The 911 dispatcher was patient, but it was difficult for Mary to explain the situation. She wished she hadn’t called or could think what to say. “I will contact the airport police, or maybe you can call them.” She was sure Johnny and Isaac could take care of the situation until Terry’s contact arrived. She hung up and sprinted in the direction her husband had disappeared.
Johnny and Isaac soon could see the Adidas jacket on the slim man ahead of them. They drew a few reproachful looks as they hurried with the throng, moving faster than the flow. Johnny put his phone to his ear, chatting away, disappearing as best a big man could do. Isaac moved off to the right, looking for a clearer path.
Johnny was surprised to see Mary pass them without comment, walking quickly, her backpack bouncing rhythmically from side to side, a big golf umbrella in her hand. Umbrella? From a gift shop? She didn’t acknowledge him, but kept going, passing the slim man in the white jacket. She pulled her phone from her hip pocket, looking at the screen, a worried traveler trying to make her connection.
Johnny glanced toward Isaac’s position, he wasn’t there. Looking back, he saw an airport cart with several elderly passengers had cut off the flow of foot traffic, and Isaac was at least twenty meters behind. He looked ahead. Mary had moved into the path of the man, and stopped, looking around. What was she doing?
Joseph looked up to see an attractive young woman in his path, scanning around for signs, looking at her phone. She was pretty and she needed help. He slowed, the crowd moving around him.
Johnny was stuck behind a group of foreign tourists. They were elderly, moving in a group, six wide, wielding carts and cameras. He would have to go around. He saw Mary stop in front of the man and watched him slow, looking at Mary and nodding.
Joseph was pleased. Maybe he would have a dinner companion after all, especially if she missed her flight. Maybe he could delay her. Here it was, opportunity. He grinned. Her serious profile was more than pretty. She turned.
Joseph had faced many problems in his life and had proved to be cool under pressure many times. But when the woman turned, he was not looking into the face of a beautiful, needy woman, but the fierce and dangerous eyes of a predator. He stopped, shocked, will to survive coming to life. The prey that was not prey at all. He tensed to bolt, and she dropped her umbrella. His hesitation sealed his fate as she stooped quickly in front of him, reaching down to pick it up. Her body and swinging backpack shielded her movement as she quickly straightened, the heavy wooden handle of the cheap umbrella slamming into his crotch.
A big man was kneeling beside him, comforting arm across his heaving shoulder.
“It’s going to be okay, man. Here, let me help you to a seat.” The big man lifted him, one huge hand gripping his wrist, the other a vise on his belt. He called to another man for help, and this one, also big, gripped his elbow with one hand, other arm wrapping around his ribs. The tourists pushed past, a few curious looks.
“Appendix?” The big man let go of Joseph’s wrist and mimed a sick stomach with his free hand, and the elderly travelers moved on, unconcerned.
A woman pushing a cleaning cart walked over, asking if they needed help. The big man with the beard shook his head. “No, my friend is sick from his flight. Is there a private restroom we can use?”
She pointed and headed back to her cart, happy she had been of service.
Johnny and Isaac quietly helped the ailing man into the nearby family restroom, Mary watched from across the passage, feeling a wave of remorse. She probably wouldn’t have needed to swing the umbrella so hard. She looked at the thick, curved wooden handle, now cracked. Oh well, if it was the wrong guy, she would need to apologize for sure. Hopefully, she wouldn’t get sued. She called Terry.
Chapter 51
A uniformed security officer had noticed the men and stopped to talk to the cleaner. He liked the middle-aged lady who had been working in this section for the last few months. She always had a kind smile, and her English was getting better by the week, but at first she had said very little. He asked her what was up with the sick man, and she explained how his nice friends were helping him because he “needed the help to be airsick”.
He grinned and walked over to the washroom door. He grimaced and moved away. The sounds he could hear over the hum in the terminal were proof that she wasn’t kidding, the guy was sick alright! He hoped he hadn’t made a mess she would have to clean up later.
Walking away he repeated her words, hoping to relay them to his girlfriend that evening. “He needed the help to be airsick.” Cute. Learning English had to be tough, eh?
Terry had the presence of mind to pay for their uneaten meal when a concerned waiter came by. She assured him the food was fine. She had just ended the call with the RCMP officer, who was on the way to the airport. She told him that the men traveling with her would try to watch Joseph until he arrived. He told her that an officer was near her in the airport, stressing that the woman was working under cover. He said her name was “Lucy” and she would recognize Terry from her photo.
When Lucy took a call on her cellphone, she caught on right away, and told her fellow officer she felt she knew where the Adidas-clad suspect was, and that yes, indeed, he was being watched. She wheeled her supply cart to the restroom and put an Out of Order sign on the wide door. She grinned. Her role at this point was to detain the man, and it seemed to her that he should be quite safe with his new friends, now that she knew who they were. She checked her phone again, and slid back into character, scanning the area for the woman named Terry.
Feeling very alone, Terry decided to leave the restaurant and follow the direction her friends had disappeared. She was loading all the deserted bags on an abandoned cart when Mary arrived, breathless, holding a cheap-looking umbrella. It was Terry’s turn to be surprised at the expression on Mary’s face, features made more striking by the look of pure, aggressive victory.
“We got him!” She held up the umbrella, then tossed it to Terry. “Look what took him down!”
Terry held the umbrella and looked back at Mary, an expression on her face that Mary later described as “dumb”.
She fingered the cracked wooden handle, looking at her friend, not sure whether to laugh or cry.
“I wouldn’t touch that,” Mary smiled like a Valkyrie. “That wasn’t cracked before it practically lifted Joseph off the ground. He won’t be feeling frisky anytime soon, I guarantee that!” Her expression turned serious. “I sure hope it was Joseph though.” She looked at Terry. “You’re sure it was him, right?”
“Where is he?” They were standing outside a gift shop, and an employee walked over, seeing them discuss the umbrella.
“Johnny and Isaac took him into one of those small, family bathroom things. Then a cleaner walked over and put an out of order sign on the door. Strange, huh?”
The employee reached for the umbrella. “You don’t want this one, it’s cracked. How about this one here?”
“No thanks, maybe another time.” Mary smiled, leaving the borrowed umbrella with him as they walked back the way she had come.
They were met by a woman in a cleaning uniform walking quickly toward them. Mary recognized her from the scene by the restroom.
She motioned them to the side, directing her attention to Terry. “Terry Mason?” When Terry nodded, she continued. “My name is Lucy, I am working here under cover.” She showed them a badge, motioning randomly, as if giving directions.
“Oh, hi. I was expecting you to find me.” Things were moving fast, but Terry was keeping up.
“Terry, are the two big men with you?” When Terry nodded, she turned to Mary. “And you must be Mrs. Amund?”
Mary was impressed, and slightly flustered. She had hung up on the 911 call and had just disabled and possibly injured the suspect. She chose to say nothing, nodding her head instead. Oh well, she inwardly shrugged it off; she was willing to take one for the team.
Terry’s reply was brief. “Yes, they’re with us.” “We’re on
our way to Mexico.”
“Okay, would the two of you come with me back toward the restroom? That way I can watch the door, and the two of you as well. I don’t want to blow my cover, but I will if need be.” She turned away, then back toward Mary. “You know, everything happened so fast, I couldn’t see what happened!” She broke into a big grin, sliding back into her character, perfect English changing to that of a new immigrant. “And here I thought it was the airsick, who knew you could get umbrella-sick in Canada!”
In the spacious restroom, Joseph knew he was in serious trouble. First, he was trapped, in horrible pain, and didn’t know what these guys had on him. Were they cops? They didn’t look like cops. How did they find him so fast? How could they be watching the airport so closely? It didn’t make sense.
His neck and throat ached. He heaved again, into the garbage can. The man with glasses had made him clean it up last time.
The big man’s words had been simple, and he cringed inside when he replayed them in his mind. “Joseph” he’d said, “we know who you are, and you don’t want to know who we are. You’re going to give us some information while we, uh, help you get better.”
Maybe that was it. Maybe they weren’t cops but were the competition. Maybe he could buy them off? And so, he tried. They listened, and he could tell they were gauging his answers, amounts of money, how he could transfer it. He wished they would say something, but they just looked at him.
He talked some more, saying too much, pain clouding his judgment. How had she ambushed him with a stupid umbrella, right in the middle of the concourse, and no one even noticed! He didn’t even put up a fight! He cursed himself silently, then cursed the woman, the men, and the stupid idiots he had trusted to fix the situation.
His brain was sabotaged by fear, and the pain. He was opening his phone, accessing information, showing amounts in his hidden accounts, telling how he could transfer money and close the account, and no one would know. At least he thought no one would know.
The man with glasses was working on his own phone, and activating the noisy electric hand dryer, he made a call in the far corner of the room. The big man just looked at him as he held himself shamelessly, rocking back and forth in agony.
“Tell me more, why did you do it? Why try to kill the woman?”
He was almost blubbering now, the pain and fear and shame of being caught had ruined his cool, his confidence. His track pants were stained with his own vomit. “She had to go, she knew how I was transporting the dust.” He wasn’t sure how much the man knew, and the more he talked, the more details rushed out. “I couldn’t let her live, man, you should understand! She could have busted me at any time, she had to go.”
He drank from the bottle of water the man had handed him earlier. “You know how it is, I can tell you’re in the same line of work. I made a mistake, chose amateurs to get rid of her, they couldn’t do it, so they had to go too.”
The man with glasses came back, shoving Joseph’s phone out toward him. “Okay, we’re going to transfer all the money you have in this account,” he shook Joseph’s phone, “to another account.”
A surge of hope flared through Joseph’s distress. They weren’t smart enough! He had only showed them his smallest accounts. He would only be giving up a few hundred thousand, a small price to pay to get away. He felt a little confidence returning through the pain.
Johnny wondered what Isaac was doing. Was he actually taking money from this guy? Was he setting him up? He was still shaken from his earlier actions, but his anger had receded. When Isaac had closed the door behind them, Johnny had released the man to the floor where he immediately vomited, angering Isaac, who told him to clean it up. When the groaning man cursed the woman who hit him, Johnny’s vision blurred and his pent-up anger found a mark. Though he couldn’t hear the words coming from Isaac’s mouth, the expression of both fascination and horror on his friend’s face had penetrated Johnny’s madness. He found himself pinning the man to the tiled wall by his throat, feet dangling. Thinking of his father, he had recoiled, dropping the man, who sprawled on the floor, gasping and retching.
He thought he should redirect the conversation and asked another question.
“So where are the guys who came out to get rid of the woman?”
Joseph didn’t answer, busy working on the money transfer. He paused to clutch himself briefly, swearing softly, trying not to cry. He still wasn’t sure how the woman with the umbrella was connected. Was she with them? But she had to be. He handed the phone back to the man with glasses, who entered a string of numbers and walked back to the corner, looking at both phones.
“Where are they?”
Joseph looked up and swallowed. “I sent them back to Alberta. I don’t know where they are.” It didn’t sound convincing, even to himself.
“There are going to be more people coming to talk to you. I don’t really care if you give me the information or not, but they will.”
He broke, confidence oozing away again at the thought of more people coming. These two were just the hired guys sent to catch him? It made him feel even sicker than he already was.
“I met them in Jasper. I overheard some guys talking who were loading a shipping container with supplies for the next summer. I hid the men in the container, told them it was their escape route. I don’t know where it went, but it was going be locked up way out in the hills, somewhere near the park.”
He rubbed himself again, shifting position. “I needed to get them away, out of sight, everything was happening so fast. They were so dumb they would have ruined the whole thing.” He spoke quickly, breathing shallowly through the waves of pain.
Johnny’s face stayed calm, but inside he was angry. This was a sick man. It was bad enough to try to kill Terry, sending two thugs to do it. But to send them to their death too? The guy was selfish and deluded. Johnny was sick of talking with him. He was crouching beside the man kneeling on the floor, and when he shifted to stand, the smaller man flinched.
He looked toward Isaac, the large room suddenly feeling too small. He motioned his head toward the door. Isaac mouthed back, “Two minutes.”
Johnny turned back, making eye contact with the groaning man who was still writhing on his knees.
“Why?”
Joseph thought about it. “I want to be rich,” he hissed through clenched teeth, “I want to do what I want. Just like you, right?”
“What were you smuggling?”
Smuggling? The word seemed wrong, something wasn’t right. Maybe these guys weren’t players, maybe they would let him go. “Just goods, stuff, anything to make some coin.” He lied, smoothly, he thought.
The man with glasses walked over. “It’s done, let’s let him go.” He looked down at Joseph. “You stay in here for at least ten minutes, we’re gone.”
He walked out, the big man following, closing the door behind them.
Joseph counted to twenty, then relaxed, reaching over to lock the door. Ten minutes! He wasn’t leaving even that soon!
Ha! He had done it, bought them off with only a portion of what he was willing to pay. They hadn’t pressed him for details; his secret was still safe. Now, he’d wait until he could walk and go buy a ticket. His phone was gone, they must have taken it. He closed his eyes, leaning back on the door, wishing for a bag of ice. He hoped no one else was coming, slumping over on his side.
Chapter 52
Lucy saw the two men come out of the restroom, stepping around the cart, pushing it back in front of the door. She was cleaning a small kiosk close to the family restroom, watching closely, heart-rate accelerated. Her supervisor was happy to work with the RCMP, assigning Lucy a lenient and flexible schedule.
From a bench further up the concourse, Terry also saw the men exit the room. Johnny wasn’t smiling, but Isaac had a look about him that made her nervous. His grin was hard, too cynical for her liking. Lucy was talking into her radio, moving back toward the cleaning cart. What was happening, was it over? Everything was mo
ving so quickly, but slowly too.
Walking to meet the women, Johnny looked over at Isaac. “What the heck, man, did you actually transfer money from that guy?” Isaac didn’t answer but frowned and shook his head at Johnny as the two women rushed up to them, faces tense.
“Where is he?” Terry demanded. “Is he still in the restroom? You didn’t…?”
Isaac put an arm around her, grinning at the three of them, “Oh yeah, he’s still alive in there!”
“Johnny, is he, uh, okay?” Mary looked contrite, shaken by her vicious attack.
Ignoring the question, Johnny asked one of his own. “Terry, how soon will the RCMP be here?” Johnny was scanning up and down the concourse.
“There’s an undercover officer watching the door, the rest will be here soon.” Terry looked at her phone. “Oh, they are in the building. That was a couple minutes ago.”
They all turned, watching the restroom.
Johnny saw a cleaning woman walk over to the restroom, taking down the sign on the door. Two men with briefcases moved up behind her, pausing as she smiled apologetically and moved her cart away from the door.
Joseph had been watching the shadow of the cart from under the door, and when he saw it move, he opened the door and hobbled out into the concourse, his limp pronounced. He was shocked to see a man in his path. He was even more surprised when the man showed him a badge, and shoved him back in the restroom, followed by another who also flashed a badge.
The four friends watched, looking around an airport cart that was now blocking the door; the occupants in khakis and winter jackets sitting relaxed, one behind the other. Several minutes later the door opened, and Terry saw Joseph clearly across the concourse. She saw fear and anger in his features, and then he looked her way. With Isaac’s arm around her she felt safe, and she simply looked at him. He stared back at her as the officer seated him. She was relieved he didn’t yell threats or try to get to her. He just watched her until he was seated, and the cart disappeared silently in the foot traffic.
Always a Brother Page 26