Critical Conditions

I guessed we were about halfway between the terminal and Concourse A when the man shouted something I couldn’t understand and fired another shot.

Merritt screamed so clearly I thought she was right next to me.

She was.

I raised my head and was astonished to see her in a gray tray traveling back toward me on the parallel track.

He fired again. I screamed, “Get down.”

Merritt shrieked again and yelled, “Help me.”

“How did-”

“It’s about to slow,” she said.

And it did. As we approached Concourse A, the tele-cars slowed so sca

My timing was better than my strategy. I landed solidly in the approaching gray tray, not remembering that the tray was not actually attached to the tele-cars. My momentum caused the tray to begin to slide out of its steel cradle. I rolled hard against the opposite side and the tray seemed to hesitate before sliding down and finding its natural place. It thunked back into position.

“Merritt, are you okay? I made it. I’m behind you.”

“I’m okay. Who’s after me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Alan, is that you?” The voice was Sam Purdy’s and came from the roadway down below. My heart leaped.

I yelled, “Sam, we’re heading back the other way, toward the terminal. Merritt and me.”

“What? Where is-”

“Don’t know.”

He yelled something else, but the cars had carried me out of range of his voice and I couldn’t understand him.

Thirty-nine

A few seconds later, I knew where the man was.

A gunshot cracked in the tu

Just as I called out, “Merritt, are you hit?” I was reassured by a piercing shriek from her direction. Again, I reminded her to stay down.

I knew that the nature of the chase had changed significantly. One, my presence in the baggage system was no longer a secret to the man who was after Merritt. And two, I was no longer trailing him; I was now a wonderful target situated conveniently between him and his prey.

I also realized that since we had changed direction and were heading back toward the terminal, I had no idea where the system was taking us. Before, I was taking solace in my hope that the Denver police would be waiting for us at the termination point of the baggage system below Concourse B. They would protect Merritt and arrest whoever it was who was chasing her.

Now? I didn’t know where these empty cars were going other than to return to pick up new loads of outbound luggage. And the Skycap had said that there were twelve different collection points on each side of the terminal. That meant there were a lot of possible destinations. I hoped that Sam could get some help in puzzling it out in time to meet us wherever we were headed.

I had a feeling Merritt and I were going to need a little assistance.

We were approaching the end of the tu

Based on the speed we were traveling, I had-maybe-thirty seconds to come up with a solution to the problem.

I crawled to the far end of the bin and raised my head so I could look back down the tu

“Sam? Is that you?” I yelled. One of the most surprising things about the automated baggage system is how quiet it is. Speaking to someone next to you requires only a slight elevation in volume.

“Yeah.”

“Up ahead, when we go up that incline into the terminal, he’ll have a clear shot. You have to distract him before Merritt gets to the bottom of the incline.”

He was gaining on us; Sam’s electric cart was closer now, no more than thirty yards back.

Sam yelled, “Where is he?” and the man responded by firing a round at Sam’s cart.

“He’s behind me, in a gray tray like mine, maybe fifty yards. I don’t know.”

The gunshot helped Sam locate him. Sam said, “Got him. Merritt, stay down.”

I watched Merritt’s tele-car begin the climb from the tu

When I risked another look up, Merritt’s tele-car had cleared the incline. I had no idea whether she had been hit. Now, it was my turn to head up the same hill.

I felt the change in track angle and my guts seized into knots. Again, the gunfire erupted behind me. I covered my head with my hands as a slug ripped into the plastic three inches from my right hip.

The tele-car cleared the top of the incline and leveled off. I yelled, “Made it. Find us, Sam, hurry,” and sat up, looking for Merritt.

I tried, “Merritt, are you okay?”

I didn’t hear a reply.

At this stage of the system the baggage tracks have more switches and off ramps than an L.A. freeway interchange. I assumed the returning tele-cars were being automatically routed to whatever loading location required empty tele-cars.

My tele-car switched off almost immediately on a side track that angled right at forty-five degrees, and with disarming sudde

I looked everywhere and couldn’t find Merritt. Nor could I locate her pursuer.

After fifteen or twenty seconds, my tele-car slowed and stopped in a line behind four or five others. The gray trays were being automatically offloaded from their cradles by conveyors to await their elevator trips back to the curbside check-in area to pick up another pair of skis.

I jumped out of the tray and ducked behind an electrical equipment panel. Across the way, the tele-car transporting the man in the bomber jacket was just entering the same queue I had been in. As his tele-car bumped to a stop, he stepped out and sca

I saw the gun in his left hand.

Merritt?

He and I saw her at the exact same time. She had apparently crossed a maintenance bridge that traversed a few different tracks and was in the middle of the huge room crouching behind a stack of spare beige tele-car bins.

I was close enough to him to watch him smile.

To reach the middle of the room, he began to climb the steep steel ladder over the same maintenance bridge that Merritt had crossed. Newly loaded tele-cars zoomed past on the tracks below him. From the top of the bridge he sca

Merritt saw him approaching. Her eyes flattened. Death was coming to visit. This particular apparition had brown hair and a boxy automatic and a bomber jacket and a Lincoln Continental waiting at the curb.

The man released the clip from his weapon and checked his load. He was precise in his movements as he prepared. Satisfied, he clicked the magazine back into place and started down the other side of the bridge.