Page 22 of Denied Access (Mitch Rapp #24)

R APP’S linguistic acumen did not extend to Spanish, but he’d learned the utility of mastering a few simple phrases in each country he visited.

Hello, excuse me , and goodbye were always part of his repertoire along with a few more that were relevant to his unique profession.

He employed one such word as he bounded down the stairs leading to the tarmac.

“ Fuego! ” Rapp screamed, pointing back at the terminal. “ Ayúdame, ayúdame. Fuego! ”

The screeching alarm along with his impeccable acting seemed to do the trick.

Or at least part of the trick.

Of the five workers who were lounging across tractors and baggage carts, four abandoned their makeshift break area for the stairs leading to the terminal.

The fifth was a problem.

Whether the man wasn’t buying what Rapp was selling, couldn’t hear Rapp’s scream through the blue earmuffs he was wearing, or perhaps just wasn’t all that interested in charging headfirst into a raging inferno, the results were the same.

While his compatriots made for the staircase, he remained sprawled across his baggage tractor’s broken seat cushion.

Bad choice.

Still shouting about the nonexistent fire, Rapp careened toward the man like a runaway freight train. With a sigh, the worker got to his feet and stretched out his hand in the universal sign for stop. “ Tranquilo .”

Rapp rewarded the man’s cool head by shoving the Taser into his midsection and triggering the device.

The worker collapsed like a pile of dirty laundry.

Rapp lowered the man to the concrete and climbed into the seat he’d vacated.

The tractor’s controls seemed easy enough to master, but something made Rapp hesitate before starting the engine.

The shiny silver key dangling from the ignition.

Pocketing the key, Rapp jumped to the next tractor and swiped that key as well.

Then he was in the driver’s seat of the third and final tractor.

The engine started with a single turn of the ignition.

Setting the woman’s purse in his lap, he popped the transmission into reverse and backed away from the circle of vehicles.

He was preparing to shift into drive when the scrum of bodies roiling down the staircase changed his mind.

So maybe his Method acting wasn’t on par with Daniel Day-Lewis just yet.

Leaving the transmission in reverse, Rapp hammered the accelerator.

For a vehicle designed for high torque at low speed, the tractor had surprisingly good acceleration.

Rapp’s chest slammed into the steering wheel as the tractor rocketed backward.

Ignoring the shouts and curses trailing him, Rapp looked over his shoulder as he threaded between an adjacent gates’ airbridge and one of the fire-engine-red double-decker buses that served as passenger movers.

The bus with its precious cargo of human beings must normally enjoy the right-of-way, because the diesel monstrosity kept coming.

For a terrifying moment, Rapp was convinced this game of chicken was going to end with him plastered to the bus’s bug-infested grille.

Then the bus skidded to a halt amid squealing brakes and a blaring horn.

Rapp raised a hand in thanks and then spun the wheel to the right, bringing the tractor’s nose around before popping the gearshift into drive.

Decision time.

The airfield was canted to mirror the 060 heading of its largest runway.

Rapp was in the northwest corner, which meant that the shortest distance to freedom lay with the fence guarding the airport’s western boundary to the right.

Unfortunately, this direction also led to a convergence of highways, parking lots, and maintenance buildings.

While Rapp had the element of surprise, this advantage was fading with the passing of every second.

The baggage tractor probably didn’t top out at much more than twenty miles per hour, which meant that he would be easy prey for the airport police in their sedans.

Even if he somehow made it to the fence unmolested, Rapp wouldn’t be able to evade his pursuers for very long.

Left meant heading east, which would take Rapp past the remaining terminals along miles of open tarmac.

The airfield’s eastern boundary was mostly farmers’ fields.

The rural terrain that would offer him a better chance of escape, but there was zero chance he would get to the perimeter fence unmolested.

This left the final direction—straight and south.

There was just one problem—south meant crossing all three runways.

All three very active runways.

“Parar! Parar!”

Rapp looked over his shoulder. The airport police had joined the chase. They were still on foot for the moment, but that wouldn’t last.

South it was.

Rapp gunned the engine, and the tractor surged forward.

A siren pierced the air, the wailing audible even over the screaming of jet engines.

Rapp glanced left and swore. A blue and white liveried patrol car was racing to intercept him.

No matter how he weaved and dodged, the little tractor wasn’t going to win that race. He was toast.

Unless.

Unless he was willing to go where the patrol car wouldn’t.

Runway 060 Left, the first of three actives, loomed just a quarter of a mile to the south. Rapp had originally intended to detour west to skirt the commercial traffic arriving and departing on the almost two-mile stretch of concrete.

Not anymore.

Rapp adjusted course so that he was hurtling toward the runway even though a wide-body jet was flaring in anticipation of landing.

Plowing through the grass, Rapp edged the steering wheel slightly to the right to ensure he passed behind the aircraft.

He had no intention of saving his own skin at the expense of the hundreds of innocent passengers.

But his pursuers couldn’t know that.

Smoke puffed from the plane’s landing gear as rubber met concrete at 170 miles per hour.

The aircraft thundered past in a blur and then Rapp rocketed across the runway driving behind and perpendicular to the jet.

He gritted his teeth against the jet blast as the wake turbulence created by the several-hundred-ton lifting body tried to tear him from the tractor.

Gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles, he turned into the wind as the vortices rocked the tractor against its struts.

For an instant the man-made tornado had the upper hand.

Then the tractor’s front tires found purchase on the grass on the runway’s far side.

Cranking the wheel farther right, Rapp sought the protection of the more crowded secondary terminal.

Steering like a madman, he roared under one stationary jet, in front of another taxiing aircraft, and then weaved between several parked planes like he was slaloming down his favorite ski run.

The persistent warbling from the pursuing sedan’s siren faded.

Risking a look over his shoulder, Rapp saw the patrol car still on the northern side of the active runway, apparently loath to cross the sacred ground.

Good.

Zooming past Terminal 1, he skirted the approach edge of the diagonally running Runway 020, and then shot across Runway 060 Right, moments before a blue and white liveried Boeing with the Star of David featured prominently on the plane’s tail took the active.

Rapp thought about waving to the El Al crew but decided that might make matters worse.

The Israelis had enough problems back home without thinking that a madman on a baggage tractor had tried to ram one of their passenger planes.

Rapp bottomed out the accelerator as the vehicle’s wheels traded concrete for the sandy soil on the far side of Runway 060 Right.

The little tractor certainly wasn’t designed with off-roading in mind, but he kept the pedal to the metal and hung on for dear life.

The uneven terrain and the baggage cart’s lack of shocks conspired to nearly toss him from his seat, but after thirty seconds of hard riding, he arrived at the perimeter fence.

Bringing the vehicle to a halt with the tractor’s blunt nose touching the fence’s metal chain links, Rapp grabbed the purse and then scrambled up and over the barrier.

He landed in the soft dirt on the far side and bolted for the cover of the surrounding trees.

The smell of salt water saturated the air, and the ocean breeze tickled his face.

The ground was sandy and crisscrossed with canals brimming with brackish water.

He seemed to be in some sort of estuary, and he paused for a moment to take his bearings.

A narrow road provided vehicular access to the marsh, but that wouldn’t do.

Sure, the pavement would allow him to move faster, but the road probably tracked along the airfield’s perimeter with very few secondary branches.

If Rapp risked the road, he would be easy pickings for his pursuers.

Like a mosquito’s irritating buzzing, the warbling siren was back.

Rapp darted into the estuary, trying to disguise his footprints by keeping to solid ground.

He might be able to hide for a time among the scrub brush and stunted trees, but with a canal to his west and a large industrial area to his east, Rapp was effectively boxed in.

Any competent team would erect roadblocks, construct a search grid, and eventually find him.

It might take the searchers longer if they didn’t have access to canines, but either way, hiding in the marsh was a nonstarter.

Which left south.

The shouts echoing from behind him spurred Rapp to action.