“Doesn’t she want someone from her family?”
“Ah, but it is not possible. I call her mother and her sister. Neither one has a passport. So she thinks next of you, and asks if you can please come quickly.”
“Of course. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll get on a plane this afternoon.”
“Bon, good. You can fly into Avignon, but the flights are better if you come to Lyon or Marseilles. Marseilles is one hour by car.”
Racing down the path and out the gate, I frantically flagged down the TBI chopper, which was quivering on its landing skids, transitioning toward flight. Stone took off his headset, scrambled out of the helicopter, and hurried over to me.
“Doc, is something wrong?”
“Can you guys give me a ride? I need to get someplace fast.”
“Where?”
“France.”
SIXTY SECONDS LATER, WE WERE AIRBORNE AGAIN, this time with me in the right front seat. “Does this thing have turbo?” I asked the pilot. By way of an answer, he rolled the helicopter into a 90-degree bank.
“Holy shit,” I heard Stone squawk from the back.
Skimming low across the river, the chopper hurtled toward Neyland Stadium. “I don’t know where you can land,” I said, scanning the vicinity of the stadium. “The parking lots all look pretty full.”
The pilot grinned. “I think I see a spot that might just be big enough.” Swooping low over the towering scoreboard, we plunged straight into the bowl of the stadium.
“Touchdown,” Stone deadpanned as we thumped into the south end zone.
MY SECRETARY SCARCELY GLANCED UP AS I DASHED past her desk and into my office. “Peggy,” I called out, yanking down the zipper of the greasy, sooty jumpsuit. “I need you to do some airline research for me, please.” Yanking off my boots and the jumpsuit, I tossed them in a corner.
“For that conference in Seattle next month? I booked your tickets last week, remember? Nonrefundable.” Her typing hadn’t even slowed.
“Peggy, stop typing. Listen. I need to fly to France. Marseilles. Like, ten minutes ago.” On the other side of the doorway, her keyboard fell silent. “It’s Miranda,” I went on, pulling on the clothes I’d intended to wear to my meeting with the president. “Ruptured appendix. She’s going in for surgery right now.” Rummaging in my closet, I dug out my “go” bag, a duffel I kept packed and at the ready, and slung it over my shoulder.
“Oh, my Lord,” she gasped. “Poor thing.”
By then I was already headed for the staircase, my shirttail still untucked, my shoes and socks in one hand. “I’m off to the airport,” I yelled over my shoulder. “Call me once you book it.” As the steel fire door slammed shut behind me, I thought I heard her say something else, but by then I was halfway down the steps.
It wasn’t until the helicopter was lifting off from the goal line that I realized what she’d said. The realization came when I saw her dash onto the field, wildly waving her arms, clutching my laptop in one hand and a small blue booklet in the other: my passport.
Twenty-two minutes and thirty-three hundred dollars later, my passport in one hand and my bag in the other, I boarded a United flight for Dulles airport in Washington, D.C. From Dulles, Lufthansa would take me to Frankfurt, Germany, and finally to Marseilles, where Beauvoir had promised to pick me up.
By the time I boarded at Dulles, I felt sure Miranda was out of surgery, but my half-dozen phone calls got no answer or return message. The silence was terrifying.
As the aircraft climbed out of Washington and wheeled toward the Atlantic, the ten-thousand-foot chime sounded, reminding me of the church bell I’d heard tolling a few hours before. Please, I prayed, though I could not have said to whom or what I prayed. Please not for Miranda.
CHAPTER 2
Marseilles, France
The Present
THE CUSTOMS AGENT DIDN’T BOTHER TO LOOK UP AS he took my passport and reached for the inked stamp. “Is the purpose of your visit business or pleasure, Monsieur Brockton?” His flat tone suggested that he was already profoundly bored with me, even before I spoke.