“An hour, maybe two. Tops.”
She considered the request for a moment before kneeling to unlatch the door’s floor lock. After he was inside, she almost went to relock it behind him, but laziness won out. This was Dulles . . . what could happen?
Gibson followed her through the lobby and into a back office. The same featureless jazz as Tyner Aviation’s played overhead. It gave Gibson the surreal feeling that he wasn’t making any progress at all. Duke sat in one of the armchairs in the lobby. He whistled tunelessly as his son passed.
One half of the large back office was divided by a series of cubicles. A photocopier. Community table. A bank of security monitors occupied another corner. If the three men in the office hadn’t looked up at Gibson, they might have seen Jenn slip in the front door. Gibson raised a hand in greeting. Two looked to be mechanics, the third a customer service rep. Gibson didn’t spot any aspiring heroes among them, but one of the mechanics was a powerfully built man with camshaft arms. Gibson would keep an eye on him.
“Any of you talk to a Mindy?” the sitcom wife asked.
The three men shook their heads.
“Unbelievable,” Gibson said again.
“Don’t worry about it. We all know a Mindy,” she said.
Without knowing the details or Mindy, the room chuckled in agreement. More than love or family, incompetent management crossed all culture and language.
Gibson grinned at them appreciatively. “Lot of you fellas here tonight,” he said. “How many of you do they have working this late?”
That provoked some grumbling.
“Six,” said one mechanic.
“You believe that?” the other mechanic said.
“We have a late flight going out,” the sitcom wife explained. “After that, most of us are out of here.”
“Except me,” the customer service agent said. “I’m here forever.”
“I hear that,” Gibson commiserated and took out his phone. He called Jenn, who picked up on the first ring.
“Mindy,” Gibson said, rolling his eyes for the benefit of the crowd. “I’m over at DAC. Who did you talk to here?” He shook his head at her explanation. “Fine. Fine. Whatever. They’re going to help us out anyway, but it makes me look stupid is what it does.” He feigned listening again and made noises as though she were asking him a question. “Yeah, well, we have four total. I’ve ordered spares because two are missing. No, I’m not sure where they are. Yeah, six total.”
Jenn confirmed the numbers and gave him a thirty-second count. Gibson hung up and threw his hands up at the ceiling dramatically.
“Fucking Mindy,” one of the mechanics said on his behalf.
“I appreciate the assist, guys.” Gibson walked toward them under the pretense of shaking their hands, starting with the big mechanic. He wanted to be in the way in case any of them took their bravery pills this morning.
Jenn kicked in the office door.
She was a specter clad in black from head to foot. A balaclava concealed her face. But Gibson bet the only detail they’d remember was the barrel of the Remington shotgun. Shotguns had a funny way of erasing all other memories. It was loaded with nonlethal beanbag rounds, but the only way to know would be to take one to the chest. It was a steep learning curve, and it would take a hardy soul to sit for that exam.
Jenn racked the slide and yelled at them to get their hands up. Barking instructions—hard, decisive commands. Controlling the room. Allowing no time for anyone to even think about fighting back. Gibson raised his hands and backed up into the group.
Jenn herded them out of the office, back through the lobby, and into the conference room. She shifted into a soothing, calm voice. “Stay quiet. Do as you’re told. No one will be hurt.” She repeated it over and over. A lullaby for a child woken by a terrible nightmare. She ordered them facedown on the ground, fingers laced behind their heads. When everyone was down, she prodded Gibson in the side with her boot. “You. Up.”
“You just told me to get down,” Gibson complained, climbing to his feet. “Make up your mind.”
The sitcom wife hissed at him to shut up and do it. She seemed to press herself even deeper into the carpet as if her own obedience could compensate for Gibson’s mouthiness.
Jenn dropped a bag of zip ties at Gibson’s feet and ordered him to hog-tie the other four. Gibson moved down the line as quickly as he could while still playing the unwilling accomplice. The shotgun leveled at his chest made for a convincing prop. His four new friends peered up fearfully, but no one struggled and no one fought back. When all four were secured, gagged, and hooded, Jenn ordered Gibson back down on the ground. They waited a minute and went back to the Air Center office and got to work.
First things first: Gibson hacked into the Dulles Air Center computers and disabled the server that recorded security footage. He deleted the last thirty minutes. They’d been recorded by enough cameras across Dulles to put them away for a long, long time, but the last thirty minutes had been especially damning. The next thirty might be even worse.
He left the cameras functional, however, so Jenn could confirm no stray personnel wandering about where they shouldn’t. Satisfied, Jenn had Gibson switch all of the monitors to the various camera angles inside Hangar Six. They huddled before the monitors and studied the lay of the land, eager to finally know what they were up against.
In the center of the hangar sat a slate-gray Lockheed C-130 Hercules. A wide, slow-moving beast with the top speed of an aerodynamic brick, it wasn’t fast, comfortable, or pretty. But it was durable and got you there in one piece. Gibson had flown in one like it more times than he could count in the Marines. A military workhorse since the 1950s, the C-130 had been designed as a troop and cargo transport. But it had also been adapted to myriad other roles in its sixty-plus-year lifespan. Its wings stretched 133 feet, tip to tip, but the hangar was large enough that a pair of medium-size jets were parked comfortably against the north wall.