Steve walked down to the motor pool area of the parking structure. Although his car was still in the lot, the manual transmission would be near impossible to operate with one hand. He approached the aging mechanic in the booth.

"Carl, I need a car." Steve said in terse greeting.

The man in the dirty coveralls didn't look up, but recognized Steve's voice. He was busily completing some unseen paperwork on the counter. "Where's my LTD?"

"Buried in a field out near Cupertino."

This roused the man's attention. He looked at Steve, his eyes travelling down to the brace on his right arm. "That was you and Mike? We just got the tow order on it. What the hell are you doing to my babies?"

Steve shook his head. He was tired and had no intention of going into the story. "So, do you have something I can drive?"

"Not like that."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean with one arm. Ain't no way I'm checking out anything to you looking like that."

"Come on, Carl. You know I can drive better with one hand than most of the guys around here can drive with two."

"Yeah I know, but I give you a car, I lose my job. You gotta be fit for duty to requisition a vehicle. You ain't and you know it."

Steve knew a lost cause when he heard it and turned away. "Thanks for nothing!" he said under his breath as he walked out of the garage and into the parking lot, stopping next to his Porsche. Another officer stopped and gave him a quizzical look. Steve waved him off.

"Would you gimme a break," Steve said to sky after the officer entered the building. He pulled his spare keys out of his pocket and opened the door. When the pain didn't incapacitate him after making a few tentative movements with his injured shoulder, he undid the brace, chucked it behind the driver's seat and slid in.

He turned the car over. The first few pulls on the gear shift were an attention getter, but the pain was bearable. Making his way across the Golden Gate into Marin County, he arrived at Battery Spencer without incident. He pulled in next to the Highway Patrol car and rolled down his window.

The officer in the passenger seat looked at the beard and vehicle and commented back to his partner. "Must be nice to be undercover."

The other officer laughed. "Yeah, sweet wheels. Keller send you?"

In no mood for chitchat, Steve got down to business. "I'm Keller. Any activity?"

"Nope, been nothing since we found it."

"Thanks."

"Can we get back on patrol? Dispatch has been on our ass for an hour."

Steve though about it, "I'd really like you guys to stick around a bit. I don't know what's up and I don't have a radio."

"OK. I'll let 'em know, but if we catch a call, we're outta here."

"Fair enough."

Steve got out of his car and walked towards the Mercedes. He circled the vehicle once before trying the door. To his surprise, it opened and the keys were still in the ignition. There was an envelope from the Fairmont Hotel on the front seat. It was addressed to Sarah Steiner.

Steve walked back to the patrol vehicle. "Either of you guys packing latex?" he called as he approached.

The officer in the passenger seat got out and popped the trunk. He pulled out a pair of gloves and handed them to Steve.

"What do you got?"

"Note. Come over so I have a witness when I pull it out of the car."

"Jumper." The officer said loudly as he walked. He called back to his partner, "You owe me lunch."

Steve shook his head at the morbid bet. When he got back to the Mercedes, he retrieved the letter and opened it. An old photograph fluttered to the ground. He picked it up and looked at it, then quickly read the letter. He was just about to hand it to the uniform when the silence was split by a single blast of the siren.

"Kelso, we gotta roll. MVA on the approach to the bridge. Sounds bad."

"You're on your own Keller, you want us to call it in?"

"No, I think you are right about it being a suicide. I'm just going to look around a bit and then head back to the barn."

"Good." Kelso called as he jogged back to the black and white. "There's a pay phone down the road a ways, if you need it. We'll swing back around when we're done with our call."

After his backup rolled, Steve reread the letter and saw the large, flat shipping crate it referred to in the back seat. He reached in and grabbed the car keys, pocketing them and locking the vehicle. Before heading up the broken concrete path, he ditched the gloves and shoved the letter and picture in his other pocket.

Steve was breathing hard when he got to the fence beyond the bunkers. It wasn't the first time he'd crossed this barrier in pursuit of a suspect, * although in this instance, he was sure he was too late. He walked down a little further and it was a surprise when he saw a figure standing at the precipice.

00000

Georg jumped over the aluminum deck of the ground-level luggage scale and behind the bewildered ticket agent before anyone could react. She screamed in terror and dropped the phone. Meyer followed his son's path and ducked behind the counter as well, grabbing another agent from the adjacent ticketing station.

Mike held his breath as Georg raised his weapon over the hostage, taking aim in his direction. To prove he had the upper hand in the situation, Garrod pulled up and fired twice over Mike's head, fracturing one of the large safety-glass panels that separated the lobby from the street. In the nanosecond before diving behind a large concrete planter, Mike recognized the gun Meyer held to the agent's head as an SFPD .38, either Steve's or his own. Even in the life or death moment, he saw the irony in the situation. He heard Georg laugh.

Panic and screaming ruled the scene as people alternately ran or dove for the ground.

Mike rose to his knees behind the long, protective bulkhead filled with spindly Ficus trees and low growing ferns. Aiming towards the counter, he leaned his weapon hand on the concrete lip and lifted his head above the rim, looking for Norm, who had been out in the open when the shots rang out. He spotted Haseejian on the floor. Norm gave him a subtle thumbs up. He was alive for the moment, but in a precarious no-man's land with other passengers. Mike looked left and right and spotted two Marshals who had run up the escalators on either side of the vast lobby. Each crouched behind the minimal protection of decorative trash bins, guns aimed at the fugitive father and son.

Seconds ticked by. After the initial chaos, the lobby became deathly quiet. It occurred to Mike that Georg and Claus must not have flow out of SFO recently. There was no way they would have gotten on a plane with their weapons. After multiple skyjackings, Security Magnetometers that has been installed in '72. Those measures hadn't done anybody a bit of good today.

The only sound he heard over his pounding heart was the thudding echoes of approaching footfalls. Momentarily ignoring the communication equipment provided by the DoJ, he shouted, raising his voice so that it filled the space, hoping someone would hear and put the brakes on the incoming law enforcers.

"Garrod, give it up. It's 3 on 2 with more on the way. Even with hostages, there is no way you are getting out of here."

The chatter in his ear piece told him his message had been received. Unfortunately, his shout was only partially successful. Two uniformed SFPD officers, reacting to the shattered window, burst through the outer door. Mike ducked as Georg leveled his weapon and fired though the trees above his head, dropping one of the uniforms to the ground. The other officer dragged his partner back out the door.

Georg shook his head. "Pity. I think you need to communicate with your people. Tell them to back off or there will be more bloodshed. After what's happened in the past few days, I sure you know I'm a man of my word."

Mike opened his speaker and spoke loudly enough for Georg to hear, "I need everybody to back off."

"Good. I'm actually surprised to see you, Lt. Stone. I guess I underestimated you, your partner and the Marshal. Are they somewhere around here as well?"

Mike ignored the question and repeated his earlier request "Why don't you let them go? They've got nothing to do with this."

Mike knew he was wasting his breath. After what the father and son had already done, more victims wouldn't weigh too heavily on their collective conscience. He just needed time. If he could keep Garrod and Meyer occupied, maybe the combined forces, just out of reach, could reason a way out of the situation.

"I don't think so, Mike. May I call you that?"

Mike said nothing. He heard sirens bearing down on the terminal. Georg heard them as well.

"Excellent. Let me tell you how this is going to work, Mike. My father and I will need transport out of the country. Argentina is preferable, but any country without an extradition treaty will do."

"You don't want much." Mike replied, sarcasm coloring the words.

"I know it seems like tall order, but you have already proven yourself to be extraordinarily capable. Go ahead and get on that microphone of yours and forward our requirements."

Mike compiled in a voice loud enough for Garrod and Meyer to hear.

"Speaking of resourcefulness, since it seems we will have some time to chat, how did you manage to extricate yourself from the vineyard?"

Mike didn't respond immediately. A single voice came over his ear piece. "Mike this is Marshal Philips, we spoke earlier. We've cordoned off the area, so you shouldn't have any more surprise arrivals. We think we have a way of getting the drop on these guys, but it's going to take us a few minutes. You need to keep them distracted as long as possible. We will let you know when we are ready to go."

"Rodger that. Be aware, we still have two other suspects at large. Everyone needs to keep eyes-open." Mike said in a low voice before directing his attention back to Georg Garrod and a Claus Meyer.

"You know, Georg, if you are going to bury someone alive, you really need to make sure you plant them deep enough." It was the opening salvo of a dialog that he hoped would distract the gunmen.

00000

Sekulovich answered the phone. Marshal Talbot was on the other end with his hourly check-in.

"Where's Keller?"

"He stepped out for a minute." The Sargent was hesitant to rat out Steve's illegal departure.

"Anything from the Airport?"

"Nope, quiet as a cemetery, here and there."

"Ok, I be back in touch in an hour."

Sekulovich's hand was still on the receiver when it rang again, he picked it up and answered. It was the agitated voice of Captain Rudy Olsen.

"Has Talbot called in?"

"Yeah, I just spoke to him, nothing happening on his end."

"I'm not surprised. It's going down at the airport. We've got two of our suspects and a hostage situation in the Pan Am ticketing lobby, one officer down. I'm headed over there now. Call the Marshal back and let him know what's going on."

Alarmed, the Sargent responded, "Yes, Sir. Are Mike and Norm ok?"

"I don't know yet. As soon as I find out, I'll check back in."

Sekulovich hung up the phone and called the number written on pad laying on the desk."

"Talbot."

"Hey, this is Sekulovich again, we got activity at the airport. Two suspects and hostages."

"Damn. Is everybody all right?"

"One officer is down. I don't know who it is or his condition."

The line went silent for a moment.

"You said only two suspects?"

"That is correct."

"Then we still have two in the wind." Talbot swore again. "We'll have to stay in place here in case they've split up."

With two still at large, Sekulovich considered telling Talbot about Steve's field trip. But the Marshal had already hung up the phone.

00000

Brian Jones waited down the road until the Highway Patrol Car exited the abandoned facility. Pulling up next to Peter Garrod's white Mercedes, he exited his car and shielded his eyes from the sun, trying to peer in the lightly tinted window. He saw the crate in the back seat and tried to open the door, but it was locked. He would retrieve the unexpected prize after he disposed of Garrod. That was if, as he suspected, Peter hadn't already saved him the trouble.

He looked over at the Porsche wondering if its owner was meeting Peter or was there independently, taking in the view. It's didn't really matter. Jones was the only one leaving the vista alive.

*SOSF Season 4, "Most Likely to Success"