The 747 was picking up speed now, taxiing along the runway toward the terminal. Tracy lay crumpled on the floor of the plane with her hair fanning over her white, white face. It was the silence of the engines that brought her back to consciousness. The plane had stopped. She propped herself up on an elbow and slowly forced herself to her knees. She stood up, reeling, hanging on to the container to keep from falling. The new rope was in place. She clasped the jewel box to her chest and began to weave her way back to her pallet. She pushed her body through the canvas opening and flopped down, panting, her body beaded with perspiration. I've done it. But there was something more she had to do. Something important. What? Tape up the rope on your pallet.
She reached into the pocket of her coveralls for the roll of masking tape. It was gone. Her breath was coming in shallow, ragged gasps, and the sound deafened her. She thought she heard voices and forced herself to stop breathing and listen. Yes. There they were again. Someone laughed. Any second now the cargo door would open, and the men would begin unloading. They would see the cut rope, look inside the pallet, and discover her. She had to find a way to hold the rope together. She got to her knees, and as she did she felt the hard roll of masking tape, which had fallen from her pocket sometime during the turbulence of the flight. She lifted the canvas and fumbled around to find the two ends of cut rope, and held them together while she clumsily tried to wrap the tape around them.
She could not see. The perspiration pouring down her face was blinding her. She pulled the scarf from her throat and wiped her face. Better. She finished taping the rope and dropped the canvas back in place; there was nothing to do now but wait. She felt her forehead again, and it seemed hotter than before.
l must get out of the sun, Tracy thought. Tropical suns can be dangerous.
She was on holiday somewhere in the Caribbean. Jeff had come here to bring her some diamonds, but he had jumped into the sea and disappeared. She reached out to save him, but he slipped from her grasp. The water was over her head. She was choking, drowning.
She heard the sound of workmen entering the plane.
"Help!" she screamed. "Please help me."
But her scream was a whisper, and no one heard.
The giant containers began rolling out of the plane.
Tracy was unconscious when they loaded her container onto a Brucиre et Cie truck. Left behind, on the floor of the cargo plane, was the scarf Jeff had given her.
Tracy was awakened by the slash of light hitting the inside of the truck as someone raised the canvas. Slowly, she opened her eyes. The truck was in a warehouse.
Jeff was standing there, grinning at her. "You made it!" he said. "You're a marvel. Let's have the box."
She watched, dully, as he picked up the box from her side. "See you in Lisbon." He turned to leave, then stopped and looked down at her. "You look terrible, Tracy. You all right?"
She could hardly speak. "Jeff, I - "
But he was gone.
Tracy had only the haziest recollection of what happened next. There was a change of clothes for her in back of the warehouse, and some woman said, "You look ill, mademoiselle. Do you wish me to call a doctor?"
"No doctors," Tracy whispered.
There will be a plane ticket for Geneva waiting for you at the Swissair counter. Get out of Amsterdam as fast as you can. As soon as the police learn of the robbery, they'll close up the city tight. Nothing will go wrong, but just in case, here is the address and the key to a safe house in Amsterdam. It is unoccupied.
The airport. She had to get to the airport. "Taxi," she mumbled. "Taxi."
The woman hesitated a moment, then shrugged. "All right. I will call one. Wait here."
She was floating higher and higher now, ever closer to the sun.
"Your taxi is here," a man was saying.
She wished people would stop bothering her. She wanted only to sleep.
The driver said, "Where do you wish to go, mademoiselle?"
There will be a plane ticket for Geneva waiting for you at the Swissair counter.
She was too ill to board a plane. They would stop her, summon a doctor. She would be questioned. All she needed was to sleep for a few minutes, then she would be fine.
The voice was getting impatient. "Where to, please?"
She had no place to go. She gave the taxi driver the address of the safe house.
The police were cross-examining her about the diamonds, and when she refused to answer them, they became very angry and put her in a room by herself and turned up the heat until the room was boiling hot. When it became unbearable, they dropped the temperature down, until icicles began to form on the walls.
Tracy pushed her way up through the cold and opened her eyes. She was on a bed, shivering uncontrollably. There was a blanket beneath her, but she did not have the strength to get under it. Her dress was soaked through, and her face and neck were wet.
I'm going to die here. Where was here?
The safe house. I'm in the safe house. And the phrase struck her as so funny that she started to laugh, and the laughter turned into a paroxysm of coughing. It had all gone wrong. She had not gotten away after all. By now the police would be combing Amsterdam for her: Mademoiselle Whitney had a ticket on Swissair and did not use it? Then she still must be in Amsterdam.
She wondered how long she had been in this bed. She lifted her wrist to look at her watch, but the numbers were blurred. She was seeing everything double. There were two beds in the small room and two dressers and four chairs. The shivering stopped, and her body was burning up. She needed to open a window, but she was too weak to move. The room was freezing again.