‘We need some good strong coffee before we pick up the car,’ he remarked, turning to Kate walking wearily beside him.
She forced a half smile. ‘At least a gallon for me.’
They saw the green NOTHING TO DECLARE sign to their right and headed for it. Passing the first manned desk, they approached the second and last and were about to turn into the arrivals lounge
when they heard a voice.
‘Sir, madam.’
They did not think it was a call to them at first and kept walking.
‘Sir, madam.’ This time much louder.
They turned in unison and manoeuvred the trolley over to the desk. Behind it stood two customs officers, a tall thin man with steel-rimmed glasses and a stocky woman whose blue officer’s
blouse was a size too small.
‘We have nothing to declare,’ Lou said.
The female customs officer ignored him. ‘Could you place your bags on the counter, please.’
Lou leaned down and laid the metal box and the two suitcases next to each other on the counter.
‘Names please,’ the male officer asked.
‘Dr Lou Bates.’
‘Dr Kate Wetherall.’
The two officers turned their attention to the metal equipment case, trying the latch.
Lou looked at Kate, who was staring at the male officer.
‘You have the key?’ he said.
‘It’s scientific equipment,’ Kate began. ‘We are researchers, just returned from a project in the Pacific.’
‘Could you open it, please, sir?’ the woman asked Lou.
He shrugged and pulled a key from his jacket pocket, leaned across and opened the lid of the metal box. Inside lay a powerful microscope, a smaller box of samples, a collection of metal lab
utensils and a small spectroscopic analyser.
The female officer shuffled along behind the counter and she and her colleague picked up the smaller box.
‘Please be careful, those are delicate samples,’ Kate said and glanced at Lou.
The male officer poked at the box. ‘What sort of samples?’
‘From a shipwreck.’
‘A shipwreck?’
Lou picked up his briefcase. ‘We have a licence to bring samples into the country. Here . . .’ He reached into his bag and withdrew a folder of papers.
‘These will have to be checked,’ the woman said not looking up from the contents of the metal box. Between them she and her colleague shifted the box to a table alongside the
counter. She turned to Kate and Lou’s suitcases and unzipped the nearest one.
Kate and Lou stood still, silently watching every move the customs officers made. They rummaged through the cases with experienced movements, lifting piles of clothes, feeling around the edges
of the cases, flipping open the toiletry bags.
A third officer appeared to their left, leading a Labrador on a tight leash. He walked over to the counter and the dog pulled up to sniff around the bags. The handler then took the dog over to
the table and the Labrador nosed around the instruments and boxes in the metal case, before falling back on all fours and looking up at his master. The two officers at the counter nodded to the
third man and he walked off with the dog in tow.
The female officer shut the cases and started to zip them up, Kate and Lou finished the job and Lou was about to lift them off the counter and back onto the trolley when the tall thin man said:
‘Could we take a look at your hand luggage please?’
Kate placed her shoulder bag and a small camera bag on the counter. Lou lifted his briefcase from where it had been resting at his feet.
The customs officers emptied out the contents of Kate’s bag. A container of make-up, a pen, a purse and a mess of receipts and gum packets spread across the counter. The woman shuffled
through the collection and placed each item back into the bag. Next she turned her attention to the camera bag, pulled out a top-end Nikon, felt around inside the bag and then returned the
camera.
The male officer pulled Lou’s briefcase along the shiny metal surface of the counter. ‘Key please, Dr Bates.’ Lou pulled a key from his pocket and handed it over.
The man removed the items from the case. A laptop, a file of papers, a copy of
New Scientist
and the padded envelope containing the cylinder from Amelia Earhart’s plane. He went
straight for the envelope and felt the shape of the object inside.
‘What’s this?’
‘It is connected with our work,’ Lou began. ‘A sample we removed from a wreck.’
The officer held his gaze. ‘Could you open it please, Dr Bates?’
‘Sure.’ He peeled back the flap of the envelope and removed the cylinder swathed in bubble wrap.
‘Keep going.’
Lou glanced at Kate. She shrugged and Lou pulled back the wrapping, then laid it on the counter with the cylinder resting in the middle.
The officer went to pick it up.
‘Please,’ Lou said a little louder and more aggressively than he had intended, ‘it’s a delicate item. We are taking it to our lab for analysis.’ The two officers
gave him a dark look.
The man lifted it with exaggerated care. Lou exhaled loudly.
The officer turned it around end to end and looked closely at its corroded metal skin.
‘What is it?’ the woman asked.
‘I’m afraid that is confidential,’ Kate replied.
‘Could you open it please?’ The man held it out to Lou.
‘No!’ Kate exclaimed. ‘Now this has gone far enough. We have done nothing wrong. You have seen our licence and other documentation. We are on a perfectly legal and legitimate
expedition. This is a delicate and precious—’
‘Dr Wetherall.’
‘I insist—’
‘You are not in a position to insist upon anything,’ the male customs officer snapped and glared at Kate. He turned back to Lou. ‘Dr Bates, could you open it please?’
‘Definitely not,’ Lou answered. ‘It is an artefact from our studies. If I open it, any contents will crumble to nothing.’
The man looked a little taken aback by that. He glanced at his colleague. ‘Please wait here, I will have to consult my superior.’ He walked away from them quickly.
Lou spotted a sign over a door that said CUSTOMS INTERVIEW ROOMS 1–4, and marched over to it, pushing it open.
Finding himself in a small side room, he saw a woman behind a counter and paced over to it, slapping both hands down. ‘What is all this about?’ Lou hissed, leaning forward.
‘Could you please remove your hands from the counter, sir,’ the woman said.
Lou looked down at his hands then back up at the woman. ‘This is outrageous. What is all this about?’
‘Unless you remove your hands from the counter I will be forced to place you in custody.’
Kate came up behind Lou and tapped him on the shoulder. He straightened with a heavy sigh, and they went back to their luggage.
A door opened and the customs officer entered. Following him was another, older man, and two paces behind them strode an armed guard, machine gun at his waist. The two men walked round behind
the counter, the guard stood a few feet to their right eyeing Lou and Kate.
‘My name is Mr Manor,’ the older man said. ‘I am the most senior officer here. I’m afraid we will have to confiscate all your luggage, your briefcases and personal items,
including this.’ He nodded towards the cylinder resting in the bubble wrap.
‘What!’ Kate exploded. ‘What possible reason . . .?’
‘Dr Wetherall, Dr Bates, please, we are required to inspect these items. They will be properly cared for, and if they do not transgress regulations, after we have finished with them, they
will be returned to you. You will be placed in custody until our investigations have reached a satisfactory conclusion.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ Lou said, his face flushed. ‘We are not carrying anything illegal. We have permits and licences. Check the damn paperwork, man.’
‘We will, Dr Bates. In the meantime we have to take the precaution of confiscating your luggage so that it may undergo close analysis.’
Lou lost it and made a grab for the cylinder. The female customs officer was closest to him and looked startled. Kate emitted a small scream. The armed guard stepped forward, lifted the gun and
pointed it at Lou.
‘Sir,’ he yelped. ‘Step away and raise your hands.’
Lou did not react.
The guard took another step forward. ‘Step away and raise your hands.’ They could all hear the guard prime the gun.
‘Lou!’ Kate screamed.
He stepped back and raised his hands.
Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC. 25 March 1937.
It was a rare occasion for Amelia Earhart . . . she was wearing a cocktail dress.
‘Gosh, I feel so damned awkward in this thing,’ she remarked, accepting a glass of champagne from her husband, George Putnam, who stood at the doorway beside a man holding a tray of
drinks.
‘Feel happier in the old leather jacket and pants, Amelia?’
‘Sure would.’ She surveyed the crowded main hall of the Smithsonian Castle building on the National Mall. ‘I don’t know more than one per cent of these people,’ she
added in a low voice.
‘The great and the good, darling. And if the truth be told, ninety-nine per cent of them are not worth knowing!’
Amelia laughed and shook her head. ‘You are pure evil, Georgie.’
They stepped into the room and heads turned as applause grew. Amelia smiled and felt George squeeze her hand. The band in the far corner struck up with ‘Dixie’. George let go of her
hand and walked over to a small group of men. Amelia turned to see the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, looking stately in a grey silk dress, her brown hair in two whirls at her temples. She was
smiling at her and clapping decorously.
‘Well you do scrub up nicely, my dear,’ she said.
‘I feel ridiculous!’ Amelia kissed her old friend on the cheek and the two women hugged.
‘It’s a splendid turn-out.’
Earhart nodded and took a sip of champagne as she cast her eyes around the gathering. She leaned in to Eleanor’s ear. ‘I just hope they’re all in a generous mood.’
A tall man in a dinner jacket approached and gave a slight bow to the two women. ‘We are ready when you are, Mrs Roosevelt.’
Amelia took a deep breath. ‘Well, time and tide and all that.’ She gave Eleanor Roosevelt a nervous look.
‘Between us we’ll knock ’em dead.’ The First Lady squeezed Amelia’s elbow.
Eleanor led the way across the room, parting the throng as she went. The band was still playing, a more modern tune now; Amelia recognized it, one of her current favourites, Benny
Goodman’s ‘Stompin’ at the Savoy’. The gathered wealthy of Washington and New York seemed relaxed, lubricated with free-flowing champagne.
The two women reached a podium at one end of the room and the music faded to nothing. Amelia could hear the hubbub of conversation dwindle to silence. She stood to one side of a wooden lectern
and the First Lady walked calmly up to the microphone; it squeaked as she approached. Pausing, she surveyed the hundreds of faces: politicians, business moguls and patrons of the arts and sciences
accompanied by their bejewelled wives.
‘Ladies and gentlemen.’ She had a rather frail, high-pitched voice, but years of experience as the wife of the 32nd president had imbued her with confidence. ‘It was with
enormous pleasure that I accepted the invitation to be here this evening, in this magnificent setting; and it too is an honour to introduce to you one of the greatest women alive today. This lady
is not only a cherished friend of mine and my husband’s, but as you will all know, she is one of this country’s most respected ambassadors, renowned throughout the world for her
pioneering achievements as an aviator, a woman dedicated to pushing back the boundaries of what is possible. To me, it seems unimaginable that anyone could climb into a machine and fly across
oceans and continents, but my friend here does it before breakfast. She needs no further introduction. I give you Amelia Earhart.’
Eleanor Roosevelt stepped down as Amelia took the podium to warm applause.
‘Well, my goodness!’ she began and turned to the First Lady seated at the side of the dais. ‘Was that really me you were describing?’
A warm ripple of laughter passed through the gathering and Amelia took a deep breath.
‘The reason I’m here tonight is to tell you all about the flight I hope to begin in just a few months from now, in June. And, I must confess, I’m also here to pass around the
begging bowl.’
Another peal of gentle laughter and Amelia gazed around, found her husband George a few rows back and focused on him as she started to speak again.
‘You would have all heard of the unfortunate circumstances of my first attempt to circumnavigate the globe, and ending up in Hawaii.’ She produced a good-natured laugh and pulled a
face. ‘That was galling to say the least!’ She put a hand on her hip and produced a self-disparaging grimace which solicited another laugh from the crowd.
‘But we have regrouped and reworked things and we plan to give it another go starting on June 1st.’
Two men in overalls shuffled behind Amelia manoeuvring into place an easel holding a five-foot-square map of the world. Across it stretched a zigzagging red line.
‘The journey is scheduled to begin in Oakland,’ Amelia explained and tapped the map with a wooden pointer handed to her by one of the men. ‘This time we intend to travel west
to east, the opposite way to our last attempt. From Oakland, we fly south-east to Miami and then on to Natal in Brazil.’ She moved the pointer. ‘From there we cross the Atlantic to
Dakar, Senegal in West Africa; across Africa, on to Karachi and Calcutta, then Singapore and south to Darwin, Australia. We then take on the Pacific, perhaps the most arduous stage of the journey.
We take a break in Hawaii and hope to fly from there to Oakland.’
The audience was hushed. The ladies looked stunned; some of the men wore sceptical expressions.
‘Twenty-nine thousand miles in all,’ Amelia went on. ‘Quite a trek!’ She glanced at the rapt faces. ‘Now, I would like to introduce to you my navigator on this
voyage, Mr Fred Noonan.’
A tall, elegantly dressed man in his mid-forties with slicked-back dark-brown hair started to walk through the applauding crowd to the podium. Looking rather serious, he reached the lectern and
pecked Amelia on the cheek. Turning to the audience, he wore a slender smile. ‘Thank you.’