Sam held out his badge and showed it to George. “Get us down there.”

The Skycap named George had his own idea. He asked me, “You want we should shut it all down? We can call, do that. One call and we can shut it all down.”

I had no idea what the consequences would be of shutting the automated baggage system down. Would it help Merritt get away, or would it make it easier for whoever was after her to catch her? Would the car she was in stop abruptly and throw her out of the bin she was in? I didn’t know.

I shook my head. “I don’t think we should do that. We don’t know what would happen. It might help the guy catch her. Where will she end up? The girl that went in the bin? If she stays in the tray, where will she go?”

A Skycap said, “That case she’s with was going to Dallas. Let me see, that’s gate B-35. If she stays in that tray, she’ll end up in the collecting station for oversize materials that’s on the west side of B Concourse.”

I said, “We have to go in after her, Sam.”

The Skycap said, “Can’t let you.”

Sam said, “Then look the other way.”

“Can’t.”

“You know who that girl is who that man is after? That’s Chaney’s sister. You know Chaney?”

“The sick girl? On the news?”

“Yeah. That’s her sister. She’s on her way to see Chaney in Washington and somebody’s trying to hurt her.”

George said, “Who are you?”

“I’m her uncle.”

George seemed to be pondering his options. He was bigger than Sam, but I was sure Sam could overpower him physically and force his way into the system. Unless Sam actually killed him, however, George would immediately pick up the phone and shut the system down.

George said, “Chaney, huh? B-35, Dallas? I’ll turn my back. You guys go down one at a time. I’m gonna deny this.”

“Wait. Sam, you go after him, the man who’s chasing Merritt. He’s in that part of the system with the suitcases. I’ll go after her, this way. This is where she went down.”

He nodded, said, “Go.”

I watched Sam climb onto the conveyor as I laid down in the bin. George punched some buttons on a nearby keypad and I felt a quick jerk as the tray slid into the elevator and fell rapidly about fifteen feet. When I came out of the shaft I was in a huge cavern of orange tracks mounted with dozens of individual tele-cars that were topped with beige plastic bins. The tele-cars zoomed above me and below me in a pattern that was befuddling. To my left, suitcases were being loaded automatically into the beige bins mounted on top of the tele-cars, and large arrays of laser scanners were reading the luggage tags and deciding where the tele-cars should go.

I saw Sam sitting Indian-style on a segmented conveyor, waiting his turn to be loaded into a beige bin on top of a tele-car. He was holding the luggage tag George had given him. George had already instructed the computer exactly where to send me and, with smooth acceleration, the big gray tray I was riding was loaded into a cradle that spanned across two of the tele-cars. With a rumble and a sudden swooosh, I figured I was on my way to join Merritt on Concourse B.

I flipped myself over to a prone position and looked back as Sam was being unceremoniously dumped into the awkward beige bin on top of a single tele-car. The bin was designed for a solitary suitcase and was way too small for Sam’s big body. He seemed to be trying to find a way to sit in the bin, but his balance was precarious. I lost sight of him as he laid back and the tele-car zoomed around a bend.

I’d seen all the news reports of the infamous baggage system on television and still found myself totally unprepared for the scale of the installation. It was immense. Tracks ran everywhere in this space that was the size of at least two high school gymnasiums. I thought to myself, This is one of six collecting stations?

As my double tele-car crossed toward the far corner, I scanned the huge room where we had started but couldn’t find any sign of Merritt or her pursuer. Or any workers. The system was totally automated; I couldn’t find a single technician monitoring the system’s progress.

Below me and behind me, Sam’s car was accelerating into the system. I heard him yell, “Oh, shit,” as his car migrated around a bend.

I laid back down and tried to clear my head. Who was after Merritt?

And why?

Denver International Airport is designed with one large central terminal and three separate concourses built in parallel at great distances from the main building and at great distances from each other. Our destination, Concourse B, was over half a mile away from the terminal and could only be reached by passengers via a subway system that runs in two wide tunnels beneath the tarmac.

That is, unless you happen to be impersonating luggage.

Parallel to the train tunnels are two service tunnels. These tunnels contain roadways for the electric carts that transport whatever baggage the automated system doesn’t. Above the roadways, suspended from the ceilings, are the tracks that shoot the baggage system tele-cars from the terminal to the concourses and back.

When Sam and I cleared the sorting area where we began our journey, we entered a cluttered interchange where our tele-cars slowed to merge with tele-cars carrying suitcases from the other sorting areas on the west side of the terminal. It was like entering a busy interstate at rush hour. I was about a dozen tele-cars ahead of Sam as we merged onto the main line.

Twice that far ahead of me was the man in the bomber jacket who was chasing Merritt.

He was looking forward, after Merritt. I couldn’t see her. I prayed that she was prone in her gray tray and that he couldn’t see her either. I was also hoping that George the Skycap had alerted Denver Police and that they would be waiting for Merritt whenever and wherever the system was planning on dumping her in Concourse B.

The man began to turn in his bin to check for pursuers. I dropped flat in my tray. Behind me, Sam didn’t have the same luxury; he couldn’t hide. He was overflowing the beige bin on his single tele-car like a soft-boiled egg in an egg cup.

And he was almost that vulnerable.

The man spotted him. Within seconds I knew my suspicions were correct. The man chasing Merritt did have a gun.

Shots echoed in the cement-walled chamber like an explosion in a pipe. Two blasts came from the direction of the man who was after Merritt.

One came quickly in return from Sam.

As the echoes died, the drones of the tele-cars on the tracks were the only sounds I heard.

The tracks made a sudden drop right then, going from straight and level to a thirty-degree decline, and the tele-cars picked up speed. The experience was not unlike an amusement park ride that was revving to terminal velocity. We were, I assumed, beginning our passage into the service tunnels on our way out toward the concourses. Without raising my head, I looked up behind me, silently counting the tele-cars that were appearing above and behind me on the sloping tracks.

I counted eighteen tele-cars before I stopped. I knew Sam was no longer riding in his beige bin.

My despair could have filled the terminal.

Twenty or thirty seconds later, I heard loud voices and my tele-car burst from below the terminal building. Looking down, I realized I was high above an intersection of roads. Below me were a cluster of electric carts and a group of about a dozen people on the tunnel roadway. In that instant, the tele-car I was riding crossed into the service tunnels, and I was now traveling on tracks that were suspended from the tunnel ceiling at least thirty feet above the cement roadway. I raised my head just enough to peek forward. The man in the bomber jacket was still in front of me. On a parallel track, tele-cars with empty bins zoomed past me in the opposite direction to return to the concourse to pick up fresh loads of luggage.