"It's final resting place will be in the depths of our wine dark sea, my friend." Zeno pocketed it without a glance. "No one will ever know what we had to do, not even Adriana. But we failed. She is still gone."
"Don't worry. I'll find her. And thank you again, for saving my life."
"You would have done the same for me. Now hurry. The airport. Perhaps there's still time to catch her." With a final embrace he disappeared into the milling throng of rain-soaked travelers.
The downpour was letting up, but the trip still took almost an hour. When he finally pulled in at the aging Eastern terminal, he'd left the car in the first space he could find and raced in. It was bedlam now, with flights backed up by the storm, but he saw no sign of Eva. Where was she? Had she even come here?
Planes had just started flying again. According to the huge schedule board over the center of the floor, the first departure was a British Air to Heathrow, leaving in five minutes.
There was no chance of getting through passport control without a ticket, so he'd elbowed his way to the front of the British Airways desk.
"That flight boarding. Three-seventy-one. I want a seat."
"I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to wait—"
"Just sell me a ticket, dammit."
The harried agent barely looked up. "I'm afraid that's out of the question. Now if you'll just take—"