They landed at The Flying W airport in Lumberton, New Jersey in mid-afternoon. The airfield had one three-thousand foot runway, a fifty-room motel, as well as a restaurant on the property. Once on the ground, Alex arranged to put his plane in the back of a large hangar, with several other aerobatic planes. After that, it was almost five o’clock. “We can’t make it to Philadelphia before the FBI is closed,” he said as they walked toward the restaurant.
“We could get ahold of somebody, couldn’t we?” said Richard. “There must be someone on-call, or the FBI equivalent. We could call them and see what happens.”
Alex ran this over in his mind. “Maybe I’m just spooked by the bullets, but my intuition is screaming caution. If we do this, I’d rather wait until the busiest time of day when there’re lots of people around.”
“How about just going to a police station?”
“We could… But again, I think the middle of the day would be better. And somehow, I feel safer with the FBI. Maybe it’s because they’re federal government, I'm not sure. And, you know, the local police could just turn us over to the guys in Georgetown who were trying to kill us. I think that’s less likely with the FBI. But, bottom line? I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I’m going strictly on gut instinct. And I don’t like it one bit. We’re fumbling around in the dark and we need to go very slowly and feel things out as we go. Let’s take our time. Let’s get something to eat, get some sleep and see how things look in the morning.”
Alex tried to avoid the thirty or so pilots preparing to compete; he didn’t want it to get out he was there. Keep a low profile, leave as few tracks as possible, he thought. He did arrange for one of the competitors to get a motel room in his name instead of Alex’s or Richard’s. Alex told his friend he forgot his credit card and gave the guy cash in exchange for using his card for the room. Alex and Richard grabbed a bite to eat, then hunkered down in their room, deciding what to do next.
“Damn it,” said Alex. “I really hate lying to my friends here. It’s a lie of omission, not commission, but a lie just the same. They trust me, and I’m getting them to help me avoid the police. It just doesn’t feel right.”
“I know what you mean. I’m sorry you're involved. Had I known what was going to happen, I never would have gone to your house. But I had no idea. Maybe you should go your own way.”
“Oh sure, throw me to the wolves. No, they tried to kill me as much as you. I’m no safer without you. We go together.”
Richard looked down at his hands. “So, what now? Where do we go from here?”
“How the hell should I know? Alex moved over to Richard, putting his face inches away. “I had a good life. A job I liked. A career I could be proud of. One that gave me some money and enough time to enjoy it. A house, a plane… And now, what do I have? Nothing! Nothing except the likelihood I’ll end up as a piece of bullet-ridden meat on the side of the road!” He took a deep breath and stepped back, turning away from Richard. “Hell, we probably won’t last another day.”
“Alex,” said Richard calmly. “I’m not the enemy. I didn’t wittingly cause this to happen. Someone else is responsible for what’s going on. Not me.”
Alex paused, then turned back to face Richard. “I know. I know. It’s just so… So damned scary. And dammit, how can you be so calm all the time? I’m going out of my mind and you don’t seem to be bothered at all. It’s aggravating.”
“Oh, I’m plenty twisted up inside. I just spent years learning how not to respond to it; how to disengage from the furor of the world, that’s all.”
“Well, disengage now and you’re dead. Why is it I have to do all the thinking? Make all the decisions?”
“Don’t misunderstand. The object is not to be uninvolved. You should be involved. You just don’t get wrapped up in the insanity; you don’t react to your fears. You learn to act based on something deeper, more dispassionate.” Richard sighed. “And you’re right. I am leaning on you too much. We could worry this to death, but if we don’t act soon, someone else will and we’ll be at their mercy. And it doesn’t seem like they have much, if any, of that. I’ve listened closely to everything you’ve said and I think you’re right about going to the FBI tomorrow morning while they’re busy. I vote we try to arrive there tomorrow around ten o’clock.”
“It’s a plan, then,” said Alex, taking a deep breath. “Let’s get some sleep and get up around eight. That’ll give us time to get something to eat before we go; God knows when we’ll be able to eat again. Then we can call a cab and head for Philly; it’s only about twenty miles from here.” He moved toward the bathroom. “I’ll take that bed, okay? He pointed toward one of the beds. “But first a shower.” He opened the bathroom door. “I just wish I’d had time to grab a change of underwear.”
. . .
Alex and Richard walked through the large door in front of the hangar and went toward the back. Alex was making one last check on his plane before they went to breakfast. The night before, the hangar held thirty-six aircraft packed cheek-to-jowl. The planes were parked so tightly, you couldn’t walk past the front row. Earlier in the morning, the competition pilots moved their brightly colored planes out to the flight line in a long procession, each plane being pushed by two or three pairs of hands. There were Sukoi 29’s, Yak 55’s. Pitts Model 12’s, Extra 200’s and 300’s, Pitts S1-S’s, S1-T’s, S2-A’s, S2-B’s and S2-C’s, Super Decathlons and even a clipped-wing Cub. There were only three planes left in the hangar, and everyone seemed to be out on the flight line with their planes. Alex and Richard walked up to Alex’s Extra, parked in the back, out of the way.
“Is that your plane?” came a voice from the shadows behind them.
“Yeah…” said Alex and he turned toward the voice. It was female. What he saw stopped him mid-sentence. It was a woman, an attractive one at that, but she was wearing a blue police uniform with badge over her left breast. More disturbing, she held her hands straight out in front of her, clasped together, holding a service pistol, pointed directly at him.
“Down on the ground, on your bellies. Now!” she commanded.
The two men went down on the hangar floor on their stomachs.
“Don’t shoot,” said Alex. “We’re innocent. We’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Shut up and spread eagle!” said the woman. “If I hear one more word out of you, by God, I will shoot!” The officer moved toward them. With one hand, she reached for her belt and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. As she did this, she turned her head, side to side, looking around. She threw the cuffs over to Alex. “Cuff his hands behind him,” she said, nodding at Richard.
Alex hesitated, trying to decide what to do.
“Now!” commanded the cop.
Alex, not able to think of anything else with a pistol aimed at him, got up on his hands and knees and grabbed the handcuffs where they landed. “Jesus Christ!” he said as he did as he was told. “Sorry, Richard.”
“Now, back on your belly,” said the woman when Alex finished. Bending down, she put a knee on the small of Alex’s back and pulled first one, then the other hand toward her and secured another set of handcuffs on his wrists. “Stand up and move toward the back door. Now!” She reached down and pulled them to their feet, one at a time.
Going through the small door in the back of the hangar, they walked toward a car parked close by – it was not a black-and-white. Alex and Richard got in the back seat as they were commanded to do. Soon, the three were driving away from the airport.
“What’s this all about?” demanded Alex. “Where are we going?”
The officer didn’t respond and just kept driving, now out on the open highway.
“Answer me, dammit! We have a right to know!”
“Just keep quiet and do what you’re told.”
They drove for about a mile and pulled off the highway, down a country road. Turning onto a dirt track, they drove into what appeared to be an abandoned barn. The officer got out of the car and closed the barn door. The gun came out of the holster again.
“Out! On your knees!”
Alex and Richard did as they were told. The officer stood about five feet away, again pointing the pistol toward them.
“You don’t have to kill us,” said Richard. “We’re no threat. We give up - “
“What are you talking about?” said the policewoman. “Why would I kill you?” She lowered the gun.
“Damn good question,” said Alex. “Why are the police trying to kill us? Why won't they let us surrender?”
“What? What the hell are you talking about?”
Alex and Richard looked at each other. Richard seemed as befuddled as Alex felt. “All I know,” said Alex, “is I woke up yesterday morning and it started off as a nice quiet day. Then these two policemen showed up, one shot the other, then threatened to shoot me -”
“What?”
“- he got hit on the head and passed out. A voice, ‘Control,’ he called himself, came over the microphone on his shoulder and told everyone listening to shoot us on sight, shoot to kill, and don’t let us leave the house alive.”
“Who are you and why don’t you know any of this?” asked Richard.
The officer bit her lip, then said, “I’m Emily Clark, a member of the Newark Police Department. Unless I’m mistaken and I don’t believe I am, you’re Alex Stewart and Richard Gregg. Now,” she demanded, “what the hell is going on here?”
Alex couldn’t help exploding with a short guffaw. “You tell us! You’re the one who forced us to come here. You’re the one with the gun.” Try as he might, he could not keep the distress out of his voice.
“You don’t want to shoot us,” said Richard calmly. “We’re not the bad guys.”
The officer looked over at Richard. “Shit!” she said. “You guys are for real, aren’t you? Christ, why does this kind of crap always happen to me?” She put the pistol back in its holster and moved over to remove the cuffs from Alex and Richard.
Once free. Alex moved back about six feet and shouted at the officer. “What the hell is going on here? This makes the second time a police officer pulled a gun on me and threatened to shoot! Why? I’ve done nothing!”
“Calm down, Alex,” said Richard. “Give her a chance to explain. We’re okay.”
Alex leaned on the trunk of the car; the two of them faced the cop and waited for an explanation.
“I was contacted by an old colleague, a retired FBI agent, and told to come down here and look for you. He thought you might show up here. Apparently, he knew you, Alex, were an aerobatic enthusiast and he knew you have a plane. He knew the plane’s tail number and he thought this would be a natural place for you to seek out to hide. Under duress, one usually gravitates toward the familiar.”
“So what was with the gun and handcuffs?”
Emily shrugged. “I had to get you guys out of there quickly and as unnoticed as possible. Also, dammit, I don’t know what’s going on and what I’m getting into. The word is you killed a cop and everybody’s out looking for you. Now my colleague told me you're innocent, and I believe him. But I had to make sure I wasn’t walking into disaster, had to get control as soon as possible. And I applied a little pressure to see what would shake loose. I still don’t know what’s going on, but you guys sure don’t appear sinister to me.”
Richard gave her a quizzical look. “Just like that? You were going to shoot us and now you can trust us? You don’t know us.”
“No, dammit, I don’t. But someone I would trust with my life told me you were unwittingly put in grave danger and I needed to help you if I found you. Well, I found you, so here we are.”
“We never killed anyone,” said Alex. “A cop is dead, but another cop, an Officer Martin, killed him.”
“I believe you. Not because you’ve convinced me, but because I believe absolutely in the judgment of my FBI colleague. Okay? Are we okay here? Now,” she gave a heavy sigh, “I’m in a position where I need to help you guys, in opposition to my brothers-in-blue, and it’ll probably louse up my career permanently. But what you’re telling me doesn’t make any sense. Cops don’t shoot each other and we don’t go around trying to kill civilians on sight that aren’t an immediate threat, even if it's believed they've killed a cop. You must have misunderstood. You must have misinterpreted something somewhere along the line.”
“It’s kind of hard to misinterpret ‘Shoot Gregg and Stewart on sight. Shoot to kill. Don’t let them leave the house alive,’” said Alex. “That’s a direct quote.”
“We were there and saw Martin shoot the other cop without warning. Can’t confuse that,” said Richard.
“And I’m sure as hell not confused about the guns firing and bullets hitting my house,” said Alex. “I’m not confused about running as hard as I could as bullets are whizzing all around me.”
“Then they can’t have been cops. They must have been impostors.”
“Then who were they?” asked Richard. “They were all dressed in uniforms and wore badges. All the cars they came in, at least the ones I saw, were police cars.”
“And one of the cops, the one killed, I’ve seen before,” said Alex. “I know he was real, for sure.”
Officer Clark stood as if perplexed, shaking her head in apparent disbelief. “It makes no sense.”
“What about this FBI guy that sent you here?” asked Alex. “Does he know what the hell is going on?”
“He knows more than he told me,” said Clark. “But I didn’t get the feeling he knew much.”
“Officer -”
“- Emily -”
“- Emily. We’re innocent. We’ve done nothing. Can’t we just surrender and work things out in custody? Can’t you bring us into a police station somewhere, or maybe the FBI, under your protection, and get all this sorted out? We were heading over to the FBI in Philly to turn ourselves in when you showed up.”
Emily was quiet for a few moments, thinking. “No. My gut tells me that would be disastrous for us all, including me. My colleague told me not to trust anyone, especially my superiors or other authorities. He was very particular about not trusting the FBI. I thought that sounded strange at the time; now I’m not so sure…”
“Can we go talk to this FBI guy?” asked Richard. “Can we find out what he knows? Maybe he can tell us how to get out of this.”
“That is the obvious next step,” said Emily. “Wait here. I’ve got to go change. I don’t want to stand out.” She went to the trunk of the car and pulled out a small suitcase, then moved over toward a stall in the back of the barn. “Excuse me for a moment, guys,” she said with a smile as she disappeared behind the wall.
Alex dropped down on the ground, sat with his legs out in front of him and let out a long sigh. The tension of the last few minutes drained him. “Man, I could really use that change of underwear right now. I thought we were dead for sure.”
Richard tilted his head toward Emily’s stall. “She should be some use helping us to stay away from the cops, anyway.”
“If she can be trusted.”
“Trusted with what? We don’t have any secrets.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Our lives.”
“Well, she didn’t shoot us on sight. And I don’t think we’re any safer without her.”
Alex leaned back against the car. “Good point.”
Emily reappeared, dressed in slacks and polo shirt.
Nice! thought Alex. She hides a lot under that uniform and Kevlar. I don’t think dressing like that’s going to keep her from standing out!