“Where is he?” said Martin, suddenly alert.
“Just over there at the Starbucks counter.”
“What’s he wearing?”
“Some kind of tan-colored jacket, I guess.”
Martin swung around and pointed, “You mean him, that guy moving down the hallway, against the crowd?”
“Yeah, dark hair, that’s him. What’s up, Don?”
“Well, he just walked straight past Starbucks, for a start.”
“Probably going to take a leak,” replied Elliott.
“Well, he just broke every rule in the book, about leaving luggage unattended. And so did you. You have no idea what’s in that briefcase. AND the guy looks like a fucking Arab.”
Elliott Gardner looked startled at this apparent brush with a dangerous corner of the outside world. And his very junior vice president threw his right arm in the air and looked straight across the crowd to the patrolling Pete Mackay and Danny Kearns.
“OFFICER!” he yelled, loudly. Very loudly. “RIGHT HERE—OVER HERE, PLEASE!”
Officer Mackay spun around. He could see Don Martin’s raised arm, and he dodged and ducked thirty yards through the crowd. Danny Kearns was right behind him.
When they arrived, Donald Martin was herding people back, away from the briefcase, which now stood in solitude like a couple of roosters in a cockfight, hemmed in by the spectators.
“Officer,” said Martin, “a guy who looked like some kind of an Arab left that case right there and said he was going to Starbucks for coffee. But he didn’t. He went right past Starbucks, and he’s on his way out of the building right down that corridor.”
Pete Mackay grabbed a small state-of-the-art stethoscope from his belt and stuck one end into each ear, the long tube onto the briefcase. “Jesus Christ!” he breathed. “Danny, there’s a slight ticking sound. Get the detector.”
Danny Kearns pulled a wire contraption from his belt and held it against the case. It immediately bleeped. “That’s metal inside, Pete, and possibly explosive. This is a fucking live one.”
“What’s he wearing?” yelled Pete. “What the hell’s he wearing?”
“Tan-colored jacket,” replied Elliott Gardner. “Black T-shirt. He’s not tall, short black hair. Looks obviously Arabian.”
“GO GET HIM, PETE! LET ME TAKE CARE OF THIS.”
Danny Kearns had patrolled for a lot of hours in Boston’s airport. And he knew the real estate. Out through the wide glass doors, there was a four-lane throughway for dropoffs, cars, limos, and buses. Officer Kearns was accustomed to making split-second decisions, but had not previously been confronted by anything quite so urgent. Whether to evacuate the terminal as fast as possible? Or to take the death-or-glory route, grab the briefcase and get it out of here, hoping to Christ the sonofabitch didn’t blow?
