* * * * *
For the next three days catching up on his sleep was the only thing Buck had to do aboard the schooner. In his surveillance of the passengers, only seven showed any promise at all and none of them stirred strong suspicions. By the third day in the air he managed to reduce his list of potentials to three. With any luck he would feel confident enough to focus on one or at the most two by the time they arrived at the Chaucer Hub in London.
Buck was on top of it now. He knew what came next and all he had to do was ID his mark and follow him until an opportune moment. Then the fun would begin.
He felt good enough to shave, clip a few wild hairs, put on some instant-bath and gargle. With his new vigor he even attempted a little social banter with one of the stewardesses in the lounge.
She told him that their flight was making reasonable time and that they were ahead of the storm and would be arriving as planned at Chaucer Hub. Buck asked about the storm and how it might have affected their arrival. She explained that there were several options and the first and easiest was to land in Brugge Belgium and ferry back to London as soon as the weather lifted. She added that the flight immediately behind them was being diverted there.
“That’s got to be an inconvenience for those passengers.”
“Yes it is if their intended destination is London, but many of those passengers are in en route to the mainland, and they may be ahead of the game by as much as a day. Plus they will avoid that nasty ferry ride across the channel” she added.
“Are the bumped passengers on that flight?” Buck quizzed.
“As a matter of fact they are. They were fortunate to get seats and that flight launched about four hours after we did. They’ll be landing in another six to eight hours.”
Buck’s mind began a slow crank. He excused himself and returned to his seat. He wondered if there was some way of checking those bumped passengers. If his mark was in that group they might have a whole day’s head start. And, that would be awful.