There was a long pause on the other end of the line. I could hear the clink of a wrench dropping onto a workbench. "How much time do you have before their flight lands?" Sam asked.
"Three hours and twenty minutes," I replied. "If I'm not in Phoenix when that plane touches down, I might lose her completely."
"Get to Gary in thirty minutes," Sam said. "I'll have the twin-engine Piper prepped and fueled. But you're paying for the high-altitude fuel burn."
Thirty minutes later, my rental sedan screeched to a halt beside the perimeter fence of the Gary Jet Center. The gray industrial fog of the southern shore of Lake Michigan hung low over the asphalt, but the sky to the west was clear. Sam was already standing on the apron beside a sleek, dark-blue Piper Cheyenne twin-turboprop, its propellers turning slowly in the cool wind.
I ran across the tarmac, carrying only my small duffel bag and the folder containing Apollo's legal papers. Sam pulled me up the short cabin steps and slammed the door shut behind us, locking the latch with a heavy mechanical click.
"I called ahead for a direct route vector," Sam said, sliding into the pilot's seat and putting on his headset as the twin engines roared to high idle. "We have a tailwind over Iowa, but commercial flight eight-forty-two has a thirty-minute head start and a higher cruise altitude. It’s going to be extremely close."
"Just get us into Phoenix Airpark before eight-forty-two touches down at Sky Harbor," I said, strapping myself into the co-pilot’s seat. "If we can land at the executive field, I can reach Sky Harbor’s south baggage terminal by taxi before their passenger deboarding is complete."
The Piper taxied rapidly to the edge of runway twenty-two, its twin turbines whining as Sam pushed the throttles forward. The small aircraft accelerated down the concrete strip, lifting off into the gray cloud layer before banking sharply to the southwest toward the open plains of the Midwest.
Below us, the endless pattern of farmland and highway intersections blurred into a steady expanse of gray and brown. I leaned against the window, staring at the flight tracker app on my phone. Flight 842 was currently cruising at thirty-six thousand feet over eastern Iowa, moving at four hundred and eighty knots. Our Piper was lower and slower, but we were flying a direct vector to a smaller airport that didn't require the lengthy approach vectors and holding patterns of a major hub like Sky Harbor.
I opened the torn paper fragment I had taken from Vance’s desk and laid it flat on my knee. On the back of the thermal slip, hidden beneath the pre-printed logo of the airline, was a handwritten nine-digit tracking code. I typed the code into a private cargo tracking portal my sister had used during her work with Apex.
The screen flickered, then loaded a secure manifest sheet: ASSET CONTAINMENT / SUBJECT: MERCER, A. / AUTHORIZATION: APEX SECURITY SPECIAL SERVICES / DESTINATION: BAGGAGE HOLD 4, SKY HARBOR TERMINAL 3 / TRANSIT ESCORT: AGENT R. VANCE.
My stomach dropped. Marcus Vance wasn't just a dirty gate agent taking a bribe to look the other way. The signature on the transit escort line belonged to his brother, Richard Vance, a former private security contractor who had been hired by Apex two years earlier. They were operating a coordinated pipeline within the airport's internal transfer system.
"Sam," I said over the intercom, my voice tight. "Can we push the fuel consumption to maximum?"
Sam looked over at me, his eyes reflecting the soft green glow of the instrument panel. "We're already running at ninety-five percent power, Julian. Any faster and we're going to hit our fuel reserves before we reach the New Mexico border."
"Do it," I said. "I'll double your rate for the return trip."
Sam hesitated for a second, then reached up and adjusted the fuel mixture levers. The twin turboprops deepened their hum, and the airspeed indicator nudged forward as the plane cut through the thin air at twenty-four thousand feet.
For two hours, we flew in near-silence, watching the digital icon of Flight 842 move across the map toward the Southwest. Over New Mexico, the smooth prairie gave way to the sharp, jagged ridges of the Rocky Mountain foothills, bathed in the deep crimson light of the setting sun.
"Flight eight-forty-two has begun its descent into the Phoenix basin," Sam reported, pointing to the secondary screen on the avionics stack. "They are fifteen minutes out from Sky Harbor. We are twelve minutes out from Phoenix Executive Airpark."
"How far is the executive airfield from Sky Harbor’s south baggage hold?" I asked, checking my watch.
"Ten miles by road," Sam said, leaning forward as he adjusted the flap controls for our approach. "If traffic on the interstate is clear, you can make it in fifteen minutes."
The Piper dropped through the desert haze, the bright grid of Phoenix streetlights expanding beneath us like a circuit board laid out on the sand. The runway lights of the small airpark flashed into view, two lines of crisp white LEDs cutting through the darkness.
The tires squealed against the hot asphalt as Sam touched down, applying heavy reverse thrust to slow the aircraft before we even reached the midpoint of the runway. He didn't even taxi all the way to the main terminal building; instead, he swung the aircraft around toward the perimeter fence where a local rental car had been staged near the gate.
"Go," Sam yelled over the whine of the spooling-down engines. "I'll keep the aircraft fueled and ready on the pad in case you need to get her out of the state tonight!"
I dropped down from the cabin door, ran across the warm tarmac, and jumped into the driver's seat of the sedan. The digital clock on the dashboard read 7:42 PM. Flight 842 had just touched down at Sky Harbor, three miles to the east.
I floored the accelerator, tearing out of the airpark driveway and merging onto the eastbound lanes of Interstate 10. The evening desert air was thick and hot, smelling of creosote and pavement. Through the windshield, I could see the glowing red tail lights of the commercial jet descending toward the illuminated runways of Sky Harbor International Airport.
I pushed the sedan through the highway traffic, weaving between semi-trucks and commuter cars as the terminal control tower loomed larger against the dark backdrop of the Camelback Mountains. Apollo was on that plane, isolated, surrounded by passengers who had no idea she was being held under a forged cargo override.
I pulled off the highway at the airport exit, bypassing the main passenger drop-off lanes and following the overhead signs toward Terminal 3 Ground Cargo and Baggage Service. This was the working side of the airport—a dark network of concrete ramps, loading docks, and security fences where luggage carts and service vans moved under heavy yellow floodlights.
I parked the sedan in a visitor bay near the regional baggage intake office, grabbed my custody documents and my phone, and ran toward the double glass doors marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL & BAGGAGE SERVICE ONLY.
The door was locked with an electronic card reader. Through the reinforced glass, I could see a wide concrete hall filled with roaring conveyor belts, stacked aluminum cargo containers, and workers in high-visibility vests sorting bags. Near the far wall, standing beside a unmarked gray van parked inside the loading bay, was a tall man in a navy windbreaker.
It was Richard Vance. And standing beside him, clutching her gray canvas folder against her chest with her head down, was Apollo.
I slammed my fist against the heavy glass door, the sound echoing through the concrete vestibule. "Apollo!" I shouted.
Richard Vance turned instantly, his hand dropping toward his belt line. Apollo looked up, her face pale under the yellow overhead lights, her eyes widening as she recognized me through the glass.
She tried to take a step toward the door, but Vance reached out and caught her by the shoulder of her jacket, pulling her back toward the open side door of the gray van.
"Open this door!" I yelled, bringing my heavy leather belt buckle down against the glass pane. The safety glass spiderwebbed with a dense network of white cracks, but it didn't shatter.
Across the loading bay, two airport baggage supervisors turned at the sound of the impact. "Hey! What are you doing out there?" one of them shouted, picking up a wall phone to call security.
"He's taking a minor!" I screamed through the cracked partition, pointing at Richard Vance. "Check his manifest! That girl is being held under a fraudulent cargo override!"
Richard Vance didn't argue or attempt to explain. Realizing that the baggage workers were now watching him, he released Apollo's jacket, backed away toward the driver's door of the gray van, and jumped inside. He hit the accelerator, the tires screeching on the polished concrete floor as he drove the vehicle out through the open motorized exit gate into the night.