The Hickory Staff

CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

David Mantegna ran an index finger up the smooth leather of the holster. It still felt strange – he and his partner, Sandra Echols, had been wearing their 9mm sidearms for just a week and were still getting used to the idea of carrying guns in the airport. In the wake of the ongoing threats to commercial airliners, the Charleston City Police now had officers stationed at the security gates to provide support for those airport staff operating the detectors and checking for weapons or incendiary devices stashed in passengers’ carry-on baggage.

Funding cuts meant no extra police officers, so the airport’s security detail had been put through exhaustive – and embarrassing – background checks, followed by eight weeks of surprise urine tests, then two months’ intensive training at the State Police Academy. Thanks to a creatively inexpensive political manoeuvre on the part of the Charleston City Council and the Mayor’s Office, he and Sandra were now licensed deputies of the city police force, and could be called upon as law enforcement officers in crimes ranging from breaching airport security, to drug trafficking, to terrorism.

Of course, they still had to do their fair share of gate security, checking bags, examining X-rays and basically ensuring nothing threatened the passengers and planes scheduled through Concourse B, gates 1 through 5. Thousands of bags passed through the X-ray machine every day and Mantegna was desperately hoping the city economy would improve enough so he could complete his studies and join the force as a fully fledged city officer.

‘I’m bored,’ he sighed, reviewing the black-and-white image of an elderly woman’s cosmetics case. Sandra smiled at him briefly. He liked her smile. She had one tooth that lay just slightly over another, giving her a bright but crooked grin that he found endearing. He teased her mercilessly about her uniform. Sandra’s blues had been well tailored and fitted her contours closely: she was fit and athletic, and obviously aware of her body and how attractive she looked in the wide leather belt and Kevlar vest. He openly ogled the curves of her lithe form as he remarked that she should stop showing up for work in her younger sister’s clothing. Sandra could give as good as she got, judging by the off-colour comments about the calibre of Mantegna’s weapon. ‘Only nine millimetres, David?’ she’d respond. ‘That’ll simply never do!’

‘I said, I’m bored,’ Mantegna repeated. There were only two flights scheduled out in the next hour and most passengers had already come through the security checkpoint.

‘Well, stop whining and go help that woman,’ his partner suggested. ‘Might as well earn your pay today.’

He looked beyond the upright rectangle of the metal detector to the near-empty terminal. A young woman was approaching, pushing a baby stroller and carrying the sort of bag common among new mothers. This one was lime-green, adorned with small pictures of Peter Rabbit, and jammed full of baby kit: bottles, plastic toys, clothes, Pampers, and a dog-eared novel. It started to slip off her shoulder as she reached in to remove the sleeping infant.

Hoping a show of gallantry might impress his partner, David Mantegna hurried to assist the young mother. ‘Let me help you, ma’am,’ he said, picking up a couple of toys that had fallen from the bag.

‘Oh, please don’t call me “ma’am”. I can’t possibly be a “ma’am”, I’m only twenty-seven,’ she laughed before adding, ‘but thanks, I could do with a hand.’ He pushed the stroller through his security checkpoint, then looked into the empty storage area under the seat and felt the cushions for any hidden items. As he’d anticipated, he found nothing.

While the Peter Rabbit bag rolled through the X-ray machine, Mantegna saw what he expected to see: bottles, clothes, toys and a book. He returned the stroller and watched as the young woman walked down the concourse towards her gate, B4, and the morning flight to Washington, DC.

An alarm went off in Mantegna’s head as he turned to see a young man walk through the metal detector. He seemed nervous and uncomfortable, and his clothes were badly wrinkled, as though he had slept in them – or worse, showered in them. He had several days’ beard growth and carried no bags, just a ticket. Mantegna squared his shoulders and unconsciously patted his 9mm pistol. This was it. This was what all the training was about. He hustled back towards the security station, expecting the metal detector to sound any minute, but nothing happened. The dishevelled passenger simply walked through and hurried down the concourse towards Gate B4. Mantegna let his shoulders relax, almost disappointed. Just a bum with money then.

‘Did you catch a whiff of him?’ Sandra asked as she absentmindedly adjusted a focus knob on the X-ray machine.

‘No, I try to avoid smelling the passengers as they come through,’ he joked and was rewarded with a short laugh and a flash of her sexy crooked tooth.

Steven Taylor boarded Express Airlines Flight 182 to Washing-ton, DC at 10.25 a.m. He had a connection to Denver International Airport scheduled to depart Reagan National at 1.20 p.m. He’d gain two hours on the flight west and be in Idaho Springs by early evening. His ticket had been expensive – $1200 – because he was flying at the last minute, and he silently thanked God he had remembered to pay his Visa bill that night outside Owen’s Pub, so long ago. And at least he still had his wallet, even if it had been soaked and dried out so many times since his arrival in Eldarn that he had been forced to covertly resign the signature block on the back. With his Colorado driver’s licence in hand, he purchased the ticket, checked in and waited for the gate attendant to call his row number for boarding.

Thanks to the careless behaviour of Arthur Mikelson, a banker from Charleston currently suffering from a nasty hangover – and probably sunburn by now – Steven was dressed in an unprepossessing pair of sweatpants and a decade-old T-shirt from Gold’s Gym in Hilton Head. He had also had a ride to the airport courtesy of Arthur’s very comfortable Lexus sedan. Mikelson’s gym bag had a pair of Nike trainers inside, near enough Steven’s size, but he had turned them down in favour of Garec’s boots, which he was still wearing. Steven had every intention of returning them.

Arthur had also been kind enough to leave his wallet stuffed under the front seat before heading onto Folly Beach to drink himself blind. With cash in hand, Steven had taken a few minutes out for eggs, pancakes, bacon, buttered toast, hash browns and six mugs of steaming black coffee. He thought of Mark as he breathed in the aroma: whatever else he did, he had to introduce the coffee bean to Eldarn.

Now he was beginning to seriously regret not taking the time to find a shower: as he took his seat and awaited lift-off he was conscious he looked and smelled out of place. He was covered in dry, briny salt and he stank of sweat and low tide. Being this filthy made him feel uncomfortable and conspicuous.

His self-conscious musings were interrupted as he watched a woman coming down the aisle. He had seen her at the gate, quietly rocking an infant, and he thought it a little odd that she hadn’t taken the opportunity to pre-board and get settled. But here she came, carrying the child in the crook of one arm, rather strangely, like a halfback might hold a football. Her other hand was tucked into the front pocket of her khakis and a small green bag bursting with essential-looking baby items hung from her shoulder and bounced uncomfortably off her hip and across the small of her back.

He blushed, realising he’d been staring, and looked away as she took her seat several rows behind him. He lay back and closed his eyes, trying not to think about everything that had happened over the past months. He hoped sleep would take him for the flight home.

Steven opened his eyes with a start. Something was wrong. He heard Gilmour in his head: If it looks strange, it’s probably strange. Something wasn’t right about this flight. Had he been followed? He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something wrong. He hadn’t seen anyone since his arrival, apart from the generous Mr Mikelson on the beach and the woman at the truck stop who had served him breakfast just after dawn. Had Arthur Mikelson actually followed him through the portal – was he a member of Malagon’s army? No, surely not: he hadn’t heard other splashes, or seen other swimmers – and how the hell could Arthur Mikelson have found a Brooks Brothers’ suit, a Lexus, nine beers, a pack of cigarettes and the time to get drunk, throw up and fall asleep, all while Steven was swimming ashore? It couldn’t possibly be him.

The airplane window was a small porthole onto a new world, and the airport tarmac stretched out to the horizon. If it looks strange, it’s probably strange. But what was strange? The swim, breakfast, the drive to Charleston, the flight, the plane, the woman with the baby, her hand in her pocket… that was it. Where was she? Slowly he lifted his head and turned around to peer behind him. She was there. Young and pretty, maybe twenty-five, and she was looking right at him. Strange. The baby was crying loudly, and yet she still looked straight ahead. Really strange. Her face was impassive, emotionless, and now Steven knew who had followed him through the far portal. Her hand had been in her pocket to hide the unsightly wound Gilmour had described, the festering sore that had marked all of Nerak’s victims.

But Gilmour had told them the far portal on the Prince Marek was the weaker one, and his arrival off the coast of South Carolina confirmed that the portal in Idaho Springs had been closed somehow. If Nerak had followed him through, why hadn’t the evil bastard been deposited in Alaska, or over in Nepal somewhere? Shit, Gilmour, you were wrong. Nerak is able to come across the Fold. How did he do it – did he track me? Or track the magic – no, impossible. The staff is still on the ship. But however he did it, he followed me here.

Steven felt his stomach turn over. The pressure in his forehead felt like it might crack his skull. Get away, he thought finally, just get away.

Steven excused himself to his seat mates and made his way towards the airplane lavatory as a flight attendant was asking the young mother, ‘Is everything okay here, ma’am?’

Tonelessly, the woman answered, ‘Oh, things are fine. He just needs his formula.’ She pulled two half-filled bottles from the green bag and slowly, in a well-practised motion, opened both, poured the contents of one into the other, screwed down the nipple cap and gave the now full bottle a gentle shake. Bubbles escaped from the nipple as she stood the bottle on her tray table. All the while she prepared the formula the young mother looked ahead, her eyes fixed on the forward lavatory.

David Mantegna was standing near the stainless-steel table used for baggage inspections at the security gate. A passenger had come through carrying a laptop computer and, as federal regulations permitted, he asked the man to switch it on to prove it hadn’t been tampered with.

When the explosion came, it was the stainless-steel table that saved David’s life. As the force of the blast threw him backwards into the wall, the table was thrown in front of him and acted as a makeshift shield against the shards of flying glass and metal that tore through the terminal building an instant later. While still at Gate B4, Express Airlines Flight 182 to Washington, DC exploded with such force that an enormous fireball raced up the jetway and into the terminal building, incinerating a dozen passengers on their way through the concourse.

The fuel truck filling a plane standing near Gate B3 lifted off its wheels for a moment before exploding in a devastating blast that quickly ignited the fuel in the wing reservoirs. Express Airlines Flight 64 didn’t explode, but the fire that started when the wing tip was blown away spread almost immediately and the one hundred and sixty-four passengers bound for Atlanta were being burned alive, clawing and fighting one another in their desperation to reach an exit.

David Mantegna looked down. On the floor next to him was the passenger’s laptop computer, still beeping away – that hadn’t been the bomb. So what had caused the explosion? He couldn’t quite keep his thoughts together. He felt oddly unbalanced as he stood up, and soon discovered blood running from his right ear and down his shoulder. The owner of the laptop was on the floor, screaming, over and over. The man’s arm had been torn off above the elbow and blood ran steadily from the stump. Mantegna was strangely surprised that the wound was not pumping blood out in spurts, like it did in war movies. He stumbled back to the security check station to see what had happened to his partner.

Sandra Echols was dead, her eyes staring out at nothing. Her mouth had fallen halfway open and a shard of glass had torn through her upper lip and across her left cheek. Her left arm was broken and twisted at an impossible angle. Her uniform shirt and vest had been ripped open, revealing a deep wound under her left breast where a large piece of metal remained lodged, one jagged and bloodstained edge still protruding outward. With her arm twisted behind her back and her breasts revealed so prominently, the security guard thought she looked beautiful, like a sculpture he had once seen in an art-history book. His vision faded, then returned.

Mantegna made his way back to the exits airside to find mayhem surrounding the Atlanta-bound plane. Someone had managed to get an emergency exit door opened and badly burned people lay screaming on the concrete beneath the aircraft. He watched as a flight attendant crawled to assist a frightened child and wished he knew what to do. He sat down heavily and looked beyond the carnage at Gate B3 to gate B4, where a smoking pile of torn metal and melted plastic was all that remained of Express Airlines Flight 182 to Washington, DC.