Tristan frowned and took a look at the front doors. “That seems unlikely.”
“But it’s possible? Why would people be shooting at you?” She started looking for the luggage cart with her suitcase. “I’m going to call Anjali to come back and pick me up.”
“You don’t have to do that. I’m sure they weren’t shooting at me. I haven’t done anything that I know of for anyone to be shooting at me.”
“You say that like there’s a possibility you may have overlooked something. You don’t overlook things that might make people shoot at you. Either you know what that was about, or you don’t.”
Tristan shrugged, a sinuous movement that seemed only to emphasize his broad shoulders. “Considering the people who are standing in this terminal right now, I think I’m in the lower half on the list of people most likely to be shot at. They’re the people who’ve hired mercenaries, who were the guys who ran outside to return fire. Without looking around too much because it might draw attention to ourselves, I notice that in attendance, we have the CEO of a much-maligned oil company, a cable news personality who has the audacity to tell the truth and thus has many of the violence-prone mouth-breathers after her, and a Panamanian gentleman whose yacht is uncommonly large for a civil servant, among others.”
The terminal itself was a sumptuous room of white-leather furniture and low tables. Some of the strolling waiters were offering people appetizers as well as the drinks.
Colleen glanced around but had no idea whom he was talking about. “How do you know which guy has a yacht? I don’t see any yachts here in the middle of the desert.”
“I met him at a place where yachts go. My point is that I doubt they were shooting at me.”
“But you were the one who was outside. Who’s that other guy, the one who was in the car with you? Could they have been shooting at him?”
“Jian? I don’t think so.” He turned, and the guy was right there. “Jian, may I introduce you to our new computer consultant, Ms. Colleen Frost? Colleen, this is my personal assistant, Mr. Jian Laio.”
The other guy who’d gotten out of the car with Tristan, the one Anjali seemed to have called dibs on, was holding a clipboard.
Jian Laio tilted his head down to see Colleen because he was nearly as tall as Tristan, and he soberly greeted her before he turned back to Tristan King. His voice was low and deferential with a throaty trace of an Asian accent when he said, “Mr. King, the plane is ready. Considering the circumstances, I suggest we board immediately and leave as soon as possible.”
“Considering recent developments, I concur. Let’s see how soon we can get the jet in line.”
Jian strolled into the crowd, seemingly unhurried but covering the ground at an impressive rate with his long legs, walking toward a desk that had suddenly become quite popular.
Tristan turned back to Colleen. “I’m sure we’ll be ready in a moment. Would you like a drink?”
He snagged two champagne flutes of fizzy orange juice from a passing waiter and offered her one.
Colleen accepted the mimosa and kept an eye on the crowd. “Do you always drink at this time of the morning?”
“No, sometimes I have a drink quite early. Ah, Jian has pressed his way to the head of the line. Brilliant. We should be in the air within minutes.”
“It seemed like they were waiting for you and were shooting at you, not at the terminal in general. There’s no way they could’ve shot anyone who was inside the building because most of the front wall is solid. It’s only this back wall that’s glass.”
The private terminal’s rear wall was composed entirely of slightly blued glass that made the bright desert sky even more vivid and looked out over the tarmac, where small jets were parked and waiting. A man wearing a dark suit and holding a clipboard approached a small group near the back wall and said something while executing a subtle quarter-bow. The people gathered up their few carry-ons and followed him through a small door and out onto the asphalt, heading toward a small plane with a ramp that led up to its open door.
Tristan’s assistant-guy Jian returned. “There are two flights ahead of us. We should board in ten minutes.”
“Thank you, Jian,” Tristan replied. “Who did you have to bribe to get us off that quickly?”
The man straightened. “Such maneuvers do not require bribes, Mr. King. I merely reminded the coordinator that my previous employer, for whom he thinks I still work, ruled a country where his cousins live.”
Tristan chuckled. “Threats, then.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “I would not call it such.” And then he turned away to watch the crowd.
Colleen sipped the fizzy champagne and orange juice and did not get in the middle of that conversation. They might have been joking, or that might’ve been real animosity.
As Jian Laio had predicted, they were ushered through the terminal and out onto the blazing tarmac to ascend a ramp to a small jet within ten minutes.
For Colleen, who’d never even been on a commercial flight, the plane seemed plenty big. It was certainly not a two-seater that sounded like an Indian mosquito, but something like a nice living room but with curved walls that met in a dome overhead and porthole windows, of course. The wide seats were honey-colored leather and grouped in two groups of four around two tables, and a long couch took up the other wall of the plane.
Two slim women near the rear of the plane smiled and waved as they walked in, so Colleen smiled and waved back at them. Inside her head, a voice kept muttering, be sophisticated, be sophisticated.
When they settled at one of the tables, Colleen texted Anjali, We are on the plane and leaving. So it appears that he does have a plane.
