Root (29 page)

“
Wait! Where are you doing? It’s not
this exit, it’s the next.” We sat behind a line of cars leading up
to a toll booth.

“
The guys … they want me to run this
errand … first.”

“
An errand? What the fuck? Can’t it
wait? We’re almost at the airport.”

“
Don’t worry, we got plenty of time.
Your flight don’t leave for four hours yet. That right?”

“
What kind … of errand?”

“
Uh … they just want me to drop
something off … you know … while I’m down here.”

Tonio was a horrible actor. His idea of
nonchalance was to stiffen every muscle of his body and avoid eye
contact. And yet he kept glancing my way. And the more nervous he
got, the more nervous he made me.

Something was wrong. What possible errand
could they want him to run? And why wait to tell him until after
we’ve been driving four and a half hours? We were only a couple
miles from the airport. It made absolutely no sense.

I had this vision of Tonio turning into an
abandoned parking lot and there’d be this grey Escalade waiting for
us.

The line crept forward. We were one car away
from paying the toll.

“
Tonio, drop me off here. I can
walk.”

“
No man. I can take you. Just let me
do this one errand.”

“
No. That’s okay. I’m gonna
walk.

Tonio slipped a hand into his hoodie and
pulled out a gun. His hands were shaking. “I can’t let you do that.
Sorry man.”

But I didn’t hesitate. I snatched the plastic
sack holding my last possessions and was out that door in a flash,
tearing through a fringe of trees and onto a grassy sward, heading
for an office park tucked among the highway
cloverleaves.

Chapter 25:
Dulles

I ran down the embankment to a parking lot
surrounding a huge office park. Angular, glass-sheathed buildings
sprouted from the sea of pavement like alien crystals. Three steps
across, I hesitated—the architecture too stark to feel like a
refuge.

And then I heard this little engine rev up to
a shrill whine. Tonio’s car bolted free from the toll booths like a
sprung colt.

I had often complained about movie scenes
where someone is fleeing from bad guys in a car down the center
stripe of some, probably just because the director thought it
looked cool. Well, it’s just plain stupid and enough to make me
lose all sympathy with the characters (not to mention, dragging me
out of the story—wink wink).

So I didn’t run across that lot. I doubled
back into the trees where Tonio couldn’t reach me with his car. I
ducked down behind a patch of blackberries as his car came whipping
into the lot, weaving back and forth, creeping down each row of
parking spaces, hunting for me.

But I couldn’t stay put so close to the scene
of my escape. The toll booth was just the other side of a long row
of pines. So I followed some power lines deeper into the woods,
skirting the edge of a bulldozed area where they were putting in
more parking lots and office parks.

All in all, I had made out well. I had a
ticket to Rome and a good fifteen hundred bucks in cash stuffed in
my pockets. With more time and patience, I could have done even
better, but if the deal had taken any longer to set up, those
Cleveland guys would have nabbed me in Pittsburgh.

It shocked me how quickly they had homed in on
Chinstrap and Soul Patch. Apparently their network had its fingers
in every pie. I felt sorry for those two. I hoped nothing horrible
happened to them. Maybe the bad experience would steer them out of
the drug trade, or … lead to better business opportunities.
Whatever.

As bad as I felt, I obviously had no intention
of giving the money back or making it easy for Tonio to find me. I
plunged deep into the woods, crossing muddy sloughs and fighting my
way through patches of brambles that ripped at my
clothes.

When the woods ran out, I found myself on the
edge of a series of cornfields separated by windbreaks—narrow
strips of oaks and junipers. The corn was only chest high, so I
used the windbreaks to screen my traverse, keeping to the side away
from the main road. There was a long drive leading to a farmhouse
behind me, but I could spot any cars coming that way before they
spotted me.

Planes came howling down one after the other,
each about two minutes apart, locking their landing gear right over
my head. It heartened me to see how close I was to the airport,
only a couple miles north of a major runway. Hard to believe I
would be sitting on one of those planes only a few hours from
now.

The windbreak led me to a stone wall running
along a larger road with some light but steady traffic. No way
around it, I was going to have to expose myself and cross. But for
now, I rested in a patch of spongy moss, sitting with my back
against a fallen tree.

I turned my head and was struck by how the
fields behind me caught the slanting light of the setting sun. It
would have looked amazing in a painting or postcard.

Experiencing beauty in such moments confused
me. When I was depressed, walking down a beach surrounded by all
these golden dunes, feathery clouds and glittery waves—it just
didn’t seem fair. The world had no right to flaunt its prettiness
at me like that. Why couldn’t my surroundings match my
moods?

I turned my attention to the residential
complex across the road, planning my next move. They were condo and
townhouses mostly, pretty upscale for being directly beneath the
landing pattern of a major airport. The buildings were densely
packed but nicely landscaped, with patches of grass to walk your
dog in and plantings of dogwood and oleander, all of it nestled in
this pocket of woodland.

I went over the wall, waited for a gap in the
traffic and darted across. I worried this move would bring an
Escalade full of gangsters with Uzis after my ass, but nothing
happened. The traffic just kept whizzing by.

I entered the complex, which seemed eerily
quiet for a weekday afternoon. No kids anywhere. No toys in the
yard or even playgrounds. I trained my eyes on a couple of
suspicious cars lurking in the visitor’s spaces, but they weren’t
even occupied.

Twilight fell. Street lights flickered on. I
tried to make it look as if I belonged here, swinging my shredded
CVS bag as if I had just taken a stroll to the corner drugstore and
was headed back home for an evening of sitcoms and cop
shows.

I could see the forest looming on the far side
of the complex—the last obstacle between here and the airport. It
would be no fun stumbling around those woods in the dark, but what
choice did I have? At least there was no way I could get lost with
that endless train of jet planes coming down to point the
way.

I snaked my way through a curvy grid of
streets, heading for the far corner. One street over, there was a
guy standing under a street lamp, talking on a phone.

Checkered shirt! It was Tonio! That sucker
didn’t give up easily.

I turned the corner and sprinted into this
recreation complex. I jogged past a bank of windows—a zoo of people
on treadmills, plugged into white ear phones, gazing through the
glass with unseeing eyes.

Behind the gym, there was a chain link fence
with a locked gate leading to a dirt road that undulated through
the piney woods, narrowing as it rose, disappearing into the
shadows beneath a tangle of branches. I slipped through the gate
and into the dark.

***

I lost the trail almost immediately and had to
plow my way through some thick underbrush and slog through a swamp,
but the lights of the planes and runway markers kept me pointed the
right way. I eventually blundered back onto the road, which was
barely wide enough for a single jeep to pass. From the well-worn
grooves, patrols of some sort seemed to come through
regularly.

After a half hour of splashing through puddles
and tripping over rocks, the trail finally met the perimeter of the
runway. A twenty foot fence topped with razor wire bounded a
no-man’s-land of closely mown scrub. Far down the other end, the
glowing tower and terminals of Dulles beckoned.

The jeep trail dumped me out onto a commercial
vehicle access road lined with hangars and warehouses. I paused a
moment to catch my breath before continuing onward.

I hadn’t gone a hundred feet before a security
van with lights flashing came careening off the main terminal road,
stopping with its high beams in my face. I froze like a
jack-lighted deer.

One of the cops stepped out, arms loose at his
side. “Lost?”

“
Just trying to get to the airport.
My ride broke down at the toll booth one exit back. I decided to
walk. I’ve got a flight at eleven.”

“
You walked all the way from exit
eight?”

“
Um … yeah.” It was exit seven,
actually—the one before. But he didn’t have to know that. My story
was weird enough already.

“
Put down that bag and step
away.”

“
I … I have a boarding pass,” I
said.

“
Show me.”

I pulled out the card and held it high. He
clicked his flashlight on and directed the beam at it.

“
Bring it here.”

I slogged over, muddy water squishing out
through the lace holes of my sneakers.

His partner got out from the other side of the
van and came up behind me, poking around the stuff in my
bag.

“
Ethiopian? Really?” he said,
squinting at the boarding card.

“
Hey, it was cheap.”

“
Why are you going to
Rome?”

“
To meet a … friend.”

“
Just random junk in here,” said the
other cop, poking through my bag.

The first cop eased his posture. “Jeez, kid …
what are you doing crashing through the woods in the dark? Why
couldn’t you just call a cab?”

“
I don’t know. Saw all those planes
coming in, thought the airport would be closer than it
was.”

“
You have no idea how dangerous it
is to be pulling stuff like that post 9/11.”

I shrugged. “Sorry. I thought it would be
obvious that I’m not any terrorist.”

The officer clucked his tongue. “Look at you,
all filthy and sopping wet. Hop in. We’ll give you a
lift.”

Now he sounded like Dad.

***

The rent-a-cops took me back to their
headquarters, which was tucked away down an alley behind the main
terminal. There, they fingerprinted me, snapped my picture and
photocopied my passport and ticket.

“
You gonna book me?”

“
What for?” said the cop who brought
me in. “I mean … we could … for trespassing. But nah, this is just
precautionary.”

“
Thanks,” I said.

“
Take a cab next time.
Okay?”

I couldn’t be more thrilled about this turn of
events. What more could I ask for than an armed escort straight
into the terminal? Whoever might be watching the main entrances
would have never seen me enter.

I was hoping this would count as a security
screening and they would send me directly to the gates, but when I
went through their little side door, I found myself in the
ticketing area. I guess even they couldn’t supersede the mighty
TSA.

I checked the departures screen to make sure I
was in the right terminal. My flight would be leaving from the H
gates, whose planes apparently had no direct connection to a
concourse. I would have to ride this bus-like contraption to get
out to the actual plane. No biggie.

I took my place at the end a very long line at
the security checkpoint. I tried to blend in as best as I could,
but people gave me lots of space in that line. It was no wonder. I
smelled of swamp water and rotting vegetation. I kept picking bits
of leaf and twig off my clothes. I pitied whoever had to sit next
to me on the plane.

I got a little excited when I realized that
once I got past the scanners, there was nothing anybody could do to
me. It was a safety zone. You couldn’t even smuggle toothpaste past
these guys.

The line moved so slowly. I was going to have
to take off my shoes and run them through the scanner. That was
gonna be embarrassing. My socks were completely waterlogged and
stinking of mud.

This guy strolled past the line, looking
everybody in the face. He looked to be in his thirties, wearing a
sports coat over a tight T-shirt. There was a cocky, angry element
to his body language that disturbed me.

A minute later, he came back the other way.
This time he was on his cell phone. I tried not to look at him
directly. Hopefully, he was just an air marshal or undercover cop
of some sort.

The line inched forward. There were still
about ten to fifteen people in front of me. Scads of hand luggage
crowded the belt. A young couple wrestled with a baby stroller that
refused to fold.

Someone bumped me hard from behind.

“
Hey! Watch it.”