It wasn’t exactly the safest thing to do, but it was convenient.

The downside was obvious. Almost certainly she’d find out about the Lima fuckup and she’d quickly organize someone to meet my plane at JFK. They’d have my photo and maybe a threatening look or two but it wouldn’t matter a tuppeny shite because in New York I’d have the good old federales rendezvous with me and I’d disappear once again into the black hole of the WPP. Aye, and this time I’d go the full De Niro. Gain twenty pounds, dye my hair, move to bloody China.

I checked in, boarded the plane, found my seat, relaxed. The movie they were playing was O Brother, Where Art Thou? which I’d already seen, so, there was nothing else for it but to tilt my chair back as far as it would go and try to get in an hour or two of kip. But even in first class that was practically impossible. You don’t come down from a gun battle just like that. I read Peruvian Golfer until it was chow time. A pretty stewardess gave me a dozen options and I picked the eggs and she brought me scrambled ones that tasted almost like eggs. We started chatting and one thing led to another and she gave me her phone number in the Bronx and if it had been Manhattan I might have kept it.

We flew over Panama, the western edge of Cuba, the land of Johnny Reb, and touched down at JFK a few minutes early. As soon as the wheels squealed I called up Dan Connolly in the FBI. He wasn’t at his desk, so I dialed his cell phone and left a message.

“Dan, it’s Michael F., I’m in the shit again. I know it’s a chore but I’m going to need someone to meet me at International Arrivals of the British Airways terminal in JFK. I just touched down. I’ll wait as long as it takes. You can reach me on the cell.”

I hung up, found my U.S. passport, went through immigration, and forgot totally about the coca leaves in my shoulder bag. I panicked that customs was going to pull me over, but it didn’t, and I walked into the arrivals hall. Waited.