A short Middle-Eastern man in a grey suit with damp patches under the arms, a cheap white shirt and plain black tie, greeted them eagerly in bad English.
‘I Elias,’ he said. ‘Come driving you.’ Then, despite John’s attempts to resist, he took both the holdall and the laptop bag, and led the way through the melee and out into the cloyingly warm evening air.
It was seven o’clock and already almost completely dark. Just a few bloody, red streaks stained the sky as they followed him across an open parking lot to a white Mercedes in a meter bay. ‘Where are you taking us?’ John asked.
The driver turned, grinning inanely, and said, ‘I sorry, no good English, sorry, so sorry!’
He put their luggage in the boot, then scurried round to open the rear doors for each of them in turn. Five minutes later they were out of the airport complex, moving in heavy traffic along a wide boulevard of modern hotel buildings that reminded John of the streets around LAX airport in Los Angeles.
Leaning forward, he tried to question the driver again. ‘Where are we going?’
Alarmingly, the man raised both hands in the air, then swivelled around on his beaded seat cover to face him. ‘No-zactly!’ he said, then to John’s relief turned back to face the road.
They were heading away from the city. John decided not to ask the man any more questions. Soon they were on a pitch-dark highway, driving fast in thin traffic. And for the first time since they had started this journey, he began feeling seriously worried.
There was one concern he had simply not permitted himself to think about up until now – which was, what if not all the Disciples had been rounded up in Special Agent Norbert’s raid? What if Luke and Phoebe were being dangled as bait to lure him and Naomi?
Had he really been so clever after all, in throwing a false scent at Detective Inspector Pelham?
As if reading his thoughts, Naomi leaned over and whispered, ‘I don’t feel good about this. Where do you think we’re going?’
‘I don’t know.’ He pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked the display. Five blots, a full-strength signal. At least he had some means of communication if need be. He put it back. Despite the air conditioning, he felt uncomfortable in his winter-weight jeans, roll-neck sweater and leather jacket. He wriggled out of the jacket and folded it on his lap. ‘Aren’t you warm-?’ he started saying to Naomi, then noticed the car was slowing down, its indicator light winking on the dash.
They turned off the highway onto a long, dead-straight road that seemed to be heading out into desert. Even more anxious now, he turned and peered out of the window. Nothing but total darkness behind them – and ahead of them.
After five minutes of travelling along this road at high speed, again they slowed, and now John could see a complex of industrial buildings ahead of them, inside a barbed-wire compound, the perimeter brightly illuminated. A factory or storage depot of some kind.
They stopped beside a security booth, in front of closed metal gates. The driver put down his window and spoke to an armed guard. Moments later the gates slid open and they moved forward, following a road that threaded around to the rear of the buildings. John, holding Naomi’s hand, was feeling tense as hell now. Was this where Luke and Phoebe were?
But now they were moving away from the buildings, seemingly out into the desert again. And suddenly, catching a sudden whiff of kerosene, he realized where they were going.
A few hundred yards ahead of them, just a silhouette at first, but rapidly becoming clearer in their headlights as they drew closer, was a jet plane, not much smaller than a commercial airliner.
‘Seems like the Magical Mystery Tour continues,’ he said drily, feeling a strange sense of relief at seeing this plane, as if its presence confirmed that at least they weren’t being brought out here to be executed.
Was this the jet Luke and Phoebe had boarded in Le Touquet? He could see cabin lights shining through a row of portholes, and more light spilling out through the open door at the top of the gangway. And now the smell of kerosene was much stronger.
The Mercedes stopped. The rear door opened and a brilliant flashlight beam straight in his face momentarily dazzled him. Outside he could hear a rapid exchange of voices. An argument about something, then calm again.
Elias, their driver, said, ‘Coming please!’
They climbed out. It wasn’t so warm now and John gratefully pulled on his leather jacket. The driver opened the boot and handed him the holdall and his laptop bag. Then an Arab gesticulating excitedly with both arms led them to the gangway.
He climbed up to the top step, then just inside the plane saw a young man and a woman standing motionless, on either side of the doorway, like sentries. They were tall, dramatically dressed in pure white jumpsuits and white trainers, and quite stunningly good-looking. Both were in their early twenties, John guessed. The man had exquisitely cut blond hair, and the kind of tanned, chiselled looks you only ever saw on male models in the fashion pages of magazines; the woman, a blonde, too, had the willowy features and perfect poise of a top model. Neither smiled; their expressions were of slight disdain.
John, waiting for Naomi, felt immediately intimidated by them. ‘Hallo,’ he said, throwing each of them a glance, trying to break the ice.
‘Welcome aboard, Dr and Mrs Klaesson,’ the young man said, in a cold, clipped New England accent that carried no hint of a welcome in it at all.
‘You may select any seats,’ the woman said in a similar accent and even cooler tone.
‘Where are we going?’ John asked.
‘Please do not ask either of us any questions,’ the man said. ‘We have no mandate to answer you.’
‘Can you just tell us one thing,’ Naomi asked. ‘You are taking us to Luke and Phoebe, aren’t you?’
‘I recommend the rear two seats,’ the woman said. ‘Those are the furthest from the engines. You get the least resonance.’
Naomi stared at her. The woman’s face remained totally deadpan. Silent anger rose inside Naomi, but she stifled it. They just had to keep calm, do nothing to jeopardize their situation. Just hope, that was all they could do. Hope.
To their left, the door to the cockpit was closed. They turned right, walked through an area laid out like a small boardroom, with an oval conference table and eight chairs fixed to the floor around it. Then on, past a galley, and into the rear section of the cabin, where there were twenty seats, plushly upholstered in leather and with extravagant leg room, laid out in a row of ten either side of the wide aisle. Naomi realized it wasn’t just for the noise levels that the woman had recommended the rear seats; the cabin was narrower there, making them the only seats that were actually next to each other.
Moments later, the young man pulled the cabin door closed.
Then John heard the whine of the engine turbines starting to rotate. A seat-belt sign flashed above him. He looked out of the window to his left. Saw the reflection of his pale, anxious face in the glass. Tiny balls of white light strobed in the darkness beyond. The aircraft’s own navigation lights, he realized. Moments later, as if put on by a single flick of a switch, he saw runway lights stretching out into the distance.
Then he heard a metallic whirring sound. In seconds his reflection, the strobing light and the runway lights had disappeared. His own surprise was mirrored by a frightened cry from Naomi.
Electronic metal shutters had come down. Across every window.
120
After take-off, the stewardess served them a meal in a pre-packed tray, of the kind they might have had on any airline. A Caesar salad with prawns, scalding-hot poached salmon beneath a foil lid; chocolate fudge cake; a triangle of soft cheese and biscuits. The steward brought them each a glass of Chardonnay, and mineral water.
John ate most of his food, but Naomi just picked at hers. Afterwards they tried to sleep for a while.