“I have a flight to catch,” I said.
He led me to a small, harshly lit, glassed-in room. “Sit here, please.”
“Where’s my briefcase?” I said.
He asked for my ticket and boarding pass. He wanted to know what my final destination was, and why I was flying to California and back in one day.
Ah. Maybe it was the one-day trip to California that had aroused suspicion in their pea brains. Or the fact that I’d booked the flight the night before. Something like that.
“Am I on some kind of no-fly list?” I said.
The TSA man didn’t answer.
“Did you pack your bags yourself?” the man asked, not exactly answering my question.
“No, my valet did. Yes, of course I did.”
“Was your suitcase out of your possession at any time?”
“My overnight bag? What do you mean, out of my possession? Here at the airport, this morning? At any time?”
“At any time.”
“I keep it in my office. I travel a lot. Sometimes I leave my office to go home. What’s the problem? Was there something in it?”
He didn’t answer. I looked at my watch. “I’m going to miss my flight,” I said. “Where’s my cell phone?”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” the TSA man said. “You’re not going to be on that flight.”
I wondered how often this man got to really bully passengers around, really scare the shit out of them. Less and less often, I figured, as we moved farther and farther away from 9/11, when traveling in the United States was sort of like moving around Albania.
“Look, I have a really important business meeting. With the chairman of the board of my corporation. The Entronics Corporation.” I looked at my watch, remembered that Franny had said only one flight would get me there in time for Nakamura-san’s arrival. “I need my cell phone.”
“Not possible, sir. All the contents of your briefcase are being swabbed and inspected.”
“Swabbed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Swabbed for what?”
He didn’t answer.
“Are you at least going to get me on the next flight out?”
“We don’t have anything to do with the airlines, sir. I would have no idea what other flights there are or when they leave or which flights have availability, if any.”
“Then the least you can do is let me use a phone so I can get myself on the next flight out.”
“I don’t think you’re going to be on the next flight out, sir.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said raising my voice.
“We’re not done with you.”
“You’re not done with me? What is this, East Berlin?”
“Sir, if you don’t keep your voice down, I can have you arrested.”
“Even when you’re arrested you’re allowed one phone call.”
“If you want to be arrested, I’d be happy to arrange that.”
He stood up and walked out. Closed the door behind him. I heard it lock. A National Guardsman, crew-cut and bulky and wearing camouflage fatigues, was now standing guard outside the room. What the hell was this?
Another twenty minutes went by. I’d definitely missed my flight. I wondered if another airline had a flight that would get me there close to eleven. Maybe I could floor it and still get to Santa Clara on time. Or just a little late.
I kept looking at my watch, saw the minutes tick by. Another twenty minutes later, a couple of Boston police officers, a man and a woman, came into the room, showed their badges, and asked to see my ticket and boarding pass.
“What’s the problem, Officers?” I said. Outwardly I was calm, friendly. Reasonable. Inwardly I wanted to rip their faces off.
“Where are you traveling, Mr. Steadman?” the man said.
“Santa Clara. I just went through all this with the TSA guy.”
“A one-day trip to California?” said the woman.
“My wife’s pregnant,” I said. “I wanted to get back home so she’s not left alone. She’s confined to bed. A high-risk pregnancy.”
Get it? I wanted to say. Corporate executive, family man, married, wife pregnant. Not exactly the standard profile of an al-Qaeda terrorist.
“Mr. Steadman,” the woman said, “your suitcase tested positive for the presence of C-4. Plastic explosives.”
“What? That’s obviously a mistake. Your machine’s screwed up.”
“No, sir,” the male officer said. “The screeners confirmed it by running another test. They took a swab and wiped down the portfolio and ran it through another machine, and that came up positive, too.”
“Well, it’s a false positive,” I said. “I’ve never touched C-4 in my life. You might want to think about getting your machines checked out.”
“They’re not our machines,” the woman said.
“Right. Well, I’m a senior vice president at a major corporation. I’m flying to Santa Clara for a meeting with the chairman of the board. At least I was. You can check all that out. One simple phone call, and you’ll be able to confirm what I’m saying. Why don’t you do that right now?”
The cops remained stony-faced.
“I think we all know there’s been some kind of a mistake. I’ve read about how those three-million-dollar machines can be set off by the particles in stuff like dry cleaning fluid and hand cream and fertilizers.”
“Are you carrying any fertilizer?”
“Does my PowerPoint presentation count?”
She glowered at me.
“You get my point. Machines make mistakes. Now, can we all be reasonable here? You have my name and my address and phone number. If you need to reach me for anything, you know where I live. I own a house in Cambridge. With a pregnant wife and a mortgage.”
“Thank you, sir,” the man said, sounding like he was concluding the interview. They both got up and left me there to cool my heels for another half an hour or so before the TSA supervisor with the comb-over came in and told me I was free to go.
It was just after eight in the morning. I ran to the departure gate and found a U.S. Airways agent and asked her when the next flight to San Francisco was. Or San Jose. Or Oakland.
There was an American Airlines flight at 9:10, she said. Arriving at 12:23. I could be in Santa Clara at 1:00. When the extremely punctual, and very pissed off, Nakamura-san would be sitting in first class on his way to Tokyo.
I called Dick Hardy. In California it was a little after five in the morning, and I knew he wouldn’t appreciate being awakened at home.
“Steadman,” he said, his voice thick.
“Very sorry to wake you, sir,” I said. “But I’m not on the flight to San Francisco. I was detained for questioning. Some sort of huge screwup.”
“Well, get on the next one, for God’s sake.”
“The next one gets me in at 12:23.”
“Twelve twenty-three? That’s too late. Nakamura-san will be long gone. Got to be an earlier flight. He’s arriving at eleven o’clock promptly.”
“I know. I know. But there’s nothing else.”
Now he was fully awake. “You’re standing up Hideo Nakamura?”
“I don’t know what else to do. Unless you can reschedule him-”
“Reschedule Nakamura-san? After the way I twisted his arm to get him here for one goddamned hour?”
“Sir, I’m terribly sorry. But all these ridiculous terrorist precautions-”
“Goddamn you, Steadman,” he said, and he hung up.
I walked back to the parking garage, dazed. I’d just blown off my boss and the chairman of the board.
It was unreal, an out-of-body experience.
I kept flashing on the TSA supervisor with the stupid comb-over.
“Did you pack your bags yourself?”
And: “Was your suitcase out of your possession at any time?”
Was it out of my possession at any time?
Franny saying, “Kurt was here.”