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The security man shook his head. “Nope. Not for people who are flying.”
“Okay. We’ll be hanging by the door, but we don’t want you to call attention to us. We’ll try to take her outside.”
“It’s a woman?” the clerk asked.
Letty paused for a second, unsure of how to answer, since she’d referred to the criminal as “her.” She blinked and said, “Yes…it’s a woman. We want everybody to stay cool while we…apprehend her.”
A wrinkle appeared between the security man’s eyes: “Apprehend. I don’t like the sound of that. Are you…is there going to be some shooting? Maybe?”
Letty shrugged and lied: “No, I don’t think so. But she’s desperate, and we really don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“Your partner out there…the tough-looking guy…he’s got a gun?” the clerk asked.
“No, he doesn’t. We hope to do this without any violence,” Letty said, which, judging from their faces, they doubted. “Maybe it’ll turn out that she isn’t coming this way at all.”
Her phone buzzed, and she looked at it: Cartwright. “Yeah?”
“A little green SUV just rolled through the parking lot looking for a space, but there aren’t any spaces because of the construction, so she went around the circle and down to the closest lot. I’m out of the truck, all set up. When she gets out of her car, I could take her.”
“You sure that it’s her?”
“I couldn’t see her face. Thin woman driving a little green SUV?”
“Callister looks thin in the photos, but that’s not good enough, not yet. There’s a flight coming in and passengers are starting to arrive. Let her walk this way. Keep the phone open.”
Letty dipped her hand in her jeans pocket and came up with the Sig, checked it, and said to the two men, “Be cool, guys,” and walked out to the lobby. Hawkins was standing sideways to the window in the door, peeking out, watching the road.
Cartwright on the open phone: “She’s parked, the car’s interior lights came on.”
“Okay,” Letty said, and to Hawkins, “Say it again.”
“What?”
“Crikey.”
He smiled and shook his head: “As soon as I said it, I had a feeling it’d be coming back on me. Better than you Yanks, with your ‘holy fuck.’ ”
“That’s true.”
Far down the entry road, they saw movement on the sidewalk, a thin woman pulling a wheeled suitcase with one hand and carrying a small carry-on in the other. They couldn’t see her face, yet, it was a faint white oval. Hawkins said, “Yes. That’s her.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that suitcase and hand baggage are just like the hand baggage and suitcases I found in the RV.”
Letty lifted the iPhone to her face and said, “Alec says that’s her. Not a complete guess.”
“Take her now?”
“Hang on a minute. We’ll go outside to meet her. If we can get her to quit and keep her hands away from her fanny pack, if she’s got one…she could give us some good stuff on where the other two are hiding.”
“Like your old man said, don’t let her pop the cork…”
“If I say ‘Green light,’ hit her, fast,” Letty said. “I’m not going to show her my weapon at first, I’ll try to talk to her.”
“Ten-four, big fella.”
“What does ten-four mean?” Hawkins asked, in a near whisper, though they were still inside.
