"A passenger in twenty-one C was reaching beneath his seat when I passed earlier. When the officer put me on the floor, I could see that the life-vest pouch under that seat was disturbed. I can't say what it means. I can say somebody should examine it properly."
Molly stared at him. "The man in twenty-one C? He asked me for an extra napkin. Seemed nice."
"That doesn't tell us whether the space under his seat is safe." Miles kept his words simple, resisting the temptation to bury his observation in technical language. "Do not touch anything yourself. Quietly tell the appropriate security person what I saw."
"We have a federal air marshal listed for this flight," she whispered. "Only the captain and purser were briefed on the name. I might be able to pass a message through the crew channel."
"Then do that. And find a safe way for me to make my call."
Molly rose, carrying the empty cup so her brief visit would appear to have been routine. In the galley she found the drawer Trent had used and opened it just enough to see the cloth pouch lying beneath a packet of spare napkins. The sight made her angrier than she expected. There was something especially ugly about a man who treated another person's family keepsake as rubbish after being told what it meant. She closed the drawer gently and returned to the interphone.
"Trent," she said, "the passenger in back says there may be something wrong beneath seat twenty-one C. We should have security check it."
Trent was busy reassuring Preston Vance, who had begun composing a complaint about the disruption to his premium service. "Of course he says that," Trent replied. "He's trying to distract us. If there's one thing dangerous passengers do, it's accuse somebody else."
"He didn't accuse anybody. He described a seat compartment that looked different."
"Enough, Molly. We already have the suspect." The line went dead. She stood with the handset in her palm, feeling the familiar shame of having asked the wrong person for permission to do the right thing.
In the cockpit, Naomi Chen studied a new advisory from the airline's operations center. Federal investigators had requested another report from the crew, this one asking whether any unusual behavior had been observed in the aft cabin. She checked the time and looked at Kerr. "They still haven't named anyone," she said. "They're asking about specific observations, not confirming our detention."
Kerr had been treating the lack of further warning as reassurance. "Trent says his man is under control."
"He's not their man," Naomi answered. "He's ours because we chose him. Those are different things."
The captain gave her a long look. It was not the look he gave weather systems or technical failures, where disagreement was a normal part of crew coordination. This disagreement concerned judgment and authority, and he was used to his first officer accepting a decision once he had made it. "We need to keep the cockpit focused," he said at last. "We'll review the report when we land."