Suspects(5)

Because the kidnappers hadn’t been caught, she had to travel with a bodyguard, and have one with her whenever she left her house, even for a walk. There was a large rotation of them, which her assistant Martine arranged. Theo liked some of her guards better than others, but she needed protection, in case the kidnappers came back for her too. It was a remote possibility she couldn’t ignore, according to the police. For the most part, she detested not having the freedom to go anywhere alone. But thanks to Matthieu, she owned one of the largest, most successful businesses in the world now, and was as big a target as her late husband had been, in some ways even more so, as a woman in that position. The police thought it unlikely that the same group of men would return, but since they hadn’t gotten the hundred million they had come for, the authorities felt that it was not entirely impossible that the kidnappers would try to abduct her now for the rest. She had all the correct papers and powers of attorney in place, so the CEO of Matthieu’s company could pay the ransom in a relatively short time, if she was abducted. They knew what to expect now.

There were times in the last year when she didn’t care if they took her. Without her son, she had nothing left to live for. She dreaded the long years ahead without him. And neither business was enough to feed her spirit and keep her going. Her passion for her business had waned, so it had been a particularly major victory for the CEO of her own company when he convinced her to go to New York. She had finally agreed at the last minute. She was thinking about what she had to do when she arrived, while she waited in her car for news of the delayed flight. There was supposedly a minor mechanical problem on the plane, which they were promising to repair as soon as possible. She didn’t mind the delay. She had no meetings and no set plans. She was just going to supervise the final build-out and look of the pop-up. The temporary New York hires did not even know she was coming. She wanted no focus or attention on her. She hoped to sleep on the flight, since sleep still eluded her on most nights.



* * *



—

Pierre de Vaumont was still in the first-class lounge working on his computer and annoyed by the delay, which might cause him to have to cancel his lunch meeting. He had already had a second cup of coffee, and the ground crew left him alone in solitary splendor, with the VIP team hovering nearby just outside the door of the private salon.



* * *



—

Pascal Martin sat at his desk as head of security at Charles de Gaulle Airport, in the job he’d had for fifteen years. It had gotten infinitely more complicated in recent times, with mounting concern about terrorism and attacks on other airports. They’d been lucky at CDG so far.

One of the new elements he hated dealing with were the more stringent regulations for all flights with destinations in the United States. United States Homeland Security expected them to hold inbound flights to the U.S. to a higher standard of security, and respect their No Fly List at all times. They required the authorities of the airlines and the airport to submit the manifest for each flight, so the American authorities could run the passenger list through their computers and make sure that no undesirables and potential terrorists would slip in unnoticed. It meant delays on almost every flight while they waited for clearance from Homeland Security, and at times the CIA, in case of some doubt. Meanwhile unsuspecting passengers were told there was a minor mechanical problem on the plane, which was then magically fixed once the manifest was cleared. With fair regularity, passengers who did not meet with U.S. approval were removed from the plane before they boarded. If they let the plane take off without final clearance from the U.S., they ran the risk that the incoming international flight would be refueled on the runway and sent back to its original point of departure without letting a single passenger disembark. It made for hundreds of irate passengers, so Pascal had learned that it was better to let them wait during a delayed departure than to send them home from an aborted round trip, which was much worse.

U.S. regulations about who flew and who didn’t were tougher than those in any other country. It was their way of keeping out dangerous elements. And they made it tougher all the time. Occasionally a passenger they singled out was a false alarm, but even Pascal agreed that it was better to be on the safe side, even though it caused him untold aggravation at times. He’d had stomach problems and high blood pressure for the past three years. He couldn’t wait to retire in five years.

Meeting the stringent American security procedures took time, and they couldn’t explain it to the passengers, since no one officially admitted to the No Fly List.

He’d had a call from the head of the ground crew of a major airline saying a first-class passenger on their early New York flight had been flagged as a potential problem. Worst of all, the circumstances weren’t clear. He wasn’t on the No Fly List that Homeland Security denied having, but the code that came up next to his name indicated that they needed additional clearance to allow him to enter the U.S. It appeared to be a gray area, which Pascal hated most. If they took him off the flight, he could sue the airline for the embarrassment and business meetings he missed. If they left him on, the plane and its passengers could be turned around and sent back to Paris from New York, without a single passenger able to get off.

“Shit,” Pascal said to himself as he read the printout and knew what it meant. “Questionable passenger, clearance required.” It was one in the morning in New York, the flight was due to take off from Paris in an hour, and at that time it wouldn’t be easy to reach someone at Homeland Security in New York who could give them clearance. He could feel his stomach start to churn and tighten, which was part of the job now. His wife wanted him to take early retirement, but most of the time he still enjoyed his job, when he didn’t have a problem like this one.