Personal

‘Maybe they’ve been given the same instructions.’

O’Day said, ‘We need a CIA presence,’ and Casey Nice sat forward in her chair.

Joan Scarangello said, ‘I’ll go.’

THIRTEEN

THEY GAVE US the same plane, but a fresh crew. Two new guys in the cockpit, and a new flight attendant, this one a woman, all of them in air force fatigues. I got on board straight out of the shower, in my new clothes from Arkansas, and Scarangello followed me five minutes later, showered too, in another black skirt suit. She had a small wheeled suitcase with her, and a purse. It was going to be an overnight flight, seven hours in the air plus six time zones, which would get us in at nine in the morning, French time. My usual armchair had been laid flat and butted up against the armchair opposite, which had also been laid flat, to make a couch. The same thing had been done to the pair of chairs on the other side of the cabin. There were pillows and sheets and blankets. Two long thin beds, separated by a narrow aisle. Which worked for me. Scarangello didn’t look so sure. She was a woman of a certain age and a certain type. I think she might have appreciated a little more privacy.

But first we had to sit on regular chairs, at a table, for takeoff, and then we stayed there, because the flight attendant told us there were meals to be eaten. Which didn’t match the surroundings. They were not the culinary equivalents of butterscotch leather and walnut veneer. They were not army issue, either. Or air force. They were burgers, in cardboard clamshell boxes, reheated in the on-board microwave, unrecognizable and off-brand, presumably bought from a shack near Pope’s main gate. Maybe right next to the Dunkin’ Donuts.

I ate mine, and then half of Scarangello’s, after she left it. Then she started working out how to get herself into bed without embarrassment. I saw her eyes darting all around, checking angles, looking at the lighting, figuring out where I would be and what I might see.

I said, ‘I’ll go first.’

The bathroom was through the galley, all the way in back, ahead of the luggage hold, where they had stashed her bag. I used the head and brushed my teeth, and walked back to the bedroom area, and chose the bed on the starboard side. I took off my shoes and socks, because I sleep better that way, and I lay down on top of the blanket, and I rolled on my side and faced the wall.

Scarangello took the hint. I heard her go, all stiff swishing from wool and nylon, and then later I heard her pad back, softer, probably in cotton, and I heard her get in bed and arrange the sheets. She made a little sound, somewhere halfway between a sleepy murmur and a cough, which I took to be an announcement, like OK, thanks, I’m all set now, so I rolled on my back and looked up at the bulkhead above me.

She said, ‘Do you always sleep outside the covers?’

I said, ‘When it’s warm.’

‘Do you always sleep in your clothes?’

‘No choice, in a situation like this.’

‘Because you have no pyjamas. No home, no bags, no possessions. We had a briefing about you.’

I said, ‘Casey Nice told me that.’ I rolled back towards the wall a little, adjusting my position for comfort, and something dug into my hip. Something in my pocket. Not my toothbrush, which was in my other pocket. I lifted up and checked.

The pill bottle. I cupped it in my palm, and looked at the label, in the dim light, purely out of interest. I guess I was expecting allergy medicine, perhaps carried in anticipation of spring pollens in the woods of Arkansas, or else painkillers, perhaps carried after dental work or a muscle strain. But the label said Zoloft, which I was pretty sure was for neither allergies nor pain. I was pretty sure Zoloft was for stress. Or for anxiety. Or for depression or panic attacks, or PTSD, or OCD. Heavy duty, and prescription only.

But it wasn’t Casey Nice’s prescription. The name on the label wasn’t hers. It was a man’s name: Antonio Luna.

Scarangello said, ‘What did you think of our Ms Nice?’

I put the bottle back in my pocket.

I said, ‘Nice by name, nice by nature.’

‘Too nice?’

‘You worried about that?’

‘Potentially.’

‘She did fine in Arkansas. The neighbour didn’t get to her.’

‘How would she have done if you hadn’t been there?’

‘The same, probably. Different dynamic, similar result.’

‘That’s good to know.’

‘Is she your protégée?’

Scarangello said, ‘I never met her before. And I wouldn’t necessarily have chosen her. But she was who we had at State, so she fit the bill.’

I said, ‘These world leader guys risk getting shot all the time. It’s the cost of doing business. And protection is better than ever now. I don’t understand the big panic.’

‘Our briefing indicated you’re a competent mathematician.’

‘Then your briefing was incorrect. High-school arithmetic was as far as I got.’

‘Area of a circle with a fourteen-hundred-yard radius?’

I smiled in the dark. Pi times the radius squared. I said, ‘Very nearly two square miles.’

‘Average population density in major Western city centres?’