Off to Middleton’s left, State Trooper George saw a uniformed police officer in trouble. Saw the cop fall. Panicked civilians ran between Trooper George and the gun battle. George glimpsed his target—tapped out two snap shots.

Missed!

Middleton saw a nearby black plastic chair shatter.

Instantly knew why, whirled. His eyes locked on a man wearing a blue uniform like the enemy’s. Middleton fired four slugs at that second uniform.

Connolly heard the whine of bullets, the roar of a gun.

As the fugitive Kohrman screamed, Connolly saw Trooper George. Flat on his back, a hole at the collar of the blue-uniformed shirt over his bulletproof vest. A red stream flowed from George’s neck. His eyes stared at the ceiling

Connolly lunged toward the fallen trooper, but Kohrman jerked her handcuffed left arm and she tipped back toward him.

“I wanted to make it big!” screamed Kohrman. “All right? I admit it! Just don’t shoot—”

“Shut up!” Connolly shouted as she broke his nose with the butt of her pistol.

Kohrman crumpled, dead weight she dragged to Trooper George bleeding on the floor. Dropped her gun, pressed her free right hand over the gushing hole in the trooper’s neck.

“You’re going to make it!” she screamed at the fallen officer.

But she knew that was a lie.

Can’t hear!

Middleton saw the second uniformed man who’d tried to shoot him crash to the floor. Middleton whirled his deaf attention to the nearby fake cop, who scrambled to his feet on the floor’s glittering debris and fled through an emergency exit door.

Get him before he gets me! Or my daughter!

Battling in a world of silence, Middleton saw men and women dive for cover behind waiting room chairs. He saw their muted screaming faces.

First-class husband slumped in a black plastic chair, his face contorted like a laughing clown, staring at the tiled floor where his buxom wife lay gasping for air.

Middleton’s eyes followed the husband’s focus.

Saw flecks of gold paint on the tiles.

Saw broken shards of red and green and white stones.

Saw glittering glass ground to dust.

Saw a fallen cell phone spinning to a stop amid the rainbow rubble.

Middleton scooped up the cell phone as he burst to the emergency exit, broke out to the night from a facility designed by Homeland Security to prevent people from storming into it and its planes, not to keep people from running away.

Swallowed by cool air, Middleton stood at the top of metal stairs leading to the vast fields of runways where jets taxied, landed, took off—all in terrible silence.

A baggage caravan rolled silently across the dark tarmac. No sign of the fake cop. Middleton suddenly realized he stood spotlighted by the door’s white light—a perfect target.

He ran down the stairs. Ran toward the glowing swoop of the main terminal.