Flight 902, Las Vegas to New York
In first class we got a decent dinner: shrimp salad and steak medallions, a potato galette and a wannabe creme brulee.
‘So. It’s up to you to find our guy. Where do you start, beyond knowing he’s in New York City?’
‘If you don’t mind, I’ll keep some secrets to myself.’
‘I think we need to discuss our options if they betray us.’
‘If I lose Taylor, it’s over for me anyway. I’m not continuing to breathe, Sam. I’m not existing then.’
There was nothing more to say; the flight attendant stopped and asked us if we wanted coffee. We both declined. Leonie announced she would sleep the rest of the flight. I closed my eyes and thought about a plan of action.
One thing I did do: I surreptitiously snapped a picture of Leonie while she dozed. I thought, for some reason, that it might be valuable to have a photo of her. She was a woman with a lot of secrets, and I might need to know more about who she was.
We landed at LaGuardia late, delayed by dodging a goliath of an early summer storm raging over Kentucky and Ohio. We rented a car – no way I was trusting cabs and the subway during a man-hunt – and drove to a midtown Manhattan hotel, the Claiborne, where Leonie had already booked us rooms across the hall from each other. The rest of the hotel seemed ready to rouse, the city stirring awake, but I was already dead on my feet. My energy was gone because we had no clue where Jin Ming was.
‘Go sleep,’ Leonie said at our doors.
‘I can’t.’
‘I can’t have you hovering over me.’
‘How are you going to find him?’
She patted the laptop, raised the cell phone. ‘It’s what I do, bullet.’ She tried a smile but it was an awful, desperate thing and she knew it. ‘Sorry. Just trying to stay sane.’
‘Jin Ming vanished from Holland, no trace.’
‘There is always a trace,’ she said. ‘Always.’