Free Hostage Tower by John Denis

agreed.’
    â€˜Yes, yes,’ Claude assured him hastily. ‘Please don’t worry, Mister Smith. Every possible care will be taken to safeguard yourself, your identity, and this place. It will be done as you said. When they arrive, they will not have the slightest idea where they are, or how far they have travelled, or even whether it’s still the same day.’
    â€˜Good, good,’ Smith sighed. ‘Everything on schedule. That’s how I like it. That’s how it should be, Claude.’
    â€˜It is,’ Claude insisted.
    Smith turned in the water, and stretched out his legs. Leah followed his movements, then drifted to the edge of the Jacuzzi, hoisted herself up, and sat dripping on the edge.
    Smith grinned at Claude. ‘Would you like to join us?’ he offered.
    Claude controlled his breathing with difficulty, and tore his eyes away from Leah.
    â€˜Another day, perhaps,’ he said, ‘when I am less occupied. But thank you for asking.’
    â€˜Don’t mention it.’ Smith said. ‘You’re welcome, any time.’
    The clouds grudgingly parted, and Sonya, in a window seat of the Concorde, looked down on the futuristic disc of Charles de Gaulle Airport, twelve miles north-east of central Paris on the broad, flat plain of Île-de-France.
    A stewardess arrived to collect their empty glasses, still awash with the remains of the ice, and Sonya’s with a twist of lemon. Another stewardess came with a note.
    â€˜It was radioed through from the Élysée Palace,’ she whispered. ‘You must be very important.’
    â€˜I am,’ Sonya whispered back.
    â€˜She means
I
am,’ Philpott grunted, slumping further down in his seat.
    â€˜Would you sit up, then, please, Mr VIP?’ the stewardess requested, ‘since we shall shortly be landing at Charles de Gaulle Airport.’
    â€˜If we don’t,’ Philpott acknowledged, ‘it will indeed have been a wasted journey.’ The girl grinned and wiggled off.
    Sonya opened the slip of paper. ‘From Giscard,’ she said. ‘You’ve got your Red priority.’
    Philpott sat bolt upright at this, then folded his arms behind his head, and leaned back in his seatwith a complacent smirk on his face, like a cat that’s just cornered the cream market.
    The Concorde dipped into its final descent, levelled out, and caressed the runway, its long, pointed nose skimming the tarmac. Philpott – who had a horror of VIP suites – took Sonya through the Concorde gate into one of the seven satellite buildings of Number One Terminal, in the slipstream of executives and pop stars who make up the normal daily cargo of the flagships of Air France.
    They joined the ‘travelator’ crush, riding inside totally enclosed glass tubes, to the first nest of three concentric levels in the terminal dish: the Transfer Level, a mezzanine through which all arriving and departing passengers must pass. Philpott kept his eyes skinned, but could see no one he recognized.
    They went through passport and Customs controls, and boarded the next travelator up to the Arrival Level – another sub-division into three concentric areas: the inner baggage hall, topped by a ring of Customs control filters, and finally an outer gallery leading to coaches, taxis and the car-park.
    They collected their cases, and waited in the outer gallery – for there were many things due to happen shortly in Charles de Gaulle Airport that interested Philpott.
    Two passengers they already knew about – Sabrina and C.W., who would arrive on differentflights, but near enough at the same time. And Philpott was sure they would be met. He had to know who was meeting them.
    But it was the third potential traveller that concerned him most. For if Sabrina and C.W. had been summoned to France to serve Mister Smith that day, then so, too, he reasoned, would the laser-gun thief be similarly called.
    Malcolm Philpott