"And what about hostages? Is it likely they will let all of them go, based on your experience?"
"I don't know about all of them," he said, staring out the window, his face grim in soft side lights.
"Lord," I said, "if they try to get the fuel out, we could have a national disaster on our hands. And I don't see how they think they can pull this off. Those assemblies probably weigh several tons each and are so radioactive they could cause instant death if you got close. And how will they get them away from Old Point?"
"The plant's surrounded by water for purposes of cooling the reactors. And nearby, on the James, we're watching a barge we believe belongs to them."
I remembered Marino telling me of barges delivering large crates to the New Zionist compound, and I said, "Can we take it?"
"No. We can't take barges, submarines, nothing right now. Not until we can get those hostages out." He sipped coffee, and the horizon was turning a pale gold.
"Then the best-case scenario is they will take what they want and leave without killing anybody else," I supposed, although I did not think this could happen.
"No. The best-case scenario is we stop them there." He looked at me. "We don't want a barge full of highly radioactive material on Virginia's rivers or out at sea. What are we going to do, threaten to sink it? Besides, my guess is they'll take hostages with them." He paused. "Eventually, they'll shoot them all."
I could not help but imagine those poor people now as fright shocked every nerve cell every moment they breathed. I knew about the physical and mental manifestations of fear, and the images were searing and I seethed inside. I felt a wave of hatred for these men who called themselves the New Zionists, and I clenched my fists.
Wesley looked down at my white knuckles on the armrests, and thought I was afraid of flying. "It's only a few more minutes," he said. "We're starting our descent."
We landed at Kennedy, and a shuttle waited for us on the tarmac. It was driven by two more fit men in suits, and I did not ask Wesley about them because I already knew.
One of them walked us inside the terminal to British Airways, which had been kind enough to cooperate with the Bureau, or maybe it was the Pentagon, by making two seats available on their next Concorde flight to London. At the counter, we discreetly showed our credentials and said we had not packed guns. The agent assigned to keep us safe walked with us to the lounge, and when I looked for him next, he was perusing stacks of foreign newspapers.
Wesley and I found seats before expansive windows looking out over the tarmac where the supersonic plane waited like a giant white heron being fed fuel through a thick hose attached to its side. The Concorde looked more like a rocket than any commercial craft I had seen, and it appeared that most of its passengers were no longer capable of being impressed by it or much of anything. They served themselves pastries and fruit, and some were already mixing Bloody Marys and mimosas.
Wesley and I talked little and constantly scanned the crowd as we held up newspapers like every other proverbial spy or fugitive on the run. I could tell that Middle Easterners, in particular, caught his eye, while I was more wary of people who looked like us, for I remembered Joel Hand that day I had faced him in court and had found him attractive and genteel. If he sat next to me right now and I did not know him, I would have thought he belonged in this lounge more than we.
"How are you doing?" Wesley lowered his paper.
"I don't know." I was agitated. "So tell me. Are we alone or is your friend still here?"
His eyes smiled.
"I don't see what's amusing about this."
"So you thought the Secret Service might be nearby. Or undercover agents."
"I see. I guess that man in the suit who walked us here is special services for British Airways."
"Let me answer your question this way. If we're not alone, Kay, I'm not going to tell you."
We looked at each other a moment longer, and we had never traveled abroad together, and now did not seem like a good time to start. He was wearing a blue suit so dark it was almost black and his usual white shirt and conservative tie. I had dressed with similar somber deliberation, and both of us had our -lasses on. I thought we looked like partners in a law firm, and as I noticed other women in the room I was reminded that what I did not look like was anybody's wife.
Paper rustled as he folded the London Times and glanced at his watch. "I think that's us," he said, getting up as Flight 2 was called again.
The Concorde held a hundred people in two cabins with two seats on either side of the aisle. The decor was muted gray carpet and leather, with spaceship windows too small to gaze out. Flight attendants were British and typically polite, and if they knew we were the two passengers from the FBI, Navy, or God knows, the CIA, they did not indicate so in any way. Their only concern seemed to be what we wanted to drink, and I ordered whiskey.
"It's a little early, isn't it?" Wesley said.
"Not in London it's not," I told him. "It's five hours later there."
"Thank you. I'll set my watch," he dryly said as if he'd never been anywhere in his life. "I guess I'll have a beer," he told the attendant.
"There, now that we're on the proper time zone, it's easier to drink," I said, and I could not keep the bite out of my voice.
He turned to me and met my eyes. "You sound angry."
"That's why you're a profiler, because you can figure out things like that."
He subtly looked around us, but we were behind the bulkhead with no one across the aisle, and I almost did not care who was at our rear.
"Can we talk reasonably?" he quietly asked.
"It's hard to be reasonable, Benton, when you always want to talk after the fact."
"I'm not sure I understand what you mean. I think there's a transition missing somewhere."
I was about to give him one. "Everyone knew about your separation except me," I said. "Lucy told me because she heard about it from other agents. I would just like to be included in our relationship for once."
"Christ, I wish you wouldn't get so upset."
"Not half as much as I do."
"I didn't tell you because I didn't want to be influenced by you," he said.
We were talking in low voices, leaning forward and together so that our shoulders were touching. Despite the grave circumstances, I was aware of his every move and how it felt against me. I smelled his wool jacket and the cologne he liked to wear.
"Any decision about my marriage can't include you," he went on as drinks arrived. "I know you must understand that."
My body wasn't used to whiskey at this hour, and the effect of it was quick and strong. I instantly began to relax, and shut my eyes during the roar of takeoff as the jet leaned back and throbbed, thundering up through the air. From then on, the world below became nothing but a vague horizon, if I could see anything out the window at all. The noise of engines remained loud, making it necessary for us to continue sitting very close to each other as we intensely talked on.
"I know how I feel about you," Wesley was saying. "I have known that for a long time."
"You have no right," I said. "You have never had a right.
"And what about you? Did you have a right to do what you did, Kay? Or was I the only one in the room?"
"At least I'm not married or even with anyone," I said.
"But no, I shouldn't have."
He was still drinking beer and neither of us was interested in canapes and caviar that I suspected would prove the first running of a long gourmet game. For a while we fell silent, flipping through magazines and professional journals while almost everyone else inside our cabin did the same. I noticed that people on the Concorde did not talk to each other much, and I decided that being rich and famous or royal must be rather boring.