The magazine racks were protected by a dense wall of fellow passengers, all intent on the rows of glossy color covers. She located the fan magazines, and started to look for Fionna Kenmare’s name, deciding that she would read up on her charge, and steal a march on the tardy courier. Evidently, the woman was more famous than Elizabeth realized. Articles about her appeared in every single one of the magazines. Elizabeth chose five magazines with the highest ratio of words to pictures, hoping that they would contain some actual information instead of pure public relations hype.
A couple of huge men stood up from the floor where they had been kneeling in front of the computer magazines, blocking her view, and began to discuss hard drives and RAM. Elizabeth all but dove over them to reestablish sight of the burgundy door. They gave her a hard glance, and she had to show an intense interest in the rack of crossword puzzle books to throw off any hint of suspicion. She liked puzzles, but there’d be little time for such amusements on the plane, not with an eight-hour babysitting job to get through, and a weeklong protection assignment at the other end of the flight. She chose three anyhow, and moved on to the next rack nearer the door.
An hour passed. Elizabeth felt her stomach rumble. She’d had nothing to eat since breakfast, and it was getting on towards lunch. The clerks in the bookshop were showing signs of nerves at having her hovering about for so long. They couldn’t have missed her staring at the club entrance like a vulture. To calm them and her hollow stomach, she bought a handful of chocolate bars, all the while darting her head around to keep an eye on the corridor. She must be the very picture of a security risk.
Sure enough, a pair of gigantic men with that indefinable air of confidence appeared at her elbow. Plainclothes police. The cashier must have pushed the silent alarm. Elizabeth smiled up at them with innocent puzzlement on her face as she walked up the checkout, and moved away from the shop with her purchase. She sat down on the farthest chair that would allow her to see the length of the corridor, and unwrapped a Yorkie bar. The bobbies, satisfied, drifted off. The clerk looked unhappy that Elizabeth hadn’t actually gone away, and kept shooting her worried glances. Elizabeth ate her chocolate hungrily, and hoped that the courier would arrive soon. There’d be decent refreshments in the club. Maybe even a cup of tea.
An unintelligible announcement came over the tannoy, ending with the words, “boarding at Gate 21.” She looked up at the overhead video screen. The word BOARDING was now flashing next to the flight for New Orleans. Only a half hour remained before departure, and there was one more security checkpoint to pass through. If she was too late they could deny her boarding. Wasn’t Kenmare ever coming out?
As if in answer to her anxieties, the door burst open, and the mass of the Irish entourage surged out. Elizabeth sprang to her feet and shoved the remains of her third candy bar into her handbag.
The moment Fionna Kenmare appeared, the gang of fans converged upon her from all over, clamoring for photo opportunities and autographs. A slight, balding, middle-sized man in a very expensive dark suit, probably her manager, chided them jovially as he gestured them away so the star could walk. Elizabeth panicked. Could she get nearer? Now would be an ideal time for an assassin to strike. Any one of a million handbags or shoulder bags could conceal a weapon or magical impedimenta, without the least concern for all the innocent civilians between hunter and prey. Elizabeth tried to push her way through the group to the center, and got twenty elbows in the ribs before she’d moved five paces. Stuck between a tall young man in an Army surplus T-shirt and a woman in a rust-colored, silk Armani business suit, Elizabeth could see flashes of the long, manicured hands as the star scribbled a few tributes on ticket envelopes and magazine covers.
The mass of people gradually moved down the hallway and through the glass doors. At the gate, Fionna Kenmare and her people were winnowed out of the crowd by the airline personnel. She swept through passport protocol and onto the plane, a privilege of a First Class ticket and her famous face. Elizabeth tried to follow her, but the staff stopped her at the barrier.
“May I see your ticket, madam?” asked a nice young man with dark hair and blue eyes.
“Here,” Elizabeth said, desperately trying to see over his shoulder. “But I must get on the plane now.”
“Yes,” the attendant said, very patiently. “We all saw her. But you’ll have to wait for a while. Economy Class boarding will commence shortly. Will you please take a seat in the meantime?”
Elizabeth looked past him at the jetway, feeling at a loss. Every moment Kenmare was alone, disaster could strike. She thought about showing the staff her MI-5 warrant card, but that would lead to other questions which she could not answer. And the airport authority would demand, quite rightly, to know why no one had notified them that there was a “situation” in progress. Protests would be filed with the Ministry of Transport, the Secret Service, the Metropolitan Police, and there might even be embarrassing questions asked in Parliament. Mr. Ringwall would be cross. Elizabeth winced involuntarily.
She moved away from the crowd and opened her telephone.
“Sorry, love,” the receptionist said, halfway between sympathy and amusement. “Your man’s still stuck somewhere between Hatton Cross and the International Terminal. Track delays. You’ll have to go it alone. Your briefing is being faxed to the FBI. Your contact will bring it to you at New Orleans.”
“So I’ve got to sit an entire flight without knowing the full nature of the threats? In Economy Class? Damn all horrid bureaucrats,” Elizabeth said irritably, and then remembered too late that all incoming phone calls were taped.
The receptionist chuckled. “Double on that, Agent Mayfield. Good luck.”
Chapter 3
The gate attendant announced boarding for Business Class, and a dozen passengers queued up to pass through the barrier. Elizabeth blew a strand of hair out of her face as she paced, hoping she looked like no more than a typical nervous traveler. She ought to feel proud. The brass had never given her an international assignment before. This was a promotion, she reminded herself. There’d been such envy on the faces of the others in the Whitehall office that she was being sent off on a mission, with its tantalizing whiff of influence from High Places and Mysterious Danger, instead of someone with practical experience in dealing with kidnapping and anonymous threats. But all she could do was worry. Elizabeth felt a headache coming on. She had no aspirins with her. To get them she would have to go out the door through security again, leaving her post. That wouldn’t do at all. She massaged the knotted tendons at the back of her neck.
The female staff member politely asked Economy Class to board. Elizabeth presented her ticket with hardly a look at the attendant, and ran down the passageway to the jet. She had to wait ages at the door for the cheerful women and men in uniforms to stow baggage and coats for their First Class charges. Standing on tiptoe, Elizabeth managed to spot the back of Fionna Kenmare’s green-dyed head as the woman leaned over to tap champagne glasses with a big bruiser of a man across the aisle from her. Gad, why would anyone do that to her hair? The suede-cut was the very next thing to being shaved bald. Elizabeth supposed the style went with the makeup. As Kenmare turned to signal the flight attendant nearest her for a refill, Elizabeth got a full look at the star’s face. A fine-featured head with good cheekbones had been used like a billboard for graffiti-like makeup. From the eyelids to the hairline, she wore white eye shadow overpainted with what one presumed were mystic symbols. She had slashes of red-orange blush along her cheekbones, and if that wasn’t enough of a visual headache, her lips were sharply painted with fuchsia to clash with the rest of the ensemble.
“Why doesn’t she just hang a fireplug from her nose and complete the picture?” Elizabeth muttered, as the flight crew politely but firmly steered the Third Class passengers down the aisle toward the rear of the aircraft. It wasn’t as if the woman was even much of a singer. Elizabeth could remember hearing Fionna Kenmare on the radio many times. She had a pretty voice, but seemed more to be shouting her lyrics than singing them. What good did it do her fans if they couldn’t understand the words? Or didn’t that matter to fans any longer?