The steering wheel began wobbling when she hit fifty miles per hour and the chassis felt like it was going to shake itself apart as she urged the vehicle to higher speed. The police cars continued straight past the frontage road onto which she’d turned, having missed her evasive maneuver, and she felt a moment of hope as she rounded a bend – which quickly dissolved when she had to stand on the brakes in order to avoid slamming into a closed iron gate. An executive jet with its landing gear down roared overhead and settled on the runway with smoking tires, covering the sound of the Peugeot engine’s stutter as she evaluated her next move. Her eyes tracked beyond the gate to the runway, and then she jammed the gear lever into reverse and spun the tires as she backed up and executed a three-point turn.
There was only one direction she could go, and her options were now limited to abandoning the ruined car and going it on foot or retracing her route in the hope that the police were looking for her further along the main road, not behind them. Steam began shooting from the front wheel well and beneath the hood, making her choice for her, and she pulled to the side of the road just as the engine shuddered and died.
Jet forced the door open and covered the ground between the car and a row of low utility buildings in a flash, but not before she saw three police cruisers turn off the main thoroughfare and head in her direction. She ducked behind one of the structures and took in her surroundings, her choices diminishing with each beat of her heart. Her best bet was to run across the grassy field while the buildings blocked the line of sight of the police vehicles and to try to jump the fence that ringed the airport – which would put her right back where she started, but hopefully far enough from the pursuit that the cops wouldn’t think to look for her there. It was a risky strategy, but the only one she saw that might work; so she squared her shoulders and then streaked through the tall grass, counting the seconds in her head as she ran.
The chain-link perimeter fence was farther than she’d thought, and the whoop of a siren from the road told her that she’d been spotted. When she hit the barrier, she scrambled up and over it, praying that the police carried shotguns in their squad cars rather than assault rifles that could easily and accurately cover the distance.
Her shirt caught on a loop of barbed wire at the top and she swore as it ripped the fabric and her skin, and then she was on the runway side of the fence, continuing her race against her pursuers. She reached the first large hangars and slowed, trying to remember the airport layout. She knew there was the old terminal on this end, as well as the central new one she’d just escaped from, and a hotel beyond it, but only a few roads leading off the grounds. Those would be closed with roadblocks, she was sure, if they weren’t already – which left her with the long-shot proposition of making her way around the airport and across miles of flat, plowed fields without being seen.
A blue and white passenger bus rolled by on the tarmac. Seized by an impulse, she sprinted after it and leapt onto its rear bumper, her fingers barely gripping the metal rim of the rear engine hatch for support. The bus rumbled toward the new terminal, the driver apparently unaware of the stowaway, and she dropped to the pavement as it slowed to make a turn toward the mirrored glass building.
“Hey. What are you doing out here?” a worker screamed at her over the sound of jet turbines whining at the gates. She waved at the ground crewman who’d called out to her and jogged along the building’s base, ignoring him. From what she knew of the motivation level of most of the locals, it would be days before he bothered doing much besides shrugging and returning to shirking.
She reached the corner of the building and calculated the distance over open ground she’d need to cover to get to the far end of the runway and then cut across. The control tower rose into the sky nearby, and from where she stood, she didn’t think anyone could see her from it.
That would be critical if she was to make it across the runways without being detected – which appeared to be her only viable choice. From this angle, the view from the road was blocked by the terminal, and the police were now on the road, hopefully leaving nobody watching the tarmac.
Her decision made, she bolted from the cover of the structure and ran toward the runway. She was nearly to the first strip when the sound of an approaching jet greeted her and an Airbus A320 touched down only meters from her position. Her hands flew to her ears as the deafening roar of the jets reversing assailed her, and then she was on the high-density concrete, crossing before any more arrivals threatened to flatten her.
She made it across the first runway, and her feet pounded the hard dirt between it and the second runway, the grass matted flat. She leapt over a storm drain and landed on the second strip, running as hard as she could, now committed to her course. Completely exposed on the runway, there was now no turning back, nowhere to hide, and she’d soon know whether her gambit had been successful.