At a loss, he turned to his escort, but she'd already gone.He spoke to the man at the door. 'Those aren't the people. There's some mistake."
The cop shrugged.
He found his way back to the hub of the Immigration Department, and vented his frustration on Officer Wharton. "You detained the wrong people. I've never seen that kid before and they're wearing different clothes, for Christ's sake."
"Hold on, Mac," Wharton told him, pointing a finger. "Don't give lip to me. We held the people you wanted. You gave us no description, just a name. That's Mrs. Nakajima in there, no mistake. You want to see the passport?" He handed one across.
Diamond opened it No question: these people were called Nakajima. "But they don't match the description," he said.
"You mean this passport belongs to some other woman?"
"No. What I mean is that the people who were seen at Heathrow were dressed differently from Mrs. Nakajima and child." Even as he spoke the words, the mistake he'd made dawned on him. "Oh, no!"
Wharton eyed him dispassionately.
"I assumed because Mrs. Nakajima and her daughter were Japanese and traveling alone that they had to be die woman and child seen going through the departure gate at Heathrow. After BA came up with these people, I just didn't check the other airlines. They must have taken some other flight. They could have gone anywhere-any damned place in the world." Mad with himself for being so obtuse, he ended by thumping his fist down so hard on Officer Wharton's desk that paper clips jumped.
Three thousand five hundred miles on the Concorde chasing the wrong people. What a pea-brain! "Listen," he said to Wharton, "it may be too late, but I want to contact Terminal Three at Heathrow. I want to fax every airline to check their passenger lists for a Japanese woman traveling alone with a child sometime after one P.M. today. Could you arrange that for me?" Sensing that die request was too stark, he added, "Arthur?"
"You want me to authorize those faxes?" Wharton's expression didn't look promising.
"You have the facilities here," Diamond told him frankly.
"But you want me to handle this?"
"Exactly. If my name is given, there's so much to explain. If the request comes from U.S. Immigration, they'll act on it promptly. No explanation needed. Speed is the key here."
"Checking passenger lists? You've got to be joking, man."
"They're computerized," Diamond pointed out. He'd not often thought of modern technology as an ally, but he had no scruples in this emergency. "It's just a matter of tapping a few keys."
Wharton rubbed the side of his face.
"Listen," Diamond steamed on, "while you're doing this for me, I'll go back to Mrs. Nakajima and make your apologies. Fair enough?"
It wasn't fair, and he knew it. Wharton knew it, too, but the urgency in the way it was put to him was compelling. "You'd better write down the message you want me to send," he said with a sigh.
The crucial reply from London came in forty minutes later. By mat stage of the exercise, Officer Wharton had been thoroughly briefed about the quest to find Naomi and now he identified himself totally with the challenge. "Hey, man, this is it" He held up the fax he had just taken from the machine. "You want some good news? She's here after all!"
Diamond was galvanized. "Here? In New York, you mean?"
"Right on. They flew in this afternoon on a United flight A Japanese woman and a kid."
"Brilliant! When did they land?"
"Seventeen-twenty. About an hour ago."
"An hourl" Diamond's elation withered and died. "By now they must have cleared customs and left the airport."
But Wharton gave a reassuring grin. "Not this airport. Takes a while to get through Immigration in JFK. The United flight?" He looked at his watch. "I figure they could be as far as the customs hall by now, but I wouldn't bet on it"
Diamond was on his feet. "Which way?"
"Hold on, Peter," Wharton told him. "You're in serious danger of doing yourself an injury. We can check from here." He pointed upwards to a set of eight television monitors mounted on the ceiling. "Video surveillance. See if you can spot your people. I'm going to see if I can raise the crew of that flight."
Cameras were in positions where they could pan slowly over the entire queue snaking around the system of barriers towards the kiosks where their passports were examined and stamped. Diamond studied each screen keenly, looking for a child. Some were tantalizingly half obscured by adults.
Wharton was busy on the phone. "I've spoken to the chief steward on the United flight," he presently informed Diamond. "There's no question they were on board. He remembers Naomi in the red corduroy, and the woman in the gray Rohan jacket."
"That's wonderful, but where are they now, I'd like to know," said Diamond. "I can't see them in the queue."
"You won't. Seems the United flight has cleared Immigration. Take a look at the baggage claim hall-the monitors to your right. They should be in mere somewhere. I'm trying to establish which of our officers dealt with them."
He would rather have been in the baggage hall himself instead of staring at the gray screens. The figures grouped by the baggage carousel looked about as remote and unfocused as the pictures of the first moon landing. True, he could just about make out enough to distinguish one individual from another.
"If you think you spot them, we have a zoom facility," Wharton explained, taking the phone away from his ear for a moment "We can take a closer look."
"Thanks." But he hadn't spotted them, and the possible explanations were depressingly simple to supply. They may have collected their luggage and gone. Or the woman may have owned a U.S. passport, in which case they would have passed through at least half an hour ago. Or they'd carried everything as hand luggage.
Then Wharton started talking earnestly on the phone. He told Diamond, "Okay, they just passed through Immigration. The woman's name is Tanaka-get that?-Mrs. Minori Tanaka, Japanese passport holder. The kid is traveling on her passport, name of Emi."
"Amy?"
Wharton spelled it. "Mrs. Tanaka put down the Sheraton, Park Avenue, as her address. We can check with the hotel whether they have a reservation."
Diamond's eyes hadn't left the monitors and a moment later he was rewarded by the image of two grainy figures of a woman and small girl approaching the carousel with a cart. The child appeared to have Naomi's fringe and black hair.
He pointed. "That one. Second from the end. The child." Wharton reached for a remote control and pressed a button to operate the zoom. The child's face increased in size until it filled the screen, placid in expression, gazing nowhere in particular, as if preoccupied in thought.
Naomi, without question.
"Let me see the woman with her," Diamond requested.
"In close-up?"
The screen blurred momentarily, then he had his first sight of Minori Tanaka, a keen-eyed, intelligent face with prominent cheekbones and a small nose. The mouth, defined with an intense lipstick, was wider than usual in a Japanese, giving a suggestion of waywardness, or sexiness, according to interpretation. She was probably in her thirties.
"Attractive," was Arthur Wharton's opinion.
Unexpectedly, the face slid out of shot.
"Can you pull back?" Diamond asked, and as the camera was being adjusted to give the longer view, even before it was complete, he saw that the woman was stooping over the carousel. "Christ, she's collecting her suitcase! She'll be gone."
Watching the screen, they had been lulled into a near- disastrous passivity. In seconds, Mrs. Tanaka could wheel her cart through customs to the cab area and be driven away with Naomi.
"How do we get to them?" Diamond demanded.
"You need a stamp on your passport first," Wharton told him.
"Oh, for crying out loud! That child has been abducted."
"Passport."
He handed it across. Wharton opened it, selected a rubber stamp from the drawer of his desk, adjusted the date and made the imprint in the passport. "Now that you're legal we can go find them, Peter."