“The name’s not familiar. He isn’t transporting, is he?”
“Yes, he is.”
“What’s he doing on a commercial flight? They’ve got their own carriers.”
“This is an unusual situation according to Downing. He’s taking a prisoner back to Boston to stand trial and he’s in a hurry,” he explained. “Downing told me they got the boy cold for selling drugs and that it’s an open-and-shut case. The prisoner isn’t supposed to be violent. Downing thinks his lawyers will plea him out before the judge ever picks up his gavel. Like you, they preboarded. The marshal’s from Texas. You can hear it in his voice, and he seems like a real nice fella. You ought to go introduce yourself to him.”
Nick nodded. “Where are they seated?” he asked with a quick glance into the main cabin of the mammoth plane.
“You can’t see them from here. They’re on the left side, back row. Downing has the boy shackled and handcuffed. I’m telling you, Nick, his prisoner can’t be much older than my son, Andy, and he’s just fourteen. It’s a crying shame, someone that young is going to spend the rest of his life in prison.”
“Criminals are getting younger and dumber,” Nick remarked. “Thanks for telling me. I will go say hello. Is the plane packed today?”
“No,” Sorensky answered as he tucked the magazine into his pants pocket. “We’re only half full until we land at Logan. Then we’ll be packed.”
After insisting that if Nick needed anything he was to let him know, Sorensky went back to the cockpit, where a man wearing the navy blue uniform and identification of the airline’s ground crew was waiting with a clipboard full of curled papers. He followed the captain into the cockpit and closed the door behind him. Nick put his suit carrier in the overhead compartment, dropped his old, scarred, leather briefcase in his assigned seat, and then crossed over to the left side of the plane and started down the aisle toward the U.S. marshal. He was halfway there when he changed his mind. The other passengers were quickly filing on board now, and so he decided to wait until they were in the air and he’d gotten his legs back before introducing himself to Downing. He did get a good look at him though, and the prisoner too, before he turned around. Downing had one leg stretched out into the aisle, and Nick could see the fancy scrollwork on his cowboy boot. Tall and wiry, the marshal was all cowboy with his weathered complexion, his thick brown mustache, and his black leather vest. Nick couldn’t see his belt, but he would have bet a month’s salary that Downing was sporting a big silver buckle.
Captain Sorensky had been on the mark in his evaluation of the prisoner. At first glance he did look like a kid. But there was a hardness Nick had seen countless times in the past. This one had been around the block more than once and had most likely killed his conscience a long time ago. Yeah, they were getting younger and dumber these days, Nick thought. The prisoner had been cursed with bad judgment and god-awful genes. His face was scarred with acne, and his marble cold eyes were so close together he looked cross-eyed. Someone had done a real hatchet job on his hair, no doubt on purpose. There were spikes sticking up all over his head, kind of like the Statue of Liberty, but then maybe he wanted to look that way. What did it matter what kind of punk haircut he had? Where he was going he would still have plenty of friends waiting in line for a chance to get to him.
Nick went back to the front of the plane and got settled in his seat. He was in first class today, and though the seat was wider, it still felt cramped. His legs were too long to properly stretch out. After shoving his briefcase under the seat in front of him, he leaned back, clipped his seat belt together, and partially closed his eyes. It would have been nice if he could have at least tried to get comfortable, but that was out of the question because he knew that if he took his suit jacket off, he’d freak out the other passengers when they saw his holstered gun. They wouldn’t know it wasn’t loaded, and Nick wasn’t in the mood to calm anyone else down. Hell, he was hovering on the edge of a panic attack now, and he knew he’d stay that way until the plane had taken off. He’d be all right, sort of, anyway, until they began their descent into Logan Airport. Then the anxiety would start all over again. In his present, claustrophobic, neurotic state, he thought it was damned ironic that O’Leary wanted him to join the crisis management team.
Mind over matter, he told himself, and in a panic or not, he was determined to catch up on his paperwork while he was in the air. He’d already checked and knew that no one was going to be sitting in the window seat. Nick always took the aisle, even if it meant moving another passenger, so that he could see the face of every single person who came on board the plane. After takeoff he would be able to spread his folders out while he deciphered his notes and fed the information into his laptop.
Damn, he wished he weren’t such a control freak. Morganstern had told him he’d taught him relaxation techniques while he was on retreat with the other team members during their isolated training period, but Nick didn’t have any memory of anything that had happened during those two weeks, and he knew the others didn’t remember anything either. They had all agreed to Pete’s terms. He had sat them down, explained what he wanted to do, but not how, and then asked them to trust him. Nick had the most difficult time making up his mind because it meant he would have to give up his control. In the end, he finally agreed. Pete had warned them they wouldn’t remember, and he’d been right about that. None of them did.
Sometimes a scent or a sound would trigger a thought about the retreat and he’d tense in reaction, but just as suddenly as it came into his mind, it vanished. He knew he’d been in a forest somewhere in the United States—he had the scars to prove it. There was one the shape of a crescent moon on his left shoulder and a smaller scar directly above his right eye. He’d left the retreat with cuts and abrasions on his hands and legs, and God only knows how many mosquito bites to prove he’d been stomping through the wilderness. Did the other Apostles have scars? He didn’t know, and he could never seem to hold on to the question in his mind long enough to ask.
Once during a private meeting Pete had brought up the topic of the retreat and Nick had asked him if he’d been brainwashed. His boss had flinched at the word. “Good Lord, no,” he said. “I simply tried to teach you how to maximize what God gave you.”
In other words, Pete’s mind games trained them to hone their naturally acute instincts, to focus or, like the army slogan said, to be all they could be.
The plane was moving. They taxied to the end of the runway and then stopped. Nick assumed they were waiting for their turn to get in line with the other planes for takeoff—Cincinnati was a national hub and was always glutted with traffic—but fifteen minutes passed, and they still weren’t inching forward. When he leaned over the empty seat and looked out the window, he saw two planes taxiing at a hell of a fast clip in the opposite direction.
A young blond woman smiled at him from across the aisle and tried to engage him in conversation by asking him if he was a nervous flyer. His white-knuckle grip on the armrests had to have been a dead giveaway. He nodded in answer, then turned to look out the windowagain to discourage further chitchat. She wasn’t bad-looking, and the spandex skirt and top she wore proved, without a doubt, that she had a fine body, but he didn’t want to work at small talk, and he certainly wasn’t in the mood to flirt. He must be more tired than he’d thought. He was becoming more and more like Theo. These days his brother wasn’t in the mood for anything but work.
Nick spotted the fire truck and two police cars racing toward the plane at the same time that Captain Sorensky’s voice came over the intercom. It was strained with good cheer.
“Ladies and gentlemen, there will be a slight delay while we wait our turn for takeoff. We should be in the air soon, so sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the door to the cockpit opened and Sorensky, oozing confidence with his smile, stepped out into the galley. He hesitated for the barest of seconds, his gaze fully directed on Nick, and then started down the aisle. Following on his heels was the young, pasty-faced airline crewman. The man was tailing the captain so closely he looked like he was holding on to the back of his jacket.
Nick slowly unfastened his seat belt.
“Captain, shouldn’t you be flying this plane?” the leggy blond asked, smiling.
Sorensky didn’t look at the woman when he answered. “I just want to check something in back.”
The captain’s hands were fisted at his sides, but as he passed Nick’s seat, his right hand unfolded and he dropped the gun’s magazine into Nick’s lap.
In one fluid motion, Nick sprang out of his seat, grabbed theyoung crewman’s arm, and pinned it to the back of the headrest behind him. The element of surprise was on his side. The man didn’t even have time to blink before his gun was snatched out of his hand and he was facedown on the floor with Nick’s foot pressed against his neck. The magazine was back in the Sig Sauer and the gleaming barrel was pointed at the man before the captain had fully turned around.
It all happened so fast, the other passengers were too stunned to scream. Sorensky raised his hands and called out, “Everything’s okay, folks.” Turning to Nick, he said, “Man, do you move fast.”
“I’ve had some practice,” Nick replied as he reholstered his gun and then knelt down and began to go through the man’s pockets.
“He told me he’s the prisoner’s cousin, and he was going to get him off this plane.”
“Didn’t put a whole lot of thought into the plan, did he?” He flipped open the man’s wallet and read the name on his Kentucky driver’s license. “William Robert Hendricks.” Nudging the man he asked, “Your friends call you Billy Bob?”
In response Billy Bob started squirming like a fish in a canoe and screaming at the top of his lungs for a lawyer. Nick ignored him and asked the captain to see if Marshal Downing happened to have an extra pair of cuffs he could borrow.
As the initial moment of shock wore off, the passengers began to react. A murmur went through the crowd, and like a snowball, gathered momentum as it rolled down the aisle. Captain Sorensky, sensing the panic that was spreading, took control. In a voice as smooth as good whiskey, he called out, “Settle down, settle down. It’s all over now. Everyone sit back down and relax. As soon as this law officer takes care of this little matter, we’ll be on our way again. No one’s been hurt.” The captain then asked one of the attendants to please fetch Marshal Downing from the back row.
The marshal, with prisoner in tow, strode down the aisle and handed Nick a pair of handcuffs. After Nick had snapped the cuffs in place behind the prisoner’s back, he hauled him to his feet. He noticed that Marshal Downing was shaking his head and frowning.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Downing muttered in a slow Texas drawl.
“What does it mean?” Captain Sorensky asked.
“More damned paperwork.”
After stopping by his Boston office to drop off a couple of folders, tie up some loose ends, and take a little ribbing about the possibility that he had only squelched the hijacking to delay having to fly—everyone in the department seemed to think his fear of flying was hilarious—Nick finally headed home. Traffic was a bitch, but then it always was. He was tempted to head his ’84 Porsche toward the highway and open her up just to see how the reconditioned motor would manage but decided against it. He was too tired. Instead, he maneuvered her through the familiar side streets. She handled like a dream. What did he care if his sisters, Jordan and Sidney, had nicknamed her “Compensation,” implying that a man who drove such a sexy sports car was merely compensating for what was lacking in his love life.
He pulled into the basement garage of his brick town house, hit the remote control to close the door, and felt his entire body begin to relax. He was finally home. He climbed the steps to the main floor, dumped his Hartmann bag in the back hallway outside the laundry room door—his housekeeper, Rosie, had trained him well—and had his suit jacket and tie off before he reached the newly remodeled kitchen. He dropped his briefcase and his sunglasses on the shiny brown granite island, grabbed a beer from the Sub-Zero refrigerator that always made a weird sucking sound whenever he closed the door, and headed for his sanctuary, dodging the pyramid of unpacked boxes Rosie had stacked in the center of his living room with hostile notes Scotch taped to them.
The library was his favorite room in the house and the only one he’d bothered to furnish since he’d lived there. It was located in the back on the first floor. When he opened the door, the scent of lemon furniture polish, leather, and musty old books wafted about him, the scent not unpleasant. The room was large and spacious, yet still felt warm and cozy on harsh winter nights when a blizzard was raging outside his windows and there was a fire blazing in the hearth. The walls were a dark walnut that stretched twelve feet up to the ornately carved eighteenth-century moldings bracketing the ceiling. Two of the four walls bore shelves slightly bowed from the weight of the heavy texts. A ladder rolled back and forth along a brass pole across the bookcase so the volumes on the top shelves could be easily reached. His mahogany desk, a gift from his uncle, faced the fireplace, the mantel a clutter of photos his mother and his sisters had placed there after he’d moved in. Double French doors with a Palladian arch above them were straight ahead. When he pulled the draperies back and opened the doors to the walled garden with the old cherub fountain and paver-brick patio, that had been laid down God only knows how long ago, sunlight and scent filled the library. In the spring it was lilac first, then honeysuckle, but now the heavy smell of heliotrope was prominent.