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He was a little uneasy about leaving Merry to the care of Mbatian Olkeloki.
The old man seemed harmless enough, but harmlessness was one thing and
trustworthiness another. In spite of what had happened on the highway between
his house and the airport he still wasn't quite ready to swallow the old man's
nightmare whole. His right leg throbbed where something that had been a piece
of truck rubber one second and a piece of a bad dream the next had tried to
amputate his foot. There had to be another explanation for what they'd seen
and experienced this morning, but he was damned if he could think of it.
Just because he couldn't think of it, however, didn't mean it didn't exist.
He froze, reflexively sipped at his coffee to maintain the appearance of
normalcy. There were two of them, he was sure of it, and they were both very
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good at not wanting to be seen. Oak, whose perceptions had been honed by a
decade of dealing with dangerous radicals and extremists, saw them
nonetheless.
Just a glimpse of two tall shapes, then the crowd swallowed them up. Leaving
his coffee behind but for unknown reasons hanging on to the rest of the
doughnut, Oak went after them in time to see one disappearing into the men's
room off on the left. That made him hesitate. There was no familiar,
comforting bulge beneath his left arm. FBI or not, the local authorities would
have taken a dim view of any attempt to bring a handgun into England, much
less onto an international flight. His unease was balanced by a burning desire
to know what was shadowing their progress. He couldn't imagine how spirits or
anything else could have tracked them across the Atlantic. Olkeloki claimed
some shetani were capable of flight, but flight at Mach 2? Oak doubted it. The
most likely explanation was that he was imagining things and that they weren't
being followed at all, but he was a firm believer in the instincts which had
kept him alive while working for the Bureau and he had no intention of
abandoning them now.
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Another glance at his watch indicated he had barely enough time to take a
leak. If he hung around here any longer the plane would leave without him.
That decided him. He pushed his way into the restroom.
It wasn't crowded. His gaze went immediately to an Englishman who was washing
his hands. He held them beneath a dryer, then turned and left. Oak was alone
in the men's room.
Cautiously he paced the line of urinals, bending low to check the empty stalls
opposite. There was another row of each on the other side and as soon as he
finished with the first aisle he walked around to inspect the second. He kept
his back to the urinals and bent over no farther than was necessary to see
under the swinging doors.
The exit door rattled as someone went through in a hurry. Whoever it was must
have been standing on one of the toilets on the first aisle. Oldest trick in
the book. Cursing silently, he whirled and raced back the way he'd come. As he
drew even with the first aisle, his eyes intent on the doorway, something like
a lead pipe caught him behind his haircut. Afterward he couldn't tell for sure
if he'd been hit from the front or from behind, much less what with, but he
knew he hadn't run into the wall. There was a brief, watery glimpse of a tall
figure, though whether man or spirit he couldn't tell.
He didn't black out completely. The light from the naked overhead fluorescents
was painful. Somewhere close by, a little boy was saying clearly, Daddy, why
is that man lying on the floor? Then another figure leaning over him,
sounding concerned.
Say, friend, are you all right? Heavy accent, Oak thought. The man sounded
Italian.
Water on his face had him sitting up fast and blinking. By now several men had
gathered around him in addition to the father with his kid. None of them were
cops, for which Oak was grateful. He wondered what might have happened if
Daddy hadn't arrived to take a piss when he had.
More than anything else he was furious with himself. It would never have
happened back home. He'd let down his guard and received a cheap lesson in
return.
I'm okay. I slipped and hit my head, that's all. Willing hands helped him to
his feet. I'll be all right now. He managed a smile as he staggered to the
door and out into the bustling concourse beyond.
Outside he paused long enough to check directions and the back of his skull.
There was nothing spiritual about what had clobbered him. He had a feeling it
had been a man. A shetani would have taken out his throat instead of going for
the head. What a pretty mental image that made; him lying spread-eagled on the
dirty tile with his jugular vein severed and blood spurting all over the
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place. The little boy screaming instead of questioning.
A glance at his watch cleared his mind fast. It felt like he'd lain on the
bathroom floor only for a minute or two, but it had been a lot longer than
that. If he didn't move his ass fast he'd miss the plane. Suddenly he found he
wanted very much to be on that flight, not only to look after Merry Sharrow
and to help
Olkeloki, but because when the old man gave the shetani the evil eye or
whatever it was he planned to do, Josh wanted to be there when he did it.
And if men were somehow behind all that had happened in the past couple of
days, he was looking forward to meeting them again, too.
He relaxed once he joined an anxious Merry and Olkeloki on the plane.
Somebody clobbered me when I wasn't looking, in the men's room.
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Did you get a look at them? Merry asked. Are you okay?
No I didn't get a look at them and yes I'm okay.
I don't understand how anyone could follow us all the way from Washington.
Neither do I. It makes absolutely no sense, which means it fits right in with
everything else that's happened.
The ways of the shetani are not the ways of men.
You don't say? Oak said. Now that's profound. His hand went to the lump
forming on the back of his head. Whatever hit me was a lot solider than any
spirit.
They were interrupted by standard interminable preflight safety instructions
in the form of a film displayed on the movie screen. It provided a respite for
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