"Who, Dan?

"No, Danny called in about twenty-five minutes ago. Little Pete was looking for you."

I felt cold, frigid, as if the wall had disappeared and the storm had come inside, inside my body. "What- what did he say?"

"Danny? He said not to use the radios, that Little Pete has one, whatever the hell that means." The desk unit cackled with the angry voice of another captain. Kevin reached for the microphone to respond. Before he could, the captain spewed out a stream of expletives that would have made Dan blush. This time I did grab the microphone, told the captain to can it, then turned the radio off. Kevin stared at me, aghast.

"What did Little Pete say about me?"

"He said that he knew you were on the field and that he wanted to discuss his grievance with you. A few grievances, I think he said. And what do you think you're doing turning that radio down?"

I tried to stay calm by using the perspiration glinting off his high forehead as a focal point. "This is not going to make any sense, Kevin, but I need you to do something for me and it has to be right now and I don't have time for questions. Just listen."

His eyes drifted over to the now silent radio. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"Get your phone book out. I need you to make some calls for me."

"Dan Fallacaro from Alex Shanahan, do you read me?" The ready room was abandoned, just as the locker room had been. A desktop radio in the crew chiefs' office was on, blasting my calls, feeding back the heavy strain that was turning my voice hoarse. I knew Little Pete might be listening, but I needed to know how Dan knew that Little Pete had a radio.

"Dan, please respond. Over."

"This is McTavish to Shanahan. Do you read?"

"John McTavish? Is that you?" I suddenly felt a little better. John's solid presence had that effect on me, and I hoped that he was close by. "Where are you?"

"I just came up from Freight and I'm down at Gate Forty-five with my crew." I could barely hear him over the wind. "We're trying to get this 'ten out of here. What the hell is going on?"

"Have you seen Dan?"

"He's-"

The whine of an engine drowned him out completely.

"Say again, John. I didn't hear you."

"My brother saw Danny heading toward the bag room."

"Inbound or outbound?"

"Outbound, I think. Terry says he was in a hurry. You want me to find him for you?"

I stood at the window looking out and trying to decide. "John, I need you to find Angelo."

I waited and got back nothing but static.

"Do you copy, John?"

"What about this airplane?"

"Forget about it. Take your crew and when you find him, don't let him out of your sight. Do you understand?"

"If that's what you want. McTavish out."

I went back through the locker room and swapped my lightweight jacket for a company-issued winter coat. Bulky and long, it enveloped me in the pungent odor of the owner's exertion. I put my cell phone and my beeper into the pockets, and my radio, too. I wasn't going to be able to hear it anyway. Then I zipped up, found the nearest door, and stepped outside.

All I could do for the first few seconds was huddle facing the building with my back to the wind. The cold went right through all my layers. I might as well have been standing there in a bathing suit. When I turned into the wind, a brutal blast blew my hood back, and I was sure that my hair had frozen in that instant. But I couldn't feel a thing because even though I was wearing gloves, my fingers were already numb. I could barely make them work to pull the hood back up, and then I had to keep one hand out to hold it in place. My eyes were watering. Ground equipment was everywhere. Vehicles were parked as if each driver had screeched to a halt and leapt out. Some of the bag carts sprouted wings when the wind lifted their plastic curtains out and up. It wouldn't have been surprising to see one of them take off.

I followed the most direct path to the bag room straight across the ramp and past the commuter gate, the same gate that Dan and I had seen on the videotape. When was that? I'd lost all sense of time. Another Beechcraft was parked there, and I wondered why no one had taxied it to a more sheltered spot. We'd be lucky if it was still in one piece tomorrow.

What was normally a two-minute walk seemed to take forever as I put my head down and trudged into wind. I stopped now and then to look around for Dan and to make sure I was still alone out there. Someone could have been right behind me and I wouldn't have heard him.

Stepping into the outbound bag room and out of the shrieking wind brought relative calm and deep silence. I stood inside the doorway, searching for my radio and trying to get some feeling back.

"Kevin, come in. Kevin Corrigan, come in please." It was hard to talk with frozen lips.

Bags were everywhere-on the piers, on the floor around the piers, and at the ends where they'd dumped off into huge, uneven piles that clogged the driveway all the way to the ramp-side wall. The bag belt had apparently run for a while before someone had figured out the crew had abandoned ship.

"This is Kevin. Go ahead."

"Do you have an update?"

"Partial."

"Call me on my cell phone."

"Roger."

It took seconds for him to call. "The troopers are busy," he said.

"Busy?"

"Everyone's occupied at the moment by an aircraft excursion."

"Whose?"

"TWA had one slide off the runway, so there's a bunch of them down there. Apparently the roads coming in and out of this place are a nightmare, so all the rest of them are on traffic control."

"Traffic control? Did you tell them what's going on?"

"I told them, but it's a pretty wild story, you have to admit."

I pushed a clump of half-frozen hair out of my eyes and would have gone to Plan B if I'd had one. I'd been counting on help from the troopers.

"They said they'd respond as soon as they could break a unit away. I'll keep calling them."

"What about Big Pete?"

"His wife doesn't know where he is, but she says he's got a beeper. She doesn't have the number, but Victor does, if you can believe that. I'm waiting for Vic to call me back."

"You haven't heard from anyone, have you?"

"Does Lenny count? He's upstairs hyperventilating. He sounds like he's going to have a heart attack."

"Good. Nothing from Dan?"

"No, but Johnny Mac called for you. Did you hear?"

"What did he say?"

"He talked to Terry and he says you should go to the other bag room-inbound."

"Goddammit." I was in the wrong bag room. I hung up, put up my hood, and went back out into the storm.

The door to the inbound bag room was a heavy steel slab, but it might as well have been balsa wood the way it whipsawed back and forth in the storm. I found the brick doorstop and used it. I wasn't sure that it would hold, but it was dark in there and dim light from the ramp was better than no light at all.

The heavy air trapped within the four concrete walls had smelled of plaster and paint and turpentine when I'd met Big Pete there. As I stepped through the doorway and around the drop cloth, the same one that had blocked my way last night, I couldn't smell anything. Hoping not to go any farther, I cleared away the anxiety that had lumped in my throat and called out, "Dan?"

The only response was the swishing of the tarps as the wind pushed in through the open door behind me.

To turn on the lights I had to find the fuse box, the one Big Pete had showed me. I wasn't sure I could remember where it was. I was sure that it was farther in than I wanted to go. I called again for Dan and listened. Nothing.

Damn.

I pushed the hood off my head-the better to sense someone coming at me from the side-then took a few edgy steps. I tried to feel left and right with my hands, but my fingers were numb from the cold. I used my palms to guide me, brushing them along the heavy drop cloths as I moved, trying to visualize the narrow corridor that they made. I could almost feel the darkness thickening around me as I moved deeper into the silence.