Tommy Carmellini 02 - The Traitor Read Online Free PDF Page A

as I strolled down the concourse at Dulles International.
    Boarding was ten minutes away as I approached the gate area. I automatically scanned the crowd .. . and there she was, sitting with her back to the window reading a magazine. My old girlfriend, Sarah Houston. Oh, no!
    Of course, she glanced up and saw me at about the same instant. Our eyes met for a second or so; then she turned the page of her magazine and concentrated upon it.
    Oh, man!
    After the mess with the KGB archivist, Sarah decided I was boyfriend material. Everything went fine for a couple of months, then, you know .. .
    She was tall, brainy and gorgeous and worked for the NSA— National Security Agency—as a network and data mining specialist. She had a seriously twisted past and was a little cross-wired upstairs, but I was big enough to overlook those smirches. If you hold out for a saint, you're going to die a virgin.
    The lounge was filling up and there weren't many seats left. That was fine—I was going to be sitting for hours.
    I sneaked a sideways look. She was examining me over the top of her magazine. She instantly averted her eyes.
    Of course it all came flooding back. She had gotten so serious ... Did she have another guy now? I wondered if she was wearing a ring—and sneaked a look. Couldn't see her left hand from this angle.
    I know it sounds stupid, but suddenly I wanted to know. I walked to the window on her left side and stood looking at our jet, which was nosed up to the jetway. Finally I shot another glance at Sarah. Well, hell, I couldn't tell.
    They began boarding the flight, and since I was sitting in the back of the plane, they called my row immediately. I got in line and went aboard. Sarah was still sitting by the window when I last saw her.
    I had drawn an aisle seat three rows forward of the aft galley and had a lady beside me who was fifty-fifty—about fifty years old and fifty pounds overweight. She sort of spread out and I tried to give her room.
    The herd was pretty well settled when I saw Sarah coming along the aisle with her shoulder bag and wheeled valise. She had her boarding pass in her left hand. I ooched down in the seat to hide the bottom half of my face and took another squint at her left hand. No rings.
    Then she spied me. She took a step or two closer, checked the seat numbers, turned and called loudly for a flight attendant. One appeared almost immediately, as if she had been waiting offstage for a
    summons.
    "I want another seat," Sarah declared in her I-am-not-putting-up-
    with-any-more-of-this-crap voice.
    "We're pretty full—"
    "I'm not sitting near him\" This announcement carried all over the ass end of that cattle car, and to ensure everyone knew which cretin she was referring to, she pointed right at me. "I )\\sX.couldn't\"
    The flight attendant zeroed in on me, even took a step closer and gave me a hard look to see if I was drooling.
    "I'll see what I can do," the uniformed witch said. She whirled and marched forward. Sarah followed her up the aisle, her head
    erect, her back stiff.
    As I watched them go I realized that everyone within twenty feet was sizing me up. "Jerk," the woman beside me announced, then studiously ignored me.
    We were somewhere over Long Island when I finally got around to wondering why Sarah Houston was aboard this flight.
    The next time I saw Houston was at the baggage carousel at Heathrow. She stayed on the far side of the thing and refused to look at me. I was getting a little browned off at the public humiliation and tried my best to ignore her.
    It wasn't as if I left her stranded at the altar or branded with a scarlet A For heaven's sake, we were both adults, nearly a decade over the age of twenty-one, perfectly capable of saying, "No, thank you." I dragged my stuff through customs and joined the taxi queue. It was early on Monday morning in London, and I didn't get a wink of sleep on the plane; I was tired, grubby and stinky. On top of that, just when I was in the mood to