The Ghost

through the darkness.
    “Now that’s the way to travel,” I said, trying to sound relaxed. “Is it always like that?”
    “They want to show him they love him,” said Amelia. “And no doubt it helps to show everyone else how they treat their friends. Pour encourager les autres. ”
    Security men with metal wands were inspecting all the luggage. I added my suitcase to the pile.
    “He says he has to get back to Ruth,” she continued, gazing up at the plane. The windows were bigger than on a normal aircraft. Lang’s profile was plainly visible toward the rear. “There’s something he needs to talk over with her.” Her voice was puzzled. She was almost talking to herself, as if I weren’t there. I wondered if they’d had a row during the drive to the airport.
    One of the security men told me to open my suitcase. I unzipped it and held it up to him. He lifted out the manuscript to search underneath it. Amelia was so preoccupied, she didn’t even notice.
    “It’s odd,” she said, “because Washington went so well.” She stared vacantly toward the lights of the runway.
    “Your shoulder bag,” said the security man.
    I handed it to him. He took out the package of photographs, and for a moment I thought he was going to open it, but he was more interested in my laptop. I felt the need to keep talking.
    “Perhaps he’s heard something from The Hague,” I suggested.
    “No. It’s nothing to do with that. He would have told me.”
    “Okay, you’re clear to board,” said the guard.
    “Don’t go near him just yet,” she warned, as I moved to pass through the scanner. “Not in his present mood. I’ll take you back to him if he wants to talk.”
    I climbed the steps.
    Lang was seated in the very end seat, nearest to the tail, his chin in his hand, gazing out of the window. (The security people always liked him to sit in the last row, I discovered later; it meant no one could get behind him.) The cabin was configured to take ten passengers, two each on a couple of sofas that ran along the side of the fuselage, and the rest in six big armchairs. The armchairs faced one another in pairs, with a stowaway table between them. It looked like an extension of the Waldorf’s lobby: gold fittings, polished walnut, and padded, creamy leather. Lang was in one of the armchairs. The Special Branch man sat on a nearby sofa. A steward in a white jacket was bending over the former prime minister. I couldn’t see what drink he was being served, but I could hear it. Your favorite sound might be a pair of nightingales in a summer dusk, or a peal of village church bells. Mine is the clink of ice against cut glass. Of this I am a connoisseur. And it sounded distinctly to me as if Lang had given up tea in favor of a stiff whiskey.
    The steward saw me staring and came down the gangway toward me. “Can I get you something, sir?”
    “Thanks. Yes. I’ll have whatever Mr. Lang is having.”
    I was wrong: it was brandy.
    By the time the door was closed, there were twelve of us on board: three crew (the pilot, copilot, and steward), and nine passengers—two secretaries, four bodyguards, Amelia, Adam Lang, and me. I sat with my back to the cockpit so that I could keep an eye on my client. Amelia was directly opposite him, and as the engines started to whine it was all I could do not to hurl myself at the door and wrench it open. That flight felt doomed to me from the start. The Gulfstream shuddered slightly, and slowly the terminal building seemed to drift away. I could see Amelia’s hand making emphatic gestures, as if she were explaining something, but Lang just continued to stare out at the airfield.
    Someone touched my arm. “Do you know how much one of these things costs?”
    It was the policeman who’d been in my car on the drive from the Waldorf. He was in the seat across the aisle.
    “I don’t, no.”
    “Have a guess.”
    “I genuinely have no idea.”
    “Go on. Try.”
    I shrugged. “Ten million dollars?”
    “ Forty million dollars.” He was triumphant, as if knowing the price somehow implied he was involved in the ownership. “Hollington has five .”
    “Makes you wonder what they can possibly use them all for.”
    “They lease them out when they don’t need them.”
    “Oh, yes, that’s right,” I said. “I’d heard that.”
    The noise of the engines increased and we began our charge down the runway. I imagined the terrorist suspects, handcuffed and hooded, strapped into their luxurious