Headwind Page 20

  “Jay was just boarding his commercial flight in Denver,” she explained. “He said he had about two hours of research to do before giving us the green light for London. He’ll call from the plane.”

  “Okay,” John Harris nodded.

  “His voice sounded strange. I got the impression something happened on the flight to Denver, but he wouldn’t tell me what. He sounded really spooked.”

  “Jay hates flying. He’d take Amtrak to London if they served the market.”

  “I got that impression.”

  “Where are General Glueck and his folks?”

  “Inside, sir. Captain Swanson’s having a dinner catered for them in the terminal, and sending food out to us, too.”

  “Did you see what those fellows did, Sherry?”

  She nodded. “I did. I didn’t hear everything that went on . . .”

  “I mean, you talk about something to make you humble, that level of. . .of. . .”

  “Honor?”

  “Just love of country, Sherry. General Glueck talked all of them into turning down that charter back to Rome.”

  “Sir, they’re having fun with this in a manner of speaking. I imagine it’s been a long time since some of them have felt really needed.”

  He nodded slowly. “Good insight. That’s something I have to consider. I was concerned about their wanting to come with us.”

  Sherry looked startled. “Wait a minute. They’re coming with us?”

  “Their next stop was Rome, but, according to Glueck, the whole group . . . including their tour director, Annie Ford . . . want to stay with us. They even had their baggage put back on the plane when the others left. You . . . have a problem with that?”

  She smiled. “Your call, sir, but I would rethink that. Once we leave here, I really don’t think they can help.”

  “Well, as far as I’m concerned, I’m honored to have them along if they want to go, and if it makes sense. Yeah, I’ll reconsider. What I do have a problem with is why we need to wait here until tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Jay Reinhart’s insisting he needs to get to London ahead of us and make arrangements.”

  “But what arrangements?” the President asked. “Campbell will have already presented the warrant to a judge somewhere in London. There’s almost no question they’ll be waiting wherever we touch down.”

  She shook her head. “He just wants to get there first, and that’s eleven hours from now.”

  “How long for us to fly to London?” he asked.

  “An hour and a half, about,” she replied. “He said he expects we should take off about four P.M. tomorrow. That will give him most of the day to get things arranged.”

  “To surrender to the British authorities?”

  “That’s . . . what he’s thinking.”

  “It’s always possible,” John Harris began, tapping his fingers on the side of his face, “that the British Foreign Office may decide to find a way to slow Stuart down just long enough for us to gas up and go.”

  “Yes, sir, but where do we go?” Sherry asked, easing into the seat next to him. “Captain Dayton tells me we can make Iceland or maybe Canada, but we can’t make it all the way home from London without refueling, because this model seven thirty-seven doesn’t have long-range fuel tanks. Campbell would surely know that. One of his henchmen will be waiting in Iceland too, and London’s probably a far better place to battle this.”

  “Words of wisdom, Sherry,” he said, falling silent for a few moments. “Unless Jay has some fantastic brainstorm to pluck us out of here, London it is.”

  “The British PM would never send you to Lima, right?”

  “I knew Maggie Thatcher, John Major, and even Tony Blair. I don’t know the current occupant. So I can’t be sure. All we can depend on is that the fight would take at least as long as Pinochet’s battle, which was more than a year. Hell, I’ll probably turn as senile as Pinochet before they get to that point.”

  Denver International Airport, Denver, Colorado

  David Carmichael stood in the doorway of the Signature Flight Service private terminal and watched a United Airlines 777 begin its takeoff roll on runway 17R. It accelerated slowly, pulled by two giant engines straining against the considerable weight of a planeload of passengers and baggage and a fuel load sufficient to power them through the 4,700 nautical miles separating Denver and London.

  He glanced at his little Cessna 172, safely chocked in front of the private terminal, the ice now gone from its wings and windshield. He thought of the incredible difference in weight between the two metallic birds. The one approaching liftoff would leave the ground at a hundred fifty knots, weighing nearly three quarters of a million pounds. The 172 could barely hit a hundred fifty knots in cruise flight or lift more than twelve hundred pounds.

  The triple seven’s nose rose majestically, the bulk of the aircraft lifting effortlessly into the air and almost immediately disappearing into the fog as the muted sound of the engines rolled over him.

  He knew it was Professor Reinhart’s flight. He’d checked and monitored the tower’s takeoff clearance on his portable aviation scanner once his rubber legs had stopped shaking long enough to walk.

  David turned and reentered the lounge.

  I need another few minutes to wind down, he told himself. Then he’d ask for a ride to the nearby hotel he’d called and get a much needed night of sleep. Tomorrow he’d rent a car to get back to Laramie, unless the sky was crystal clear.

  He looked back at his bird, feeling a strong determination to ferret out all he’d done wrong and make certain it never happened again.

  And he would undoubtedly hear from the FAA, if they weren’t already on their way to talk to him.

  Aboard United Flight 958

  Jay Reinhart turned off his computer and ended the modem connection with the seat phone.

  Thank God for modern communications and computers and databases, he thought. A little more than two hours of paging through the Pinochet decisions in Britain and studying British civil procedure, and the Treaty on Torture itself had led to a quick and dirty conclusion: Britain was the right venue.

  Jay took a deep breath and leaned back in his seat, feeling relaxed at having made that decision. He glanced out the window to his right and suddenly the fact they were in flight and he wasn’t afraid in the least became a jolting realization.

  The departure from Denver had triggered a beginning of the usual gut-wrenching fears as they taxied to the end of the runway, but amazingly enough, his apprehension had evaporated on the takeoff roll. The contrasts between the gentle motions of the flying living room he was occupying and what had occurred a short while before in David Carmichael’s tiny Cessna had tamed the terror, reducing it to a numbed acceptance, a psychological acquiescence and knowledge that nothing about being airborne could ever scare him quite as profoundly again, especially in the benign environment of a luxury jetliner.

  Amazing! he thought. All these years all I needed to cure my fear of flying was a near-death experience in a single-engine kite.

  He looked around the plush first-class cabin of the Boeing 777, taking in the alluring feminine form of a young flight attendant handing a drink to an aging British rock star he’d recognized two rows ahead.

  But he had work to do and calls to make. He tore his concentration away from an instantaneous daydream involving the raven-haired flight attendant and focused instead on the first call he was about to make.

  I say it here and it happens there! he thought to himself, any feeling of power overwhelmed by the sense of urgency and responsibility and risk of getting it wrong. He was, after all, up against perhaps the smartest international lawyer on the planet, a man who’d lived and breathed little else besides international law and treaty law for the past thirty years.

  Stuart Campbell’s confident, smiling face swam into his mind’s eye, sending a jolt of adrenaline through his bloodstream. The close encounter with the fog-shrouded surface of northeastern Colorado had numbe
d his fears somewhat, but the thought of Campbell honed the sharp edge of his apprehension once again. Was London a naive choice? Worse, was it a stupid choice, playing right into Campbell’s plans?

  Jay closed his eyes and shook the thought from his mind as best he could. He couldn’t be making decisions based on fear instead of logic. Campbell was, after all, just a lawyer, as was he. It was a matter of reading the law and the procedures of each country and deciding where John Harris would be most protected while he built his case against the warrant.

  Jay picked up the phone and ran his credit card again before dialing Sherry Lincoln’s GSM phone. She answered on the second ring.

  “Go to London, Sherry. Please tell the President. On second thought, let me brief him directly, okay?”

  There was a brief delay as she passed the word to John Harris and handed him the phone. His warm and friendly voice betrayed none of the tension or the peril he was in.

  “John, I have to warn you of something,” Jay said.

  “Go ahead.”

  “It’s not likely, but . . . the current government and the current prime minister have not been tested on this issue, and they seem to think quite differently from their predecessors.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Well, it’s not impossible that their stance toward rapid compliance with the warrant could dramatically change from that of the Pinochet situation.”

  “You mean, uphold sovereign immunity as a bar to the warrant?”

  “No, John. I mean they could decide that they have a duty to hear the extradition case immediately with no interference from the Law Lords.”

  “But you don’t think so?”

  “Highly unlikely, but that’s why I need to get there first.”

  “And if not Britain, Jay?”

  “I don’t know,” Jay said at the very moment a new possibility flashed across his mind. “I don’t know, but I’m working on alternatives. Don’t leave until I call you from London in about nine hours.”

  “I heard you hesitate,” Harris said. “What are you thinking?”

  Jay snorted on the other end. “Something . . . an idea . . . completely off the wall and not worthy of discussion right now.”

  “In my experience, Jay, those usually turn out to be the best of all.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  United 958, in Flight—Tuesday

  Jay Reinhart awoke with a start in his first-class seat, instantly upset at himself for having slept for the last three hours when he needed to be working. The flight attendants were already moving about the cabin with a fragrant breakfast, their efforts spotlighted occasionally by bright sunlight streaming in the windows and the welcoming smell of rich coffee.

  He glanced at the small color TV screen at his seat displaying a map of their progress over the Atlantic and read the time remaining: one hour, ten minutes.

  Jay sat up and rubbed his eyes, feeling exceedingly grubby. He got to his feet and headed for the lavatory, surprised at how wobbly his legs felt but determined to at least sponge his way back to social acceptability—an imperfect process which took less than ten minutes as he leaned heavily on a selection of colognes and amenities the airline provided in a small survival kit. He returned to the seat and gratefully accepted a cup of coffee and a sweet roll before pulling out his legal pads and trying to focus on planning the high-speed sequence of events he needed to orchestrate in London. It was a task he kicked himself for not completing hours ago, before the effect of time zones, loss of sleep, and dry cabin air began to muddle his thinking.

  The first order of business would be to hire the right solicitor—the right British lawyer—to represent John Harris under Jay’s control.

  But which one? He needed a lawyer who could quickly help him determine which magistrate court Campbell’s people had taken the warrant to, what rulings might have already been issued, and specifically what the extradition procedures were in Britain. He also needed to know whether or not Campbell was already in town. And he needed a best guess from an up-to-speed local practitioner on even the most far-out stunt Campbell might try to short-circuit the process and convince the appropriate branches of the British Government to turn Harris over to Peru when the courts had finished with the matter. So he would probably need an international firm.

  No, wait. The first order of priority is to call them in Sigonella, he reminded himself, checking his watch. It was 8 A.M. in Italy, 7 A.M. in the U.K. He needed to call before heading for central London, just to make sure nothing had changed.

  Next, I need to talk to the government. I’ve got to know how they’re going to react to a request to seize and extradite a former U.S. President.

  Another flash of apprehension and doubt rang a warning buzzer in his head, much as the stall warning in the little Cessna had cut through the heart of his confidence on that incredible flight.

  Was it only a few hours ago?

  Jay forced his mind away from that scene and back to the issue. The fact that Campbell was a highly placed Brit—a Knight of the British Empire and a senior barrister known as a QC, or Queen’s Counsel—meant Jay was at a tremendous disadvantage. Campbell knew everyone. He knew no one. How could he possibly equalize such odds in time to discover what he had to know?

  This is all about law, though. Not politics. The courts should be blind to Campbell’s position.

  But he knew better. Ultimately the British Secretary of State and the policies of Her Majesty’s government would determine whether or not to extradite.

  Indelibly etched images of Parliament, the interior of the House of Commons, and long-dormant memories of past contacts with British officialdom came to mind, as did the reality that he no longer had even one active contact in Her Majesty’s Government.

  Whom do I call? How on earth do I penetrate that maze?

  He’d tried searching the Internet for names of knowledgeable lawyers among the solicitors listed with London offices, but the search had yielded only three possible names, and since London was in the early hours of morning, there had been no open offices to call.

  The thought of John Harris sitting in the aircraft in Sigonella interposed itself. Had something happened during the night? He knew it was partially to divert his mind from the Herculean problems ahead, but he couldn’t resist yanking up the phone. He swiped his American Express card and punched in the number of Sherry Lincoln’s GSM cell phone, the sound of her voice like music on the other end when she answered. She reassured him that nothing had changed. Jay promised to make regular progress calls from London and rang off, then opened his laptop and connected it to the satellite phone again, establishing the link with the Internet just as the Boeing 777 began descent over Ireland for the landing in London. Jay was still on-line and searching frantically for legal contacts as the big jet steadied onto final approach over the English countryside. One of the flight attendants appeared at his side, standing in mock disgust with her hands on her hips to order the laptop turned off.

  “Otherwise we’ll explode immediately,” she said, “and it will all be your fault, and I’ll never speak to you again.”

  “Really? I mean, the explode part?”

  “No, that’s just a wind up, as the British call a good leg pulling. But that’s the kind of nonsense this industry teaches us flight attendants, since all of us are supposed to be bubble brains. Actually, the only way that laptop of yours could be dangerous is if you physically bashed one of the pilots with it, which is probably a bad idea, by the way. They get very testy when attacked with computers.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Jay said, pushing a smile through his fatigue.

  “But, you’ve really got to turn it off now, sir, or I’ll have to kill you.”

  “Done. Are you sure you don’t work for Southwest? You’ve got a Southwest Airlines sense of humor.”

  “I would, but I’m allergic to peanuts.”

  Jay hardly noticed the landing and wondered absently if the close encounter near Denver could have permanent
ly scared him out of his fear of flying—an oxymoronic concept to say the least.

  Probably not. I’m just too numb and too tired to care.

  The trip through British immigration and customs in Heathrow’s Terminal 3 was a rapid blur and within fifteen minutes he was in the baggage claim atrium resisting the urge to head immediately for central London. There was little point, since he had no specific place to go as yet.

  Cash! Jay reminded himself. He located a cash machine a few steps away and waited in a brief line before swiping his main cash card and punching in his PIN number.

  “The card you have used is not supported by this service,” the screen announced.

  Jay fumbled through his wallet for another credit card and pulled out a little-used VISA.

  “Incorrect PIN. Reenter the correct PIN,” the machine proclaimed in bold type.

  He tried again, trying to remember the number he thought he’d memorized.

  Again the machine refused.

  He pulled out his American Express card.

  “Your account is not set up for this service.”

  Jay opened his wallet and counted the remaining American bills: $50. Hardly enough for a taxi, let alone all he needed to do.

  He looked at his watch, reading just after 9 A.M. and feeling the time already slipping away. There was a money exchange window nearby and he converted the $50 to pounds, taking some in change, which he to used to feed a pay phone to call the three solicitors he’d researched in flight.

  “I’m terribly sorry, sir, Mr. Thompkins does not accept international cases.”

  “So sorry, Mr. Reinhart, but international law isn’t my specialty. Frankly, I don’t have a recommendation for you.”

  “Mr. Blighstone is out of the country this week.”

  Jay opened a London phone book and riffled through the yellow pages for solicitors, writing down the numbers of several other firms before calling them one by one and finding only one firm with any promising experience.