Donald Martin was the junior vice president of a Boston brokerage house, and he was doing his level best to clear the new passport control system and get on a flight to Atlanta. He had no baggage and expected to be back home in Newton, west of Boston, by midnight.

He was traveling with the president of his corporation, a silver-haired financier, a Boston Brahmin named Elliott Gardner, thirty years his senior. Donald was quietly reading the Globe; his boss was staring somewhat aimlessly into the distance, bored sideways by the airport procedures, unamused that their first-class tickets did not allow them to bypass this ­unattractive closeness to the rank and file. Particularly as the queue had come to a tiresome halt.

Behind them stood one passenger, apparently alone, and behind him was a family, two very young children presumably with mom and dad. They had a lot of baggage piled on a cart. One child was screaming. Elliott Gardner hoped to god that the family was not traveling first-class on Delta to Atlanta.

“WA-HAAAAAH!” wailed the child. “Jesus Christ,” muttered Elliott Gardner. And then he felt a mild tap on the shoulder. The passenger behind him was making contact. He turned around and came face-to-face with a youngish man, well dressed, no more than thirty, of decidedly Middle Eastern appearance. He could have been Turkish or Arabian, but not Jewish or even Israeli. This was a face born and bred in desert or casbah.

The man smiled broadly. “Excuse me, sir,” he said. “I have two quite heavy briefcases here, and I’m just going over there to Starbucks for some coffee. Would you mind keeping an eye on one of them for me—kick it along if the queue moves?”

Elliott glanced down at the brown leather briefcase on the floor. A well-mannered man, unaccustomed to rudeness, he replied, “No problem. Leave it right there.”

Donald Martin absent-mindedly looked up from his newspaper and asked, “What did he want?”

“Oh, just to watch his briefcase while he went for coffee—he’s over there, heading for Starbucks. Guess I should have had him get some for us, since the goddamned queue has stalled.”

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