Chapter 12 - The Tarmac at Fairchild
The descent was unlike any commercial landing I had ever experienced.
There was no smooth, lazy drift through the clouds. Captain Hayes brought the 737 down in a steep, tactical decline, slicing through the gray, mist-laden pine canopy of eastern Washington. The cabin was utterly silent except for the low, rhythmic roar of the airbrakes deployable along the wing edges.
The passengers were told there was an indicator light concerning the rear cargo pressure seal. People were nervous, gripping their armrests, but there was no panic.
Down in row 18, I had Emma double-swaddled against my chest, while Olivia and Ava were strapped into their rear-facing seats with every harness adjusted to maximum snugness. My palms were sweating through my jeans. Every instinct I had as a mother was screaming at the world around me.
*Thud-shudder.*
The heavy landing gear locked into place with a violent metallic clunk.
Outside the window, instead of the glass towers, the neon signs, and the sprawling civilian terminals of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, there was only a vast, rain-slicked ribbon of gray asphalt stretching between towering military hangars, barbed-wire perimeter fencing, and the grim silhouettes of KC-135 Stratotankers.
Fairchild Air Force Base.
The wheels struck the runway with a sharp screech of burning rubber. The reverse thrusters roared, deafening and raw, slamming my back into the seat. We slowed rapidly, turning off the primary runway and taxiing toward an isolated hangar situated at least a mile away from the main base flight line.
Blue and red emergency strobe lights cut through the drizzling Pacific Northwest dusk.
Not commercial fire trucks.
Four matte-black tactical SUVs, three military police patrol cruisers with mounted spotlight rigs, and a federal mobile command van bearing the gold seal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The seatbelt chime rang.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Captain Hayes’s voice came over the PA, entirely calm, perfectly professional. “We have safely diverted to Spokane due to precautionary maintenance protocols. Please remain seated with your seatbelts fastened until local security and ground personnel clear the aircraft.”
Before the passengers could begin murmuring or pulling down carry-on bags, two men in civilian suits stood up from row 3 and row 24 simultaneously.
Federal Air Marshals.
One positioned himself at the cockpit door; the other walked down the aisle, stopped at row 18, and looked at me. He was broad-shouldered, with a close-cropped beard and eyes like flint.
“Rachel Morgan?” he asked in a low, quiet voice.
“Yes,” I breathed.
“I’m Special Agent Vance. We’re getting you and your daughters off first. Do not touch your overhead luggage. My team will retrieve your belongings later. Just take the girls.”
I didn’t ask questions. I grabbed the handles of Olivia’s and Ava’s infant carriers in either hand, muscle memory taking over, while Emma remained securely strapped to my chest. Fifty pounds of babies and gear. My arms shook with the strain, but adrenaline turned my muscles to steel.
The rear service door popped open with a hiss of pressurized air. A mobile stair unit had already been rolled against the exterior.
Cold, pine-scented Washington air hit my face like an electric shock.
Down on the wet tarmac, four agents wearing tactical vests marked *FBI* and *US MARSHAL* stood in a perimeter ring, their carbines held at low-ready, facing outward toward the foggy perimeter of the airbase.
A woman in a dark trench coat with wet hair plastered across her forehead stepped forward to the base of the stairs. She was in her late forties, with sharp, perceptive hazel eyes and a federal badge pinned to her lapel.
“Rachel Morgan? I’m Supervisory Special Agent Sarah Lin, FBI Violent Crimes and Child Exploitation Task Force. Let my agents take the carriers.”
“No,” I snapped instantly, the word flying out of my mouth before my brain could filter it. “No one touches them.”
Agent Lin didn’t flinch. She didn’t get offended. A slow, understanding nod crossed her features. “Understood, Rachel. Walk with me. We have a secure vehicle.”
We moved briskly across the rain-soaked concrete toward the reinforced Chevy Suburban. The moment I climbed into the heavy, leather-appointed back seat, surrounded by bulletproof glass and steel plating, the heavy doors thudded shut with the vault-like finality of a bank safe.
I collapsed against the seat, gasping for air.
Emma began to wail, startled by the cold wind and the sudden movement. In their carriers, Olivia and Ava joined in, their little faces turning bright crimson, their tiny fists flailing against their cotton sleep-sacks.
The sound of their crying—which Susan had called an ‘inconvenience’ and Tyler had mocked as ‘formula stench’—was the sweetest, most glorious sound on earth. They were alive. They were here. They were on Washington soil.
I pulled out three pre-mixed bottles from my coat pockets, my hands trembling as I popped the caps and fed Emma first, then held the other two bottles for the twins in their car seats, humming a broken, trembling lullaby through my chapped lips.
Agent Lin slid into the front passenger seat, turning around to face me as the convoy began to roll across the tarmac.
“Drink this,” Lin said, handing me an unopened bottle of water. “You’re in shock.”
I drank half the bottle in three gulps. “Where are my parents?” I choked out. “Did you reach them? The text—they said they were going to burn the house down—”
“Breathe, Rachel,” Lin said calmly. “Spokane County Sheriff’s deputies intercepted your father’s truck four miles from his home. He had your mother in the cab and a 12-gauge shotgun on the bench seat. He gave the deputies a hell of an argument until we patched him through to our field director. Your parents are safe. They are currently being escorted to the federal courthouse in downtown Spokane under witness protection.”
A sob finally broke through my chest, ragged and violent. I buried my face in Emma’s warm fleece blanket.
“And Sea-Tac?” I asked, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. “Gate B-4?”
Agent Lin’s expression darkened. She opened a thin black tablet and swiped across the screen.
“Gate B-4 at Sea-Tac was staked out thirty minutes ago,” Lin said, her voice dropping into a chilling, administrative monotone. “We had Port of Seattle tactical officers and our Seattle field office conduct a silent containment. We arrested two individuals posing as medical transport contractors with a private chartered King Air idling on the south runway. They had high-end infant sedation kits, forged Department of Social Services custody transfer decrees bearing your forged signature, and a cash-box containing fifty thousand dollars in unmarked hundreds.”
I felt the blood drain completely from my face. “Sedation kits?”
“They weren't planning on taking you, Rachel,” Lin said, looking at me with unflinching, brutal honesty. “Brian’s agreement with the Atlanta broker—an outfit operating under the front name *Southeastern Family Placement Services*—stipulated that you were to be separated from the infants before transport. If you had walked out of the jet bridge at Sea-Tac, their plan was to stage a disturbance, flash counterfeit child protective services badges, claim you were an emotionally unstable mother attempting parental kidnapping, and spirit the babies away into the private charter before airport police could sort through the paperwork.”
My stomach heaved. I thought back to the conversation Brian and I had had on the living room couch in Charlotte just twenty-four hours earlier.
*“Please don't turn this into something bigger than it is.”*
*“I’ll handle Rachel.”*
He had known. He had known that if I resisted, men with sedative syringes and fake badges would tear my daughters from my arms in a crowded airport corridor.
“Where is he?” I asked, my voice suddenly dropping into a register so cold, so devoid of fear that Agent Lin’s eyebrows raised slightly. “Where is Brian? Where is Susan?”
Agent Lin tapped her tablet once more.
May you like
“The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, along with our Charlotte field office, entered the property on Mockingbird Lane thirty-five minutes ago,” Lin replied. “And what they found inside that dog kennel, Rachel… goes far beyond an adoption broker.”
***
