A Bombardier Challenger business jet, black and shiny like a beetle’s back, appeared out of a bank of cloud as dusk was fading. The plane could fly for four thousand miles and was capable of taking off and landing on an airstrip of a hundred and fifty metres or less. Three of them were on standby in DC for corporations and wealthy individuals twenty-four-seven. Tom wondered how Lester could have afforded it, but guessed that his business was doing better than he’d let on.
He checked his watch. 21:04. Fifteen hours to go.
The jet seated nineteen people in cream-coloured leather seats, with touch-screen entertainment, Internet access and fold-away teak tables. There was a well-stocked galley up front, and a baggage bay accessible in-flight in back.
After they’d loaded up and fixed their seat belts, Tom took out his small Buddha and began rubbing the mahogany surface with his thumb.
“That for luck, Tom?” Karen asked, sitting opposite.
“Not exactly.”
She cocked her head to one side. “And?”
“It’s freaky shit, you ask me,” Lester said, sitting across the deep-piled carpet, fiddling with his iPod.
“That Miles Davis?” Tom asked.
“Who else?” he said, closing his eyes.
“So, Tom,” Karen said, “you were going to tell me about your little friend.”
“It’s nothing, really,” he sighed. “Okay. It’s not a religion; more a psychological aid. It’s about controlling emotions by controlling thoughts and behaviour. In this way, you can experience a calmer mind, although, I have to admit, it ain’t working lately. But, for me, a calm mind is an optimal state of mind.”
She nodded, and he saw something in her face that spoke of recognition; regret, too.
“I guess a calm mind is important in your line of work,” she said.
Not exactly, he thought. But he refrained from saying that DS agents were taught to have a paranoid mindset, at least on duty. It would only complicate matters.
They chatted for a further five minutes or more. She had a knack of getting him to open up. But in truth, he felt a need to. He told her something he hadn’t told anyone for years. His mother had gone to the local store one day when he was a teenage kid. But she never returned. She died that day on her way home. As a result, he was brought up by his maternal grandparents in a small town in Louisiana, ten miles from where he’d lived with his mother. Good people, he said, generous with their time. His granddaddy had taught him to fly-fish; a helluva lot else besides.
“I joined the DS after college and got posted to Bangkok. I met a woman there.”
“A woman?”
“Not like that. She helped me to begin to come to terms with what had happened, I guess.”
“Was your mother killed in a car accident?” she asked.
“No.” He looked at her straight in the eyes. “I killed her.”
Karen’s forehead creased up. “I don’t understand, Tom.”
“I shoulda been there for my momma. I promised her I’d pick her up. I went fishing with a buddy instead. She decided to walk home. They found her body in a shallow grave less than a mile from our house. She’d been raped and murdered by an ex-con,” he said, his eyes glistening over.
He realized he hadn’t told anyone that.
Ever.
But the emotion it’d evoked hadn’t been the one he’d imagined it would. It was cathartic rather than shameful.