He descends the steps. Welcome to America.
There will be another car to meet him, he knows that—Amy has arranged it all—but the car will have to wait, because Steve needs a little snoop around the airport first. This was where Andrew Fairbanks arrived, wasn’t it? Where he was picked up by some mystery man? Steve feels like there is something here that he could usefully look into. Some actual investigating. This way, he arrives with a present.
Brad is removing Steve’s luggage from the hold of the jet. His camping rucksack, the bottom held together by duct tape. Everything in this place—the plane, the staff, the terminal, the grass, the lights, everything—is gleaming and sparkling and at the top of its game. Everything, that is, except for Steve’s rucksack, and for Steve himself. Ragged and baggy but does the job.
Steve refuses to let Brad carry the rucksack to the terminal. Can you imagine? Brad, ever the professional, looks a little put out, though he also looks like a man for whom beer and Parmesan croutons don’t mix.
“What’s in the building?” Steve asks. “Passport control, all that?”
“Your passport will be checked in the Arrivals Suite,” says Brad. “Then Border Protection. They never check bags, though.”
Steve is relieved—he doesn’t need a bored man with a gun questioning why he’s only packed three pairs of underpants. “Many staff?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have that information,” says Brad. “But it’s a small airport.”
“So everyone will know everything,” says Steve.
Brad doesn’t understand the question but nods regardless.
Sliding doors open in front of them, and the air-conditioning instantly transforms Steve’s pools of uncomfortable hot sweat into pools of uncomfortable cold sweat. He feels like he is growing stalactites. He follows the sign that says Arrivals Suite. Us Customs and Border Protection Welcomes You. A hefty man in a blue uniform and aviator shades holds out his massive hand for Steve’s passport. The name on his gold badge says Carlos Moss.
“Purpose of travel, sir,” says Carlos Moss, as Steve rummages around in his rucksack.
“Family visit,” says Steve, eyeing the man’s gun. After twenty-five years on the force, there are very few fellow officers he would have trusted with a gun. It looks good on Carlos Moss, though.
“I’m in the job too,” says Steve. “Twenty-five years in the police. Private investigator now.”
“I’m Customs and Border Protection, sir,” says Carlos, unimpressed. “That’s a different job.”
“For sure,” says Steve, seeing his awkward frame reflected in the sunglasses. “For sure. But, you know, hunting down the bad guys, right? That’s what we do.”
“And bad women,” says the man. “Don’t profile, please. What family are you visiting, sir?”
“Daughter-in-law,” says Steve. “I’d love, man to man here, to take a look around. See your systems. The CCTV, you know. I’d get a kick out of that, as a professional.”
Carlos looks down at Steve, and lowers his aviator shades for the first time.
“Sir, are you on drugs?”
“No,” says Steve. Okay, plan B, then. Steve nods at the man’s gun.
“You ever shoot that?”
“Sir?”
“Your gun?” says Steve, finally finding his passport and handing it over. “Can’t imagine you get a lot of trouble here?”
“Sir,” says the man, flicking through Steve’s passport and looking at him again, “I hope you don’t think we’re having a conversation?”
“No,” says Steve. “No, apologies. Just, this would be an easy airport to smuggle a gun into. Everything a bit lax. No real cops.”
That should do it, surely? He just needs to get inside the security hub.
“This your bag?” Carlos Moss motions to Steve’s rucksack.
“The bag I just carried all the way from the plane and pulled my passport out of?” says Steve. “Yes, it’s my bag, Sherlock.”
Bit much?
“Is that humor, sir? I hope not.”
“Long flight,” says Steve. “Also, I’m English. Also, stupid question, Carlos.”
Carlos lowers his aviator shades once more. “Sir, you’ve made me lower my sunglasses two times now. That’s plenty enough. You want me to search this bag? You want to see the parts of this airport that ain’t so pretty?”
That’s exactly what Steve wants. At any regular US airport he would have been in a back room after his first remark. But they have obviously been told not to cause a fuss here. No wonder rich people got away with so much. So he might need one more push.
“If I’d packed a gun, you wouldn’t find it, however hard you searched.”
“Sir?”
“You’d never find it,” says Steve. “It’s the American mindset. Too obvious.”
Steve already thought that Carlos Moss was tall, but he now uncoils himself further. Carlos finally takes off his shades. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to accompany me for a full search.”
Bingo, thinks Steve, job done. He then wonders exactly what his plan is now. Whatever it is, he hopes he’ll figure it out before the man pulls on a latex glove.
Carlos leads Steve to exactly the spot he had hoped for: the bit of the airport that the tourists never see, unless that tourist has a suitcase full of cocaine or some such. Carlos swings Steve’s bag onto a metal table and starts undoing the flimsy clasps.
