Sam Bourne - The Chosen One

Euphemism, that was the key. No word that would be flagged automatically by the authorities and their word-hunt programs.

Hope you’re well, big guy. Question for you. If our friends at the Company were planning to take a little working vacation in the Big Easy, what would be their best initial destination? Am assuming Louis Armstrong International too crowded etc. What would you advise?

He’d got a reply within four minutes.

No one but tourists uses Louis. They’d go for a place they Knew.

Neat. Just that capital K was enough. He called up the Federal Aviation Administration database, waiting for the right page to load before typing the word KNEW. Instantly the four letters were recognized as the call sign for Lakefront airport, located, he discovered, just ‘four nautical miles north-east of the central business district of New Orleans’.

He went to the airport’s website to find a photo of a rather lovely structure, complete with original art-deco terminal and a sculpture out front: Fountain of the Winds.

He read the spec: general aviation, with special provision for charter and private flights. That would be ideal for a black op, Judd decided. There was even a history of occasional military use: plausible that some of the CIA guys had used it before.

He glanced down at the dates Nick had given him, then keyed in the details he needed to call up the flight plans for aircraft that had used Lakefront in that period. He narrowed it down by selecting ‘In’ rather than ‘In and Out’. Whether the CIA had flown a plane out of Lakefront after Forbes’s death could wait. Right now he needed to see if they had flown in.

As he expected a long, long list of N-numbers appeared. One by one, using nothing more elaborate than the basic search function on his internet browser, he checked to see if any of those numbers also appeared on the list of thirty-three planes he and his fellow spotters, along with various peace activists and reporters like du Caines, had determined constituted the fleet leased by the CIA for its covert work, dominated by, but not confined to, extraordinary renditions.

Not one.

He would have to go the long way round. He decided to call his buddy Martin, whose greatest asset was that he was not burdened by even the meagre domestic obligations that sat on Judd’s shoulders. Martin had no kids, no wife and, so far as he could tell, no friends save for Judd himself.

As always, Martin answered on the first ring. Judd walked him through the problem and they agreed to split the list. Judd would check the midnight Sunday to noon Wednesday flights into Lakefront – looking for any numbers that carried the telltale hallmarks – and Martin would do the same for the second half of the week, from noon Wednesday to Sunday midnight. ‘First one to find it gets free beer for a night.’

‘Done.’

That had been close to 6pm. It was now shortly after eleven, long after his wife had gone to bed – slamming the door, asking why he didn’t just stick his dick into the computer’s disk drive, he obviously loved it so much – that he felt the first nibble on the end of the line.

Every other N-number traced back to a regular commercial air operator: licensed, well-known, all-colour website, the full deal. But here was one, N4808P, owned by Premier Air Executive Services, an operator based in Maryland, whose site gave only the sparest of details – and named no executives.

Judd headed to the registry of company records. The entry for Premier Air offered three listed officers. A further search on these three men yielded a pattern Judd had seen several times before. Their social security numbers – all fully retrievable online – had been issued when they were over the age of fifty. He wouldn’t have known about such things before, but the rendition saga had taught Judd that when a social security number is given to someone in their fifties, that someone is creating a new and fake identity.

But the company records contained one more curious fact about the provenance of Premier Air Executive Services, one that surprised him and which, he guessed, would particularly interest Nick du Caines. He reached for his phone.

Aberdeen, Washington, Saturday March 25, 10.05 PST

Maggie could hear a low hum, which she assumed was in her head. She had been dreaming so vividly, she had not only seen Uri’s face close to hers, she had felt the touch of his hand as he stroked her hair. But even then, as she smiled at his caresses, the hum had bothered her. It didn’t fit. And so she had made herself wake up, so that she could drive the noise away.

When she opened her eyes, she saw only a white wall. There were no lines she could make out, in fact nothing that could make her certain it was a wall rather than just empty space. Or maybe a cloud. The hum was still there, though.

She moved her head and felt a surge of pain at the base of her skull. She must have let out a noise – though it sounded as if it came from down the hall – because within a few moments a nurse had scurried into the room, filling up the white space that had once been a blank wall.

‘Well, good morning.’

Maggie heard the same down-the-hall voice answer, ‘Good morning.’ It sounded slurred and blurred.

‘Do you know where you are?’

Maggie tried to shake her head, sending more shooting pain up from her neck. She heard a yelp come out of her mouth.

‘OK. We should start at the beginning. What is your name?’

With vast effort, Maggie croaked, ‘Maggie Costello.’

The nurse – fair-haired and large-armed – checked her notes. ‘Good. That’s what we have too. Another few questions, I’m afraid. Who is the president of the United States?’

Before the answer came the feeling, a sudden onrush of memories and the emotions they aroused. She saw the den in the White House Residence, Sanchez, MacDonald, Stuart Goldstein. Stuart . She felt a stab of grief, the lead weight of realization that something awful had not been imagined or dreamed but was real. Only then did she see the face of Stephen Baker: still handsome but now etched with pain…

‘Don’t worry, he’s still very new. His name is Stephen Baker. How many states are there in the United States?’

‘Where am I?’

‘I’ll come to that. I just need to ask you these questions the instant you wake up. That’s our protocol. How many-’

‘Fifty.’

‘And what day of the week comes after-’

‘Stephen Baker is the president of the United States. He won last November with three hundred and thirty-nine electoral college votes, defeating Mark Chester in the general having beaten Dr Anthony Adams in the primary. The days of the week are Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. In France they are, dimanche, lundi, mardi, mercredi, vendredi, jeudi et samedi. Now will you tell me where the hell I am, please?’

The nurse, whose eyes had widened, now let her face relax. She put her clipboard on the bed. ‘You’re at the Grays Harbor Community Hospital, Ms Costello. In Aberdeen, Washington. Now, I promise this is not another quiz question. Do you know why you are here?’

Maggie tried letting her head fall back into the pillow, but even that small movement made her wince. Once again, it was a feeling that came to her first, the tight grip on the steering wheel, her mouth dry with panic, the sight of those red lights getting nearer and nearer…

‘I was in a car accident. Something happened.’

‘That’s right. Last night.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Nearly sixteen hours ago. And you are very lucky to be alive, Ms Costello. The police officer who found you says the front of your car looked like it’d been through a trash compactor.’