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The automatic doors parted and then we were all inside. I looked back. The students had passed through the door on their end of the terminal. They were glancing in our direction, trying not to be obvious. The happy family headed toward the ground-floor elevator, leaving us alone and exposed. Then the students started to move. Not like a youth group. More like a military squad, or killer robots. They fanned out, slow and deliberate. No rush. I got a sick feeling.
“Damnit!” I said. “How many of themarethere??”
“Look around, Doctor,” said Kira. “Or do you need your glasses back?”
She tugged me toward the escalator that led to the upper level. We walked quickly, weaving through the crowd. One team of students followed us, matching our pace. Another group suddenly emerged near the escalator at the other end of the terminal. Kira was right. They wereeverywhere. We stepped onto the metal stairs and jostled past the other passengers as we headed up. When I looked back, I could see the pursuit team right behind us.
We stepped off onto the second level and started speed walking, trying to open the gap. The team was about ten yards back. Three male, two female. They looked eighteen, maybe twenty. They moved as a unit, slipping between other travelers, excusing themselves with strange smiles. I started looking for places to duck into, but this part of the terminal was wide open. Like a target range.
“They won’t shoot in here,” said Kira. “They don’t want the attention.”
“Are they planning tosmileus to death?” I asked.
“They’ll try to separate us,” said Kira, “then get close enough for a needle stick—make it look like a heart attack.”
I nodded toward her backpack. “Don’t you have any escape tricks in there?”
“Nothing that’s any good in the open,” she said. “We don’t want any attention either.” She glanced back. “We need to get out of here.Now!Keep moving.”
The second team of students stepped off the other escalator, moving along the right side of the corridor in a neat line, just waiting to pick us off. Kira headed toward a young attendant in a United Airlines uniform.
“Hang back,” said Kira. “When this guy starts talking to me, bump my elbow. Make sure I feel it.”
Kira sped up. I slowed down. She stepped up square in front of the airline attendant and waved her hand in his face.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m all turned around. Which way is Terminal C?”
The attendant gestured toward the TSA checkpoints to his left. “That way,” he said. “There’s a moving sidewalk once you get through security.”
That’s when I bumped Kira, knocking her forward into the attendant. She whipped around and glared at me.
“Watch where you’re going, idiot!” she said.
“Sorry!” I said, looking back. The attendant recovered quickly. He was already turning to answer another traveler’s question. Kira caught up to me.
“What wasthatfor?” I asked.
“For this,” said Kira.
She opened her hand. I looked down. The attendant’s plastic key card was in her palm. I looked back. The class was closing in.
Kira headed toward a nondescript metal door in the right-hand wall. It had a square Plexiglass panel at eye level and a metal alarm bar across the middle. The students to our right were moving past the TSA podiums. If we didn’t speed up, they’d get to the door first.
“Go!” said Kira.
We started running. So did the students. They got tangled up with a tour group and started pushing their way through. That bought us a few seconds. When we got to the door, Kira waved the key card over a plastic panel on the wall. She pushed the alarm bar. The door opened with a loud beep.
I heard a rush of footsteps behind us. We slipped through the door. I rammed it shut with my shoulder—just as a bunch of faces mashed up against it from the other side. They looked agitated and fierce. Kira looked back at them and lifted her middle finger.
“Hey, kids!” she said. “Who’s smilingnow??”
CHAPTER 73
WE DUCKED OUT of sight behind the door and moved down a short hallway. Kira keyed us through another exit door and we stepped outside into the night air. It smelled like jet fuel. There was another long terminal building glowing brightly a few hundred yards to the right. I looked back over my shoulder.
“Did we lose them?” I asked.
“No,” said Kira. “We just pissed them off. They’ll find a way out.”
