Jack stopped outside the entrance to the airport parking and drummed his fingers on the wheel. What were the odds there was company waiting? He new for sure it wouldn't be Stork. Salvatore and Dante might be another story and Gretta Lawrence . . . she could be the biggest threat of all. At least she wouldn't be trying to kill him. He made up his mind and drove into the lot, cruising past the parked cars with wary caution.

Dante spotted the car and the two men ducked down as it crawled past, peeking slowly over the dash as it circled the lot. In the jeep, Gretta ordered the others down and grabbed Sophia's wrist, threatening to break it if she gave them up. Jack didn't see anything out of the ordinary and finally slipped into a slot at the end of a row near the entrance. He took the pack from the back of the car, tossed the keys on the seat and crossed the drive with a casual gait.

"Out! Out! Don't lose him, I'm right behind you." Salvatore shoved Dante ahead and the two men ran hunched down beside a row of cars before breaking cover and dashing to the front entrance.

"That's Salvatore!" Sophia shouted as they watched the two men scurry across the driveway.

"Let's go folks." Gretta opened the door and jumped out, trotting after the two men. Arny followed with a grip on Sophia and a promise to squeeze her hard if she tried anything. Sophia looked at him in disbelief. Inside, Gretta was on her toes pivoting and looking over the small crowd of people in the departure lounge. She spotted the man called Salvatore and, waving to Arny, pointed the direction to take.

Jack turned from the magazine counter and gave the terminal a quick scan. Dante was head and shoulders over most of the milling passengers and Jack cursed his luck, looking for a place to hide. He made his way through the crowd toward a stairway that led to the airport offices, making sure he hadn't been spotted, and quickly dashed up two at a time.

Salvatore stepped behind the pillar and peeked out only to find himself nose to nose with Gretta. He gave a start and jumped back.

"Madam, what the . . .?"

"Hi, Salvatore. What happened to the arm?" Gretta poked him hard and he buckled, cursing at the searing pain in his shoulder. "Sophia says hi too." She grabbed his broken hand and as he opened his mouth to scream she shot an uppercut to his chin. The chink of teeth was audible and a passing family turned at the sound, unable to determine the source. Gretta let Salvatore down slowly, kicking his feet behind the pillar out of sight.

Arny arrived with Sophia in time to see the end and he sighed in annoyance. "Was that really necessary?"

"He's the competition, Arny. Don't be so squeamish."

"He deserves worse," Sophia said, spitting on the still form.

"Nice, very nice, lady. You just ooze charm." Arny looked away in frustration.

"There's the other one," Gretta pointed out, watching the tall Dante weave his way through the people.

"How do we take this one, Gretta? High and low? Break his legs and smash his ribs?"

"You and I need to have a talk later."

Gretta slipped around the pillar and into the crowd just as Dante stopped, staring upstairs. Arny looked and saw the figure of Cavanaugh darting along the balcony toward the far end of the hall.

"He's upstairs!" Arny called in his best stage whisper, pointing.

Gretta turned back and made a dash for the stairs, right behind the lumbering Dante.

********

Manny Ortega grumbled away to himself as he pushed his industrial mop along the upper concourse, dragging the janitorial cart behind as he went. Manny was in his late fifties with an ailing wife and six children, four under the age of thirteen and none over sixteen. His income never matched his expenses and only the part time jobs by the two oldest children kept the family from total bankruptcy.

He had worked in the airport for nine years for slave wages and no chance for advancement. Many a night in his tiny living room he rued eschewing the education his parents pleaded he finish. Girls and a car was where Manny saw himself at the ripe old age of fifteen, and he had enjoyed that life for about eight months when his money ran out and jobs required more than public schooling.

When his parents died, Manny received nothing except more bills and to pay them he took any menial job available, a pattern that continued through his entire life. Marrying and having children was no more than the evolution of a spotty social life that firmly mired him in a routine of work and sleep.

He steered the big broom to the side wall and scooped up the trash, dumping it in the container on his cart. Management wouldn't even give him a break and let him do the VIP or air crew lounges where freebees could be had for the taking, instead Manny was constantly relegated to the vast departure and arrival hall or the upper concourse where he worked this day.

He checked to see that he was alone and he opened the one treasure he'd managed to salvage from the lost and found, a new, Explorer backpack in forest green and midnight blue with lots of straps and buckles. Inside Manny kept his lunch, his change of cloths and in a hidden pocket, a small flask of tequila. The noise of his lips smacking echoed across the empty space and he smiled, sealing the flask and returning it deep inside the pack.

Jack found that running with the huge backpack was too awkward and if he had to do any hand-to-hand stuff it would be almost impossible. He could hear the clatter of feet on the stairs at the far end of the concourse and he looked anxiously for an escape route. The concourse was a dead end and unless he could get back to the office section, he had no place to go. Against the far wall he spotted the cleaner's cart and made a dash for it as the following steps sounded louder.

The sudden sound of pounding feet made Manny alert and he wondered who would be running near the office section of the concourse. Leaving his tools, he walked to the corner and peered around in time to see the Americano slide to a stop and look around frantically before making a beeline toward the janitorial cart sitting alone against the wall.

He moved back behind the corner and watched quietly as the man stopped at the cart and looked around before lifting the lid from the garbage pail and slipping a big pack inside. Then he darted back to the middle of the concourse and seemed to hesitate before advancing cautiously back down the hall.

Manny waited until the man had moved out of sight then tiptoed quickly to his cart and looked in the pail. The pack was exactly the same as his Explorer and when he pulled it out and opened the flap his heart nearly stopped and his hands shook violently. He peeked down the concourse to make sure the man wasn't coming back and in a flash he took his cloths and his flask from his own pack and traded contents.

The maintenance exit to the roof was concealed behind a large pillar and Manny slipped inside, climbing quickly to the roof, across to the ladder on the outside of the building and down to the ground where he took off as fast as his old feet could carry him.

********

Dante turned when he heard the footsteps behind him and stopped as the woman came running toward him.

"Hey, Dante, you up for this?"

He looked puzzled and started to respond when Gretta flew through the air feet first catching him full in the chest and driving him back about ten feet onto his back on the terrazzo floor. She immediately pounced on him and wrestled the gun from his holster before hitting him squarely between the eyes with the butt. Dante never made a peep.

"That was pretty impressive, Miss Lawrence." Jack stood with his gun aimed directly at her. "I think I'd drop that and step back." Gretta did as he asked and stood hipshot awaiting his next move. "Is he dead?" Jack actually looked concerned, not for Dante but with a wary respect for the Congress agent's ability.

"Only from the neck up," She answered.

"You do that flying through the air thing quite well." Gretta just stared. "So . . . how do we resolve this?"

"Give me whatever you stole from the mine and turn yourself in. Really simple, Jack."

He laughed and shifted the gun in his hand. "What if I offered a deal?"

"What deal?"

"You and me . . . the contents of my backpack and some nice sandy island somewhere"?

"I could never agree to something like that without seeing what you're offering besides your charming self." She smiled pleasantly and tilted her head in anticipation.

"And if you saw it, how likely is your agreeing to the deal?"

"You never know, Jack. You just never know."

He balanced the gun and then lowered it to his side. "Okay. Follow me and I'll show you." He walked sideways away from her until she caught up and then they went side by side to the cleaning cart around the corner.

"I don't do windows."

"Cute, you won't have to after you see this." Jack opened the pail and pulled out the pack and set it at her feet. "Open it."

Gretta squatted down and opened the flap, reaching inside and pulling out a wrinkled cotton shirt and a pair of faded blue pants.

"I'd say the deal was off, Jack."

He bent down, gaping at the contents and then dropping his gun, plunged his hands inside and grappled with the rest of the contents, strewing them all over the floor. His face turned a deep red and he sat back on the floor staring at the empty bag then sat forward and grabbed the flap. Twisting it around to read the label.

"It's not mine!" He looked around. "It's not mine!"

Gretta stood back as he raged in a big circle swearing and mumbling about being ripped off and how he would kill whomever. Apparently Jack had lost his booty and didn't know where to find it.

"It's gone! How could it be gone, nobody else is up here?" He turned on her, his face a mask of rage. "You did this."

"I don't think so, Jack. If it had been me why would I bother with you, I'd have what I want."

His hands flapped in a silent mime of bewilderment and he kicked the backpack across the floor and spun around, breaking into a run for the far end of the concourse. Gretta let him go, she knew the others would stop him and she was tired of the chase sequences.

Arny was waiting with Captain Warez who had arrived as requested by Arny's radio signal to Sander. Dante and Salvatore were cuffed and held under the watchful eye of airport security. Both men looked like they were seeing fireworks. Sophia, while a prisoner as well, managed to evade being handcuffed and sat to one side with a drink and a cigarette. Gretta came down the stairs and stopped short.

"Where's Jack?"

"Jack?" Warez asked.

"Jack Cavanaugh, I just chased him down here." She turned and looked back up the stairs, taking a few steps.

"Nobody came down the stairs, Gretta," Arny said.

"He had to, he was right in front of me!" She darted back up, looking in every nook and cranny and cursed as she saw a narrow doorway marked 'Maintenance'. Pushing through, Gretta found herself on a narrow iron platform that ran around the exterior of the building. Following it around the first corner, she saw that it was used to clean the large windows over the great hall and that it terminated by another similar door on the far side.

Back inside, she told Warez about the offer from Jack and the subsequent discovery that the pack was empty and how he had gone ballistic and run off, apparently using the maintenance exit to escape. She gave Sander a complete description and as an afterthought, excused herself and went to the airport information desk.