Chapter 8 - The Terminal Alarm
The alarm didn't ring—it shrieked.
A high-decibel klaxon tore through the concrete corridor, accompanied by flashing strobe lights that painted the gray walls in harsh, blinding crimson pulses. Vance cursed loudly, his finger jerking on the trigger just as I dropped flat against the floor.
The round shattered the locker door behind me, sending a spray of metal shavings into my hair.
Before he could correct his aim and fire a second shot, I kicked outward from the floor, my boots catching him squarely behind the knee. Vance went down hard, his head colliding with the steel corner of the storage unit with a sickening thud. The pistol flew from his grip, sliding across the slick linoleum into the darkness beneath a baggage cart.
I scrambled up, grabbed the heavy leather duffel bag by its straps, and sprinted down the corridor toward the emergency exit stairs marked RAMP ACCESS - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Alarms blared overhead. Automated fire suppression systems hissed to life, spraying a fine mist of water down from the ceiling vents as I threw my weight against the heavy push-bar door.
The heavy steel door swung outward into the humid night air of the tarmac.
The wind hit me instantly, smelling of jet fuel and cold asphalt. Fifty yards away, a private Gulfstream jet sat idling on the tarmac, its turbine engines whining with a deep, vibrating roar. A mobile loading stair was still attached to the cabin door, and at the top of the stairs, standing in the floodlights, were two figures in heavy winter coats.
My mother and Harper.
They hadn't gone through the main terminal security at all. They had bypassed customs entirely using a private aviation pass registered under Parker Holdings corporate logistics.
I clutched the duffel bag to my chest and started running across the wet tarmac, the blinding lights of the jet reflecting off the puddles beneath my boots.
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Harper turned as my footsteps echoed against the pavement. When she saw me sprinting toward the stairs, her face went chalk white. She grabbed my mother’s arm, screaming something lost beneath the roar of the jet engines.
Then, a black security SUV tore out from behind the hangar buildings, its high-beam headlights blinding me as it cut across the tarmac to block my path.
