‘Why is that giving us so much trouble? He doesn’t have as many resources, and he managed to decipher the content.’
‘We’ve stumbled on a code. He must have set it in order to delay us,’ Staughton answered, excusing the men working under his orders.
‘Son of a bitch,’ Barnes swore. ‘How much time do you think it’ll take to break it?’
‘In Langley it’d already be broken with the computer. One or two hours more,’ Staughton guessed.
‘Do it in less than an hour,’ Barnes deliberated. And said nothing more about it.
‘Thompson here. We just lost the subjects.’
Barnes raised the microphone hidden in his sleeve up to his mouth.
‘How could that have happened?’
‘We’re here in the airport at Luton, and a truck almost ran into us. We lost sight of them.’ Thompson’s voice constricted with frustration. He hated to fail.
‘Keep searching. It’s obvious they’re in the airport. Look in every corner, all commercial and private planes.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Thompson obeyed. He had expected a bigger outburst.
‘Gentlemen, get to Luton fast,’ Barnes ordered.
‘They can’t leave the country, Barnes,’ Littel advised through the transmitter. They were all in direct communication and heard everything the other said. A true technological feat.
‘I know, Harvey. I know.’ He didn’t know anything else.
It’d be complicated if they lost their trail again and they left the country. Still, there was something in all this that made him even more uneasy.
‘Who was it that located them in Saint Paul’s?’ he asked Staughton.
‘I have no idea. We sent out an alert. I think it was one of the Metropolitan guys,’ he replied uncertainly.
‘That’s irrelevant,’ Herbert protested from the passenger seat. ‘We’ve lost them again,’ he attacked incisively.
‘Do you want to walk?’ Barnes’s nostrils flared. It wasn’t a shout, more a threat without feeling, but, at the same time, full of anger, if this was possible.
‘I’m sure I’d get there sooner,’ the other muttered, not daring to answer in the same tone.
Barnes spoke into the tiny microphone. ‘Thompson, inform us of the situation.’
‘Thompson here. We’re still searching.’
‘Hurry up.’ The instruction was for Thompson, not the driver. ‘Look on the runway and order all the planes stopped, if necessary,’ he said in a figurative sense, of course, but if he could…
‘Roger that,’ the other answered, conscious of what was possible and what was not.
It took forty-two minutes and eighteen seconds for Barnes, Littel, and company to reach the airport at Luton. Night had fallen, with a cold wind. Then three minutes and forty-three seconds to reach Thompson in the department of the LCDL. He was with a thin man dressed in a suit too wide for his frame, a cigar in hand with a long hanging ash burning away the tobacco. Needless to say, smoking was not permitted there… except for him.
‘This is the director of the London Luton Airport, McTwain,’ Thompson introduced him. ‘He’s placed the airport and all employees at our disposal,’ he added.
It can’t be helped, Barnes thought. But he wasn’t interested in making another enemy. He had enough already.
‘Thanks,’ he only said.
Thompson passed Barnes a clipboard.
‘This is the list of flights today,’ he explained.
‘Anything out of the ordinary?’ Barnes wanted to know.
McTwain, besides thin and a smoker, trembled like a leaf. Not out of fear, since he wouldn’t be the director if he didn’t know how to fight panic, but from stress. An airport can ruin anyone’s nerves.
‘My subordinates are looking at every detail, but so far it seems everything is legal.’
‘Any flight requested at the last minute?’
‘Daily we have four or five requests. Among the private flights, of course.’
‘Any at the last minute?’
‘Define the last minute.’
The trembler must think he’s a comedian, Barnes said to himself.
‘We only authorize private flight requests a minimum of five hours ahead. Unless it’s a serious situation,’ McTwain clarified pedantically.
‘We need to know all the touch-and-gos requested in the last twenty-four hours,’ Herbert ordered.
‘Aren’t we neglecting the commercial flights?’ Staughton alerted them.
‘I have the team distributed throughout the airport. If they’re on a commercial flight, they’ll still be in the terminal and will be seen,’ Thompson informed them.
‘Why do I have the feeling someone is making fun of us?’ Barnes showed his irritation, once again, nothing new.
‘What do you mean, Barnes?’ Littel asked.
‘It just seems to me we’re where he wants us to be.’
Wally Johnson joined the group waving a paper in the air.
‘I think I’ve found them,’ he said.
‘Where?’
‘A Learjet 45 from an Italian rental company landed less than two hours ago,’ he told them.
‘Let me see that.’ Herbert grabbed the paper from Wally Johnson’s hand. It wasn’t the time to observe courtesy. He ran his index finger down the page. ‘In the name of Joseph Connelly?’
‘Exactly.’
‘What does this ass have to do with anything?’ Barnes asked impatiently.
‘What called my attention was not the name, but the flight code.’
Herbert looked again at the page and identified the code. He passed it to Barnes.
‘Son of a bitch.’ He turned suddenly to McTwain. ‘Contact the tower and see if they’ve taken off.’
The director took the radio.
‘Attention, tower. McTwain here. Code 139346.’
‘Code 139346. Tower here. I’m listening.’
‘Tower, what is the current situation with flight JC1981?’
‘One moment.’
The whole group was in suspense, ears fastened, in a figurative sense, to the radio.
Scarcely five seconds passed, but they seemed interminable. Finally…
‘Code 139346, McTwain, authorization for takeoff of flight JC1981, accelerating down runway 26.’
‘Tower, abort the authorization for takeoff. I repeat, abort the authorization for takeoff.’
‘Code 139346, McTwain. Understood,’ the tower responded.
Barnes looked at the pretentious trembler with other eyes. It was clear why he was the director. Decision and rapid reaction, a praiseworthy quality in any profession.
More seconds waiting. Agonizing.
‘Code 139346, McTwain. Negative on aborting flight JC1981 on runway 26. Flight JC1981 is at two thousand feet with instructions to rise to eleven thousand.’
‘Tower, Code 139346, McTwain here. Communication terminated.’ He turned to Barnes. ‘It’s not in my hands, sir. As you know, my power ends when the plane takes off. You’ll have to contact the NATS.’
Barnes turned his back on him, frustrated but not defeated.
‘Charades. I’m sick of charades.’
‘Order the plane shot down,’ Herbert suggested.
Littel interposed himself. ‘Don’t be crazy. What’s the destination of the flight?’
Barnes showed him the paper with the information. Littel turned red when he read it and confronted Barnes’s stare.
‘He knows.’
