I'll Not Say It Ever - Part 2 (Preview Only)
His name was Penn Badgley.
The name on his passport was, however, Scott Tucker, but he had quite a few passports. His current cover was as a consultant for a civil aviation firm, and he could, if pressed, give a convincing overview presentation of the several different types of models available for the private market. He could, in turn, also give a lengthy discourse on synthetic hockey turfs, even if he did not actually fully understand half of what he was saying.
He could with remarkable ease also discuss the European soccer transfer market, but that was different – he was, after all, an avid soccer fanatic.
Badgley was a solidly built man, with a full head of black hair and a lantern jaw that hinted at an ancestry so mixed it could only be called American. He smiled easily when he wanted to, but quite often, his face was a deliberate blank that once glanced at was quickly glossed over and just as quickly forgotten.
“Welcome to London. And what brings you to our country, Mr. Tucker?” the immigration officer asked, glancing at his passport and then at the screen in front of him, fingers idling over the keyboard.
“Business,” he replied with an easy smile. “Although I am hoping to catch a football game while I’m here.”
“Football…not soccer?” the man asked with a little grin of his own. “You Americans are catching on.”
Badgley laughs, and thanks the officer as he hands him his passport back.
While most passengers move off to collect their bags, Badgley walks away from the crowd currently milling around the conveyor belts of Heathrow airport in the vague hope that their respective airlines have not messed things up and sent their luggage to a completely different part of the continent. He walks briskly as he joins the sea of humanity now thronging the exit into the main terminal itself.
He hangs around briefly, until his phone vibrates in his pocket, telling him that the time had come.
Standing up, he scans the people around him casually, and then begins walking again, seemingly without direction, his right hand tucked into his pocket, fingers clutched around the package awaiting delivery.
The contact is accidental – a brush against the man’s shoulder, a stumble of his feet, and then he is clutching the man’s arm for support, an apology ready on his lips. The man nods distractedly as he walks away, the incident already forgotten from his mind.
0 comments:
Post a Comment