“You obviously have a different type of man where you live,” he snorted and waved his acceptance with one sweep of his hand towards the plane.
The airwoman and burka-clad woman boarded the plane before reappearing shortly after the woman in the burka had shown her face to the airwoman. The airwoman, unsurprisingly, shook her head as she exited the plane.
“May I ask why you wanted to change your plans and land at le Touquet?” asked the Colonel politely.
“I do not see why it is any of your business,” snapped the prince haughtily. “But if you must know, my friend,” he said, pointing to the lady in the burka, “has been unwell and a plane is no place for a beautiful lady to be sick.”
The Colonel nodded and excused himself for a few moments to make a call. After speaking to a furious and highly embarrassed Supreme Commander, he was routed directly to Deputy Director Turner, the man in charge of the investigation. Carson was nowhere to be found.
“Deputy Director Turner,” said the Colonel, “I’m the Base Commander at USAF Lakenheath in Engla—”
“It’s your guys that shot down my suspect?” Turner cut in disgustedly.
“Shot him down? What the hell are you talking about? They were in a civilian aircraft!”
Turner stopped in his tracks and revisited the conversation with Carson. He hadn’t ever said he was shooting it down, just that he was not letting it land in France.
“Sorry, it’s been a long day. How can I help?”
“You can help by telling me why I have just diverted a seriously pissed off member of the Saudi royal family for no good fucking reason!”
“You’ve got them there?” Turner asked excitedly.
“Touched down a few minutes ago,” he confirmed. “We’ve searched the plane, your man’s not there.”
“He has to be!”
“He’s not.”
“He was disguised in a burka,” said Turner.
“Well he’s had the best sex change operation in history, because trust me, under that material is a very beautiful, and I mean very beautiful woman.”
“But the woman in the burka was bent double and struggled to board the plane here.”
“The prince said she was unwell earlier,” replied the Colonel.
“Shit! And the two pilots and three stewardesses aren’t talking?”
“No, they’re just standing there wondering what in the hell we crazy Americans are… wait a minute, you said three stewardesses?”
“Yes, three!”
“There are only two here,” said the Colonel, rushing back to the plane.
Nick hit the water hard. The cold Atlantic waters bit into his skin and deep into the bone. His breath left him as the water began to drag him down into its depths. The water-logged parachute weighed over twenty times its dry weight, the perfect anchor for the disposal of unwanted bodies. Nick managed to grab the knife from his belt and slash at the cords. The parachute drifted down towards the ocean bed and he was propelled upwards. When he breached the surface, he gasped desperately for every breath of air.
The prince’s Gulfstream jet was already a dot on the horizon when the first fighter jet screeched overhead. A sharp bank brought it around, closing the distance on the world’s fastest corporate jet as though it were hovering stationary, such was the difference in speeds. A second jet appeared as the first’s sonic boom hit him. His ears felt like they would explode and another boom was about to hit. He ducked under the water, the cold almost as shocking and damaging to his ears as the noise.
He checked the metal briefcase was still strapped across his chest and broke the surface once again, checked the small compass on his wrist, and started the long, slow swim ashore. Best guess, he was three to four miles from the shore, a good two hours’ swim. With darkness falling, the lights on shore would help keep him on course.
The Colonel returned a few minutes later to the call with the exasperated Turner.
“They claim one of the stewardesses was so unwell before they took off that they left her behind,” explained the Colonel.
“Bullshit!” spat Turner.
“All their stories are consistent. They’ve even given the hotel room and details of where you’ll find her in Washington.”
“Of course they have! Some stand-in, no doubt. Do you believe them?”
“Nope,” replied the Colonel.
“Is there anywhere they could have landed and dropped him off?”
“I doubt it. The timings suggest they flew directly here. And according to where you started tracking them, there was nothing but ocean below.”
“And they never reached France?”
“Intercepted before then.”
“Shit!”
“What do I do about the prince? He’s starting to have a shit fit here,” said the Colonel.
“Nick Geller is definitely not on board?”
“Definitely not. We’ve searched everywhere feasibly and unfeasibly possible for a person to be. The prince is demanding to see the Foreign Minister here in the UK or failing that, the US Ambassador.”
Turner thought for a second before making the biggest mistake of his career. “I suppose we’d better let him go on his way,” he said, resigned to the fact that the hunt was back on.
Turner replaced the handset and set off to find Carson. He had an apology to make as well as informing him they still hadn’t got their man.
After five minutes of looking, he was advised of Carson’s imminent departure to see the President with Frankie. He ran to the helicopter pad and caught them just as they were about to board.
He dragged both of them back towards the building, struggling to be heard over the noise of the helicopter’s engines. He quickly brought them up to speed.
“So he must have gotten off mid-flight,” said Carson matter-of-factly. Turner looked at him, confused.
“You can’t just open a door and jump out of a jet,” said Turner.
“What do you think parachutists do every day of the week?!”
“Even if he did, how the hell would we ever find him?” asked Turner. “They flew over 2,500 miles before we stopped them.”
“Easy,” replied Carson. “The black box will tell you exactly where and when they opened the door.”
“Fuck!” said Turner, his head dropping.
“What?”
“They just left!”
Chapter 16
Frankie boarded the chopper and let Carson take the front seat. A very pissed off Turner stood and watched their departure. He had made it clear he wanted to interview Frankie immediately. Carson, keen to control the political fallout and flow of information, was going to get Frankie on board whatever it took, even lying that the President had asked to see her. As Carson pointed out to Turner, he had more pressing priorities: a plane to re-catch and a black box to retrieve.
The helicopter climbed and with Turner safely out of sight, Frankie could speak. She leaned forward to speak into Carson’s ear on the far side of the pilot.
“You made out you knew nothing but you knew everything that Turner told you?” she asked quietly. Carson had received a call just prior to Turner’s arrival from a very unhappy Supreme Commander of European Forces.
Carson nodded.
“You didn’t suggest the black box either when you were told.”
Carson turned around to face Frankie. “To be honest, it just came to me.”
“If you had thought of it faster, you could have stopped the plane leaving.”
Carson nodded.
“So you are as much to blame as Turner?”
Harry Carson had worked for four different administrations over the previous thirty years, nobody ever really knowing what he did or who he worked for. He was the quiet guy at the back of the room, the guy who was always invited but nobody knew by whom, the guy who seldom spoke but when he did everybody listened. Harry Carson’s contact list read like a who’s who of the most powerful individuals over the previous three decades, yet he had never run for office nor been voted into any position of power by the American public. Harry Carson had that very special gift very few people had. He made things happen in the corridors of power. He delivered.