Billie was greeting a couple from Ohio and an elderly man with a hearing aid, and she did not hear what he said, but she saw his head turn, and she saw his eyes go to the woman in 2A, and then down to the cooler under 1A, and then to the woman again, and then to the boarding pass on his own phone. She saw him look over his shoulder toward the door, and down the jet bridge, toward the gate, where his wife was still standing at the podium with the other people on the upgrade list. She saw him decide something. Then he put his roller bag in the bin over row 2, closed the bin with a firm unnecessary slam, and sat down in 2B, and took out his phone, and began to type.
She saw Laverne Grier not look at him at all.
At 5:02 the jet bridge emptied. Esperanza came down to the door with the final paperwork and the passenger count and a face that said she had told Marisa Yancey for the last time that first class was full, and Billie counted heads against the count, and they matched. Esperanza leaned in close to give her the sheets and said, very low, "He called me over to the counter just before the last group went down. Mr. Yancey. He wanted to know who was in 2A, because he said it wasn't the man who was supposed to be there, because he'd seen the seat map this morning and it said Vandermolen. I said the seat assignments in the cabin were correct and I couldn't discuss other customers. He said he'd take it up with the captain."
"With the captain."
"He said he flies with this airline two hundred thousand miles a year and he knows how it works." Esperanza straightened. "Ramp says we've got about twenty more minutes before the hold goes on again. There's another cell coming up from Castle Rock. If you can get out the door before it does, you'll get out."
Billie went up to the flight deck to give Gunnar the paperwork, and that was when she saw that he was not in the flight deck. He was standing in the forward galley, next to the closed lavatory, with his hat off, with a printed sheet in his hand, and Garrison Yancey was standing in front of him, a head shorter and talking.
"—not trying to make a thing of it," Garrison Yancey was saying. He had a pleasant voice, a reasonable voice, a voice for conference rooms. "I fly with you people two hundred thousand miles a year. I know how the system works better than half the agents in this building. I looked at the seat map this morning. Two A was a Mr. Vandermolen. I don't know where Mr. Vandermolen went, but that's not him. And look, I don't care, honestly, whoever wants to sit wherever. What I care about is she's got some kind of sealed box down there she won't let anybody near. I went to put my briefcase down by my feet and she practically came out of the seat at me. Don't touch that. Like that. I asked her what it was, just making conversation, and she said it can't go through an X-ray. Can't go through an X-ray. Those were her words." He spread his hands. "I'm not a nervous flyer, Captain. But I've got a wife in the terminal who's been number one on the upgrade list for an hour, and I've got a woman sitting next to me with an unscreened container who's not on the manifest for that seat, and you can see how a person would want somebody to look at that."
Gunnar Vossberg was looking at the sheet in his hand. Billie could see it from where she stood. It was a strip of thermal paper from the ACARS printer in the flight deck, the kind that came out curling, and he was holding it flat against his thigh with his thumb. She could see the heading, PREMIUM CABIN LIST, and the time stamp in Zulu, 2148Z, which was 3:48 Mountain, an hour and a quarter ago, before the reopen. Before the swap. She could see the line he was looking at. 02A VANDERMOLEN/HENDRIK.
"I'll take a look," Gunnar said.
"I appreciate it." Yancey put a hand briefly on Gunnar's upper arm, the way men like him touched people, a quick squeeze, a man-to-man thing. "I knew you'd get it. You guys get it."