That’s encouraging.
I know.
You really do inspire confidence as a leader.
Hey, I never asked to be a leader, remember? You guys invited yourselves along and somehow got me to fork over $200k for the pleasure of your company.
We’re worth every penny.
Start proving it. Help me figure out a way to stop this that only ends in us probably getting killed, instead of guaranteeing it.
Well, first we’ll need guns.
That was stating the obvious. I’d gotten that far on my own before hitting a mental brick wall. There are ways to smuggle guns onto commercial flights, but none of them are easy and I wasn’t in the mood to tempt fate so early in my suicide mission. None of us were carrying, our weapons all hitching a ride with Madeline, who promised to help them disappear.
I actually have that covered, I wrote.
Great! How?
One of my old candidates just outside Philly.
Is he still active?
I hoped so. It had been nine years since we last spoke, and his number was one of many I’d lost when I snapped my old phone in half. I didn’t have it memorized and he wasn’t in my cloud database, being of no use to me in Europe. He was strictly a local asset. One of those breadcrumbs I’d tried to sweep away. I knew where he operated, though, and planned to make that our first stop after leaving Scranton.
Yes, I wrote back.
Good. That’s a start.
What do we do then? My job has always been to hire people to do this kind of work, not do it myself. Everything I come up with falls apart as soon as I start to pick at it.
Don’t beat yourself up. There’s no playbook for something like this. Most plans don’t hold up entirely to scrutiny. Like everything else, it’s all in the execution.
Poor choice of words.
It took two seconds for my cheeks to flush red as I realized I’d just sent a smiley-face emoji to a former special forces operative, and another two seconds for the feeling to fade as I saw the middle finger emoji she sent back.
For the next six hours, we texted. Not constantly, and not always about our plan.
Enough that we each needed to plug our phone chargers into the USB port in the seatback in front of us.
Enough that when the flight attendant asked if I wanted anything to eat or drink, I didn’t hear her at first and she had to tap me on the shoulder to get my attention.
Enough that if anyone hacked this phone—or Erica’s, for that matter—our text thread would lead one to believe that we were old friends. Friends who were also planning what amounted to a double homicide, but whatever.
Bottom line, though: When we landed in Scranton, we had a plan. It was simple. It was direct. It was one of many I had come up with on my own and discarded, but with her seal of approval and critical adjustments, I felt more confident in our chances of success.
Okay, that part’s a lie.
I was still pretty sure we were all going to die. But at least I felt assured it wouldn’t be because of a shitty plan.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Like Brussels, the city of Scranton wears its age on its sleeve. Faded brick buildings. Rustic homes that feel lived-in, even if they’re new. Nestled in the hills of northern Pennsylvania, in the fall when the leaves turn it takes on the aura of a Washington Irving story. Brussels is bigger by about one hundred thousand people, and more urban. But the two could easily be cousins, if cities shared such genealogy. Brussels the hip, trendy one that country bumpkin Scranton looks up to, but related nonetheless.
I’d visited the small city once before, to meet with a client back in the early days with my old corporate recruitment firm. I spent a night at the Marriott by the airport. Closed the deal, had dinner with my boss at a local bar, enjoyed the complimentary hotel breakfast of pancakes and runny eggs the next morning, and then drove home. Nothing special. One of a thousand memories that had been shoved into the recesses of my mental filing cabinet.
But now, setting foot on American soil for the first time in over ten years, it all came rushing back, in vivid sensory detail. The smell of the chlorine from the pool just off the lobby. The quiet of our footfalls on the carpeted hallways. The sweet, salty taste of the complimentary bacon as it mixed with syrup poured from a tiny plastic tub with a peel-off seal. Strange as it sounded, setting foot in Scranton, PA for only the second time in my life, it felt like coming home.
I wanted a Cinnabon. It was the most American airport food I could think of. Never mind that it was midnight and what few eateries the airport boasted were bound to be closed, I wanted a gooey clump of cinnamon-swirled dough, dripping with sticky icing. I wanted two thousand calories in a single dessert. I wanted a belly full of nostalgia and warm memories.
Alas, there wasn’t a Cinnabon to be found, regardless of whether it would be open or not. The three of us were starving, however, so we settled on the one place that was still welcoming guests: an airport bar called the Tipsy Turtle, which just might be the most Scranton name ever.
I ordered a cheeseburger and fries—the second most American meal I could think of—while Joey chose the appetizer sampler featuring potato skins, mozzarella sticks, chicken fingers and onion rings. Not that those same dishes couldn’t be had in Brussels, but they weren’t the same. Like ordering a pizza anywhere but New York City.
Erica examined the menu the way a nun would read a list of dirty movies before she settled on a cheesesteak sandwich.
“No,” I told her before the bartender could write down the order. “Wait until we get to Philly. You’ll thank me later.”
“Okay,” she said, clearly annoyed at needing to scan the list of gastrointestinal nightmares a second time, “I’ll have a bowl of French onion soup and a Reuben.”
“Good choice,” I said.
“I doubt that,” she replied.
I ordered a round of beers to hold us over until the food arrived. We were the only three in the place, so it took longer than expected because they had to open the kitchen back up, but in the end it was worth it. If for no other reason than that the comfort food took my mind off the real reason for this homecoming. Ghost and The Persian weren’t here—weren’t even in America yet, no way—but their presence hung heavy as our footfalls reverberated throughout the near-empty airport on our way to the twenty-four-hour car rental agency.
