Yeah, a vacation was just what he needed, he decided. The key to all of his plans was getting back to his home base, Boston, and that meant he was going to have to get on the damned plane first. No one hated flying as much as Nick did. It scared the hell out of him, as a matter of fact. As soon as he entered the Cincinnati airport, he broke out in a cold sweat, and he knew his complexion was going to be green by the time he boarded the plane. The 777 was bound for London with a brief stop in Boston, where Nick would be getting off, thank God, and going home to his Beacon Hill town house. He’d purchased the building from his uncle three years ago, but he still hadn’t unpacked most of the cardboard boxes the movers had dropped into the center of his living room, or hooked up the high-tech audio system his youngest brother, Zachary, had insisted on picking out for him.
He could feel his stomach tightening as he headed for check-in. He knew the drill. He presented himself, his credentials, and his clearance to the security officer. The prissy, middle-aged man named Johnson nervously chewed on his pencil-thin upper lip until his computer gave him Nick’s name and code verification. He then escorted Nick around the metal detector the other passengers would have to pass through, handed him his boarding pass, and waved him down the ramp.
Captain James T. Sorensky was waiting for him in the galley. Nick had flown with the captain at least six times in the past three years and knew the man was an excellent pilot and meticulous in his job—Nick had run a background check on the captain just to make certain there wasn’t anything suspicious in his past to suggest the possibility of a nervous breakdown while he was flying. He even knew the kind of toothpaste the man preferred, but none of those facts made his nervousness subside. Sorensky had graduated from the Air Force Academy at the top of his class and had worked for Delta for eighteen years. His record was unblemished, but that didn’t matter either. Nick’s stomach was still doing somersaults. He hated everything about flying. It all boiled down to a question of trust, he knew, and even though Sorensky wasn’t a complete stranger—they were on a first-name basis these days—Nick still didn’t like being forced to trust him to keep almost 159 tons of steel in the air.
Sorensky could have been a model for an airline poster with his silver-tipped, immaculately trimmed hair, his perfectly pressed navy blue uniform with razor-edge creases in the trousers, and his tall, lean physique. Nick wasn’t overweight by any means, but he still felt like a bull moose next to him. The captain radiated confidence. He was also rigid about his own rules, which Nick appreciated. Though Nick had the government clearance and FAA approval to carry his loaded Sig Sauer on the plane, he knew it made Sorensky nervous—and that was the last thing Nick wanted or needed. In preparation, Nick had already unloaded his gun. As the captain greeted him, he dropped the gun’s magazine into his hand.
“Good to see you again, Nick.”
“How are you feeling today, Jim?”
Sorensky smiled. “Still worried I’ll have a heart attack while we’re in the air?”
Nick shrugged to cover his embarrassment. “The thought has crossed my mind,” he said. “It could happen.”
“Yes, it could, but I’m not the only man on board who can fly this plane.”
“I know.”
“But it doesn’t make you feel any better, does it?”
“No.”
“As much as you have to fly, you’d think you’d get used to it.”
“You’d think I would, but it hasn’t happened yet.”
“Does your boss know you get sick every time you get on a plane?”
“Sure he does,” Nick answered. “He’s sadistic.”
Sorensky laughed. “I’m going to give you a real smooth ride today,” he promised. “You aren’t going on with us to London, are you?”
“Fly over an ocean? That’s never going to happen.” The thought made his stomach lurch. “I’m going home.”
“Have you ever been to Europe?”
“No, not yet. When I can drive there, I’ll go.”
The captain glanced at the magazine he held in the palm of his hand. “Thanks for letting me hold on to this. I know I don’t have the legal right to ask you to give it up.”
“But it makes you nervous to have a loaded weapon on board, and I don’t want a nervous pilot flying this plane.”
Nick tried to get past Sorensky so he could get settled in his seat, but the captain was in the mood to chat.
“By the way, about a month ago I read a real nice article in the newspaper about you saving that poor boy’s life. It was interesting to read about your background and how you’re best friends with that priest . . . how the two of you ended up taking different paths. Now you wear a badge and he wears a cross. And saving that child . . . it made me proud to know you.”
“I was just doing my job.”
“The article also mentioned that unit you work with. What was it he called the twelve of you?” Before Nick could answer, the captain remembered. “Oh, yes, the Apostles.”
“I still haven’t figured out how he managed to get that information. I didn’t think anyone outside the department knew about the nickname.”
“Still, it’s fitting. You saved that little boy’s life.”
“We were lucky this time.”
“The reporter said you refused to be interviewed.”
“This isn’t a glory job, Jim. I did what I had to, that’s all.”
The agent’s humility impressed the captain. With a nod, he said, “You did a fine thing. That little boy’s back with his parents now, and that’s all that counts.”
“Like I said, we were lucky this time.”
Sorensky, sensing Nick’s unease with his compliments, quickly changed the subject. “There’s a U.S. Marshal Downing on board. He had to give me his weapon,” he added with a grin. “Do you happen to know him?”
“The name’s not familiar. He isn’t transporting, is he?”
“Yes, he is.”
“What’s he doing on a commercial flight? They’ve got their own carriers.”
“This is an unusual situation according to Downing. He’s taking a prisoner back to Boston to stand trial and he’s in a hurry,” he explained. “Downing told me they got the boy cold for selling drugs and that it’s an open-and-shut case. The prisoner isn’t supposed to be violent. Downing thinks his lawyers will plea him out before the judge ever picks up his gavel. Like you, they preboarded. The marshal’s from Texas. You can hear it in his voice, and he seems like a real nice fella. You ought to go introduce yourself to him.”
Nick nodded. “Where are they seated?” he asked with a quick glance into the main cabin of the mammoth plane.
“You can’t see them from here. They’re on the left side, back row. Downing has the boy shackled and handcuffed. I’m telling you, Nick, his prisoner can’t be much older than my son, Andy, and he’s just fourteen. It’s a crying shame, someone that young is going to spend the rest of his life in prison.”
“Criminals are getting younger and dumber,” Nick remarked. “Thanks for telling me. I will go say hello. Is the plane packed today?”
“No,” Sorensky answered as he tucked the magazine into his pants pocket. “We’re only half full until we land at Logan. Then we’ll be packed.”
After insisting that if Nick needed anything he was to let him know, Sorensky went back to the cockpit, where a man wearing the navy blue uniform and identification of the airline’s ground crew was waiting with a clipboard full of curled papers. He followed the captain into the cockpit and closed the door behind him. Nick put his suit carrier in the overhead compartment, dropped his old, scarred, leather briefcase in his assigned seat, and then crossed over to the left side of the plane and started down the aisle toward the U.S. marshal. He was halfway there when he changed his mind. The other passengers were quickly filing on board now, and so he decided to wait until they were in the air and he’d gotten his legs back before introducing himself to Downing. He did get a good look at him though, and the prisoner too, before he turned around. Downing had one leg stretched out into the aisle, and Nick could see the fancy scrollwork on his cowboy boot. Tall and wiry, the marshal was all cowboy with his weathered complexion, his thick brown mustache, and his black leather vest. Nick couldn’t see his belt, but he would have bet a month’s salary that Downing was sporting a big silver buckle.
Captain Sorensky had been on the mark in his evaluation of the prisoner. At first glance he did look like a kid. But there was a hardness Nick had seen countless times in the past. This one had been around the block more than once and had most likely killed his conscience a long time ago. Yeah, they were getting younger and dumber these days, Nick thought. The prisoner had been cursed with bad judgment and god-awful genes. His face was scarred with acne, and his marble cold eyes were so close together he looked cross-eyed. Someone had done a real hatchet job on his hair, no doubt on purpose. There were spikes sticking up all over his head, kind of like the Statue of Liberty, but then maybe he wanted to look that way. What did it matter what kind of punk haircut he had? Where he was going he would still have plenty of friends waiting in line for a chance to get to him.
Nick went back to the front of the plane and got settled in his seat. He was in first class today, and though the seat was wider, it still felt cramped. His legs were too long to properly stretch out. After shoving his briefcase under the seat in front of him, he leaned back, clipped his seat belt together, and partially closed his eyes. It would have been nice if he could have at least tried to get comfortable, but that was out of the question because he knew that if he took his suit jacket off, he’d freak out the other passengers when they saw his holstered gun. They wouldn’t know it wasn’t loaded, and Nick wasn’t in the mood to calm anyone else down. Hell, he was hovering on the edge of a panic attack now, and he knew he’d stay that way until the plane had taken off. He’d be all right, sort of, anyway, until they began their descent into Logan Airport. Then the anxiety would start all over again. In his present, claustrophobic, neurotic state, he thought it was damned ironic that O’Leary wanted him to join the crisis management team.
Mind over matter, he told himself, and in a panic or not, he was determined to catch up on his paperwork while he was in the air. He’d already checked and knew that no one was going to be sitting in the window seat. Nick always took the aisle, even if it meant moving another passenger, so that he could see the face of every single person who came on board the plane. After takeoff he would be able to spread his folders out while he deciphered his notes and fed the information into his laptop.
Damn, he wished he weren’t such a control freak. Morganstern had told him he’d taught him relaxation techniques while he was on retreat with the other team members during their isolated training period, but Nick didn’t have any memory of anything that had happened during those two weeks, and he knew the others didn’t remember anything either. They had all agreed to Pete’s terms. He had sat them down, explained what he wanted to do, but not how, and then asked them to trust him. Nick had the most difficult time making up his mind because it meant he would have to give up his control. In the end, he finally agreed. Pete had warned them they wouldn’t remember, and he’d been right about that. None of them did.
Sometimes a scent or a sound would trigger a thought about the retreat and he’d tense in reaction, but just as suddenly as it came into his mind, it vanished. He knew he’d been in a forest somewhere in the United States—he had the scars to prove it. There was one the shape of a crescent moon on his left shoulder and a smaller scar directly above his right eye. He’d left the retreat with cuts and abrasions on his hands and legs, and God only knows how many mosquito bites to prove he’d been stomping through the wilderness. Did the other Apostles have scars? He didn’t know, and he could never seem to hold on to the question in his mind long enough to ask.
Once during a private meeting Pete had brought up the topic of the retreat and Nick had asked him if he’d been brainwashed. His boss had flinched at the word. “Good Lord, no,” he said. “I simply tried to teach you how to maximize what God gave you.”
In other words, Pete’s mind games trained them to hone their naturally acute instincts, to focus or, like the army slogan said, to be all they could be.
The plane was moving. They taxied to the end of the runway and then stopped. Nick assumed they were waiting for their turn to get in line with the other planes for takeoff—Cincinnati was a national hub and was always glutted with traffic—but fifteen minutes passed, and they still weren’t inching forward. When he leaned over the empty seat and looked out the window, he saw two planes taxiing at a hell of a fast clip in the opposite direction.
A young blond woman smiled at him from across the aisle and tried to engage him in conversation by asking him if he was a nervous flyer. His white-knuckle grip on the armrests had to have been a dead giveaway. He nodded in answer, then turned to look out the windowagain to discourage further chitchat. She wasn’t bad-looking, and the spandex skirt and top she wore proved, without a doubt, that she had a fine body, but he didn’t want to work at small talk, and he certainly wasn’t in the mood to flirt. He must be more tired than he’d thought. He was becoming more and more like Theo. These days his brother wasn’t in the mood for anything but work.
Nick spotted the fire truck and two police cars racing toward the plane at the same time that Captain Sorensky’s voice came over the intercom. It was strained with good cheer.
“Ladies and gentlemen, there will be a slight delay while we wait our turn for takeoff. We should be in the air soon, so sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the door to the cockpit opened and Sorensky, oozing confidence with his smile, stepped out into the galley. He hesitated for the barest of seconds, his gaze fully directed on Nick, and then started down the aisle. Following on his heels was the young, pasty-faced airline crewman. The man was tailing the captain so closely he looked like he was holding on to the back of his jacket.
Nick slowly unfastened his seat belt.
“Captain, shouldn’t you be flying this plane?” the leggy blond asked, smiling.
Sorensky didn’t look at the woman when he answered. “I just want to check something in back.”