There was a buzzing noise, and the gates swung slowly open. Stone parked the car, and they walked to the front door and rang the bell. A moment later a Hispanic woman came to the door.
“Yes?”
“I have a warrant for the arrest of Trini Rodriguez,” Holly said.
“There’s nobody here,” the woman replied.
“How about the guest house?”
“No, I just cleaned it. The three men staying there went to the airport.”
“How long ago?” Holly asked.
“Maybe ten, fifteen minutes.”
“How do I get to the airport?”
“You go back to Tano Road, then turn right at the intersection, then right again on the four-lane highway. That takes you straight there.”
They ran for the car and sped back toward Tano Road, then found the divided highway. Stone was shortly doing a hundred miles an hour.
Holly sat grimly in the passenger seat, clutching her warrant. “I wish we had a siren,” she said.
“I don’t think this thing would go any faster if we had a siren.”
They followed the signs to the airport, left the car, and ran into the Santa Fe Jet Center, straight through the building and out onto the ramp. The jet they had followed from Teterboro was taxiing away, and Holly started to run after it.
“No, no!” Stone yelled after her, and she stopped. “He’s going to be doing twenty or thirty miles an hour on the ground.” He pointed at the tower. “That’s where we need to go.”
They ran the short distance to the main terminal building and up the stairway to the control tower. At the top they found a locked door and an intercom. Stone rang the bell.
“Yes?”
“This is the police. We have to stop an airplane from taking off.”
The door buzzed open, and the single occupant of the tower stood up. “Let’s see some ID,” he said.
Stone and Holly flashed their badges. “It’s the jet that’s taxiing now,” Stone said. He ran to the window and pointed. The jet was just taxiing onto the runway.
“I just got their IFR release and cleared them for takeoff.”
Stone grabbed a microphone and called the airplane.
“Yes, tower?”
“This is the police. We have a warrant for one of your passengers, Rodriguez. Enter a left downwind for two zero and return to the airport.”
“Stand by, Santa Fe.” There was half a minute’s silence, then the pilot came back. “Sorry, Santa Fe, the FBI has given me orders to continue my flight. Good day.”
“Shit!” Stone said.
“What can we do?” Holly asked.
The tower controller spoke up. “I can call Albuquerque Center on a land line. That’s their handoff controller.”
“It wouldn’t do any good,” Stone said. “They’d get the same answer we did.”
“So we’re screwed?” Holly asked.