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 taxung 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 window again 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."
The captain’s hands were fisted at his sides, but as he passed Nick’s seat, his right hand unfolded and he dropped the gun’s magazine into Nick’s lap.
In one fluid motion, Nick sprang out of his seat, grabbed the young crewman’s arm, and pinned it to the back of the headrest behind him. The element of surprise was on his side. The man didn’t even have time to blink before his gun was snatched out of his hand and he was facedown on the floor with Nick’s foot pressed against his neck. The magazine was back in the Sig Sauer and the gleaming barrel was pointed at the man before the captain had fully turned around.
It all happened so fast, the other passengers were too stunned to scream. Sorensky raised his hands and called out, "Everything’s okay, folks." Turning to Nick, he said, "Man, do you move fast."
"I’ve had some practice," Nick replied as he reholstered his gun then knelt down and began to go through the man’s pockets.
"He told me he’s the prisoner’s cousin, and he was going to get him off this plane."
"Didn’t put a whole lot of thought into the plan, did he?" He flipped open the man’s wallet and read the name on his Kentucky driver’s license. "William Robert Hendricks." Nudging the man he asked, "Your friends call you Billy Bob?"
In response Billy Bob started squirming like a fish in a canoe and screaming at the top of his lungs for a lawyer. Nick ignored him and asked the captain to see if Marshal Downing happened to have an extra pair of cuffs he could borrow.
As the initial moment of shock wore off, the passengers began to react. A murmur went through the crowd, and like a snowball, gathered momentum as it rolled down the aisle. Captain Sorensky, sensing the panic that was spreading, took control. In a voice as smooth as good whiskey, he called out, "Settle down, settle down. It’s all over now. Everyone sit back down and relax. As soon as this law officer takes care of this little matter, we’ll be on our way again. No one’s been hurt." The captain then asked one of the attendants to please fetch Marshal Downing from the back row.
The marshal, with prisoner in tow, strode down the aisle and handed Nick a pair of handcuffs. After Nick had snapped the cuffs in place behind the prisoner’s back, he hauled him to his feet. He noticed that Marshal Downing was shaking his head and frowning.
"What’s the matter?" he asked.
"You know what this means, don’t you?" Downing muttered in a slow Texas drawl.
"What does it mean?" Captain Sorensky asked.
"More damned paperwork."
After stopping by his Boston office to drop off a couple of folders, tie up some loose ends, and take a little ribbing about the possibility that he had only squelched the hijacking to delay having to fly-everyone in the department seemed to think his fear of flying was hilarious-Nick finally headed home. Traffic was a bitch, but then it always was. He was tempted to head his ‘84 Porsche toward the highway and open her up just to see how the reconditioned motor would manage but decided against it. He was too tired. Instead, he maneuvered her through the familiar side streets. She handled like a dream. What did he care if his sisters, Jordan and Sidney, had nicknamed her "Compensation," implying that a man who drove such a sexy sports car was merely compensating for what was lacking in his love life.
He pulled into the basement garage of his brick town house, hit the remote control to close the door, and felt his entire body begin to relax. He was finally home. He climbed the steps to the main floor, dumped his Hartmann bag in the back hallway outside the laundry room door-his housekeeper, Rosie, had trained him well-and had his suit jacket and tie off before he reached the newly remodeled kitchen. He dropped his briefcase and his sunglasses on the shiny brown granite island, grabbed a beer from the Sub-Zero refrigerator that always made a weird sucking sound whenever he closed the door, and headed for his sanctuary, dodging the pyramid of unpacked boxes Rosie had stacked in the center of his living room with hostile notes Scotch taped to them.
The library was his favorite room in the house and the only one he’d bothered to furnish since he’d lived there. It was located in the back on the first floor. When he opened the door, the scent of lemon furniture polish, leather, and musty old books wafted about him, the scent not unpleasant. The room was large and spacious, yet still felt warm and cozy on harsh winter nights when a blizzard was raging outside his windows and there was a fire blazing in the hearth. The walls were a dark walnut that stretched twelve feet up to the ornately carved eighteenth-century moldings bracketing the ceiling. Two of the four walls bore shelves slightly bowed from the weight of the heavy texts. A ladder rolled back and forth along a brass pole across the bookcase so the volumes on the top shelves could be easily reached. His mahogany desk, a gift from his uncle, faced the fire-place, the mantel a clutter of photos his mother and his sisters had placed there after he’d moved in. Double French doors with a Palladian arch above them were straight ahead. When he pulled the draperies back and opened the doors to the walled garden with the old cherub fountain and paver-brick patio, that had been laid down God only knows how long ago, sunlight and scent filled the library. In the spring it was lilac first, then honeysuckle, but now the heavy smell of heliotrope was prominent.