Patrick Lee: Ghost Country

From the airport lounge Travis could see the city in one direction and the desert in the other. Arica was a beautiful place. In the predawn its structures stood silhouetted against the pink ocean. Most of its streetlamps were still on, their light softened by the breaking day. Toward the south end of the city's shoreline, a giant stone formation punched up out of the ground, shaped like an overturned ship's hull. It was at least four hundred feet high.

Then there was the desert. Which was simply empty. It stretched away south and slightly east of town, hemmed in by shallow rises of the land on both sides-these too were empty. There was just nothing out there past the city's edge. Not so much as a lonely weed.

The sun came up and the sky went pale blue. There wasn't a trace of cloud in it, in any direction. Travis wondered if there ever was. F inn's plane was on approach. Two minutes out. Travis was standing in the dim interior of a mechanical room, just inside a door that accessed the tarmac.

He was holding an HK MP7 that'd been provided by airport security. So were the Secret Service agents. Garner had one too, but at the agents' insistence he wasn't going to participate in the action. He seemed annoyed about it, but only a little. Travis guessed that he'd only agreed because he didn't expect much action. As far as anyone could tell, Finn was traveling alone. Even if he did have security with him, a light business jet couldn't hold enough people to counter the strength that was waiting here. In addition to Travis and the agents, the local and federal police had dozens of armed officers concealed among the airport's structures. Garner had thoroughly convinced them that Isaac Finn was not someone they wanted on their soil.

Someone in the tower spoke over an intercom. "Ninety seconds."

Travis glanced at Garner in the vague light. "The police are clear that we're taking point on this, right?"

Garner nodded. "The way we're doing this, they'd prefer their people not become involved at all, beyond providing a show of force. Makes it easier to pretend it never happened."

"All I care about is making sure no one shoots at the plane while the cylinder's inside," Travis said. "It'd be the same as opening fire while Paige and Bethany were in there."

Garner took his point. "Should be no need for any of that. Just let him open the door and exit the plane, and then move on him. He's not prepared for it. What can he do?"

Travis didn't answer. He wasn't ready to relax even that much. He looked through the two-inch crack in the door. He could see most of the runway and the swath of sky through which Finn's plane would descend.

Then he saw the plane. First a glint and then a distinct shape. A speck of a fuselage flanked by jet engines.

Nearer, he could see the idling maintenance trucks that would pull out and block the runway at its midpoint, once Finn had disembarked from the aircraft.

The plane's details resolved by the second. Travis saw the landing gear swing down and lock when it was thirty seconds out.

There was only the faintest bark as its wheels touched the runway. It settled onto its nose gear. The engines' thrust reversers deployed, and a moment later the aircraft was rolling slowly to a stop. It halted forty yards from where Travis was standing behind the door.

And then the maintenance vehicles moved. One went first. The rest hesitated a few seconds and then followed.

"Goddammit," Travis said. "It's too soon."

He heard Garner breathe out slowly behind him, sharing the sentiment.

Then the jet did exactly what Travis expected it to do: it began to turn in place. He guessed the reason was nothing more than a courtesy to its passenger: the plane's door was on the side opposite the terminal building. The turnaround would correct that.

The plane was most of the way through its half-rotation when it suddenly stopped. Travis had just enough of a viewing angle on the pilots to see that they'd spotted the maintenance trucks. They seemed thrown. They traded looks. Their mouths moved.

"Fuck," Travis said.

He could picture Finn at the back of the little plane, looking up sharply at what the pilots were saying. Putting it together, just like that.

For the longest time nothing happened. The pilots were still talking, looking from each other to the vehicles. If Finn was asking them to take off again, it was in vain. No way could the jet get up to speed in the distance available. Even the taxilane was blocked now.

Travis guessed that a minute had passed since the plane had stopped turning. Maybe it'd been longer.

Then both pilots looked behind them into the cabin and flinched at something. They tore their headsets off and came up out of their seats. In almost the same instant, Travis saw smoke begin to curl into the cockpit along the ceiling.

"What the hell?" Garner said. "Is he committing suicide?"

And then Travis understood. "Oh shit."

Half a second later the plane's door opened. It started to ease down on its friction-hinges, and then the pilots pushed it violently from the inside, and climbed out past it.

Travis was already running. He'd shoved open the door of the mechanical room. He was sprinting as hard as he could over the tarmac, MP7 in hand. The pilots saw him coming and froze for a second, their eyes on the gun. Then they broke to the left, getting the hell away from both Travis and the plane.

The smoke was rolling out from under the top of the doorway, thick and black. The door had fallen fully open by now, its stair steps resting level. Travis could see the light of flames playing over the aircraft's interior.

He covered the last few yards and vaulted up and over the stairs. Tucked in his arms, ducked and landed on his feet inside the plane, his shoulder slamming against the opposite sidewall.

Everything aft of the cockpit was burning. Travis saw broken liquor bottles everywhere. The fire had spread from their spilled contents up the sides of the leather seats, igniting the foam within. The smoke was thickening by the second.

Finn wasn't inside. Travis hadn't expected him to be. All that was there was what Travis had expected.

The iris. Hovering by itself, detached, just shy of the cabin's back wall ten or twelve feet away. Through the smoke, Travis could see nothing beyond the iris but harsh sunlight, exactly the way it shone in the present Arica. Finn had already gone through.

How long had the iris been open?

If Finn had detached it right after the plane stopped its turn, the thing could contract shut any second now.

What would happen if a person were halfway through the opening when it closed? Something told Travis the iris didn't have the kind of safety features found in elevator doors.

He lunged forward. Into the smoke. Past the flames. Threw his arms ahead of him, the MP7 still in his right hand, and dived.

He passed through the open circle into bright light. He felt the iris's edges draw sharply inward and slam against one of his shins, and then he was through, both feet clearing the margin. He saw the ground coming up beneath him-not the runway blacktop that'd been there in the present, but a gridwork of paver stones. He kept hold of the gun with one hand, and threw the other downward to break his fall. He hit hard, took half the impact with his hand, then tucked and rolled to let his shoulder take the rest. The move wasn't graceful, but it worked. He ended up on his back, the MP7 slamming hard onto the pavers but not discharging. Still gripping it, he pitched himself sideways and got up into a crouch, eyes everywhere for any sign of Finn.

But he couldn't see anything. The air was thick with black smoke from the just-closed iris. He could make out low, boxy shapes here and there, ten to twenty feet away in several directions. Waist high, they caught the wind and made it swirl, trapping and churning the smoke.