Chapter 5 - The Accuser Breaks Down
“He didn't whisper anything to me,” I said, meeting Cross’s gaze without blinking. “He was in full respiratory arrest. His tongue was blocking his airway, and his tidal volume was zero. The only sound he made was an agonal gasp when I manipulated his mandible.”
Agent Cross tilted his head, studying me like a specimen on a microscope slide. “You’re very articulate under pressure, Nurse Mercer. Most citizens start hyperventilating when people in hazmat suits start cutting their clothes off.”
“I’ve worked sixteen years in an inner-city trauma bay,” I answered, cold fury replacing the last remnants of my panic. “I’ve had men with gunshot wounds bleed out on my clogs while their cousins tried to break through the security glass with tire irons. An airport concourse with good air conditioning doesn't scare me. But missing my sister’s wedding will make me very, very uncooperative.”
Cross didn't smile, but the corner of his scarred eyebrow lifted a fraction of an inch. “Spunk. That’s helpful. Because right now, your flight is the least of your concerns.”
Across the concourse, Elaine Vance had completely unraveled. She was rocking on the plastic gate chair, her fingers tangled in her dyed-blonde hair.
“It was Gregory,” she mumbled, her voice bouncing strangely off the large plate-glass windows. “It was Gregory. It had to be.”
Agent Cross turned on his heel. His boots clicked against the tile like pistol shots. “What did you say, Mrs. Vance?”
She looked up, her mascara running in dark, jagged tracks down her cheeks. Her earlier arrogance—the haughty entitlement of a woman who had screamed thief at a nurse trying to save her dying husband—had dissolved into pure, raw terror.
“Gregory Keller,” she said, her voice shaking. “He’s the chief operating officer at Apex. He came by the house last night. He brought a bottle of Scotch. He told Stephen that if he took the flight to Miami, there wouldn't be a company left for him to audit on Monday.”
“And what did your husband do?” Cross asked, pulling a thin digital recorder from his breast pocket and thumbing the switch.
“Stephen told him to get out,” she wept. “Stephen told him that three people had already died during the logistics trials in Mexico, and he wasn't going to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder for a federal indictment just to protect Keller’s stock options. He said he had the actual distribution manifests in his case, hard copies, stamped by the state department.”
I stood frozen.
Beside me, Sergeant Miller lowered his head, whispering something to his dog. The Malinois rested its chin against his boot, sensing the shifting tension in the air.
“The case,” I blurted out, unable to hold my tongue. “The case didn't have an explosive charge. It had a release valve.”
Cross turned back to me, his recorder still running. “Explain.”
“When Stephen fell, I saw his hands,” I said, pointing toward the empty space where the man had collapsed. “His right index finger and thumb had white blanching around the cuticles. That’s contact pressure. But the palm of his hand was gray. If Keller knew Stephen was flying out today, he didn't need to put a bomb in the bag. A bomb makes noise. A bomb brings the FBI, the NTSB, and the military. But a man dying of a sudden heart attack or a stroke at a gate? He gets rolled into an ambulance, pronounced dead at the county hospital, and the bag gets returned to the next of kin—or lost in transit.”
Cross stared at me for three long seconds. He clicked the side of his recorder, slipped it back into his pocket, and looked at his partner.
“Check the security feeds from the curb,” Cross commanded. “Find out who dropped the Vances off at Terminal C. Check every private livery vehicle that pulled into the departure lane between six and seven this morning.”
The second agent touched his earpiece and turned away, speaking rapidly into his radio.
Cross then walked over to the blast container where the EOD technicians were still working with fiber-optic cameras. “What do you have?”
The technician in the lead suit peeled back his face visor with a heavy hiss of compressed air. “Spring-loaded capillary ampoule mounted inside the left latch mechanism, sir. Triggered when the secondary three-digit combination was spun to zero. It’s an organophosphate derivative. High concentration. A tenth of a drop absorbed through the skin, and your heart stops firing electrical impulses within ninety seconds.”
The technician looked over at me through the glare of the terminal lights.
“If this lady hadn't forced his jaw open and got him breathing before the atropine hit him, he would have been brain dead before our wheels hit the runway.”
Elaine slowly looked up from her hands. Her eyes found mine across the empty expanse of the gate. There was no defense left in her face. No suspicion. Just the crushing, humiliating realization that the woman she had tried to have handcuffed was the only reason she wasn't a widow.
She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could utter a word, my green backpack on the podium let out a long, continuous vibration that rattled the plastic counter.
Cross noticed it. He walked over, unzipped the front pocket with gloved fingers, and pulled out my phone.
The screen lit up with an incoming FaceTime call: PAIGE (BRIDEZILLA).
May you like
Cross looked at the screen, then at me.
“Answer it,” he said, extending the phone. “Put it on speaker.”
