Colin Forbes: Terminal

`It's the only way we can get married – unless you agree that we both live in London or somewhere in Europe..

`I've given up years of my life to practise medicine and I want to live in the States. I'd feel lost and marooned anywhere else. And, Bob, I am going to Berne. The question is – are you coming with me? There might even be a big story in it…'

`Look, Nancy, I write about espionage, foreign affairs. Where in God's name is there that kind of story in this Berne business?'

`You've been there. You've done your job there. You speak all the languages – French, German, Italian, plus Spanish. You told me you have friends there. The bottom line is, are you going to help me?'

`I'll decide after I've seen Rosen.

`Bob, what does a woman take off first? Her earrings, isn't it?' She divested herself of each gold earring slowly, watching him with a certain expression. 'Let's go to your room…'

`I haven't finished my steak.' He pushed his plate away and grinned. 'It's underdone, anyway. I've just lost my appetite.'

`You ordered your steak rare. The experience I'm offering is rare too…'

New York, Kennedy Airport. 10 February 1984. 0?. The slim, attractive Swissair stewardess in her pale blue uniform noticed this passenger the moment he came aboard Flight SR 111, bound for Geneva and Zurich. She escorted the man, over six feet tall and heavily-built, to his reserved first-class window seat and tried to help him take off his shaggy sheepskin jacket.

`I can do it myself…'

His voice was gravelly, the tone curt. He handed her the jacket, settled himself in his seat and fastened the belt. He inserted a cigarette between his wide, thick lips and stared out into the darkness. The flight was due to depart at 18.55.

As the stewardess arranged his jacket carefully on a hanger she studied him. In his early fifties, she estimated. A dense thatch of white hair streaked with black, heavy, dark eyebrows and a craggy face. Clean-shaven, his complexion was flushed with the bitter wind which sheared the streets of New York. His large, left hand clutched a brief-case perched on the adjoining seat. She straightened her trim jacket before approaching him.

`I'm very sorry, sir, but no smoking is permitted.

`I haven't lit the damned thing, have I! I am very familiar with the regulations. No smoking before the words up there say so…'

`I'm sorry, sir…'

She retreated, carrying on with her duties automatically as the Jumbo 747 took off and headed out across the Atlantic, her mind full of the tall American passenger. It was the blue eyes which worried her, she decided. They reminded her of that very special glacial blue you only saw in mountain lakes.

`Thinking about your boy friend?' one of her companion stewardesses enquired while they sorted out the drink orders.

`The passenger in Seat Five. He fascinates me. Have you noticed his eyes? They're chilling…'

The white-haired man was sipping bitter lemon, staring out of the porthole window, when a hand lifted the brief-case off the seat next to him and dumped it in his lap. He glanced sideways as a small, bird-like man with restless eyes settled into the seat and began talking chirpily, keeping his voice low.

`Well, if it isn't my old pal, Lee Foley. Off to Zurich on more Company business?'

`Ed Schulz, go back to your own seat.'

`It's a free country, a free aircraft – just so long as you've paid. And I've paid. You didn't answer my question. The senior roving foreign affairs correspondent for Time magazine always gets answers to his questions. You should know that by now, Lee…'

`I quit the CIA and you know it. I'm with one of the top international detective agencies in New York. You know that, too. End of conversation.'

`Let's develop this thing a bit..

`Let's not.' Foley leaned across Schulz. 'Stewardess, could I have a word?' He produced two airline tickets from his breast pocket as the girl bent forward attentively. 'I've reserved both these seats. These tickets say so. Could you kindly have this intruder removed? He's trying to sell me something.'

He settled back in his seat, slipped the tickets she had looked at into his pocket and resumed his gaze out into the night. His whole manner indicated the matter is settled, no more to say.

`I'm afraid this seat is reserved,' the girl told Schulz. 'If you could return to your own seat maybe I could bring you something more to drink?'

`Another large whisky.' Schulz, his normal chirpiness deserting him, stood up and glanced at the back of Foley's head. `See you in Zurich. Pal!' He walked off down the gangway.

`I hope that man didn't disturb you, sir,' the stewardess who had originally shown him to his seat said to Foley.

`You did the job,' he said without looking at her.

Shaken, Schulz sagged into his aisle seat and realized he was sweating. Ice-cold bastard! He mopped his damp forehead, adjusted his tie and glanced at the blonde creature alongside him. She gave him the same warm, welcoming smile he had experienced when he first sat down.

Forty years old, he guessed. Wedding ring on her finger. The right age – Schulz was forty-five. Once they got away from their husbands they were ready for a little dalliance. He hoped she was going all the way to Zurich. He hoped she'd go all the way with him! The unspoken joke felt a little sour. It was the encounter with Foley. He thanked the stewardess for the fresh drink and memories drifted through his mind.

Lee Foley. Executioner for the CIA. They shied away from that word. Special operative was the euphemism. The rumoured body count down to Foley's expertise was as high as twenty-five men – and women. Now the story was he had quit the CIA and was working for CIDA – the Continental International Detective Agency. Schulz thought he might radio a cryptic signal to the Zurich office to have a man waiting to follow Foley. He'd think about it when his nerves settled. He turned to the blonde woman.

`Going on to Zurich, I hope? I'm Ed Schulz of Time Magazine. I know a nice little restaurant in Zurich, the Veltliner Keller…'

No memories drifted through the mind of Lee Foley. He refused dinner and ordered more bitter lemon. Not from virtue, he seldom touched alcohol – it clouded the mind, slowed down the reflexes. How many people who used it as a pick-me-up realized it was a depressant? Cigarettes and the occasional woman were his relaxations. They had to be classy women and definitely not professionals. This thought triggered off another one.

`When I have to buy it I'll hang up my boots…'

Some Brit. had used that phrase when they were passing a brothel on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg. Bob Newman, foreign correspondent. The guy who had recently broken the Kruger case in Germany and earned himself another cluster of laurels. Now Ed Schulz could never have come within a mile of cracking that espionage classic. He wondered where Newman was tonight – and immediately pushed the irrelevant thought out of his head.

`Maximize your concentration,' was one of Foley's favourite phrases. 'And wait – forever if need be – until the conditions are right…'

Foley was waiting now, eyes half-closed in an apparent doze as he observed the progress of dinner round Ed Schulz's seat. The conditions were right now he decided as coffee was served. He felt inside the little pocket he had unzipped earlier and squeezed a single soluble capsule from the polythene envelope.

Standing up, he strolled along the corridor to where two stewards cluttered the aisle next to Schulz whose head was turned away as he talked to his travelling companion. He held a balloon glass of Remy Martin in the accepted manner, fingers splayed, and in front of him was a cup of black coffee which had just been poured.