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with, just
immediately agreed. He felt something inside shift, but wrestled it down. Now
wasn’t the time.
    “My men are
seated in seats 18C and 24D. I need to tell them what’s going on, but since we
don’t know what’s really up or who’s involved I need to keep it quiet. Will you
help me?”
    “Of course,
Matthew,” Caroline told him, her voice only shaking a little. “Although I’m not
sure what I can do. I’m just a civilian…”
    Wolf squeezed
the hand he was still holding, “That’s why this’ll work. No one will think
twice about you walking in the aisles. If I suddenly got up and went back to
talk to my teammates, I would definitely be noticed. I’m going to write a short
note, if you get up and go to the restroom in the back of the plane, you can
pass it to Mozart, who’s in 18C.”
    “Mozart?” was
Caroline’s comment.
    Wolf smiled a
bit, chuckling inside that in the middle of a serious scary situation, Caroline
still had the presence of mind to question Mozart’s name.
    He explained
quickly, “It’s his nickname, we all have one.”
    Caroline nodded,
she wanted to know what his nickname was, but knew this wasn’t the time or the
place. Maybe someday she’d pluck up the courage to ask him about it…if they got
out of this…whatever this was. Remembering there were two of his friends
on the plane she questioned, “What about your friend in row twenty four?”
    Wolf put his
other hand over where their hands were still clutched together. “When you pass
him, grab his shoulder instead of the seat and press your second and fourth fingers
down hard.” He demonstrated on the back of her hand he was holding. “He’ll know
what it means.”
    Wolf expected
Caroline to ask what the gesture meant, but she didn’t. She only nodded her
head and demonstrated the hand signal back to him. “Like this?” she asked.
    Wolf nodded with
approval and couldn’t help himself. He lifted her hand that was still clutched
tightly in his own and kissed the back of it, holding his lips there for a
moment longer than was socially acceptable, before letting go.
    “That’s all you
need to do, then come right back here after you go into the restroom,” he told
her seriously, looking into her eyes, willing her to understand the danger she
was in, that they were all in. “Don’t try to be a hero. If something goes
wrong, don’t worry about it. Just continue on as normally as you can. Don’t
bring any undue attention to yourself. My guys know something is up and will
look out for you. They can see you’re sitting next to me so when you get up
they’ll be on alert. Do you have any questions?”
    Caroline shook
her head. She was nervous, but she could do this. She wanted to sit and digest
the kiss Matthew had planted on the tender skin on the back of her hand, but
she didn’t have time. She knew if she did have the time, she’d probably over
analyze it, and besides she had to concentrate on not chickening out of what
Matthew needed her to do.
    Matthew quickly
scribbled on a piece of napkin. His writing just looked like gibberish to Caroline,
so she knew it was in code, but it didn’t really matter. She knew he’d probably
summed up the situation in a way his friends would be on alert and would be
ready to do…whatever. Hopefully it made sense to the man in row eighteen. His
other friend wasn’t getting an actual paper message, but hopefully whatever
pressing her fingers into his shoulder meant, he’d understand. There were so
many “hopefullys” in what she was about to do, but they had no other choice. Matthew
tucked the napkin into her hand and squeezed it closed gently.
    “You can do
this, Caroline,” Wolf whispered.
    It was time. Caroline
stood up and flattened herself as much as she could to squeak past Matthew. He
didn’t want to get up again and bring too much attention to himself. She felt
his hand on her waist as she squeezed by. The heat from his hand was intense,
but she tried to ignore