French operatives establish positions for the suitcase-heist
As a travelling day, it didn’t start off well.
It was only two days since France’s worst-ever air disaster and passengers boarding my Marseille flight bound for Paris were all peering into the cockpit to check for signs of the pilots’ will to live.
I was determined to keep my thoughts selflessly and appropriately where they belonged – with the dead and the bereaved.
Then I stepped onto the plane and let myself down. My split-second mental health assessment of the pilots: low grade anxiety triggered by being stared at all morning by terrified passengers.
In my defence, I was sick as a dog and not thinking straight. Snot was pouring out my nose so fast that it was making it to my chin before I could unfold the next tissue.
A four day solo trip to New York to see old friends and two fantastic theatre productions had seemed like a magical opportunity for the several weeks that I had been planning it. Now it didn’t seem like such a great idea.
Ninety minutes later, safely on the tarmac in Paris but with the whole Atlantic yet to cross, I dabbed my stinging nostrils and peered out the window to see armed men in black taking up positions all around the plane.