out that Sanford always wanted to be called by his full name.
“I think that’s good,” Anna had reassured him. “If you don’t feel like a Sandy, then insist on Sanford.” That advice and her grin obviously had made him feel like a new man.
Yodo sat behind Sam in the next row back. When Anna would rise he would always nod his head, and when she went to the rest room he was an ever-present shadow.
“He seems like all he does is watch. Does he ever read?”
“Yodo is fierce and loyal. He never relents and that’s why he’s protecting you.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “Aren’t you fierce and loyal?”
“Do you want me standing outside the rest room when you pee?”
“Good point.”
If these men had anything in common, it was an unflappable disposition that allowed them to be rational and calculating when other more ordinary men would be distracted or shaken by serious fear. Each of these men had climbed Denali with Sam, and thus had contemplated their own death seriously on at least one occasion.
Sam had asked them not to talk about the details of the assault in front of Anna. Until she learned or demanded otherwise, the plan was for her to wait out of harm’s way while they snatched Jason Wade.
It took half an hour for Sam, Anna, and Yodo to get to the Fiji Air departure gate in Nadi that would take them to Taveuni. T.J. and the others would take later flights. Anna wore a hat, sunglasses, and a blond wig, at Sam’s suggestion.
The Fiji Air ticket counter attendant greeted them. “Bula.”
“Bula,” Sam replied. It was the universal greeting; everybody said bula to everybody all the time.
The agent took their tickets and produced boarding passes. “The departure gate is just down there.”
At the gate a man was saying their names loudly. “Sam Brown and Anna Brown, please.” He couldn’t pronounce Yodo’s last name, so Yodo nodded and the man nodded back.
It was an agent standing on the far side of the screening machines, motioning them through. Sam carried their luggage straight through the metal detector, while Anna paused. No one seemed to be performing any screening.
“Come, come, come,” the man called to Anna. She walked through the metal detector with her handbag, looking like a horse eying a suspicious bridge.
“Even after New York?” Anna said.
“About like it was last time I was here,” Sam said. “It’s only this way in the interisland flights. Going back to the States or practically anywhere outside Fiji, it’s the full pop.”
“I wonder what Fiji Air will be like,” she said.
“Like a horsedrawn airplane,” Sam said. “Manufactured near my birth and painted like a sixties flower-power Volkswagen bus.”
Sam’s description, based on prior experience, proved remarkably accurate. They climbed in and watched the pilot stow their luggage on the backseat. The plane accommodated about fifteen passengers. There were four including Yodo.
“Tourism has never recovered here. Aussies come. New Zealanders come. But since the war on terrorism any country that’s had a coup in the last five years gets little tourism from the U.S.”
As they sat, the pilot climbed into the plane. “Bula,” he said. “Fasten your seat belts and read the information card.”
“That was succinct,” Anna said.
“Are you ready for this, Mrs. Brown?”
“Remember, I’m one of those wives who didn’t take her husband’s last name.”
“Yeah, I got that. You were born Brown. It was just a coincidence that you married a Brown.”
“So I’m Anna Brown-Brown.”
“Well, if you wanna be. If you’re just Anna Brown I could have taken your last name, I guess.”
“So where are we meeting ‘Aussie’?”
“Upon arrival. You’ll like him. He’s good, too. He knows the chiefs.”
Anna’s look said she didn’t understand.
“Fiji is controlled by a group of chiefs. Each island has its own, and together they form what we would call a committee. Although the country has a president, he’d best not cross the chiefs or he’ll find himself deposed. Aussie has made it a point to know most of the chiefs, especially the more powerful ones.”
“I hope this works.”
“I won’t lie to you. It could be tough. We’ve rushed this a bit.”
“I know you’ve done the best you can.”
“These things take a lot of planning.” Neither said anything for a moment.
“You’ll be at the airport when this goes down.” Sam saw a new strain in her face as soon as he said it.
To his surprise, though, she didn’t argue, but watched the terrain as they flew away from Nadi. To their right was the high plateau country, to the south the Nandrau, and more northerly the Rairaimatuku. Falling away from the mountainous plateaus grew jungle; scattered villages and dirt roads led to the sea and the lush river valleys.
They passed over the Vatu-i-ra Channel barrier reefs and myriad coral heads showing almost white in the azure sea. When they arrived, the landing was steep and fast. Anna squeezed Sam’s arm until they stopped on the tiny runway. Beside it stood a terminal that looked like a 1950s-vintage American gas station. Behind the terminal a two4ane road ran parallel to the runway, and to the far side a loosely strung wire cable the diameter of a silver dollar ran through the palm trees.
“You see the line there in the trees?” Sam asked.
That’s the power line?” Anna asked.
“No. There is no power line. Everybody with electricity has a generator. That’s the phone line.”
“Just hanging from the palm trees?”
“Pretty quaint, isn’t it?”
“There’s a man,” Anna said.
“Crapola,” Sam said.
“What do you mean?”
“There are several men. You picked the right one out of the crowd. You noticed his good looks. His confidence.”
“That’s Aussie?”
“None other.”
Aussie smiled at them with teeth like a white-board fence. Yodo nodded and Aussie nodded back.
Sam shrugged at Aussie, feeling Anna’s shoulder against his, the warmth of it, the way she was familiar to him, like a woman on a date.
And he liked it.
Thirty-two
From the airport on Taveuni Island the road continued a mile or so in both directions before it turned to dirt. It was the one well-traveled road on the island, and European and American luxury homes as well as several small resorts lined the paved section.
Anna, T.J., and Sam were staying at the Coconut Palms, Sam and Anna posing as husband and wife. The grounds featured short-clipped grass flower beds, and burres spread amongst palms, breadfruit, kava, imported banyon, and tropical ornamentals. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. A pleasant scent hung in the warm humid air. The people seemed to nap on their feet, and even the bugs appeared tranquilized.
“There’s only one bed,” Anna said when they walked into the air-conditioned room. “Are we both going to sleep in it?”
“There’s a roll-away,” Sam said.
“Even if there weren’t and I were a vestal virgin, I would sleep like a baby.” She was checking out the
