They were going to follow the carton to its final destination.
He described the carton and said, “Find the pickup area for PAL air freight and wait for us there. I want somebody watching that package as soon as it shows up. Al and I should be off the plane before the cargo is offloaded, but you never know.”
She said, “Cream color, red tape, about a foot and a half on each side.”
“Correct. I don’t know who will pick it up, but Stick needs to stay with the cars, out of sight. He has definitely been burned.”
She said, “I’m probably burned too, if they have the passport photocopies.”
“I know,” Favor said. “But I want an eyeball on the package, and you aren’t burned the way Stick is burned. You can do this. Be discreet, mix with the crowd. You remember the drill.”
“Dimly,” she said with a small laugh.
“I wouldn’t ask if it didn’t matter. I believe the path back to those two kids starts with that blood.”
“Eyes on the box. You’ve got it,” she said.
When he spoke with Arielle, Favor kept watching the package as it sat on the cart in the PAL baggage shed. He watched the package as Mendonza returned with boarding passes for seats near the front exit. He watched the package while he ate food that Mendonza brought from a snack bar in the terminal.
A loudspeaker announced first call for boarding of the PAL flight. But the cart with the cream-colored box still sat in the baggage shed, and Favor stayed by the window and kept it in sight until a handler hitched the cart to a small tractor and pulled it out to the waiting plane.
Then Favor left the window and went through the gate. He walked out across the asphalt apron and stood at the bottom of the ramp as the baggage handlers loaded the carton into the belly of the plane, then he walked up the ramp and took his seat beside Mendonza.
The plane touched down a few minutes late, a little after 8:30 p.m. Favor turned on his phone while the plane was still rolling and called Arielle when the jetway ramp rolled up to the door.
She said, “I’m at PAL air freight. It’s near the baggage claim, straight across the concourse from your gate. Get over here as soon as you can. There’s something you need to see.”
“As soon as we’re out. It shouldn’t be long.”
“You did say cream-colored carton, right? Red packing tape, about eighteen inches on a side?”
The passengers on the plane were standing. A flight attendant was opening the hatch, swinging the door open. Favor looked out the window and saw that a baggage tug was wheeling under the fuselage.
“Right,” Favor said. “But the cargo is still in the hold. We’ll be there before the package shows up.”
“Just get over here,” she said.
Favor and Mendonza were among the first half dozen passengers off the plane and through the gate. From halfway across the concourse, Favor spotted Arielle. She was seated near a baggage carousel, reading a magazine. Or seeming to read.
He stopped about twenty paces short of where she sat. It was ingrained training. She gave no sign that she had seen him, but she took a phone out of her purse, tapped a speed-dial number.
In a few seconds the call came in on his own phone.
He turned away from her. She was looking away from him. To a casual observer they were strangers who both happened to be using phones, in a place where almost everyone was using a phone.
She said, “Second shelf from the top, left side.”
Various packages and crates lined the shelves along the back wall of the office. A PAL logo on the glass partly blocked the view, but at second glance he spotted the familiar cream carton and red packing tape.
This wasn’t right, he thought. The carton he had chased through the streets of Tacloban couldn’t be off the plane already.
Then he realized that it was not one box.
“Three?” he said.
“How about that?” Arielle said. ”It was two just a little while ago. They must’ve put another one up there when I was waiting for you. I guess we can say three and counting.”
Favor watched as a fourth carton—probably from the Tacloban flight—went onto the shelf beside the others. He realized that the cartons were arriving on flights from other cities around the Philippines. This had to be the daily collection of blood samples from other Optimo offices.