So now he has to go to a Dubai prison. But he’s doing it for Amy.
In Adam’s business that’s called breaking even. He googles the prison, while Max Highfield rides a snowmobile over a waterfall.
57
Steve has never liked flying, even back in the days when he wasn’t so frightened of everything.
He thinks about the facts of the situation. He is traveling at 600 mph, high in the heavens, in a metal tube whose upkeep and safety are in the hands of a series of human beings, some of whom, statistically, must be going through a divorce or a battle with addictions, or perhaps missing sleep because of a new baby or an old worry.
Given that Steve knows all these things, he is surprised at how calm this plane feels, almost serene, as it cuts a smooth path through the dark night toward Dublin. He is surprised about the calm he feels too. Rosie is asleep on a sofa. Steve places a blanket over her. Rosie asleep has a vulnerability that you never see in Rosie awake. Or she never lets you see.
Everyone is vulnerable. For some people, for Steve, it comes out as fear, avoiding situations where the vulnerability is exposed. For others, for an awful lot of people these days, vulnerability comes out as anger, pushing away anything that feels like it might pierce their shell. Steve watches people on TV sometimes, shouting the odds about this, that, or the other, railing against the truth of reality, and he always sees the pain first. They have lost someone, or they never had someone, and so now they have lost themselves.
Rosie hides her vulnerability with her brilliance; the brightness of her light is all that you can see. But, lying on the sofa, in the same sleep as the rest of us, Steve sees her.
My God, it is peaceful up here. That might be the tequila talking, but Steve can’t help but feel it. He is far from home for the first time in a long time. The safety of his routine has been left behind in an empty house. It must be echoing off the walls by now. Up at eight, feed Trouble, watch the news with Trouble curled on his lap as if he hasn’t just been sleeping all night. Weetabix for breakfast, sometimes with berries if he’s remembered to buy them. Walk to the shops, buy the paper and maybe something for tea. Say “Good morning” to the people whose routines coincide with his. Home, quick crossword, Sudoku, let Trouble out when he meows with the plaintive sorrow of a thousand dying suns, then let him back in again immediately. Lunch at the pub, good friends, variable conversation.
How safe that all makes him feel, but how small his world has become without his noticing. Up here, with the world stretched below him, looking at the names on the flight map of the world, he sees it now. He spins the globe on the screen. Will he ever visit Dar es Salaam? Jeddah? There’s Dubai.
Looking at Rosie again, Steve wonders now what he must look like asleep? How small he must look, how fragile. Sometimes when Steve wakes, Trouble is curled up on his chest. Steve has always thought that Trouble was looking for Steve’s protection, but what if Trouble is protecting him? What if Trouble sees the young child Steve still is—that we all still are when we sleep—and understands that he needs protecting?
Amy is working on her laptop, her face lit by the glow of the screen, looking at the files that Susan Knox has sent over. How does Amy hide? Steve wonders. Where does she go?
Steve touches her arm, and Amy looks up. Everything is silent except the cocooning drone of the engines keeping them alive.
“Are you scared?” Steve asks. He has wanted to ask her this many times, but he was frightened of the answer.
Amy smiles at him. “Yes. Are you?”
“Of course,” says Steve. “I’m always scared.”
“Me too,” says Amy. “I’m just very good at running away from it.”
“I know,” says Steve. “Or punching it, or shooting it. You know…if you ever wanted…we could talk about you growing up? All of that?”
“I know we could,” says Amy. “And you know we could talk about how sad you feel?”
“I know we could,” says Steve. “You found anything else in those files?”
“Nope,” says Amy. “No François Loubet, no Joe Blow. You?”
“Nope,” says Steve. He’s lying. There is a very interesting name hidden in the files. A name Steve recognizes. Though he has a lot of work to do before he can say anything. He also has another worry.
“Seeing as Courtney Lewis, our friend imprisoned in Dubai, was another Vivid Viral booking, we should probably think a bit more about Felicity Woollaston.”
“Tony Taylor’s new girlfriend?” Amy arches an eyebrow. “She’s just being used.”
“Maybe,” says Steve. “I hope so, for Tony’s sake.”
“Adam’s seeing Courtney Lewis when he gets to Dubai; she’ll have some answers,” says Amy. “Quick tour of the vineyard, see what we can see, talk to whoever will talk to us, then get Ads on Zoom and put our heads together.”
“I’m glad you asked Adam to help,” says Steve.
“He’s very good, you know,” says Amy.
“At what?” says Steve.
“At everything,” says Amy. “He’s an amazing man.”
“That’s nice to hear,” says Steve. “I still see the boy.”
“That’s because you’re both idiots, and you don’t spend any time together,” says Amy. “Believe it or not, you’d get on.”
“You don’t spend much time with him either,” says Steve. “I worry about that sometimes.”
“We don’t need to spend time together for now,” says Amy.
“That doesn’t make sense, Amy,” says Steve.
“It would make sense if you understood leveraged futures options,” says Amy. “We have forever.”
“No one has forever,” says Steve.
“God, no, sorry,” says Amy, putting her hand on Steve’s arm. “Let’s both spend more time with your son.”
“Why don’t you get some sleep?” Steve suggests. “I’m going to do a bit more thinking about Jeff. This case goes off in very different directions, depending on whether he’s alive or dead.”
Amy shuts her laptop. She looks over at her father-in-law. “Thank you, Steve.”
