8
“Not exactly an ideal airport for fugitives,” Charlie said.
Night had settled over Martinique as Bream dropped the Gulfstream onto the runway. Ahead blazed a seaside airport as large as those in most American cities, or about a hundred times larger than Charlie had originally expected.
“The area for private jets is actually damn-near perfect,” Bream said, taxiing away from the main airport. “Otherwise we would’ve just hit Dominica or Saint Lucia and gotten a boat.”
They rolled perhaps a mile to the dimly lit “Executive Airport,” as the general aviation area was called. It included four single-aircraft hangars, a handful of charter service offices, and a red-roofed terminal that if it were any tinier wouldn’t qualify as a building. Beside the little terminal was a bar, where undulating pink lights revealed two people at the tables. On the tarmac, among the three dozen parked propeller planes, there was no sign of life.
Using a small motorized platform, Bream towed the Gulfstream into a rickety hangar that was equal parts rust and peeling silver paint. Once the jet was parked, he leaped off and lowered the hangar’s garage door, the cue that it was safe for Charlie and Drummond to come out of the cabin.
As they descended the stairs, Charlie was enveloped by air seemingly composed of droplets of hot water. Despite hard strains of jet fuel and exhaust, a light breeze carried a pleasing tropical scent.
Behind him, Drummond inhaled deeply and smiled. “Lily of the Valley.”
“It’s nice.”
“An interesting piece of information is that it’s poisonous.”
“Great.”
“I just got a text message,” said Bream, peering out the door’s grease-smeared plastic porthole. “There’s a coupla folks paying me a drop-by visit right now, so I’m gonna call an audible.” He tilted his head to a dark corner at the back of the hangar, his eyes flashing urgency. “You’d best get to know that storage closet in case they wanna come inside here.”
Charlie resisted an urge to run to the door, plant his face against the porthole, and see whoever had caused Bream’s reaction. Trying to maintain the appearance of normalcy, he took the remaining steps at a leisurely pace and merely glanced at the porthole. It offered a broad view of the tarmac between the hangar and the tiny terminal. He saw no one.
Drummond stood at the base of the stairway and stared outside, something that a new arrival who was not a fugitive would do.
“They’re waiting for me over in the bar,” Bream said. “American couple, name of Atchison, sent by a guy I know at Air France. Supposedly just tourists wallowing in cash, looking for a flying chauffeur.”
Charlie’s body temperature dropped. “But they’re not really just American tourists, are they?”
“Probably they really are. Probably this is just a case of bad timing. There are almost as many rich tourists on this island as there are palm trees. And I do pay the bills as a charter pilot here, so it’d attract attention if I ducked them.”
Chance, Charlie realized, had presented him with his first hard fact about Bream: The pilot was based in Martinique. He hadn’t mentioned it, but if he was local, it might mean that he was more involved in the operation than a mercenary parachuting in for the op, or “just a glorified courier,” as he’d claimed. Of course the text message-
Either way, information about the pilot wouldn’t be worth much if CIA operatives were outside now.
Bream closed the cabin door and hurried to the tail of the plane. “To be on the safe side, wait here till they’re gone,” he said to Charlie. “Then you two will need to get a place to lay low for the night.” He flung open the luggage compartment door, revealing a pair of overnight bags. “Between the light disguises and the new travel documents you’ll find in here, you shouldn’t have any trouble getting through customs, what there is of it. Especially ’cause ‘Capitain’ du Frongipanier is on duty. The guy got the job when he bombed as a crossing guard, and in ten years he hasn’t made it off the late shift.”
“I don’t get it,” Charlie said. “Are they trying to encourage people to sneak into Martinique?”
“Anybody who wants to sneak onto this rock can pull up at any one of a million places in a boat.” Bream slid the overnight bags out of the plane, dropped one before Charlie and the other by Drummond, then inched the luggage compartment door shut to avoid noise. “From this neck of the island, which is Lamentin, it’s a ten-minute cab ride up to Fort-de-France. Crash just for the night at someplace that looks like enough of a fleabag that it’s not on Interpol’s Fax Blast list, then tomorrow, find the goddamned bomb. And as soon as you’ve got it, give me a holler. Also if you run into any trouble, holler. And by holler I mean text me with the BirdBook that’s in your bag.”
Charlie assumed he’d misheard. “A bird book?”
Drummond said, “Encrypted communication system.”
“Pop’s pretty much on the money,” Bream said, hurrying out. “The BirdBook y’all’ve got’s really nothing more than a pimped-up BlackBerry-in fact, it’ll pass for a BlackBerry. What you do is, type the message to me straight, though a pinch of discretion won’t hurt, and the BirdBook will encrypt it.”
He exited through a side door, shutting it behind him, causing the entire hangar to quiver.
In spite of the enclosure and the darkness, Charlie had a sensation of being exposed. “What does it say that I feel less secure without Alice’s kidnapper around?”
“I was just going to ask you who he was,” Drummond said.
9
“Yep, the Big Apple,” Stanley said, finishing off his pint of Stella lager. “Helluva town.”
His game plan was to lull Bream, who’d joined them at the little airport bar, into believing that he and Hadley were urban philistines. Then blindside him with a mention of one of the fugitives. Bream’s reaction could provide more insight than three hours on a polygraph.
“You know, it’s funny,” said Hadley, who was lit by the blinking Christmas lights atop the wire fence separating the bar from the edge of the tarmac. “Eighteen years I’ve been living there, and I’ve never learned why it’s called the Big Apple. I mean, no clue whatsoever.”
“I’ve never seen any apple trees there,” Stanley added, the first thing he’d said so far that was true.
“Probably not a lot of golf courses either, I’m guessing,” said Bream.
Stanley sighed. “I belong to a really nice
“We’re also looking on Nevis and Saint Lucia,” Hadley told Bream.
“There’s no comparison.” The pilot drank most of his beer in one gulp. “Folks think the Caribbean islands are all the same till they come here.” His laconic speech accelerated. His lips tightened. And he ground his heel against the tile floor. All of which were indicators of dishonesty. But that didn’t make him more than a jet jockey hoping to get business by pretending to agree with prospective clients.
“The issue is getting back up to Newark if I need to,” Stanley said.
“For some reason, they need him all the time.” Giggling, Hadley placed a warm hand on Stanley’s forearm.
Bream raised his nearly empty glass. “Well, here’s hoping you have lots of work crises that don’t hit till you’ve gotten in a full eighteen on Empress Josephine.”
“How much advance notice do you require?” Hadley asked him.
Perfect setup for a boast, Stanley thought.
“Ma’am, if I’m not already booked, I’m like pizza delivery: I meet you at the airport in forty-five minutes or your flight is free.”
Stanley laughed. “I believe it. A friend of a friend speaks very highly of you: Drummond Clark.”
