As Will Robie stared out the plane window, he knew the next twenty-four hours could possibly be his last ones on earth.
Yet that was simply another day on the job for him.
The undercarriage of multiple reinforced wheels touched down and grabbed the tarmac, and the thrust reversers engaged. The world’s largest commercial airliner taxied to a stop at the gate. The doors, both forward and aft, on the upper and lower cabins opened. The passengers trooped down the Jetways and into Terminal Five at Heathrow Airport.
The English skies were slicked with fat, darkened clouds and the rain was falling. It was weather familiar to any Brit.
Robie, wearing a navy blue two-piece tailored suit and fitted white collared shirt, was among hundreds of passengers deplaning the British Airways jumbo A380 just landed from Washington, DC.
The flight had become a little bumpy midway over the Atlantic. However, Robie hadn’t noticed. With his flat business-class seat, he’d slept pretty much the whole ride.
He cleared Customs, informing the border officer that he was there solely on business of an academic nature. He had carried on his single small bag and thus had no reason afterward to go to Baggage Claim. Everything he would need was already in London. And none of it was anything he could reasonably have carried on a plane.
