Jahn stared from her taxi into the taillights of the cars ahead and wondered which one was taking Feng Yi away from her. She guessed where he would go. She told her driver to take her to the airport. Feng was in Vienna for trade negotiations, but the EU diplomat in the hotel lobby reported a final breakthrough in the talks. Feng was done here. Done with Americans, at least—the man at the reception desk of the hotel had informed her that Feng’s companion was a Swedish guest.
The terminal was packed with people stranded by the crash shutdown, all desperate to find flights now that the airports had opened again. Jahn sprinted down the long narrow shopping mall that connected the gates. There were imminent departures to London, New York, Rome, Zürich, and Bratislava. Jahn scanned them all quickly. The next flight was to Palma de Majorca, scheduled to leave soon from Gate 12. She pushed herself to go faster through the crowd. The Austrian Airlines flight flashed “Gate Closed” on the departures board. What was she going to do when she got there? She knew what she should do. But that would’ve been how she’d have handled it before. It was different now. She felt the weight of emotion and doubt and confusion, and it slowed her somehow even as she dashed between the travelers.
She burned down the last stretch of the concourse to the Palma flight. She was so tired. She hadn’t slept since the Special Agent in Charge woke her with the news of the mass crash on Monday. She had watched Verrazzano get a couple of hours sleep on the plane to Europe. But she had been in constant conversation with her husband in her head, ever since the Krokodil spoke his name at the rental car office at the Detroit airport, hissing that he knew where to find him. When Chris called from Beirut, he asked of her the very thing she had no right to give—his life for the lives of so many others. It was Verrazzano who gave her the resolution she needed. At the house south of Bonn, when she told him the story of how she got the ugly wound on her face, she sensed all his scars. She knew then that she must suffer the same way he had. She must reject the deal she made with her husband over the phone in the Jansen Trapp factory. She had betrayed everything she believed in for the sake of her husband. Everything but love. Well, love didn’t count for anything when thousands of lives were at stake and you were a federal agent sworn to safeguard those lives. She had made a choice for which the entire world would condemn her—except Verrazzano. She sensed that he would pardon her if she ever had the chance to tell him what she had done. She wondered if she’d be able ever to forgive herself.
She reached the gate for the Palma flight. The Austrian Airlines staff were packing up their rolls of baggage labels and shutting down the computers. “Stop the flight,” she yelled.
A young man in an Austrian Airlines vest flicked back his blond bangs and half-smiled. “The flight has departed, madam. May I see your ticket? We can reroute you through—”
“There is a man on that plane who is an important material witness in an international terrorism case.” Jahn reached into her jacket for her FBI identity wallet. She showed it to the Austrian.
“Terrorism?” The blond man was quickly panicked. “He’s a terrorist?”
Jahn tried to figure out what Verrazzano would have done. Then she thought of her husband again, and her determination melted into despair. She could have been the best agent in the FBI. Now she was barely even able to believe that she was one of the good guys.
“Are they going to blow up the plane?” The Austrian Airlines man’s eyes were wide and innocent and horrified.
Quietly, Jahn said, “The person on board is a witness in a terrorism case. Not an actual terrorist.”
“Then the plane is safe?”
“Well, yeah. But look—”
“Let’s go and see the security chief.”
“We don’t have time.”
“Do I look as though I have the authority to turn a flight around?” He waved the roll of baggage stickers, a badge of his menial status.
“Show me the passenger manifest.”
The young Austrian flipped a couple of pages on his clipboard and turned it toward her. There was Feng Yi’s name, and beside it under the next ticket number was a Swedish passport holder. Jahn dialed Haddad. “Feng Yi is on Austrian Airlines flight 8873 from Vienna to Palma de Majorca, Spain. He’s in the company of a Swedish woman named Maj Sand. I couldn’t catch them before they got on the plane.”
“It’s going to Majorca? Bill Todd is in Majorca,” Haddad said.
“How in hell did he get there?”
“Bill can meet the plane and track Feng Yi.”
“Okay. Keep me informed.” She hung up. She pictured her husband in the torture rooms of Hezbollah. She had believed that if she saved him, she could heal him. But if she saved him this way, she’d be destroyed and he’d go down with her anyway. His voice came out of the silence. Not the brittle, dry whine she had heard over the phone from Beirut. It was the strong, loving voice that held her together when she was at her most despairing—back when he said, “There’s no one like you, Gina. Don’t ever change.”
The Austrian held out his phone to her. “The head of security is on the line,” he said.
She took the phone and hung up the call. “How soon could you get me to Palma?”