Brigitte looked up at the biplane that hung from the high ceiling. She was sitting in a row of seats that were tucked under a large staircase which rose through the huge arrivals hall. People gathered in the vast space, waiting to greet travellers. The man next to her was on his phone, and scrolled through Facebook, pausing only to play inane viral videos. The woman to Brigitte’s left was reading an Anthony Horowitz novel. The blue and grey biplane was supposed to be some kind of inspirational link to the early days of flight, but it just made Brigitte maudlin. Those earliest planes had been used to drop chemical weapons on troops in the First World War, and here she was more than a hundred years later dealing with the consequences of the same evil. Would men ever stop developing foul ways to kill each other in their quest for power?
Brigitte leaned forward and rubbed her face. Her skin wasn’t as sensitive as it used to be and it felt as though someone else was touching her. She guessed she was experiencing the numbing effects of the fentanyl.
‘You OK?’ a voice asked, and she looked up to see Scott Pearce standing over her.
‘Not really,’ Brigitte said. She glanced round, scanning for danger, and spotted Leila Nahum leaning against the metal rail of the mezzanine balcony above them. ‘What I’ve got to say is for your ears only.’ She looked pointedly at Leila.
‘OK,’ Pearce said, leading her to a vacant table in a nearby coffee concession. They were directly below the balcony and out of Leila’s sight. ‘Kyle says you betrayed him.’
‘I did it to get inside,’ Brigitte replied as she sat down. ‘They had us under surveillance. It was the only way I could make progress. And I couldn’t tell him about it, because I needed his reaction to be believable. And mine too. I knew they’d interrogate me, so I used self-hypnosis and neurolinguistics to convince myself of the betrayal, but I didn’t turn, Scott, not for real. I slipped the knife in his pocket and made sure they took his false papers, credit cards and money in the van with him, so he could use them to escape the country. You know me well enough to know he’d never have got out if I’d really turned.’
Pearce considered her words, but she wasn’t interested in his approval.
‘It’s not important whether you believe me or not,’ Brigitte continued. ‘This is what matters.’ She checked they weren’t being watched and pulled up her sleeve to reveal a black patch on her shoulder.
‘What is it?’ Pearce asked.
‘This is what it’s all about,’ Brigitte answered. ‘Life. Death. This thing controls both.’