Remote control, p.34
Remote Control, page 34
A security man walked into the reception and talked to the people on the desk. My heart beat faster. We were so close to the aircraft on the other side of the glass that I felt I could reach out and touch them. I could almost smell the aviation fuel.
I told myself to calm down. If they’d wanted us, they would have found us by now. But, in truth, so many things could still go wrong that one of them almost certainly would. I was still sweating good-style. My head was glistening. And I didn’t know if it was the capsules or my flapping, but I was starting to feel weak.
‘Nick? Am I Louise all day today or just for now?’
I pretended to think about it. ‘The whole day. You’re Louise Sandborn all day.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they won’t let us go to England unless we use another name.’
I got a smiling, thoughtful nod.
I said, ‘Do you want to know something else?’
‘What’s that?’
‘If I call you Louise, you have to call me Daddy. But just for today.’
I wasn’t sure what kind of reaction to expect, but she just shrugged, ‘Whatever.’ Maybe that was what she wanted now.
The next 3 hours were grim, but at least we were out of the way. If I’d had any heart problems I would probably have died, the blood was coursing through me so fast and hard. I could hear it pumping in my ears.
I kept saying to myself, You’re here now, there’s nothing you can do about it; accept it. Just get on that fucking aircraft!
I looked at Kelly. ‘You all right, Louise?’
‘Yeah, I’m all right, Daddy.’ She had a big smile now. I just hoped she kept it.
I watched the receptionist move to the microphone. She announced our flight and told us she had really enjoyed having us stay in the lounge.
There were about a dozen others who stood up and started to sort themselves out, folding papers and zipping up bags.
I got to my feet and stretched. ‘Louise?’
‘Yep?’
‘Let’s go to England!’
We walked towards the gate, father and daughter, hand in hand, talking garbage. My theory went: if I talked with her, they wouldn’t talk to us.
Four or five people were ahead of us in the queue; like us, families with young children. Passports were being checked by a young Latino; he had an ID card on a chain around his neck, but we were too far away yet for me to make out what it said. Was he airline security or airport security?
Two uniformed security men came up and stood behind him, talking to each other. It was the kind of chat that looked so casual it probably wasn’t. I used my sleeve to mop sweat from the side of my face.
Both the uniformed men were armed. The black guy cracked a joke as the white guy laughed and looked around. Kelly and I shuffled forward.
I held her beside me, the protective parent anxious in a crowd. The laptop was over my shoulder. Kelly held a teddy under each arm.
We moved three steps forward; another wait, then it was our turn with the Latino.
I wanted to make it all very easy for him. Smiling, I handed him the boarding pass and the passport. I was convinced the uniformed guys were looking at me. I went into boxer mode: everything was focused on the Latino; everything else was in the distance, muffled, distorted, peripheral. A bead of sweat fell down my cheek and I knew he’d noticed it. I knew he could see my chest heaving up and down.
Kelly was just behind and to the right of me. I looked at her and smiled.
‘Sir?’
I silently exhaled in preparation and looked back at him.
‘Just the passport, sir.’ He handed me back the boarding pass. I grinned, the inexperienced dickhead traveller.
He flicked through the pages of the passport, stopping at Sandborn’s photograph. He glanced at me, then back at the passport.
I’m in the shit.
I let him see I was reading his thoughts. ‘Male menopause,’ I grinned, rubbing my hand over what was left of my hair. My scalp was drenched. ‘The Bruce Willis look!’
The fucker didn’t laugh. He was making up his mind. Eventually he closed the passport and tapped it in his hand. ‘Have a pleasant flight, sir.’
I went to give him a nod, but he was already paying attention to the people behind me.
We moved two paces towards the girls from Virgin and handed them our boarding passes. The two security men didn’t budge.
We started to walk onto the airbridge and I felt as if I’d been trying to run through waist-high water and was suddenly on the shoreline.
The Latino still worried me. I thought about him all the way onto the aircraft. It was only when I’d found our seats, put the bag and laptop in the overhead locker, settled down and picked up the in-flight magazine, that I took a deep breath and let it out very very slowly; it wasn’t a sigh of relief, I was boosting the oxygen levels in my blood. No, the fucker wasn’t happy. His suspicions had been aroused, but he hadn’t asked any questions, hadn’t even asked my name. We might be on the shoreline, but it was far from being dry land.
The aircraft was still filling up. I kept taking deep breaths to try to control my pulse rate.
Officials were moving in and out of the aircraft with manifests. Every time it happened I was expecting to see the two security guys in tow. There was only one entrance, only one exit. There was nowhere to run. As I worked through the scenarios in my mind I just had to accept the fact that the die was cast. I was a passenger now and, for a fleeting second, I had the same feeling that I’d always had on any aircraft, military or civilian – I was in the hands of others and powerless to decide my own destiny, and I hated it.
Still people were filing on. I nearly burst out in nervous laughter as the speakers played Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’. I looked at Kelly and winked. She thought it was great, sitting there trying to strap in her teddies.
One of the male flight attendants came down our aisle, still wearing his Virgin suit, not yet in shirtsleeve order. He came down as far as our row of seats and stopped. Judging by his line of sight he seemed to be checking our seat belts. It was too early for that, surely? I nodded and smiled. He turned back and disappeared into the galley.
I watched the entrance, expecting the worst. One of the female flight attendants poked her head out and looked directly at me. Kelly’s teddies were suddenly very interesting.
I could feel tingling in my feet. My stomach tightened. I looked up again. She’d gone.
The male attendant came out again, carrying a bin liner. He approached us, stopped and squatted down in the aisle next to Kelly. He said, ‘Hiya!’
‘Hello!’
He put his hand into the bin liner and I waited for him to bring out the .45. Good ploy, letting me think he’s a member of the crew doing something for the kid.
He pulled out a little nylon daysack. Splattered all over the back was the Virgin logo and the words ‘Kids With Altitude’. ‘We forgot to give you one of these,’ he said. I nearly hugged him.
‘Thank you very much!’ I grinned like an asylum inmate, my eyes 100 per cent larger through the lenses of Fiona’s glasses. ‘Thank you so much!’
He did his best not to look at me, as if I was indeed some sort of weirdo, then offered us a drink before take-off. I was gagging for a beer, but I might have to start performing the other side and, anyway, I just wanted to get my head down. We had an orange juice each instead.
Sharing the in-flight guide with her, I said, ‘What film are you going to watch, Louise?’
‘Clueless,’ she grinned.
‘Whatever,’ I said.
Twenty minutes later, right on schedule, the aircraft finally lifted off from the runway. Suddenly I didn’t mind being in a pilot’s hands after all.
36
WE WENT THROUGH all the nonsense of the introduction by the captain, how wonderful it was to have us on board and when we were going to be fed. My body heat was slowly starting to dry out my sweat-drenched shirt. Even my socks had been wet. I looked over at Kelly. She had a sad face on. I shoved her with my arm. ‘You OK?’
‘I suppose. It’s just I’ll miss Melissa and I didn’t even tell her that I’m going to England.’
I knew how to get out of this type of thing now. ‘Well, all you have to do is think of good things about Melissa and that will make you feel happy.’ I was waiting for her reply. I knew the sort of thing it was going to be.
‘What do you think about to make you happy, about your best friend David?’
Easy; I was prepared. ‘Well, nearly twelve years ago, we were working together and he was rebuilding his house and needed a new wooden floor.’
She was enjoying this, stories at bedtime. She certainly looked as if she would go to sleep soon, cuddling up to me. I carried on telling her how we’d both nicked a squash-court floor from one of the HQ Security Forces bases while in Northern Ireland with the Det. We were there at three o’clock in the morning with spades, hammers and chisels. We put the boards in a van and brought them over to the mainland. After all, HM Government spent all that time and money training us to break in and steal things. Why not use it for ourselves? The next three days had been spent laying the hallway and kitchen of the house near Brecon with his nice new flooring.
I grinned down at her for a reaction, but she was already sound asleep.
I started to watch the video but knew I was going to fall asleep any minute – so long as the capsules wore off and I could stop my mind going back to the same question over and over again.
There was an unholy alliance between PIRA and corrupt elements of the DEA, of that there was no doubt – and it very much looked as though Kev’s boss was at the centre of it. Kev had found out about the corruption, but not who was involved. He wanted to talk to somebody about it. So was it his boss that he’d unwittingly phoned for an opinion on the day I arrived in Washington? Very unlikely, because Kev would have included him on his list of suspects. Much more probable was that he’d spoken to someone unconnected with the DEA, someone who would have known what he was talking about and whose opinion he would have valued. Could it have been Luther? He knew Kev; would Kev have trusted him? Who knows? Whoever he called, he was dead within an hour of putting down the phone.
The cabin light came on a couple of hours before landing and we were served breakfast. I gave Kelly a nudge, but she groaned and buried herself under her blanket. I didn’t bother with the food. From feeling almost elated at having got away with it, I awoke profoundly depressed. My mood was as black as the coffee in front of me. I’d been mad to let myself feel relieved. We weren’t out of the woods by a long way; if they knew we were on the aircraft, of course they wouldn’t do anything about it until we landed. It was at the point that I walked off the aircraft and stepped onto the ramp that they’d lift me. Even if that didn’t happen, there was Immigration. The officials trying to keep out undesirables are much tougher and a lot more on the ball than those in charge of waving you off. They vet your documents that bit more closely, scrutinize your body language, read your eyes. Kelly and I were on a stolen passport. We’d got through at Dulles, but that didn’t mean we could pull it off again.
I took four capsules and finished my coffee. I remembered that I was an American citizen now. When the attendant came past I asked her for an immigration card. Kelly still wouldn’t wake up.
Filling in the card, I decided that the Sandborns had just moved and now lived only one door away from Mr and Mrs Brown. Hunting Bear Path was the only address I could talk about convincingly.
If I was lifted at Immigration, it wouldn’t be the first time. I’d come into Gatwick airport once from a job. I gave my passport to the immigration officer, and while he was inspecting it a boy came up on either side, gripped my arms and took the passport from the official. ‘Mr Stamford? Special Branch. Come with us.’ I wasn’t going to argue; my cover was good, I was in the UK now, everything was going to be fine.
They strip-searched me in an interview room, firing questions left, right and centre. I went through the whole routine of my cover story: where I’d been, what I’d been doing, why I’d been doing it. They telephoned my cover and James supported my story. Everything was going swimmingly.
Then I got put in the airport detention cells and three policemen came in. They wasted no time; they piled in like rugby forwards, two holding my arms, one throwing punches, then taking turns. They filled me in severely. No word of explanation.
Next I got taken for an interview and was accused of being a paedophile and procuring kids in Thailand – which was strange, considering I’d been on a deniable op in Russia. There was nothing I could say, it was just down to denying and waiting for the system to get me out.
After about four hours of interviews I was sitting in my cell. In came people from the intelligence service, to debrief me on my performance. It had been a fucking exercise. They’d been testing all the Ks as we came back into the UK; the only trouble was they’d picked the wrong charge to pull us in on. The police obviously didn’t wait for niceties like court rooms when it came to dealing with child molesters, and everyone who was lifted got taken to one side and given the good news. One bloke, who’d flown into Jersey, got such a severe kicking he ended up in hospital.
Kelly was still half asleep and she looked as rough as I felt. She looked as if she’d been sleeping in a hedge. She yawned and made an attempt to stretch. As she opened her eyes and looked around, completely bewildered, I grinned and offered her the carton of orange juice. ‘How are you today, Louise?’
She still looked lost for a second or two, then got back with the programme. ‘I’m all right.’ She paused, grinned and added, ‘Daddy.’ She closed her eyes and turned over, trying to sort herself out with the pillow and blanket. I didn’t have the heart to tell her we were landing soon.
At least I got to drink her orange juice as a Welcome to London video came on the screens, loads of pomp, circumstance and pageantry, the Household Cavalry astride their horses, Guardsmen marching up and down, the Queen riding down the Mall in her carriage. To me, London had never looked so good.
Then the aircraft landed and we became actors again.
We taxied and stopped at our ramp. Everybody jumped out of their seat as if they were going to miss out on something. I leaned over to Kelly. ‘Wait here, we’re in no rush.’ I wanted to get into the middle of the crowd.
Eventually we got all the bits and pieces back into Kelly’s daysack, organized the teddies and joined the line. I was trying to look ahead, but couldn’t see much.
We got to the galley area, turned left and shuffled towards the door. On the ramp were three men – normal British Airports Authority reception staff in fluorescent jackets, who were manning the airbridge, helping a woman into a wheelchair. Things were looking good; freedom felt so close.
We walked up the ramp and joined the spur that led to the main terminal. Kelly didn’t have a care in the world, which was good. I didn’t want her to understand what was happening.
There was heavy foot traffic in both directions, people running with hand luggage, drifting in and out of shops, milling around at gates. I had the daysack and laptop over my shoulder and held Kelly’s hand. She carried the teddies. We reached the walkway.
Heathrow is the most monitored, most camera’d, most visually and physically secure airport in the world. Untold pairs of eyes would already be on us; this was no time for looking furtive or guilty. The travelator stopped by gates 43–47, then a new one started about 10 metres later. As we trundled along, I waited until there was a gap each side of us and bent down to Kelly. ‘You mustn’t forget I am your daddy today – OK, Louise Sandborn?’
‘As if!’ she said with a huge smile.
I just hoped we were both smiling in 30 minutes’ time.
We came to the end of the walkway and took a down escalator, following signs for passport control and baggage reclaim. From halfway down the escalator I could see the Immigration hall straight ahead. This was where we’d stand or fall.
There were about four or five people waiting to go through each of the desks. I started joking with Kelly, trying to give myself something to do instead of just looking nervous. I’d entered countries illegally hundreds of times, but never so unprepared or under such pressure.
‘All set, Louise?’
‘I’m ready, Daddy.’
I passed her the daysack so I could get the passport and visa card out of my pocket. We ambled up to passport control and joined the end of a queue. I kept reminding myself about an American friend who’d travelled from Boston to Canada, and then from Canada back to the UK. He’d picked up his friend’s passport by mistake while they were sharing a hotel room; he couldn’t get back to exchange it, so he’d had to bluff it. No-one had even batted an eyelid.
We waited in line. Still with the laptop on my right shoulder, I was holding Kelly’s hand with my left. I kept looking down at her and smiling, but not excessively so; that was suspicious behaviour and I knew that people would be watching on monitors and from behind two-way mirrors. The business type in front of us went through with a wave and a smile to the official. It was our turn. We approached the desk.
I handed my documents to the woman. She ran her eyes down the details on the card. She looked down at Kelly from her high desk. ‘Hello, welcome to England.’
Kelly came back with a very American ‘Hi!’
I guessed the woman was in her late thirties. Her hair was permed, but the perm had gone slightly wrong.
‘Did you have a nice flight?’ she asked.
Kelly had Jenny or Ricky in one hand, hanging by her ear, and the other one’s head was sticking out from the top flap of her daysack on her back. She said, ‘Yes, it was fine, thank you.’
The woman kept the conversation going. ‘And what’s your name?’ she asked, still checking the form.
Could I trust her to get it right, or should I butt in?
Kelly smiled and said, ‘Kelly!’
What a farce. We’d come so far, we’d come through so much, only to be caught by a line straight from a B movie.
