Part 11 (1/2)

Pluto the dog was torn between two opinions, with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other shoulder.

Click.

I pushed the OFF b.u.t.ton repeatedly.

Angel Nicholas Cage stood on a beach with a whole city of angels wearing trench coats and listening to the sun rise.

Click.

Feminine hands displayed a ceramic angel figurine on the shopping channel.

I dropped the remote. Reaching behind the set, I pulled the plug. The screen blinked out.

My hands were shaking.

”Now that was weird,” I said.

I paced the room.

”Coincidence. Malfunction. Had to be.”

I stared at the television's electrical plug.

I ordered room service. Feeling the unmistakable need to distance myself from anything even remotely related to heaven, I ordered a burger and fries . . . and a dessert, Chocolate Sin.

Ten p.m. Jana obviously wasn't going to call.

”Why am I still here? I should be thirty thousand feet over Kansas by now, halfway home.”

I kept telling myself I'd stayed because of Jana, that I wasn't staying because I'd been invited to meet an angel. ”I'd be a fool to go out there in the morning.”

Big joke on Grant. I knew what would happen. I'd show up and the professor would give me some lame excuse about the angel being called away suddenly to deliver an emergency scroll, or administer a plague in Kazakhstan, or transport a holy man in Tibet to heaven on a fiery prayer rug.

”It would have to be a Tibetan holy man,” I said. ”Who'd believe an angel could even find a holy man in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.?”

I chuckled at my own humor and crammed a cold fry into my mouth.

”Now if the angel looked like Roma Downey, that would be a meeting worth going to,” I said.

Ten-thirty p.m. I climbed into bed and turned out the lights. I was tired, but not sleepy. My eyes were closed, my mind active.

Why Semyaza? I asked myself.

It had to be a code name. The other partic.i.p.ants in the a.s.sa.s.sination plot no doubt had similar names.

The thing that disturbed me about the name Semyaza was that historically it was the name of a subordinate, an angel lieutenant. Semyaza answered to Lucifer and Myles Shepherd wasn't the kind of person who answered to anyone. It was a matter of ego.

But, as unlikely as it seemed, I had to allow for the fact that given the scope of the plot, Myles might be someone's subordinate. Did that mean the code name of the top guy was Lucifer? Or better yet, Satan?

”This is ridiculous. What am I doing here?” I said to the darkness.

Throwing off the bedcovers and chastising myself for letting a small-college professor pull me into his religious fantasy about supernatural beings, I got dressed, threw my stuff into my travel bag, and ordered a cab to take me to the airport.

I booked a flight that would get me to Reagan National Airport in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., by 9:40 the next morning.

At thirty thousand feet over Omaha, Nebraska, my eyes were too tired to read but not tired enough to sleep. I've never been able to sleep on planes. My legs are too long and the headrest hits me in the back of the neck. The best I can do is doze.

The cabin was dark. I had an aisle seat four rows from the back galley. Flight attendants floated up and down the aisles like night fairies. A dozen or so reading lights were on, but mostly people slept. Some wore earplugs or headphones.

My back hurt and my right leg had fallen asleep. I s.h.i.+fted position for the hundredth time. My eyes were closed and I was dozing when I heard a skittering sound in the overhead luggage bin across the aisle.

Awake now, I focused on the bin and listened. Nothing. Just the constant drone of the engines.

A man with heavy jowls, seated next to the window across the aisle, squirmed, folded his arms, laid his head against the window, his eyes closed. His cheek twitched nervously as he slept.

I tried folding my arms to see if it would help. My eyes drooped closed.

Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.

There it was again! Something was in that overhead bin. Something alive.

Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.

It sounded like some kind of rodent.

Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.

I pushed the call b.u.t.ton. A flight attendant responded immediately. She turned off the call light. ”Can I get you something?” she asked.

Thick was the best way to describe her-thick middle, thick legs, thick neck. She appeared to be Scandinavian, with a slight accent and a motherly demeanor.

”I think there's something in that bin,” I said, keeping my voice low. ”Something alive.”

She turned and looked at the bin. ”Alive?”

”An animal. Maybe a rodent. I heard scratching.”

We both listened.

Nothing.

”I don't hear anything,” she said.

To my chagrin, neither did I.

”I'm sure I heard something,” I said.

She a.s.sessed me and apparently concluded I wasn't drunk or the practical-joker type. She pushed the call b.u.t.ton.

Another flight attendant appeared. Younger. Black hair. No-nonsense eyes. Before inquiring, she sized me up, the man with the problem that required a consultation of attendants.