There were dozens of aircraft lined up at various gates. The cars could be headed anywhere. Liesel must have noticed them, too, because she leaned forward to get a better view. As the vehicles closed the distance, two things became apparent. First, the vehicles were police cars.
And second, they were headed directly toward their plane.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Istanbul Airport
Arnavutköy District, Turkey
Caspian’s pulse picked up as the three Turkish police vehicles screeched to a halt beside the triple seven. From his seat in business class, he had a clear view of the vehicles. He wondered how thorough the SSU analysts had been in stitching together the new legends for him and Liesel. They had had only hours, so Caspian didn’t think their aliases would hold up to scrutiny.
He felt Liesel’s hand on his forearm.
“If they’re here for us, Casp, we stick to the plan,” she whispered. “We don’t resist. We let it play out, just like we said, right?”
He nodded. They had discussed this eventuality during their layover in Algiers. If they were about to be apprehended by local authorities, they wouldn’t engage. There would be no fight, no desperate attempt to break free on a plane full of innocent passengers.
“Even if it means we’ll end up in a Turkish holding cell for a few days,” Liesel had said.
A few days?
Caspian didn’t share Liesel’s optimism about the length of their potential all-inclusive stay with the Turkish police. Ranger had helped them escape Mallorca, but Caspian wondered if she would stick her neck out to help them out of a sticky situation in Istanbul. Organizing a private jet and preparing a set of fresh identities wasone thing; orchestrating a prison extraction was another. That would require resources she might not be willing—or able—to deploy.
Caspian sighed. The gamble to route through Turkey had been his call. He’d wanted another layer of separation from the chaos in Mallorca. But now, as he watched uniformed officers climb the jet bridge stairs, he wasn’t so sure it had been the right move.
At the front of the plane, the cockpit door opened, and the captain and the first officer stepped out. They were met by a police officer seconds later. Caspian tried to read their body language, but the angle from his seat in row 7 made it difficult. Then, coming from the back of the economy cabin, Caspian heard a scream, then several loud crashes. He turned in his seat and craned his neck to see what was going on.
Two men barreled down the aisle, shoving passengers out of their way who were trying to fit their outsize carry-on bags into the overhead bin. Both men were skinny, though they were mismatched in height like a badly paired set of bookends. The taller one, who was leading the way, had a patchy beard that clung to his jaw like moss. A gentleman, whose wife had been violently thrust aside by the first man, tried to intervene but was elbowed in the face by the short one.
They’re trying to escape,Caspian thought as he watched the pair cram themselves into the emergency row.
Seconds later, just as the police officers were about to intercept the two men, the tall one yanked the emergency lever. The door exploded outward and fell onto the wing. The shorter man, who’d been waiting for his friend to clear out, was tackled to the ground by one of the officers. The tall one managed to leap onto the wing. Through the window, Caspian watched as the man sprinted toward the edge of the wing and launched himself into the air. The man landed on the roof of a police car parked below. Caspian didn’t hear the bone break, but the way the man rolled off the roof of the vehicle and fell onto the tarmac, with his right leg twisted at an impossible angle, told him he wouldn’t walk again for quite a while. Seconds later, the injured man was swarmed by several police officers. The entire incident had lasted less than thirty seconds.
All around Caspian and Liesel, passengers had their phones out, filming.
“They weren’t here for us,” Liesel said. She tried to smile at him, but it faltered halfway.
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Caspian reminded her.
He knew what was coming. Every passenger would be asked to leave the plane. Because the emergency exit had been triggered and the door had fallen onto the wing, the aircraft would need to be inspected by the airline and cleared before it could fly again. And given the level of response he’d seen, Caspian suspected the Turkish authorities would use the delay to dig for intel and to search for accomplices among the passengers. The scrutiny wouldn’t stop with the two men who were now in custody.
Caspian sent a quick update to Samantha Ranger using the encrypted messaging app, warning her they had been caught in the net of a larger police intervention and requesting that actions be taken to strengthen his and Liesel’s aliases. Ranger replied within seconds.
Already working the problem. We’re checking the Istanbul police databases now. Stand by for further instructions.
Fifteen minutes later, Caspian was still waiting to hear back from Ranger when a voice over the plane’s speakers informed all the passengers that they would be deplaning shortly, row by row, and would then be escorted to a bus. He didn’t like that. He had hoped to be sent back to the terminal near the gate area where they would be waiting for a replacement plane. Why the buses? Where were they headed?
Liesel must have come to the same conclusion because he heard her swear under her breath. “They’ll investigate everyone who’s aboard the plane,” she said.
When a flight attendant motioned for Caspian and Liesel that it was their turn, they stood and began to shuffle toward the door. Caspian scanned the other passengers. Everybody seemed compliant. He even saw a few passengers smile as they talked among themselves. He stepped onto the mobile staircase and descended onto the tarmac where the blinking orange lights of a nearby airport tug reflected on the wet concrete.
Though it was still morning, the sky had gone dark with thick storm clouds hiding the sun with a heavy gray canopy. It was hot and damp outside, and there was a thick scent of jet fuel in the air. A low rumble of thunder rolled in the distance as Caspian and Liesel made their way to the bus waiting a short distance away.
The nondescript bus was flanked by two uniformed officers who were checking the boarding passes and passports of each passenger. Caspian and Liesel approached in tandem, smiling at the officers, and presented their forged documents without a hint of hesitation. The officers didn’t return their smiles but cross-referenced their names and handed the passports back with a curt nod before motioning them to step aboard.
Once inside the bus, another officer held out a clear plastic bin.
“Phones,” he said simply.
