The customer-relations executive could barely contain his enthusiasm as they walked toward the aircraft. A fortnight beforehand, Waylon McCabe had asked for some unusual modifications to be made to one of his executive jets, for a charitable project he had in mind. The corporation’s Special Missions Department thought about it for a couple of days, just to see if his requests were technically feasible, but there was only ever going to be one answer. For the past five years, having switched his supplier after the Canadian disaster, McCabe had bought all his jets from their range. They keenly appreciated his business. They had no intention of losing it.
“I just want to say, on behalf of our whole team, that we think what Mr. McCabe is doing is just great,” said the suit, pausing at the foot of the stairs that led up to the cabin. “Airlifting medical supplies to the starving people of Africa -you know, it’s a privilege to be able to contribute to something like that. It sure is a pity we couldn’t tell Mr. McCabe in person.”
McCabe had sent his lawyer to take care of the handover.
“Sadly, he’s a little indisposed at this time, but I’ll pass on your good wishes,” said the lawyer, who didn’t know what his boss planned to use the plane for, exactly, but it certainly wasn’t Africa.
He glowered at the executive, who didn’t seem to be moving.
“So, can we take a look at the plane?”
“Sure, sure, of course, my pleasure. Our chief engineer will show you around.”
The executive stepped aside, and the engineer led the way up the stairs, bending his neck as he stepped into the cabin. Take out the fancy decorations and the high-tech accessories, and the main body of the plane was nothing but a metal tube with an internal diameter of less than six feet. There wasn’t a lot of room. The men formed a single line, the engineer leading, as they made their ungainly way through the cabin.
“You gentlemen are all familiar with one of these, right?” asked the engineer rhetorically. “Okay then, up ahead of us, at the rear of the cabin, there’s a closet and a restroom, and aft of that a small baggage hold. The regular bulkhead at the back of that hold offers structural support to the rear of the aircraft. Well, we took that bulkhead out and moved it forward, right up against the side of the restroom. That opened up the whole of the rear section of the fuselage, so’s to make more space for loading up whatever it is you’re going to be dropping. As you can see, we’ve put a hatch, kind of like on a submarine, right there in the bulkhead.”
He stood by the crude undecorated wall that now blocked off the end of the cabin, with the oval hatch beside him.
“We didn’t want to compromise the strength of the bulkhead, so we had to make the hatch kinda snug, but there’s just about room to step through into the new, bigger hold we made there.”
The engineer opened up the hatch. Through it, the empty rear end of the aircraft was dimly visible.
“It’s pretty tight, so you gents might want to take a look one at a time. You’ll see, in back, on the floor of the new hold, there’s a door. It’s hinged at the front, so that it opens downward, like a ramp, with the open side at the rear. It’s hydraulically operated from the pilot’s cockpit, or you can see a handle, like a pump, right there on the floor next to it. That’s the manual option. We fixed up a rig you can put your load in, so’s it can be dropped when the door is opened. Or there’s just room for one person to be in there, do the job himself. We fixed up a safety line there, so he won’t fall out.”
“Glad to hear about that,” said the lawyer. “Wouldn’t want a lawsuit from a grieving window.”
There was a peal of sycophantic laughter from the executive, more of a grunt from the engineer.
“Hope that’s what you were looking for, anyway,” the engineer concluded. “Mr. McCabe gave specific instructions. I believe we were able to follow them pretty much to the letter.”
“Yes,” said the lawyer. “I believe you did.”
Back home in Texas, McCabe now knew that he had a plane capable of dropping a bomb over Jerusalem. Even now, despite everything, when he thought about what he had in mind, McCabe still asked himself if he was really doing the Lord’s will. He wasn’t too sure how you could be certain about a thing like that, but he decided it would soon be clear enough. The doctors had told him the tumors were getting worse. They were begging him to undergo chemotherapy, but McCabe had said no. He knew what those chemicals did and he didn’t see the point in buying a few extra weeks if it meant puking like a dog after every treatment and watching his hair fall out. He’d rather be his real self when he came to face his maker. If he lived to see Armageddon, he’d know that God had been on his side. If he died before then, he’d expect a warm welcome in hell.
Either way, it was going to be soon.
46
Carver was feeling like a normal human being again. He wanted to act like one, too. The night before their four-day trek, he and Larsson skipped the training diet and went into Narvik for a few cold beers, hefty portions of steak and chips, and some flirtatious banter with the waitresses.
Driving home, Larsson asked, “What if she doesn’t want you back?”
Carver laughed. “She’d have me back, all right. Not sure about yours, though.”
“Not her,” said Larsson. “Alix. What if you go to all this trouble, and you find her, and it turns out she didn’t want to be found?”
Carver frowned. The possibility hadn’t occurred to him. But maybe Larsson was right. Maybe Alix had left because she couldn’t stand being around him anymore.
“Christ, that’s a depressing thought,” he said, his good humor suddenly vanishing. “I don’t want to think about that. Anyway, you’re wrong. She’d want me to come after her. She did last time. Why would it be any different now?”
“I don’t know,” Larsson admitted. “I mean, she was definitely still crazy about you the last time I spoke to her.”
“Right-so why do you think she’d change her mind?”
