The Flight Attendant(8)

Megan saw the involuntary quiver and misread its meaning. She stood up and took both of Cassie’s hands in hers. “Do yourself a favor,” she began.

Cassie said nothing, but felt herself starting to coil inside, prepared to bite back if Megan said something—anything—judgmental.

“Start again,” the other flight attendant said simply, her tone motherly and kind. “Getting dressed, I mean. Put on clean underwear this time. I’ll make sure they hold the van.” Then she released Cassie’s fingers and left her alone in her hotel room.



* * *



? ?

Stewart, their first officer, was chattering away in the first row of the van as they worked their way through Dubai traffic to the airport. Cassie would have preferred to have the air conditioning on a little higher to help combat her queasiness, but she didn’t want to draw any more attention to herself than necessary. Their flight didn’t leave for a couple of hours, but just in case she thought she better make sure that she had Dramamine in her kit before they boarded.

“Remember, this is Hamburg, and we all know that ground control there is, well, German,” the first officer was saying. He had turned around so he could speak to all of them. The van had fourteen seats, including the driver’s, and every seat but his was taken with the flight crew. She was in the very back row with Megan and Shane, burrowing as best she could against the window in the corner.

The captain, though he and his family had lived in the Midwest forever, was descended from Germans, and Cassie wondered whether the first officer was having fun at his expense or German would somehow be relevant to this story. This was the first time she had flown with Stewart, so she had no idea. She knew only that he was a very big talker.

“And that means what, precisely?” the captain asked, his tone good-natured. He was in his midfifties, balding, but still lean and handsome in a classic, right stuff sort of way. She’d flown with him perhaps half a dozen times over the last five years, since she had begun flying internationally, and enjoyed watching the passengers nod approvingly when they peered into the flight deck and spotted pilots like him as they boarded.

“All business,” Stewart answered. “You don’t screw around. And the plane’s on the ground now. We’re talking British Airways, so the call sign is Speedbird. Ground control tells Speedbird to taxi to gate alpha two-seven. But the plane? Stops. Stops completely. So ground says, ‘Speedbird, are you having a problem finding the gate?’ And Speedbird replies, ‘Looking it up now.’?”

“God, I see where this is going,” the captain said, chuckling.

“Yup. Ground is seriously bent out of shape, seriously impatient. They ask, ‘Speedbird, have you really never been to Hamburg before?’ And the Speedbird captain replies, his voice this icy British, ‘I have. Twice. But it was 1943, so I didn’t land.’?”

Megan and Shane both laughed politely. Megan even nodded a little knowingly. But the captain, who had been Air Force, shook his head and asked, “On what canceled sitcom did you hear that ancient joke?”

“You think it’s apocryphal?”

“Yes. I think it’s…apocryphal. And older than sand. Usually the joke is set in Frankfurt.”

“I don’t know,” Megan chimed in, and she started to say something about a German friend who flew with Lufthansa, but all Cassie could feel now was the impatience of that German controller, real or imagined, in the tower. The van was hardly moving. No one around her seemed all that alarmed since the plane wasn’t going to leave without them, and in the end they would probably get to the airport with plenty of time to spare. But the longer they were here in traffic, the more likely it was that she would still be in Dubai when Sokolov’s body was found. That “Do Not Disturb” sign had bought her a couple of hours, no more. For all she knew, people—including Miranda—had been texting the fellow for ninety minutes, wondering why he wasn’t at some meeting. Any moment now, they might send hotel security upstairs to open the door.

She gazed out the window and saw a police car—one of the force’s new Lamborghinis—stuck in traffic right beside them. The cops here wore dark-green berets and short-sleeved olive shirts. The driver looked up and saw her. He was a young guy with a thick mustache. He tipped his beret and smiled in a way that struck Cassie as more chivalrous than flirtatious. She gave him a small wave in return but was glad she was wearing her sunglasses and scarf. She told herself that perhaps she could still go back to the hotel. Even now. Maybe it wasn’t too late, and in her head she heard herself shouting to the driver to stop here, please, just let her out.

Though that assumed that she really hadn’t killed Sokolov. She didn’t believe that she had—that just wasn’t who she was—but who else could have done it? The self-doubt had been inflating like a balloon for nearly two hours.

And so she said nothing, and the van inched forward and the police car inched forward, and Stewart continued to prattle on, and other small conversations began to bubble up among the crew.

“Do we even need pilots in bombers anymore? I guess we use them, right? But don’t we do most of our damage with drones?” wondered Shane.

“Ask Cassie,” murmured Megan. “Her brother-in-law is in the military.”

“Really? Air Force? Drones? I love drones. I think it’s so cool when there’s a drone at a wedding.”