Kelly and I exchanged glances. ‘That’s OK, baby, that’s OK.’ My voice dropped again. ‘We’re on a bit of a mercy mission.’
I looked down at Kelly and back at the woman, my face pained. ‘Her grandmother’s . . .’ I let it hang, as if the rest of the sentence would be too terrible for a little girl’s ears.
‘I’ll see what I can do, sir.’
She was hitting the keys of her PC at such a speed it looked as if she was bluffing. I put the passport on top of the counter. She looked up and smiled. ‘No problem, Mr Sandborn.’
‘That’s marvellous.’ But I still wanted to keep the conversation going. ‘I wondered, would it be possible for us to use one of your lounges? It’s just that, after my chemotherapy, I tire very easily. We’ve been rushing around today and I don’t feel too well. I only have to knock myself and I cut.’
She looked at my scabs and pale complexion and understood. There was a pause, then she said, ‘My mother went through chemo for cancer of the liver. The therapy worked, after all that pain she came through.’
I thanked her for her concern and message of support.
Now just get me into the lounge, out of the fucking way!
‘Let me find out.’ Smiling at Kelly, she picked up the phone and spoke. After several seconds of weird airline vocabulary she looked at me and nodded. ‘That’s fine, sir. We share facilities with United. I’ll fill out an invitation.’
I thanked her and she reached for the passport. I hoped that, by now, she knew me so well it was just a formality. She flicked it open and I turned away and talked to Kelly, telling her how exciting it was going to be, flying to see Grandma.
I heard, ‘You’ll be boarding at about five thirty.’ I looked up, all smiles.
‘Go to Gate C. A shuttle will take you to the lounge. You both have a pleasant flight!’
‘Thank you so much. Come on, then, Louise, we’ve got a plane to catch!’ I let Kelly walk on a few steps, then turned back to the woman and said, ‘I just hope Grandma can wait for us.’ She nodded knowingly.
All I wanted to do now was get airside. First hurdle was security. Kelly went through first and I followed. No alarms. I had to open up the laptop and switch it on to prove it worked, but I’d been expecting that. All the Flavius documents were now in a file entitled Games.
We went straight to Gate C, walked through and into the shuttle bus. There was a five-minute wait while the bus filled up, then the doors closed, the hydraulics lowered and we drove about half a mile across the tarmac to the Departures lounge proper.
The area was plush and busy. I heard a lot of British accents, mixed in with snatches of German and French. Kelly and I headed for the United lounge, via a detour to the pick-and-mix stall.
We sat quietly with a large cappuccino and a Coke. Unfortunately the down time just gave me time to think about whether I’d made any mistakes.
A security man walked into the reception and talked to the people on the desk. My heart beat faster. We were so close to the aircraft on the other side of the glass that I felt I could reach out and touch them. I could almost smell the aviation fuel.
I told myself to calm down. If they’d wanted us, they would have found us by now. But, in truth, so many things could still go wrong that one of them almost certainly would. I was still sweating good-style. My head was glistening. And I didn’t know if it was the capsules or my flapping, but I was starting to feel weak.
‘Nick? Am I Louise all day today or just for now?’
I pretended to think about it. ‘The whole day. You’re Louise Sandborn all day.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they won’t let us go to England unless we use another name.’
I got a smiling, thoughtful nod.
I said, ‘Do you want to know something else?’
‘What’s that?’
‘If I call you Louise, you have to call me Daddy. But just for today.’
I wasn’t sure what kind of reaction to expect, but she just shrugged, ‘Whatever.’ Maybe that was what she wanted now.
The next 3 hours were grim, but at least we were out of the way. If I’d had any heart problems I would probably have died, the blood was coursing through me so fast and hard. I could hear it pumping in my ears.
I kept saying to myself, You’re here now, there’s nothing you can do about it; accept it. Just get on that fucking aircraft!
I looked at Kelly. ‘You all right, Louise?’
‘Yeah, I’m all right, Daddy.’ She had a big smile now. I just hoped she kept it.
I watched the receptionist move to the microphone. She announced our flight and told us she had really enjoyed having us stay in the lounge.
There were about a dozen others who stood up and started to sort themselves out, folding papers and zipping up bags.
I got to my feet and stretched. ‘Louise?’
‘Yep?’
‘Let’s go to England!’
We walked towards the gate, father and daughter, hand in hand, talking garbage. My theory went: if I talked with her, they wouldn’t talk to us.
Four or five people were ahead of us in the queue; like us, families with young children. Passports were being checked by a young Latino; he had an ID card on a chain around his neck, but we were too far away yet for me to make out what it said. Was he airline security or airport security?
Two uniformed security men came up and stood behind him, talking to each other. It was the kind of chat that looked so casual it probably wasn’t. I used my sleeve to mop sweat from the side of my face.
Both the uniformed men were armed. The black guy cracked a joke as the white guy laughed and looked around. Kelly and I shuffled forward.
I held her beside me, the protective parent anxious in a crowd. The laptop was over my shoulder. Kelly held a teddy under each arm.
We moved three steps forward; another wait, then it was our turn with the Latino.
I wanted to make it all very easy for him. Smiling, I handed him the boarding pass and the passport. I was convinced the uniformed guys were looking at me. I went into boxer mode: everything was focused on the Latino; everything else was in the distance, muffled, distorted, peripheral. A bead of sweat fell down my cheek and I knew he’d noticed it. I knew he could see my chest heaving up and down.
Kelly was just behind and to the right of me. I looked at her and smiled.
‘Sir?’
I silently exhaled in preparation and looked back at him.
‘Just the passport, sir.’ He handed me back the boarding pass. I grinned, the inexperienced dickhead traveller.
He flicked through the pages of the passport, stopping at Sandborn’s photograph. He glanced at me, then back at the passport.
I’m in the shit
.
I let him see I was reading his thoughts. ‘Male menopause,’ I grinned, rubbing my hand over what was left of my hair. My scalp was drenched. ‘The Bruce Willis look!’
The fucker didn’t laugh. He was making up his mind. Eventually he closed the passport and tapped it in his hand. ‘Have a pleasant flight, sir.’
I went to give him a nod, but he was already paying attention to the people behind me.
We moved two paces towards the girls from Virgin and handed them our boarding passes. The two security men didn’t budge.
We started to walk onto the airbridge and I felt as if I’d been trying to run through waist-high water and was suddenly on the shoreline.
The Latino still worried me. I thought about him all the way onto the aircraft. It was only when I’d found our seats, put the bag and laptop in the overhead locker, settled down and picked up the in-flight magazine, that I took a deep breath and let it out very very slowly; it wasn’t a sigh of relief, I was boosting the oxygen levels in my blood. No, the fucker wasn’t happy. His suspicions had been aroused, but he hadn’t asked any questions, hadn’t even asked my name. We might be on the shoreline, but it was far from being dry land.
The aircraft was still filling up. I kept taking deep breaths to try to control my pulse rate.
Officials were moving in and out of the aircraft with manifests. Every time it happened I was expecting to see the two security guys in tow. There was only one entrance, only one exit. There was nowhere to run. As I worked through the scenarios in my mind I just had to accept the fact that the die was cast. I was a passenger now and, for a fleeting second, I had the same feeling that I’d always had on any aircraft, military or civilian – I was in the hands of others and powerless to decide my own destiny, and I hated it.
Still people were filing on. I nearly burst out in nervous laughter as the speakers played Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’. I looked at Kelly and winked. She thought it was great, sitting there trying to strap in her teddies.
One of the male flight attendants came down our aisle, still wearing his Virgin suit, not yet in shirtsleeve order. He came down as far as our row of seats and stopped. Judging by his line of sight he seemed to be checking our seat belts. It was too early for that, surely? I nodded and smiled. He turned back and disappeared into the galley.
I watched the entrance, expecting the worst. One of the female flight attendants poked her head out and looked directly at me. Kelly’s teddies were suddenly very interesting.
I could feel tingling in my feet. My stomach tightened. I looked up again. She’d gone.
The male attendant came out again, carrying a bin liner. He approached us, stopped and squatted down in the aisle next to Kelly. He said, ‘Hiya!’
‘Hello!’
He put his hand into the bin liner and I waited for him to bring out the .45. Good ploy, letting me think he’s a member of the crew doing something for the kid.
He pulled out a little nylon daysack. Splattered all over the back was the Virgin logo and the words ‘Kids With Altitude’. ‘We forgot to give you one of these,’ he said. I nearly hugged him.
‘Thank you very much!’ I grinned like an asylum inmate, my eyes 100 per cent larger through the lenses of Fiona’s glasses. ‘Thank you so much!’
He did his best not to look at me, as if I was indeed some sort of weirdo, then offered us a drink before take-off. I was gagging for a beer, but I might have to start performing the other side and, anyway, I just wanted to get my head down. We had an orange juice each instead.
Sharing the in-flight guide with her, I said, ‘What film are you going to watch, Louise?’
‘
Clueless
,’ she grinned.
‘Whatever,’ I said.
Twenty minutes later, right on schedule, the aircraft finally lifted off from the runway. Suddenly I didn’t mind being in a pilot’s hands after all.
36
We went through all the nonsense of the introduction by the captain, how wonderful it was to have us on board and when we were going to be fed. My body heat was slowly starting to dry out my sweat-drenched shirt. Even my socks had been wet. I looked over at Kelly. She had a sad face on. I shoved her with my arm. ‘You OK?’
‘I suppose. It’s just I’ll miss Melissa and I didn’t even tell her that I’m going to England.’
I knew how to get out of this type of thing now. ‘Well, all you have to do is think of good things about Melissa and that will make you feel happy.’ I was waiting for her reply. I knew the sort of thing it was going to be.
‘What do you think about to make you happy, about your best friend David?’
Easy; I was prepared. ‘Well, nearly twelve years ago, we were working together and he was rebuilding his house and needed a new wooden floor.’
She was enjoying this, stories at bedtime. She certainly looked as if she would go to sleep soon, cuddling up to me. I carried on telling her how we’d both nicked a squash-court floor from one of the HQ Security Forces bases while in Northern Ireland with the Det. We were there at three o’clock in the morning with spades, hammers and chisels. We put the boards in a van and brought them over to the mainland. After all, HM Government spent all that time and money training us to break in and steal things. Why not use it for ourselves? The next three days had been spent laying the hallway and kitchen of the house near Brecon with his nice new flooring.
I grinned down at her for a reaction, but she was already sound asleep.
I started to watch the video but knew I was going to fall asleep any minute – so long as the capsules wore off and I could stop my mind going back to the same question over and over again.
There was an unholy alliance between PIRA and corrupt elements of the DEA, of that there was no doubt – and it very much looked as though Kev’s boss was at the centre of it. Kev had found out about the corruption, but not who was involved. He wanted to talk to somebody about it. So was it his boss that he’d unwittingly phoned for an opinion on the day I arrived in Washington? Very unlikely, because Kev would have included him on his list of suspects. Much more probable was that he’d spoken to someone unconnected with the DEA, someone who would have known what he was talking about and whose opinion he would have valued. Could it have been Luther? He knew Kev; would Kev have trusted him? Who knows? Whoever he called, he was dead within an hour of putting down the phone.