Felicia Kaminski had always loved the idea of airports. As a child in a family that never went anywhere, she used to envy the friends who would take their holidays in places that were far enough away to be flown to. Trains were a thrill in their own right, but only at airports did you find people who are going far enough away to actually change their lives. Having dreamed of the moment for so long, she was finally about to climb on her very first airplane—to fly to the United States. In first class, no less.

Fiumicino International Airport teemed with travelers mingling in their common mission to check in and navigate their way to their departure gates. Felicia Kaminski—no, Joanna Phelps; she might have to remember that—found herself distracted by one family in particular as a mother and father did their best to herd six children toward the security lines. It looked a lot like pushing water up hill. She found herself smiling.

Then she forced herself to concentrate. After this morning’s events, she needed to be vigilant. Clearly, she was a target and if another attacker wanted to hurt her, she would most certainly be hurt. It helped that every 10th person in the airport was a carabinieri with a machine gun slung over his shoulder. It seemed to her like a very bad place to attempt murder.

The afternoon’s events were unfolding exactly as Faust had predicted. Freshly cleaned and redressed, he’d led her downstairs through the lobby of the hotel, where two Mercedes sedans stood waiting with their engines running. He ushered her to the first vehicle while he climbed into the back seat of the other. They’d pulled away from the curb together, but then split into different directions, her car going right while his went left, and she hadn’t seen any sign of him since.

“I understand that you haven’t traveled much,” her driver said in passable Polish. She couldn’t quite place the accent. “Do you know how the check-in process works?”

Kaminski hated the patronizing tone, but had to confess her ignorance. The driver—Peter, if he’d told her the truth—took her through the process step by step, from check-in at the ticket counter, to the passage through security, and on to the boarding process itself. The only real surprise came from the requirement to take her shoes off to go through the metal detectors. She was well aware of the detectors themselves, of course, but it just hadn’t occurred to her that she would have to strip off articles of clothing.

“Are you going to walk through the process with me?” she’d asked when Peter had finished.