As airports go, this one was pretty screwed up. An ongoing strike at the entrance to the international terminal left a mess of irate picketers and confused travellers in its wake—chaos defined. Sam Harris cut through the angry bodies, ignoring their shouted grievances, and headed inside. He found little relief from the bedlam. Everywhere he looked, nothing but festering lines and swirling eddies of people.

Typical airport.

He glanced at his watch and set off to locate the check-in. His first task was always to get the lay of the land. Assess the situation. Mitigate the unexpected.

He found the Pangaean counter soon enough. Pangaean and Royale Atisari Airlines, to its left, functioned as two islands of calm efficiency in an otherwise tempestuous sea. Further down, Ganda Airlines’ frustrated passengers snaked interminably through retractable-tape cattle corrals; two harried clerks doing the work of four. Freedom Air’s malfunctioning electronic check-in machines left passengers arguing among themselves and staff trying to mollify the situation.

Sam nodded. He’d made a good choice with Pangaean; counters fully staffed, lines nice and short, and everything moving quickly. It was a lovely day to fly.

He glanced again at his watch. Time for a little caffeine to jump-start his workday.

Sam scouted for the best perch to observe the world. Café Délicieux looked good. While crowded, a few empty tables remained near the faux windows—a suitable vantage point to monitor the check-in lines. And, if he squinted, he’d be able to make out the arrival and departure times from the overheads in the middle of the terminal.

The cafe line failed the efficiency test, snaking slower than Ganda’s, through the same damned crowd corrals. It took Sam forever to come face-to-face with a barista.

“Coffee, tall and black,” he said.

She raised her eyebrows. “Just coffee? Black coffee, straight up?”

Sam knew folks didn’t go to places like Café Délicieux for plain coffee, but he wasn’t most folks.

“Yes, please. Black coffee, straight up.”

He paid a small fortune for the luxury—they saw you coming at the airport. He hated to think what those flavoured double lattes with extra shots cost the customers around him. At least they didn’t charge extra for a napkin.

By the time he had his coffee in hand, only one table remained empty near the windows. He moved in on it quickly, lest someone else nab it. With a satisfied sigh, Sam sat and checked his watch—an entire half-hour lost on a lousy cup of coffee. He took a sip and smiled. Scratch lousy. The coffee was excellent.

The Pangaean lines had lengthened during his wait, while the Atisari lines remained short, their entire counter fully staffed. Even with two of eight stations closed at Pangaean, Sam didn’t worry about the schedule. Plenty of time.

He sipped his coffee, watching the ebb and flow of passengers. A haphazard collection of humanity crammed into close proximity under stressful conditions, each obsessed with their own sets of worries. Simple percentages told him loose cannons roamed out there, just waiting to go off. It amazed him more people didn’t go postal in airports. Over the coffee cup rim he searched for potential trouble. In his line of work, one could never be too careful.

Trouble hit his radar as he placed the empty coffee cup on the table. A man stood poised halfway between the Atisari and Pangaean counters, scrutinising the crowd with professional intensity; tall, wide shouldered, sporting a buzz cut, and not an inch of flab. Sam pegged him for ex-military, probably special forces. The man appeared tightly wound, working the crowd… searching for someone.

Interesting.

“Excuse me, mate, can I borrow your pen?”

Sam looked up, to see a young man, early twenties, hovering over him.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your pen? I need to write down a phone number before I forget it.” The young man pointed to Sam’s breast pocket and the gold-plated pen.

“Sorry. No.”

The man glanced over to a pretty girl sitting alone. When Sam’s answer penetrated he looked back with a scowl. “What? I just need it for a sec.”

“Sorry. It’s out of ink.”

“Yeah, right.” Sam heard him mutter ‘jerk’ as he moved on to accost the woman at the next table. “Excuse me, miss, can I borrow a pen?”

Sam tugged on his jacket breast to cover his shirt pocket and looked back over the main terminal. He was dismayed to find the special forces guy gone.