together at the gate and they looked very concerned. Their eyes, they were darting from side to side like they were looking for someone, and they didn't talk. Then all of a sudden all three got up and went and stood behind a large group of tourists on an organized tour who stood at the other gate. I think they were hiding from someone."
"Did you see who they were hiding from?"
She shook her head. "No one that I could see, but they kept standing there, pretending to mingle with that group, until shortly before boarding ended. Then they rushed quickly to the back of the line."
"Would you say that whoever looked for them did not find them that day?"
"I think so. At least they assumed they were not seen."
"Anything else you recall about them?"
"Not really. They didn't act suspicious other than that."
"You wouldn't remember their names by any chance?"
"No."
"How about if I showed you some pictures? Would you remember their faces?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
Doc Minus Two turned on his tablet and showed her photographs of the sixty six victims. She remained motionless, almost ashamed that she could not provide a positive identification for any of them. He asked if she could describe the men she saw, and she said one was black and two white, in their thirties or forties. At least one she thought might have been a foreigner, someone from Europe.
"Greek by any chance?"
"Could be. I can't be sure."
Doc Minus Two thanked her and we left the shop. "You're a horrible person," I said to him once we were outside.
"Why? I saved his life."
"You're also the one who made him choke in the first place. You aggravate people."
I finally managed to get under his skin. He said, "They're safer with me than with you any day; I'm a doctor."
I laughed. "You mean you call yourself Doc."
"No, I'm a doctor. At lease I was. I don't practice medicine anymore."
I stopped and gave him an inquisitive look, but he continued to walk down the block and I had to catch up with him again, which made me look silly. Suddenly I understood everything. "You were an army surgeon."
He nodded.
"That's how you met Nat. You operated on him."
Again a nod.
"It was you who amputated his leg and fitted him with a prosthetic."
This topic of conversation did not appeal to him. "Enough about that. Back to your miserable life that you pay me to preserve. Do you remember the three men she mentioned? Were they on your flight?"
"No. Not saying they weren't but I don't remember them."
"Pity, that sounded promising. Someone was after them who may not have even known their names. Only knew that they were on this flight."
"So they decided to kill all passengers and crew just to be sure?"
"Only a theory. Always work with what little you got."
"Why did you ask her if one of them was Greek?"
"The Minotaur. If this is someone's nickname, I thought maybe they're Greek."
Something came to me. "If they were on that plane with me, then all three must be dead now."
"That's the way the cookie crumbles."
"But if they were the ones the killers were after, then, mission accomplished. Isn't it so?"
"What are you getting at?"
I waved my arms apologetically. "Just saying, had they known that, maybe they'd stop chasing after me."
"And how were you planning on breaking this news to them? And how is that not going to arouse their suspicion that you know something you shouldn't about the three people they were after? And that if they were after these three at all. It's just a theory based on the recollection of someone who can't even be sure about the date, not to mention the flight number."
I went silent. It was cowardice on my part to come up with that idea. I was angry at myself for my lack of self control. Doc Minus Two sensed that and made it worse. "Life is cheap. Yours more than most at this point. Deal with it. You won't get a chance to explain yourself to them. You won't get a chance to make friends with those who hunt you. No dramatic endings for you, either: you'll be dealt with as quickly and efficiently as possible, like swatting a fly. To them you are a name to dispose of, not a human being. Never make the mistake of assuming you can reason with them."
"What do you want to prove?" I asked with annoyance.
"I want you to let me focus on the investigation, while you focus on one thing: staying alive."
"Gotcha. Staying alive."
And then he risked my life by driving off just as I was getting into the Jeep. I held on to an outside handle and yelled and cursed at him as my ass was hovering over speeding asphalt with only one leg inside the vehicle, but he did not stop. Finally I managed to get a better grip and shifted my weight inside the Jeep. There I sat sulking until we arrived in Boston, not saying a word to him the entire ride. I think that was his intention.
VIII.
At a Massachusetts diner, Doc Minus Two let me check my e-mail. There were no messages from K, nor any from my family. Apart from my son and ex wife I only have a sister who lives in Alaska and with whom I seldom speak. I remembered her now and asked Doc Minus Two if I should be telling her anything. He said no, it is not likely they'd do much more than tap her phone line seeing how little contact there was between us, and that I best not attempt to speak to her. A moment later he glanced at his laptop and shook his head and pushed the device away from him.
"What happened?"
"No black box. I pulled some strings to try and get a copy of the flight recording to see if anything unusual took place on board. Turns out the airlines' data retention policy requires them to keep that data for only two years unless there was an incident. Since there were no problems with this flight, the data is already gone."
"What were you expecting to gain from the black box anyway if the flight landed safely?"
"At least the cockpit recording. Maybe the pilots made a comment about something that wasn't a safety issue, yet important to us. Anything would help at this point."
I poured myself a third cup of coffee. It was nice after all these hours on the open road. Up until the previous week I did not drink coffee at all, and now I could not do without it. "Then I'm sorry to hear about that."
"The plane itself is okay," he continued, thinking out loud. "Still in service, never a major incident before or after that flight. I may be able to gain access to do a little look-around, but I doubt this would teach us anything." He seemed frustrated now.
"Are you concerned that we don't have much to go on?"
"You bet I am. All we got is three men who may or may not have been on your flight and whose identity we have no chance of ever discovering, and a pen drive delivered with a tracking device that may or may not have a bearing on this case, and some obsession with the word Minotaur. The families of the victims don't have any helpful information for us and seem to be disappearing right after we talk to them."
"I hope that girl from yesterday won't disappear like the pilot's widow."
He waved a calming hand. "Don't worry about her. She was ground crew; not on their list. They don't even know she exists."
"What do you suggest we do?"
"There are only two useful things we can do now. Get the pen drive from your apartment and determine whether or not it has something of importance on it, and go look at select murder scenes to see if we can't find any more clues. We already know that at least one of the hit men was a bird watcher. By itself maybe it's not much, but a few more discoveries like this and we might be able to construct a profile. In fact I plan to go over police records in detail today. You'll have to leave me alone for a change."
"Anything you'd like me to do while I'm leaving you alone?"
"Yes. Retrieve that pen drive."
I startled at his seeming lapse of judgment. "You want me to go bac
k to my apartment? You know someone must be waiting for me there."
He lifted his head over the remains of his omelet and gave me a penetrating gaze with his tired eyes, as if resenting my thinking so little of his intelligence. "I found us a cat burglar to do that. Your job is to tell the cat burglar how to gain access to your apartment and where the pen drive is. That is all. Think you can handle that?"
I concealed a small sigh of relief. "I'll just hand him the key."
"First of all, it's a her, not a him. Secondly, you give her the key and the perps are going to jump her as soon as she turns it in the lock. No, it has to look like a burglary. It has to be done in the middle of the night so that even if they do see her, they won't suspect it is in any way connected with you or ordered by you. For the same reason, she would have to remove some valuables from your apartment; the larger the better so they are seen. Those she will keep as part of her fee. The rest, four hundred dollars as per my agreement with her, you will give her in cash today."
"You expect me to pay a burglar to break into my own home and steal my own valuables?"
He signaled the waitress and asked her for more coffee and coke. "Your selfish point of view astounds me. You're paying her so you don't have to risk your own life, that's what you're paying her for. She can get killed doing this for you, and one of her is worth ten of you to me."
We did not say much after this. He dropped me off at an ice cream parlor in Boston later that afternoon, where he said the cat burglar would meet me soon. "How will I reach you?" I asked.
"When I'll need you I'll let you know," was his only reply, and then he took off. I watched his dirty Jeep disappear down the road, then turned around to