Chapter 13 - THE TARMAC SHOWDOWN
Malachi didn’t take a step back. Instead, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small, ruggedized handheld radio tuned to the emergency aviation guard frequency—the exact frequency Commander Hayes had given him.
“This is Junior Captain Malachi Brooks,” his voice rang out, amplified across every control tower and ground radar receiver within a ten-mile radius of O’Hare. “We have an unauthorized aircraft attempting to flee Hangar 4 with stolen federal evidence pertaining to an ongoing murder and sabotage investigation. Requesting immediate security lockdown of all taxiways surrounding sector delta.”
The black sedan’s engine revved aggressively, the driver preparing to plow straight through the puddles toward them. Grace grabbed Malachi by the shoulder, yanking him behind a concrete drainage barrier just as the car’s front bumper smashed into the metal guardrail where they had been standing a second earlier.
Before the driver could reverse, the night sky erupted with the screaming sirens of a dozen O’Hare Airport Police cruisers and federal black-and-whites. Their blinding strobe lights painted the wet tarmac in flashing red and blue.
“Freeze! Federal agents! Drop your weapons!” a megaphone boomed from the lead cruiser.
The doors of the sedan flew open. Two corporate lawyers in soaked Italian suits threw their hands up over their heads, sliding to their knees as armed federal marshals swarmed them from all directions.
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Inside the idling Gulfstream jet thirty yards away, the pilot panicked, slamming the throttles forward. The private jet lurched violently, its wheels lifting off the wet grass before it had even cleared the perimeter fence, heading straight into the low-hanging storm clouds.
Malachi watched it climb, his jaw tight. He knew that plane carried the final digital master-key to American Skyline’s offshore accounts. And he knew only one person had the tactical training to talk a runaway jet down before it crossed Lake Michigan.
