The Libra Affair (8 page)

She freed herself and turned toward the door. Ever so slightly, she pushed on the door until she could see into the aisle. The handle on the bathroom door across from them still said Occupied. She released the tension on the door and faced Ben. “He's over there,” she mouthed.

Ben nodded playfully. “Okay,” he whispered. “I'm scared.”

“Look,” she said sternly. “I'm just five rows up from here, on the left,” and she took his hand from her waist and pointed it in the correct direction so he understood. She didn't want him guessing which way was left — coming or going — not at a time like this.

“Okay,” he said.

“Ben, listen to me, it's the aisle seat. A couple of elderly sisters are sitting next to me. They don't speak English so don't engage them. You'll offend them if you do. They won't be accustomed to speaking with men, especially Westerners. You get me?”

“Oh, sure,” he replied.

“Ben, I'm serious. You're in hostile territory. You don't want to make any kind of stink. It's too easy to get arrested in this country.”

“I'm cool.”

She gave him a hard look. “Seriously. I mean it.”

“Okay, I get it. There's only one woman I'm interested in talking to.” And on a lighter note, he asked, “So tell me, what's the deal with the dress?”

“We'll talk about that later.”

He winked at her.

“You know,” she said, “if you weren't so cute, I never would have gone out with you.”

“I am kind of cute.” He reached for her waist.

“Cute and a whole lot of something else.” She paused to listen. “Okay, it's time to move. You go first this time. Make it quick. Oh, and you don't know me. Are we clear?”

“Your husband's not on this flight, is he?” He grinned with a lopsided smile.

She socked his shoulder.

“Ouch, woman,” he rubbed his arm, “you sure can hang a left.”

“Just play along and I'll make real good on that little promise, okay? Now get up.”

Jordan cracked open the door. The coast was clear. She hopped back and stood on the commode. “Go.” She nudged him forward.

As soon as Ben started down the aisle, the door to the bathroom across the aisle slowly slid open. The man Jordan saw earlier stood in the opening, he was watching to see where Ben would stop.

She detailed the stranger up and down: Iranian, undercover agent, packing. His jugular pulsed hard and rapidly, his eyes narrowed, his jaw tightened, and as soon as the man ran a hand across the weapon in his jacket, that was enough to set her in action. She had to stop him.

She glanced in both directions. Still clear.

She lifted her dress, jerked open the door, sprang out of the stall, and planted a foot in the man's groin.

The man fell backwards exactly as anticipated, landing on the open commode. Before he lifted his head, Jordan powered in, took him by the neck, and made the break. He was dead before she said goodbye. Hopping back into the aisle, she released the door. It started to slide shut. Only it didn't close all the way. A foot hung out the door.

Ben looked back as he reached his chair.

Reacting instantaneously, Jordan stepped over the foot to conceal it with length of her dress.

He gave her a sly smile as though playing along with some phony-baloney game. In return, she produced a slight wave and waited for him to take his seat. Then she shoved the dead man's foot back inside the stall, hopped inside the room with the body, and began patting down the man's clothes. She found his weapon first, checked the safety and the ammo, and secured it underneath her dress next to her own weapon. Next, she located his wallet and took the cash. Feeling quickly, she found his passport and identification badge in another pocket.

Every instinct was right on; he was hostile secret service. She found his phone and quickly scrolled through the incoming calls. She was set. Shoving his leg to the side, she stuffed the man's wallet along with his ID, badge, and cell phone between his legs and into the commode, then flushed.

Back in the aisle, she pushed up a sleeve and checked her wristwatch. The flight wasn't due to arrive in Tehran until a little over four hours from now. She glanced over her shoulder and back toward the hostess area. The attendants were nowhere in sight.

As she passed Ben's seat, he elbowed her to get her attention. “You get him?” He mouthed the words silently while grinning up at her.

She winked at him and gave him a nod. If he wanted to think this was a game, so be it. The less he knew the better.

Not a minute later, she slid into the seat in first-class. Twenty minutes later, the captain turned off the Fasten Seatbelt sign. Thirty minutes and counting, an attendant raced toward the front of the plane, calling for a doctor.

When the woman next to her fell asleep, Jordan rose from her seat and opened the overhead compartment. After locating Ben's papers, she slipped his wallet and papers inside the sleeve of her dress and headed toward the first-class bathroom. With a travel-sized tool kit, she went to work to create Ben's new identity with one of her alias passports. Ben, who would thank her later, was about to find himself the newest citizen of Russia. Before leaving the stall, she gathered the scraps and flushed the debris down the can.

Back at her seat, she knew it'd only be a matter of time before the Iranian authorities figured out their man was down. And until their forensic pathologist got a look at him, they wouldn't know the cause of death. By then, she would be long gone, and Ben, she fervently hoped, would be flying home.

Looking back toward coach, Jordan saw the back of the plane was walled off from passengers with one attendant standing guard, which meant the body had been discovered and moved. The other attendant was busy taking roll call, which meant it was time to pay Ben another visit before the woman got to him. As Jordan approached his seat, she saw that he'd dozed off. The woman in the middle seat was sleeping, too, but the one next to the window was awake and looking out the window. Stopping next to him, she adjusted her watch and when no one was looking, she slipped the new passport and visa inside his top shirt pocket and then nudged him. “Ben,” she said quietly.

“Ben.” She nudged him again. When he blinked, trying to wake himself up, she said to him, “Your passport and visa are in your pocket,” then she nodded toward the pocket.

“Oh, thanks,” he said in a groggy voice, not fully opening his eyes.

“They're checking identification,” she told him.

He said, “Okay,” with the word rattling off his tongue like shredded paper, but he also shook his head as if understanding her meaning and then closed his eyes again.

Before heading back to her seat, she tapped his pocket and said to him, “Just go with it.” She knew he heard her because he nodded again. “I'll bring your duffel bag back later. Go back to sleep.”

• • •

Back inside her airline office — the bathroom — Jordan punched in a series of numbers on her cell phone to contact her boss Snake. When he answered, she immediately said, “Scales are off balance.” It was code for, “There's a problem.”

“That's a horoscope you'll have to read on your own,” he replied. “This shop has closed for business. We are no longer taking calls.”

She knew what that meant: no one was going to lift a hand to help her or anyone else. She was off the grid and on her own. Under normal circumstances, she would never have made the call, but after she caught sight of the Iranian agent trailing Ben, she had to give Snake a heads-up.

Before he disconnected the call, she quickly said in a code he'd understand, “Look, someone dropped a Mars in my solar system, but I death-kicked the planet out of orbit.”

“I'm not surprised,” Snake said, which meant he knew about Knox and the can of worms he'd opened. “But again, I'm sorry, there'll be no more readings, we're closing the business.”

“And one more thing, I've got a coattail obscuring my sun sign, goes by the name of Kominski,” she said, referring to Ben's new Russian identity.

“If he's a Cancer, there's no cure.” Eliminate the liability.

“Wait — ” But it was too late; Snake disconnected the call.

• • •

“ID?” the flight attendant said to Ben, who'd woken up just seconds before.

He felt his chest, found the passport, and handed it to her.

The attendant stood, scanning her list for his name. Perplexed, she looked back and forth between Ben and the passport. “I don't seem to have your name on the passenger list,” she said.

He waited, figuring it had something to do with his seat being given away and then getting another one at the last minute. He also had some vague recollection of what Jordan had said to him about
going with it
.

The woman held the passport to his face. “But this is clearly you.” She showed him the document and asked, “This is you, isn't it?”

He glanced at his photo as he yawned, it was all a blur, but he nodded to her all the same. “Is it a problem?” he asked causally.

“No, I guess not.”

“Probably some typo,” he suggested without going into any detail about the seat change.

“Yes, perhaps,” she agreed, then returned the passport to him.

Ben stuffed it back inside his pocket and closed his eyes.

• • •

Once the crew completed the passenger check, Jordan reopened the compartment above her seat and retrieved Ben's duffel bag. With it in hand, she headed to the back of the plane, not missing the area sectioned off beyond the bathrooms. This stinking agent had put a wrinkle in her plans — breaking Ben's arm to send him packing back home wasn't going to work. It'd only tag him to the dead guy. There'd been one too many injuries on board this flight and she didn't want to raise any more suspicions. All she could do now was hope Ben got past security with his new passport. Once he made it into Iran, she'd have more time to figure out how to get him back home.

When the flight attendant passed her, Jordan asked the woman, “Is there a problem?”

“Minor accident,” she replied and kept moving toward the front of the plane.

Ben was still asleep when she placed his duffel in the compartment above his seat.

When the plane landed, Jordan shot off the aircraft without waiting for Ben.

The airport terminal was an elaborate but simple construction of glass windows and walls with two-story pillars reminiscent of a traditional Iranian palace. It was easy to be drawn into its beauty and embrace the Persia of yesteryear. But there, waiting to greet the arriving passengers were soldiers armed with automatics — a stark reminder that the citizens of Iran were now living under strict rule.

Without incident and ahead of the crowd, Jordan managed her way through customs. From a close but concealed distance, she watched for Ben. When she spied him from across the room, she saw in his demeanor that he was confused and vigilantly searching for her, but she couldn't afford to be seen with him, not if a problem arose …

• • •

As Ben stepped inside the airport terminal, he felt the perspiration roll down his cheeks and along his sideburns. Confused and angry, he examined the passport again to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. He wasn't.

Who in God's name was Gustav Kominski?

He felt his heart bang against his chest wall. Why had Jordan done this to him? Why set him up like this?

He looked back toward the plane. It was too late to go back.

There was nothing else to do, but try to get through customs like everyone else. They'd never know he wasn't Russian. Then he'd find Jordan and give her a piece of his mind; she couldn't have gone far.

• • •

Watching from her vantage point, Jordan saw that it was Ben's turn next.

When he stepped forward, the customs officer must have presumed Ben was a westerner because he spoke to him in English, saying, “Passport.” Ben reached inside his shirt pocket and produced the document.

The officer studied the document. “What's the purpose of your visit?” he asked Ben, who was still anxiously scouting for Jordan.

“Pleasure,” Ben answered, looking back at the officer.

“How long are you staying?”

“I haven't decided.”

“Where are you going?”

“Tehran first.”

“Then?”

“I'm not sure.”

“What are you doing in this country, Mr. Kominski?”

“Sightseeing.”

The officer examined the passport again. Then he spoke to Ben in Russian.

“I'm sorry, I don't speak Russian,” Ben said.

“But you speak with an American accent?”

“Yes.”

“You're not Russian?”

“I have a dual citizenship. My mother was Russian,” he lied, but not very convincingly. Why had Jordan done this to him?

“So you live in America?” The officer stared at him.

“Yes,” Ben admitted.

The officer examined the passport again. “Is this a joke?” he asked humorlessly.

“No.”

“I'm sorry, but you'll have to come with me. We have a few more questions for you, Mr. Kominski.”

“For what reason?” Ben drew back.

“No talking,” the officer ordered in a sharp voice.

“But there's some mistake,” Ben insisted.

The customs officer called for assistance. An armed soldier immediately came running.

“You're making a mistake,” he said.

The soldier raised his weapon and pointed it at Ben.

“Let me explain.” Ben gestured with his hands to make a point.

“Silence,” the soldier returned.

“But this is a big mistake.”

“Move.” The soldier waved his weapon.

“Please,” Ben urged, frantically searching the room.