetway, and we walk down. I put her in the captain's seat, I take my usual right hand seat, and I give her a brief lesson on flying a 757 between bites of chicken taco. She's impressed, but still depressed when we're done. I head home after that, leaving McConnell with orders to cheer her up.
"See you Thursday," she says.
"Thursday," I reply, "Call me if you want to talk."
No response.
I cook my famous fried hamburgers for Jen, and we sit on my balcony talking until almost midnight, before dropping off to sleep together, just a single kiss. No Fog Dude action either.
Perez doesn't call, and she's not there when I walk through to my gate the next day. I fly with 194 other people to Kona, fly by myself to the coast of Korea and back, then fly inside the aluminum tube back to LAX. I sent Perez a text, but she ignored me, and she's long gone by the time I hit the terminal, her shift ending four and a half hours ago. Jen picks me up, takes me back to my place, and makes up for the sex free Monday. She also has a set of insoles for me, wrapped in blue ribbon.
When I get to the LAPD office at 8, Perez is sitting by an ancient printer waiting while it discharges a stack of paper, about one sheet every two minutes. She hands me four pages that have already printed, and points over to the desk.
"Air Force, compare the flight lists with last week's and see if there are any common names."
"Common as in Smith, Jones, Perez?" She gives me a that's not funny and I don't need cheering up look.
"Wilco." That's airplane talk for "will comply."
I read them twice to be sure. "Negative on any names in common."
She hands me another just printed set. "Try these."
We repeat the process five times, all negative.
"Those are today'
s version of the flight our suspects came in on last week, and four other flights from Eastern Europe arriving about the same time."
I look her in the eye. "Are we happy there's no match, or are we unhappy?"
"Unhappy. But if anyone asks, I'm ecstatic." She definitely looks unhappy.
"OK, what's today's battle plan?"
"You were supposed to be introduced to the bike patrol through the parking lots, but Johnson switched it up for me, and we have Terminal 2." She's not giving up. Neither am I.
We walk over to our terminal. Six uneventful hours later we are positioned in gate 22, which will give us a good view of anyone walking in to Terminal 2. For a half hour, there is nothing, then four men who could be the brothers of last week's suspects come rolling down the middle of the concourse. Same demeanor, same special forces look, same black and grey suits, same metal brief cases. And, just like last time, they split into four gates.
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