Sitting in my usual passenger seat across from Chris Gautreau, who was driving while Lex continued to feed him updated information on Michelle's tracer, I folded my hands in my lap. This was probably no big deal. She probably got spooked and ran. Obviously she didn't take much of her stuff with her, at least not that we could figure out. She probably saw something, got scared and thought she didn't have a way out. A woman like her might think that way, as unprepared as she was. She wasn't even heading for the airport…
The airport.
I choked.
"You okay?" Lex said, arching an eyebrow as he looked up from his laptop screen.
"I'm fine," I insisted, waving him off. As partners are psychics, he was unconvinced but left me to myself. "How are we doing?" I continued, trying to change the subject, looking back into the rear where he was sitting across from Kevin, with Leticia, Weiss and Vaughn in the row behind them. Kevin was busy making notes in his steno pad and I assumed he was on to something good, while Vaughn was busying himself with making sure all the things we had brought – just some fail-safe and crime scene stuff – actually worked.
My partner exhaled. "This thing's sputtering like crazy. We could lose it any time."
"We'll have to make this quick, then." My glance shot to the quiet one in the van. "Kevin? What's up?"
"She has one of our spiders," he said matter-of-factly, and we all stared at him. Like I said, this guy is good and he can make something out of nothing any day. "The box specifications match the ones I saw in the prototype from the manual. She's planning to steal data. Or she already has."
"Great." Chris poured on the sarcasm. "Any indication either way?"
"Can't tell you yet. Lex, what about the…"
"We just lost the tracer!"
I swore, very loudly and for emphasis. I had to make a decision and quick, and I did it with rapid-fire authority. "Lex, what was her last action? Can you chart where she might be headed?" I said, almost desperately. We had an APB out on her car, but that wouldn't be of use, not this far away.
"Not well, but…" His eyes met mine again. "I think she was turning around."
"How do you want to play this?" Chris asked. The car had stopped at a light and he was prepared to either keep going or hang a U-turn. I had about three seconds to make up my mind.
"We're going back," I said, and he hung the vehicle into a sharp turn. I nodded to Kevin. "Get CTU on the phone and tell Jack we need some assistance. Tell him what's going on, tell him to get ready." Then I looked to anyone in the car. "Why would she turn around? Why now? She has to know we're looking for her."
Kevin put his hand over the receiver. "Maybe she wants to be caught."
"If she wanted to be caught, she'd never have run," Weiss pointed out, but Kevin by then was on the phone and the question was in the air for anyone to field.
"She could be going to the airport," Vaughn interjected. "It's only about fifteen minutes from our current position. Maybe she freaked and realized she has to get out faster than driving can get her."
There was that airport thing again.
My breath hitched.
"It's as good a guess as we've got," Weiss told me. "I'd take it."
I paused, then nodded to Chris. "You made the right call," he said as he drove, but I didn't believe him. The last thing I wanted to do was chase Michelle Dessler through an international airport. Or was that deal with the possibility that Michael might be at the airport? I pretended I wasn't sure. Instead, I told Weiss to phone airport security.
"A few hours?" I said to Lex.
He brought up another window. "I don't know for sure. It's about twelve hours, and he left at eleven last night." He spoke softly and I respected that show of respect. "He should be here at eleven."
"It's just after ten now," I said, then fell silent. "All right. Thanks."
"No problem." I heard the friendly concern in his voice where it mingled with empathy. My eyes turned to the road. "Let's hope for everyone that we stop this and now."
Los Angeles International AirportLos Angeles
The van was at a dead stop in one of the airport parking lots. Airport security had been notified to watch for Michelle's car, but the one thing about tracking people to an airport is that they could be at one of a whole lot of terminals. To that end we sat in the silent vehicle making sure we all had handcuffs and some sort of weapon and trying to figure out if we should just pick a random number.
"Airport security has to let us know when they spot her, right?" Weiss said. "What else can we do?"
"I hate waiting," Chris muttered.
"You have a better idea?" I asked. He fell silent and shook his head, so I scanned the group. "Everybody has what they need? All right. So…"
Nobody finished the sentence. On that note, I excused myself and popped open my door, stepping out of the van. The airport was as it always is, looking less busy than it really is on the inside. I wondered how many people I might put at risk. To my knowledge Michelle was unarmed and not a threat, but that was just the thing, what did I really know about her? And what, I was going to haul her back to CTU? I had suggested after London that Division open a team on tracking Nina's activities, and they had, and they were still finding things. I was going to the weekly meetings learning new things all the time and Nina was still awaiting trial. Who was to say Michelle didn't have the same kinds of horrors in her closet?
Because she's Michelle, part of me said to myself.
This is too easy. It isn't right, it isn't real, another part said.
Before I could tell both those parts to shut the hell up, I heard the back door slide open and shut, and looked over to see Lex standing there. He came over to stand beside me, looking out at the traffic with me, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Anything I can do?" he asked me quietly.
I shook my head. "We've just got to wait it out."
"And the rest of it?"
"It's not about him, Lex. We have a job to do." I sighed, looking down at asphalt. "And I don't want to feel that kind of pain again."
The two of us looked at each other for a long moment. I knew he was remembering the times I'd come into work without having slept the previous night, the time I'd broken down and cried to him in the break room about how much pain I was feeling from some cold place inside myself. I knew he couldn't ever remember how hard it had been to recover just to get to that point. Finally, I exhaled. "Get back in the van, see if you can reconstruct something."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure."
I knew he didn't want to go and leave me like that. But I heard the door open and shut again anyway. I rubbed the bridge of my nose. I felt a headache coming on.
I was almost being lured into some daydream wherein Michael and I were working together and taking on the world – maybe it was a nightmare – when Chris yelled for me to get back into the car, they'd spotted her coming in and she was heading for a terminal just down the way. I jumped in and a few minutes later was clamoring out again. I told Chris, Kevin and Steve to work the perimeter. Michelle hadn't gotten that good of a look at Weiss, Leticia and Vaughn, or at least I hoped that was the case. I lead them into the terminal. We took up positions covering the floor. Any moment now, something had to happen.
"Got anything, recon chick?" I asked hopefully over my ear radio.
"Stop calling me that," she chuckled. "And … no … hang on …"
"Which is it, yes or no?"
"I've got her. Coming in far door, heading for the United desk. I'll tail her."
"Let her check in. Give her a bit, let's see what she's got going on. Everybody else, space out. Leticia, get me some flight information." I began to move toward my friend's position, or just to get a better angle of it. I could see Vaughn moving to cover his – whatever she was these days – and Weiss angling in to back me up.
"I'll try," Leticia said and I saw her slipping into the small crowd. I told the perimeter guys to come on in and hang back until I gave them further instructions.
Over my earpiece: "She's heading upstairs."
"I'll beat her to it," I said, turning and heading for the elevator, giving instructions to everyone else to follow me in due time. "Leticia, stay on her but don't apprehend her. What gate and what flight?" She told me all she could, including a gate number and that it was not an international flight. That was a good sign. I didn't know where she intended to go but at least it wasn't London. As the elevator disgorged me, I crossed my fingers and headed for the end of the line.