“It matters not, Sita. Stay or go, you will always be with me.”
There could be no greater longing, and I realize I would live a thousand lives, suffer a thousand horrible deaths, just to see him again.
Of course, in a sense, I already have.
“Yes,” I say as my eyes burn. I fight to hide any tears, although I’m happy to confide in Seymour. There’s no one I’d rather share secrets with. He nods and smiles at my answer. He knows what Krishna means to me.
“Did he ask about me?” Seymour says.
I chuckle. “Before he invited me into paradise, I had to reassure him that you were doing well.”
Seymour catches my eye. “Did he invite you?”
A serious question. “Yes.”
“And you said no? How could you say no?”
“Because of you.” The words just come out. “Because of what I left behind here on earth.”
Seymour understands, he’s probably the only one who can.
“You returned because your job isn’t finished,” he says.
“Yes.”
“And because you love me.”
“Of course.”
“Not because of Matt.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say.
Seymour sits back in his seat, satisfied.
The others return in twenty minutes. Brutran carries a leather bag stuffed with hundred-dollar bills and documents. Matt carries a larger bag—they must have been provided by the bank. I have an eye for counting cash. Brutran has probably withdrawn over three million. I’m not surprised at the amount. But the documents are something of a shock.
She has fake IDs for all of us. Driver’s licenses. Passports. Credit cards. The quality is obvious, no authority would look at them twice.
“When did you have these made?” I ask as I study my new identity. My name is Lara Wine and I’m from Napa Valley, California. I’m twenty-two and I have a pilot’s license.
“A long time ago,” she replies.
“How long ago?” It’s hard to imagine she could have foreseen our present situation. It makes me wonder if she used the Cradle as an oracle more often than she let on.
Brutran shrugs. “Let’s just say I like to be prepared.”
Matt hands his bag of cash back to Seymour and starts the engine. “I want to get rid of this vehicle,” he says. “Let’s drive halfway to the airport and flag down a cab.”
“We can’t close a deal on a plane in one afternoon,” Seymour says.
Brutran gestures to her laptop screen. “I’ve already found a list of twenty-four planes for sale at the local airport. A third of them are being handled by a single broker. We show him the money and he’ll get us what we need.”
The broker’s office is in a building that overlooks the portion of the airport where private planes land. Over Matt’s objection, Brutran insists on talking to the broker alone, or with Jolie by her side, which is pretty much the same thing. She seems hesitant to leave us alone with her daughter.
“But we haven’t even picked out which plane we want,” he says.
The words are hardly out of his mouth when Brutran whips out a sheet of paper listing the planes that are available and where they are parked. The woman is so damn efficient, it’s scary.
“Check them out and tell me which one you want,” Brutran says.
“Aren’t we doing things backwards?” Matt asks.
Brutran smiles. “You may be the next Superman but you don’t know a thing about negotiating. I’ll talk to the broker half an hour before I’ll even begin to discuss our price range, or even what plane we want to buy.”
Seymour, Matt, and I begin to search the aircraft parking spaces. It’s immediately apparent Matt is focused on purchasing a jet, but only three are available: a Gulfstream IV, a Phenom 100, and a Lear XL. With the cash we carry, the Lear is the only jet we can buy outright. The Gulfstream is almost new and carries a price tag of twenty million, and the Phenom is at least half that much.
“A jet will limit the number of airports we can access,” I warn.
“But it will more than double our speed,” Matt says. He effortlessly picks the lock of the Gulfstream and climbs into the cockpit. I remember when he rescued me from the Telar in the Swiss Alps, the Apache helicopter he showed up in. The boy likes his toys. I can see already he has his heart set on the Gulfstream.
“Brutran withdrew the cash for a specific purpose,” I say. “She doesn’t want to have to access any of her private or IIC accounts. She’s afraid a bank wire can be traced.”
“I never heard her say that,” Seymour remarks.
“It doesn’t matter, I know the way she thinks,” I say. “And in this case she’s right. We should focus on the propeller planes. There’s a twin-engine Cessna in lot 13B that looks promising.”
Matt frowns as he plays with the Gulfstream’s controls. “We can work on the broker’s brain if we have to,” he says.
“I’d rather not screw with the man’s mind,” I say, thinking of the Denver cop and his wife I recently damaged with my fiery gaze. Matt is instantly alert to my concern. He has my same power. His might even be stronger.
“You only had a problem because you were in Teri’s body,” he says.
“The broker will have trouble explaining to the Gulfstream’s owner why he only got a fraction of the price he was asking,” I say.
“The broker doesn’t have to call the owner until next week. By then it won’t matter.”
“Why do we have to buy a jet?” Seymour asks. “Let’s rent one.”
“No,” I say. “Brutran’s talking to the broker alone to make sure he understands we don’t want a paper trail. That’s another reason her cash is important.”
Matt climbs out of the Gulfstream and tests the strength of the jet’s wings. “North Carolina’s on the other side of the country. That’s a lot of ground to cover. And I don’t just want speed because we’re in a hurry.”
“You’re afraid someone might come after us,” I say.
Matt nods. “Yes. This Gulfstream is our best bet right now.” He turns toward the broker’s building. “I’m going to help Brutran speed up the negotiations.”
Without waiting for my approval Matt walks away. Seymour pats me on the back. “How does it feel to not be the boss?” he asks.