‘But he knows I’m alive?’
‘Yes he sent me a message saying that you were expected in Bermuda.’
Gerry frowned. ‘How could he have known that?’
‘As I said, apparently he still has access to the confidential website,’ Cornwall replied. ‘So what happened on board the aircraft? In fact you’d better tell me everything that happened from the time you left Farnborough airport. After all we’re together in this aircraft for another two and a half hours.’
Gerry was coming to the end of her story as the aircraft began its descent towards Toronto.
Cornwall was silent for a moment, wondering if she would elaborate on her days alone in the raft but just then the Captain announced that the aircraft would land in ten minutes. ‘But didn’t Ali Hamsin tell you about Gilgamesh before he died?’
‘Ali didn’t tell me what was in the Gilgamesh document; he told me how to find it.’
‘Bloody hell! So are you going to tell me?’
‘Why should I trust you?’ she asked.
‘Because you can’t keep going on your own and because I’ll tell you how to find Dan Hall. Also if I wanted to, I could easily have arranged for you to be picked up at Toronto, rather than boarding the flight to talk to you.’
‘Ok then, it’s hidden in Lebanon with a friend of his. Richard, you have to let me go there and find it.’
Cornwall nodded. ‘Very well, I agree.’ He reached into his briefcase and handed Gerry an envelope. ‘In here is a United States passport in the name of Edith Williams and three thousand dollars and a UK passport in the name of Vanessa Davies, plus matching driving licenses. When we get to Toronto I’ll be getting the next flight back to Bermuda. Your mission, should you choose to accept it is to make contact with Dan Hall and find out what the hell Gilgamesh is all about. Then call me.’
Gerry looked at the passports. ‘I don’t think the name Edith suits me,’ she mused.
‘The name Melissa Madbitch suits you better, but I settled on Edith Williams,’ Cornwall replied. ‘Now, from Toronto you take a flight to Denver and then you get a connection to Jackson Hole in Wyoming.’ He handed her a piece of paper. ‘Send me a text to this number to say you’ve arrived. Then hire a car and drive to this location. It’s a campsite and you’ll find Dan Hall there. Take it carefully because Dan won’t be expecting you. Oh and here’s a telephone with fifty dollars credit.’
‘Oh good, do you have his cell phone number?’
‘There’s no telephone or internet coverage where he is.’
‘Oh, ok.’
‘My number’s in the memory under Barnes. By the way, that three thousand dollars is my own money, so don’t piss it away on a business class ticket or high living. It’s too late to get a flight this evening, so we’d better check into a hotel by the airport and you can set off tomorrow.’
‘Ok Richard… thanks. So you do trust me?’
‘Yes… but I still want separate rooms.’
‘Ha bloody ha!’ she retorted but he was pleased to see the small smile she gave him.
On arrival in Toronto, Cornwall watched Gerry Tate walk up to the United Airlines desk and buy her ticket and then he booked an Air Canada flight back to Bermuda. They took separate taxis to the hotel and made no sign of recognition while they checked in at adjacent positions. Alone in his room Cornwall made a telephone call to his wife and was pleased to find her in their room. ‘Hi Fiona, how are you?’
‘I’m fine, just having a beer and watching a Jason Bourne film. He’s much more rugged than you, but not so handsome.’
‘Thanks. Sorry you’re alone, but my flight gets in at ten past twelve so perhaps I’ll be with you for lunch.’
‘Oh I’m not alone; one of the room service waiters is with me, but I’ll get rid of him by lunch time tomorrow.’
‘So long as it’s a waiter and not some billionaire banker who will whisk you away, I’m ok with that. See you tomorrow darling.’
‘Ok, love you!’
‘Love you too, bye.’ He put down his phone and then tried to concentrate on a copy of The Economist magazine that he had bought in the airport news store, while checking his watch at frequent intervals. Eventually his phone rang.
‘Felix?…Yes it’s Richard. I’ve sent her on. She’s planned to arrive in Denver tomorrow on United 7842 at 9:30 Mountain Time for onward connection to Jackson Hole, arriving at 12:30 where she should be able to pick up the trail to Dan Hall. I’ve given her the location of his camp site.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The United Airlines Boeing 757 approached Denver out of a cloudless sky. Gerry leant towards the window and gazed down at the airport with its six runways as the aircraft flew past before turning in for its approach and landing. If Heathrow had that many runways it would eliminate all those annoying delays, she decided, but then half of Middlesex would have to be bulldozed. She checked her watch which had survived days on the raft unscathed, and adjusted it two hours back for the Mountain Time zone. She had an hour and fifty minutes to make her connection to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. She sat back in her seat, finished her diet coke and ran her tongue over her peeling lips and crowned tooth. Soon she would be seeing Dan Hall again. Dan Hall who had told her he loved her. She wondered what he would think of her if he knew that she had spent nearly a week on a yacht with Steven Morris and engaged in enthusiastic sexual intercourse for the first time since she was with Philip. Rather to her surprise she felt uncomfortable at the possibility he would somehow find out.
She had spent a restless night in the Toronto airport hotel room, wondering if she should abandon the enterprise; make her way back home and disappear somewhere. In Europe with its uncontrolled borders she would be able to move around quite easily if anyone came to find her, but she had decided that although that kind of life might suit her for a while, it would leave unanswered all the questions that had been troubling her while she was in prison. She wondered what precautions Cornwall might have taken to ensure she stayed on task. She had seen him watching her as she had checked in but then lost sight of him when she had gone into US immigration pre-clearance where her passport in the name of Edith Williams had been accepted without question. However, his flight back to Bermuda departed thirty minutes after hers so it was no surprise that he was at the airport.
The aircraft touched down to a rather firm landing that shook her out of her reverie. She gazed out of the window as it decelerated along the runway and watched an executive jet taxying past in the opposite direction, one of the hundreds that conveyed wealthy individuals and influential businessmen around the world. She recalled her trip in a similar aircraft to Florida. That flight was only three weeks ago, but it seemed much longer and she felt disconnected from her life before that date by the trauma of her days on the raft. As she emerged into the arrivals hall she swept her eyes over the small crowd but she recognised nobody, however she was observed by Neil Samms. He was wearing a wig of long brown hair gathered into a pony tail, a thick moustache that surrounded his chin and cheek inserts broadened his face. Behind his sunglasses he wore contact lenses which changed his eyes from green to a more non-descript brown colour. He wore jeans and a heavy leather jacket but these were his own clothes and he appeared relaxed and natural in them.
The last time he had talked to Gerry Tate was when they were on board the Gulfstream coming over from Farnborough to Florida. On that occasion she had appeared nervous and uncertain, not at all like the woman he had worked with years previously and who had treated him with obvious disdain, but the woman who emerged off the flight from Toronto was deeply tanned with her hair lightened by continual exposure to the sun. There was an eager look about her as she strode impatiently past the other passengers with a rucksack slung over one shoulder. She walked past the baggage belts and he trailed her to the United Airline transfer desk. He walked up to an unmanned desk where he pulled from his own rucksack a device that appeared identical to a cell phone but actually contained a sensitive directional microphone. He inserted the earpiece and then he picked up an airport information leaflet which he pretended to study.