Christopher Smith - Fifth Avenue

Diana looked across the desk at Jack. He was writing on a yellow legal pad, stopping from time to time to glance out the windows, his face set, determined.

She was frightened. What they were proposing could backfire-yet they had no choice. If they didn’t act, the consequences would be equally severe.

The plane banked right, slipped below the cloud line and London burst into sudden, glowing bloom. Diana looked down at the brilliant, intricate web of lights shining beneath them and thought of Louis Ryan. He murdered Celina. He may have destroyed Redman International. In a matter of hours, Leana would open his new hotel. Was she next on his list? Was it George? Elizabeth?

Jack finished writing and slid the legal pad across the desk. Diana picked up the pad of paper. Twice she read what he’d written before laying the pad back onto the table. Her heart was racing when she closed her eyes. This won’t work, she thought. It’s too risky. If he’s caught, my mother dies-and so do his parents. Who are we to jeopardize their lives?

Jack must have sensed what she was thinking, because he reached across the desk and took her hand in his. He looked hard at her and if this compartment wasn’t wired, he would have said what his eyes already conveyed: We have no choice. You know that. Pull yourself together. I need you.

She released her hand and nodded briskly. She had been put in difficult situations before and she would handle this. She turned back to the window and watched the rain beat against the glass. Outside, it seemed as though the world was melting.

The plane was about to land.

Diana gripped the sides of her seat and braced herself, wincing as the wheels struck the wet tarmac. The engines and the brakes screamed. Jack was out of his seat the moment they stopped beside Terminal Four.

The captain alighted from the cockpit, his smile fading when he saw Jack standing in the middle of the aisle, a finger to his lips, legal pad in hand. The man looked past Jack and toward Diana, who also was standing, her face as pale and as watchful as a ghost. “What’s the matter?” he asked, unsure how to read the situation. “Was the trip that bad?”

Jack’s face darkened.

“No,” he said. “The trip was fine-it was the weather that was a little scary. At one point, I think Diana wasn’t going to make it.”

Before the man could speak, Jack approached him, handed him the legal pad and motioned for him to read it. The man’s brow furrowed, he moved to speak, but Jack shook his head firmly and pointed to the pad of paper.

The captain read. When he was finished, he lifted his eyes to Jack’s. On his face was a look of cold understanding. “We’ll be on the ground for about thirty minutes,” he said. “Meantime, if either of you wants to go inside the terminal and browse around, there’s plenty of time.”

“No,” Diana said. “We’ll stay here. Thank for getting us here in one piece.”

The man managed what might have been a smile under different circumstances and removed his cap. He tossed it to Jack. “No problem,” he said. “But if you two would excuse me, I have to go inside. I promised my daughter a souvenir from the trip.”

And he started to remove his flight uniform.

Five minutes later, Jack Douglas was wearing the pilot’s charcoal-gray uniform and his oversized trench coat. He left the plane and hurried down the Lear’s slick, narrow steps, his head bowed as he moved through the wind and the driving rain.

Diana sat at a window and watched him go, not looking away until he had reached the glowing terminal and slipped behind one of its lighted doors. She knew they were being watched, could sense it just as she had sensed Jack’s fear before he left. Whether they were being watched by a member of the ground crew or by someone looking down at them from Terminal Four’s great expanse of windows, she couldn’t be sure.

She turned away from the window.

The pilot had removed his carry-on bag from a small closet and was quickly changing into a pare of khaki pants, a white cotton shirt and a blue baseball cap. He didn’t look at Diana as he dressed, but instead looked past her and watched his co-pilot, the young man who was standing at the Lear’s open door, squinting in the damp breeze, motioning to a member of the ground crew.

The man bounded up the wet steps, his bright yellow slicker shining, his face flushed and wet and smiling. “What’s up, mate?” he asked, shaking the co-pilot’s hand. “Damn good to see you. How’s your wife-still cheating on you?”

The co-pilot laughed and led the man inside, moving him away from the open door and handing him the yellow legal pad. Diana watched him read. The co-pilot said, “You sorry bastard, it’s your wife who cheats. When are you going to stop lying to yourself and admit it?”

The man finished reading. The humor left his face and he looked down the aisle toward the pilot, who had closed his suitcase and was waiting at the rear of the plane, where there were no windows.

“I’ve got the happiest lass in London,” he said. “She’d never cheat on me.”

And he removed his yellow slicker.

The rain was beating against the Lear when the pilot left Diana and his crew behind. He hurried down the steps and crossed the tarmac, the baseball cap shielding his lowered face, the rain and the wind pressing hard against his bright raincoat.

He had an impulse to glance up the terminal’s glowing windows, but stilled it and instead entered the building. He darted up a flight of stairs, opened a door and turned right, cutting through the streams of people hurrying to make their connections. He checked for inconsistencies in the crowd. If he was being followed, they were doing a damn good job of concealing it.

He went to the men’s room he and Jack agreed upon.

“Hurry,” Jack said, when the man stepped inside. “I’ve got twenty minutes to get my ass on that plane. Move!”

The washroom was large and clean and empty. They entered the last two stalls and started undressing.

“Did anyone follow you?” Jack asked.

The pilot tossed his clothes over the stall partition. “No,” he said. “No one followed me.” He paused to grasp the uniform Jack slipped under the gray metal wall and said, “Before you get on that plane, you should call Redman.”

“Can’t,” Jack said. “His phone might be bugged.”

“Then call ahead to the police. You won’t be there for another seven hours. Ryan might have done something by then.”

Jack left the stall and went to the full-length mirror. The clothes were loose, but not too loose. The baseball cap concealed his sandy hair.

“Forget it,” he said. “Louis Ryan probably owns the police.”

The pilot stepped out of the stall and stood beside Jack. Their eyes met. “Besides,” Jack said, “by the time we arrive, Ryan will be at the opening of his new hotel. The event will just be getting underway. We know he’s planned something significant, but it won’t happen at that party.”

“I disagree. That’s exactly when he’d plan it.”

“I don’t think so,” Jack said. “I’ve got a hunch.”

He moved toward the door, but stopped to shoot the pilot a look. “Buy your daughter a gift. They’ll be watching.”

As soon as Elizabeth laid eyes on him, she knew that something else was wrong, knew it had to do with the envelope he just received by messenger. It was not a familiar look, that brief glimpse of horror she saw in his eyes, but she recognized it just the same.

She closed the door behind her and stood there, not far from him or his desk, watching his features slowly return to normal as he folded the letter in half and tucked it in his jacket pocket. For a moment, he was unmoving, his gaze fixed on the photo of Leana that was on his desk. Then he took a breath and looked up at his wife. The years he had never shown were suddenly there on his face.