Chapter 11
The service corridor smelled of industrial cleaning solution, damp cardboard, and warm electrical transformers. Maya’s sneakers squeaked softly against the freshly mopped concrete floor as they jogged down the dim hallway, keeping pace with Elena’s long strides. The heavy metal fire doors muffled the ambient roar of the airport terminal, leaving only the steady hum of ventilation fans echoing through the cement vault. Elena kept a tight grip on Maya’s hand, her eyes scanning the directional signs mounted on the pale green walls, searching for the exit leading to the public parking garages and ground transportation levels. “Are we going to find Uncle Marcus?” Maya asked, her breath coming in slight, controlled gasps as they rounded a sharp corner near a row of freight elevators. “We will,” Elena promised, though her own uncertainty gnawed at the edges of her resolve. She pulled her silver tablet from her grey suit pocket with her free hand, checking the encrypted GPS signal she had hastily pinged to Marcus’s cell phone number while still on the aircraft. The blue dot representing the union representative’s truck was blinking steadily in Cellphone Parking Lot 3, just three hundred yards past the main terminal exit. But as Elena glanced at the corner behind them, the heavy security door at the end of the hall clicked open, and the sharp sound of leather-soled shoes echoing on concrete announced that their pursuers had found the service bypass. “They’re right behind us,” Elena said urgently, quickening her pace toward a set of stairs marked with an emergency exit sign. They scrambled down the concrete steps two at a time, the metal handrail cold under their palms, descending into the cavernous depths of the airport’s subterranean loading dock where massive delivery trucks idled in the shadows.
