Ridley Pearson - Pied Piper

Over a few beers, cops talked about time standing still, of an eerie slow motion that overcame their situation. LaMoia experienced no such distortions. Time neither slowed nor sped up as he crossed the terminal. He glanced back to see Boldt approaching at a jog.

Hale was apparently focused on his conversation, the receiver held to his ear.

LaMoia took in his surroundings, aware of two couples and a family walking through the terminal to his left; a teenager at the next kiosk of phones, with her back to him; a newsstand agent, a woman, twenty yards ahead, manning a cash register with a view of the pay phones. LaMoia slipped the stun stick from his sleeve and reversed it, aiming it at Hale’s spine. At that same moment, Hale sensed someone approaching and glanced back in time to identify LaMoia’s face. His startled eyes went white with surprise.

LaMoia needed a clean shot with the stun stick. He bought himself a diversion with a left-handed palm slap to the phone receiver, crushing the agent’s ear and focusing the man’s attention on that pain. With his right hand, he jabbed forward strongly to insure the stun stick’s probes made contact. It fired off its jolt of voltage, but Hale remained unfazed and standing-LaMoia had hit the leather strap of the man’s shoulder holster.

The stun stick required fifteen seconds to reset its charge. LaMoia thumped the outside of the man’s knee with his own, staggering him; rabbit-punched him low under the rib cage with his left, bending him; and threw his right elbow into the base of the agent’s skull, numbing him. LaMoia caught the man as he slumped, wrenched Hale’s arm behind his back as the phone’s receiver dangled and swung like the pendulum.

… twelve … thirteen … fourteen … he counted silently in his head.

He released the agent at the count of fifteen and Hale grabbed for support, latching onto the phone box. Without looking behind him, LaMoia warned Boldt, “Clear!” swinging his left arm out like a gate and stopping Boldt. He delivered the stun stick again, this time finding the man’s skin through his clothes. The pulse of high voltage caused the phone to ring despite the receiver being off-hook-one long peal of bells echoing into the terminal. Hale stiffened with the initial jolt, tight as steel. LaMoia pulled back the stick, and he and Boldt caught the man as he sagged.

“You certainly have a knack for timing,” LaMoia told Boldt, who, looking around, replied calmly, “His wallet.” LaMoia slipped the billfold out of Hale’s rear pocket and into his own.

Boldt found the man’s FBI ID wallet, opened it and then kept it in his left hand.

LaMoia asked, “What now?”

“Security,” Boldt said.

“You fucking nuts?”

“By now they’re already on their way,” Boldt advised him.

“Cameras,” LaMoia realized aloud.

“Exactly.”

“But-”

“For once, let me do the talking. And stay with the game, damn it all.”

“Me?”

“Here they come,” he said, indicating two men in gray pants and blue blazers.

Boldt held Hale’s ID wallet open from a distance, his thumb conveniently curled around the wallet and covering Hale’s photo. He knew the psychology of rent-a-cops: overly self-important but with an urge to play with the big boys. Daphne would have played to that urge, and so Boldt did. “FBI!” He snapped the wallet shut with a flip of his wrist and stuffed it into his inside breast pocket alongside his SPD ID. “This bozo’s involved in a kidnapping. Been posing as one of us,” he said in a low voice, because the sagging Hale was already drawing the attention of the curious like moths to a light. “No ID on him, but he’s carrying.” Boldt slipped the man’s sport coat open just enough to reveal the holstered semiautomatic. “Take that for me, would you?” Daphne would have fed their egos by giving them responsibility immediately, making certain they felt included.

“Son of a bitch,” the one who looked like a surfer gasped. He stepped forward and slipped the weapon out of the shoulder holster.

“You mind cuffing him and giving him a hand?” Boldt said. “We’re gonna need a little privacy here.”

LaMoia asked, “You got four walls and a door?”

The two glanced at each other. “Conference room?” Surfer asked. “It isn’t very big,” he apologized. “It’s upstairs.”

Boldt said, “Where this guy’s going, the rooms are a hell of a lot smaller, I guarantee you that.”

The two security guards cuffed Hale and took him under both arms. The man was not unconscious, but severely dazed and incapable of walking or speaking.

He tried to get words out, but gibberish and a trickle of drool took their place. His feet dragged heavily. Boldt and LaMoia followed the two security guards to an elevator and up one floor.

Hale was assisted down the long hallway to an unmarked door that Surfer’s assistant keyed open. “This okay, sir?” he asked Boldt.

“Do just fine.” Hale was deposited into a chair. Boldt eyed both men. “Now listen,” he said. “News like this travels fast, and that’s exactly what we don’t need. A little girl’s life is at stake here. You understand that? A human life,” he said, choking on the expression. “It’s imperative that we do this quick and dirty. After that, we turn him over to you. Your story is this: You saw the piece, you asked for ID, he didn’t have any. You took him in.”

LaMoia said, “He’ll blow smoke up your skirt about being a Fed. That’s his cover.”

Boldt added, “This girl has a chance if you lose him for a day or so until he gets his phone call. Someplace no one can find him, you know? That way, no news leaks, no inside information, and this little girl has a fighting chance. If this guy surfaces within the system-”

Surfer said, “We got a drunk and disorderly tank right here on airport. It’s run by NOPD, but we know all those boys.”

“Thanks,” LaMoia said.

The two men insisted on shaking hands all around, as if the four of them had just won a touch football game. They left the room and pulled the door shut securely. LaMoia locked it. Looking at Hale, Boldt said, “Time to have a little chat.”

Hale’s level of awareness and responsiveness reminded Boldt of a man with a bad hangover. “Jesus!” the man choked out, coughing. His eyes floated in his head like an ice cube in a glass of milk. Discovering his hands cuffed, he struggled briefly to get free, then peered out like a man half blinded.

“It’s Boldt and LaMoia,” Boldt informed him.

“Shit.”

LaMoia patted him on the shoulder from behind, leaned in close to his ear and said, “Welcome to New Orleans.”

“What the hell?” He struggled again and protested, “Do you realize what you’re getting yourself into here? You want to think about this a minute?”

“We have thought about it,” Boldt said frankly. “We’ve wondered what a federal agent would be doing down here solo.”

“The field office doesn’t even know you’re here,” LaMoia said. “Are you aware of that? Is that standard operating procedure, Hale?”

“You’re outta your minds.”

LaMoia told him, “You’ve been watching Chevalier.”

“You ought to think about what you’re doing.” He struggled with the cuffs.

“You were on the phone just now. With whom? Flemming or the Pied Piper?”

“Is that what you think?”

LaMoia leaned in from behind and whispered hotly, “Don’t jack us around.”

“You are interfering with a federal investigation,” Hale warned. “Undo the cuffs. I’m outta here. All is forgotten.”

“I don’t think so,” LaMoia said.

Boldt asked, “Why would a federal agent not check in with his local field office?”