Chapter 8 - The Runway at Waukegan
The rain had turned into a steady, freezing downpour by the time the black Escalade turned onto the tarmac access road of Waukegan Regional Airport.
The airfield was quiet, flanked by dark hangars and fuel reservoirs. A twin-engine Beechcraft King Air sat on the taxiway, its twin propellers already spinning with a high-pitched turbine whine that chewed through the wet night air.
Dustin stepped out of the SUV, clutching his broken ribs with his good hand, his eyes darting frantically across the empty asphalt. The driver, an oversized private guard with a shaved head and an earpiece, hauled two leather duffels from the back.
"Hurry up," Dustin barked through the rain. "The tower gave us clearance for takeoff in six minutes!"
"Nobody is taking off," a voice said from the shadow of the hangar wing.
Dustin froze. His breath hitched in his throat as the headlights of the Beechcraft swept across the concrete, illuminating me.
I was standing twenty feet away, rain dripping from the brim of my waxed canvas jacket. Behind me, parked diagonally across the taxiway to block the aircraft's path, was my F-150, its hazard lights pulsing an amber warning into the mist.
"You..." Dustin stammered, stepping behind his armed guard. "How did you find me? Shoot him! Bennett, shoot this lunatic!"
The guard named Bennett reached under his jacket, his hand closing around the grip of a Glock 17.
He didn't get the chance to clear the leather.
From the darkness beside the hangar, a sound like a heavy whip cracked through the rain. A high-voltage taser probe struck Bennett directly in the center of his chest, discharging fifty thousand volts of incapacitating current through his wet jacket.
Bennett locked up like a stone statue and collapsed flat onto the tarmac with a wet thud.
Behind him stepped Detective Kowalski, holding a department-issued tactical taser, his badge hanging from a chain around his neck. Beside him were four state troopers with carbines at the low ready.
Dustin stared at the police, his face draining of whatever color was left. "Kowalski! What are you doing? My uncle pays your salary! Arrest this old man! He broke my ribs!"
Kowalski walked forward through the rain, his boots splashing through puddles, his face set in disgusted stone.
"Your uncle doesn't own this state, Dustin," Kowalski said. "And as of twenty minutes ago, he doesn't even own his house."
A state trooper stepped behind Dustin, kicked his heels apart, and forced his uninjured arm behind his back. The steel cuffs clicked shut with a sharp, final snap.
"Dustin Vance," the trooper announced over the scream of the plane's engines. "You are under arrest for attempted murder, felony domestic battery, witness tampering, and federal interstate flight to avoid prosecution."
Dustin looked at me through the rain, his eyes wide with a pathetic, childlike terror. "Marcus... tell them... tell them she fell down the stairs... please... you can't let them send me to state prison... they'll kill me in there!"
I walked up to him, stopping inches from his face. The smell of cheap cologne and sour fear rolled off him in waves.
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"You should've thought about that," I whispered, "before you put your hands on my little girl."
I turned my back on him as the troopers dragged him toward the waiting cruiser. His cries were swallowed by the roar of the idling airplane, small, meaningless, and finally silenced.