CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUROne thing about flying on Christmas: it’s the lightest travel day of the year. Especially on international flights. Nobody’s going anyplace. Wherever people are, they’re staying put. Hobart Lindsey and Petrus Berry were able to stretch out, take all the snacks they wanted, get all the attention they wanted from the flight attendants, act like a couple of big shots.
Lindsey was working on his report to Desmond Richelieu. Berry was reading a British edition of a Walter Mosley novel that he’d picked up at the terminal outside Rome. The sparse scattering of other passengers in the big jet seemed unanimously committed to ignoring the wholesome family movie that the airline had kindly provided for holiday viewing.
Outside the jet’s windows—Lindsey’s eyes were aching and he w
