All an Illusion

107.

My initial instinct is to panic. Over the many years of facing similar nerve-wrenching situations I have found that taking the rush of adrenaline and leaving the emotional exhaust behind, works best for me. I ask Drysdale for an update on their position as I quickly move towards the lead agent and show my credentials for unobstructed passage. 

“There was a momentary glitch that I attributed to all the TSA interference, I am still waiting on a signal re-boot, should be up…..in.....” he says and I interrupt his verbal pause to indicate he is waiting for the signal to return so he can provide a real-time positioning fix on the pair, but his tactic echos of failure, “…..something is up, I’m not getting anything. Stand by.”

As I listen to his sitrep and clench my teeth, I move to the Southwest Gate and scan the passengers now queued up in the unique Southwest boarding protocol. No one fits the bill. I U-turn and move with increased urgency past the TSA station to the Alaska Gate where boarding has yet to begin. There is the usual shuffling amid the carousel of business travelers in a terse and boring game of musical chairs. I move towards a Starbucks kiosk and set up surveillance next to the condiments cart. 

They are nowhere to be found. I ask Drysdale if the GPS signal has been restored. He replies in the negative. 

Moving from calm and committed towards frustrated and frantic, I continue the hurried scan of travers wondering if that million-to-one long-shot somehow magically came up. I rush back to the TSA gate and ask the lead officer if they have video surveillance of the area. Yes, he replies but it is upstairs and I will have to see his boss in order to access it. 

I take three steps in the direction of the stairs when I hear a familiar sound. It is the muffled bang of aluminum against concrete. I recognize it as, perhaps, a twenty foot industrial grade ladder falling the final few feet from toting level to a smooth polished, concrete floor. As I pinpoint the location of the sound, I finally notice the floor to ceiling mural spanning the entire length of the far wall featuring a montage of famous Vegas entertainers; Cirque du Soleil, Elvis, The Blue Man Group. I see a door open as Siegfried and Roy leer in my direction. A construction worker in a yellow hard hat emerges from a hidden, disguised and camouflaged double-door. I almost scream ‘of course, this is Vegas, nothing is real, it is all an illusion,’ and elbow my way through the line of waiting travelers towards the mysterious portal.

I open and enter. A security golf cart pulls up and the driver asks me if I am lost, saying this is a construction area and off-limits to unauthorized personnel. 

I reach for my ID as I scan the area for exits. 

“Did two people, a guy and a girl, come through here in the last ten minutes?” I ask the guard.

He pauses, looks at my ID, and considers his options. I know this scenario, his worried look. He has been paid and doesn’t want to lose his source of windfall tax-free hush money. 

I bend to inspect his name tag as he is closing my ID, ready to hand it back.

“Officer Jenkins, you are now officially an accomplice to a crime, I need you to answer my question, unless you want a long, lonely vacation at the High Desert Inn.”

He points sheepishly to a door on the opposite side of the construction area, what looks like four hundred yards away.  

I grab my ID and run, leaping a half-dozen five-gallon pails of stacked industrial adhesive in the first ten yards.