The First Casualty

17

Jason knew the good people of the island were proud of their small airport. The terminal, a glass toadstool, had won a number of architectural awards upon its opening in 2004. Meaning, in that year, there had been a paucity of avant-garde or just plain ugly new buildings.

But aesthetics were not his mind at the moment. He had barely had enough time to put funds in Mrs. Princes’s house account — to run the cottage; take care of Pangloss and Robespierre; and pay her wages for the next two weeks — and still have Momma and her borrowed yacht make the crossing from Sark to catch his flight to Heathrow. The BA CityFlyer Embraer 170 that would take him there was the only plane on the tarmac. At this time of year, the small but comfortable terminal was empty of tourists made cheerfully boisterous by the prospect of a fortnight of holidays on one of the islands. Instead, there was a handful of men, most in suits, whose interest in their watches and cell phones made Jason guess they were on various business missions.

Arriving just in time to clear security and board the plane, he shoved his single bag into an overhead bin and squeezed himself into one of a pair of empty seats. Of the seventy-six available, barely half were occupied. Although he had seen it dozens of times, he watched the winter-browned grass along the pavement move in the wind, waving a final farewell as the aircraft trundled out to Runway 32. This departure was different; Jason had no plans to return.

Now Sark, with its wind-bent fruit trees, rocky shores, and hardy cattle, was his most-recent former address. Maybe next time Jason would try a place on some mainland, someplace out of the way but not so remote as to make him conspicuous; someplace removed from civilization, but not too far removed; someplace that had nothing to attract anyone other than the residents.

Kansas suggested itself.

Thoughts for another day. He reached into a coat pocket and produced the book and envelope Momma had given him and began to read. He wouldn’t get a lot read in the eighteen-minute flight, but it was a start.

He came awake with a start, unaware he had drifted off to sleep, as the aircraft lurched forward, its twin General Electric engines screaming in reverse thrust. The short duration of the trip had obviated any in-flight service that might have disturbed his brief nap. He barely had time to reflect that this was the first time in memory he had actually slept on an airplane. He normally suffered in-flight insomnia, involuntarily attuned to every sound, every change in pitch of the engines. He knew it was absurd — what could he do if things went south at 35,000 feet — but some obscure, atavistic sense of self-preservation kept him awake anyway.

As he liberated himself from the seat belt, he glanced out of the window where the much-heralded Terminal 5 was suckling a litter of Airbus 300 series and Boeing 700s: 80,000 tons of steel, 36,000 square yards of glass for a giant rabbit hutch. He had no idea why the numbers stuck in his mind other than the persistence of the British press in featuring every phase of its construction. There had to be a rule, known for certain only to the cognoscenti, that airport terminals, unlike the older, eye-teasing train stations of a century ago, must be either modern beyond attractive or tediously utilitarian.

He stood and removed his bag from the overhead as the plane docked at a somewhat less lionized, if equally unattractive, terminal and, like cattle to the slaughter, shuffled his place in line down the aisle to the exit into Terminal 1. Duty-free shops opposite departure/arrival gates lined the left side of the walkway, windows gleaming with expensive luxury watches, the latest in electronics, and other high end goods. Airport retailers are not known for bargain prices.

Jason’s passing stare into the glass was rewarded by the reflection of a man as he stood up from one of the lounge chairs that lined the center of the concourse. He would have gone unnoticed had he not taken something from a jacket and folded it into the newspaper he held in the other hand. Gloved hand, Jason noticed. Most people who wear gloves indoors usually have a purpose other than keeping their hands warm. The guy wasn’t Ronald McDonald. He maneuvered around a woman pulling a pair of roller boards to fall in behind Jason at a slightly faster pace. Alarm bells were clanging in Jason’s mind, but he maintained the exterior of one fascinated by the gaudy retail display.

He picked his spot in front of a display of Rolex watches. Arms akimbo, he leaned forward as though to better see the timepieces. In reality, he was carefully watching the approach of the man with the rolled newspaper. Jason waited until the stranger was only a step away, reaching into the paper.

Jason took a step back. It was the move of a man suddenly tired of what he was viewing, or, perhaps, remembering something he had to do. The heel of his shoe came down on the stranger’s instep hard enough to elicit a yelp of pain. At the same instant, Jason’s elbow hit the wrist of the hand with the paper, knocking it loose.

“How clumsy of me!” Jason said, stooping. “Here, let me…”

Before the astonished man could protest, Jason shook the pages of the newspaper. A syringe rolled onto the tiles.

Jason snatched it up before the other man could close his fingers around it. The man bolted, shoving surprised passengers aside.

Jason’s impulse was to give chase, but he held up. Like mice, the presence of one assassin meant there was a good chance more were around. He gently pushed the syringe’s plunger, bringing a few drops to the hole in the needle and sniffed. No odor. Jason would have bet is was also tasteless. The really nasty stuff usually was.

Only then did he notice a small crowd of curious onlookers.

“My physician,” he explained with a forced smile. “He has his own way of delivering my annual flu shot.”