Chapter Two

Once in the air, being in a plane was not that much different to being on a bus, only you were 33,000 feet above the earth! Paul focused on his work for the time being, and tried not to look out of the window too much, gladly Jason had the window seat.

After an hour or so the hostess came round with some plastic food, which they both refused. Paul needed to stretch his legs and possibly even go to the bathroom.

The one near to Silvia might be vacant, he thought to himself as placed his laptop under the seat in front of him.

"I know what you are going to say Jason", he said as he stood up "but I just can't let this one go..."

"I am not saying anything".

Jason didn't even take his eyes from his PC screen, but sniggered never-the-less.

As Paul walked towards the back of the plane, he observed the other passengers, engrossed in their work, either on their Laptops, iphones or Tablets. Common names for modern hi-tech every day equipment, yet most people over fifty years old did not have any idea what they were, let alone how to use them. Technology had advanced in such an unpredictable way. Weren't we all supposed to have robots now? We had androids, but  instead of the friendly human like automated slaves, an android today is an operating system for mobile devices such as Smartphones and Tablets. A world based on communication yet it seemed that nobody did so in the tradition sense any more. Paul had once observed a group of teenagers in a bistro, communicating with each other only through text messages. What was the world coming to? We had become the androids, human like, and slaves to modern technology.

He eyed Silvia in her window seat as he approached. She just stared out of the window, looking worried about something. Paul had no idea what somebody as attractive as Sivlia could possibly have to worry about.

His eyes fixed only on Silvia he didn't see the hostess's arm swinging in his direction, he sent the plastic coffee cup spinning into the air and coffee down his shirt. To match the stains on his trousers. Silvia looked up and smiled at him. The hostess was very polite and apologised as she wiped his trousers with a napkin, even though it had been Paul's fault.

Paul's eyes were still on Silvia and the hostess could have poured boiling water over him at this point and he would not have even felt it. Silvia's smile was incredible. The urge to urinate grew and he rushed to the bathroom. As he washed his hands he looked into the mirror and had an imaginary conversion with Silvia:
"Hi, erm...I was wondering if...you...we, could meet up somewhere." To which Silvia responded: "Yes my parents own a large villa near the coast and we are having a barbecue there tomorrow evening..."
"I'll be there.."

Paul had a condition when it came to women, he was prone to fantasise yet not act on it. Jason always tried to lend a helping hand, but more often than not it wouldn't go well. Paul would become obsessed, by the limerent objects of his desires, and his lack of communication with them would often scare them away. He was having a grave case of limerence right there and then in the toilet cubicle of the Boeing 747, and knew that he had to break the chain and act on his emotions.
But then what was he going to do? Ask her out? The were on a plane!! He had no idea where she was going, well he knew she was going to Portugal, but where exactly he had no idea. He wasn't even sure if he knew where he was going.

He took a deep breath and opened the door.

The seat next to her was vacant, he hadn't even noticed that on the way to the toilet. Now was his chance! He leaned awkwardly on the chair arm and asked if he could sit down.

Silvia turned towards him a little startled to find him so close, but showed no sign of protest.

"Sure, the seat has been vacant since we boarded"

Paul noticed how she said 'we' in the collective sense, he was not sure if she meant, 'we' as passengers, or 'we' as being himself and Silvia.
He had to snap out of it!

"Are you OK?" Silvia asked him

"Yes...erm....just, it is my first time flying and I am a bit nervous"

"You should try flying from the USA, that is a six hour flight!"

"No thanks, I am barely managing to keep it together on this one"
He decided to think of her as a journalistic project and instead of feeling like he was 'chatting her up', he could pretend he was interviewing her.

"So did you get a connecting flight from the USA to Heathrow then?"

"Yes, I got my connecting flight at Heathrow. I have been officially flying for more that 7 hours in the last 10", she yawned.

Aha, that explained why she was so stressed at the airport, this strategy was actually working a treat for him, his reasoning was not affected at all.

"So how long are you thinking of staying here?", he asked trying to look as relaxed as possible, but felt that some how he just was just not pulling it off.

Silvia's eyes seemed to glaze over a little.

"I...I am not really sure...until I find what I am looking for"

"Ah, you mean like a kind of spiritual quest, to find yourself?".

"Yes, something like that..." Silvia quickly changed  the subject.
"We should be landing soon, I am quite looking forward to getting back to the hotel, and taking a long bath".

"Where are you gong to take it?" snorted Paul a little geeky.
"In the hotel" Silvia answered puzzled.

Paul could see that she either did not share the same sense of humour, or was just not in the mood.

The loudspeaker gave off a little feedback and the stewardess made an announcement.

"Due to technical difficulties we are going to be landing in Lisbon Airport and not in Faro Airport as originally scheduled, we apologise for the inconvenience"

The passengers started to talk amongst themselves and voices were raised a little. Paul did not even want to hear what technical difficulties they were encountering, or even think about how they were going to get to the Algarve from Lisbon at 10:30 in the evening.

"I am just going to have a word with Jason, we are going to have to make alternate arrangements, to get to the Algarve."

"Sure..."

Silvia's response was distant. Paul thought that maybe Jason was right, maybe she was a wacko.

"Hey, so what's the plan now then?" Paul asked Jason as he hurriedly buckled up in his seat.

"Well first we have to hope that the plane doesn't crash, and then if we actually do land, the airline company will probably book us into a hotel."

"Har har" sneered Paul

"So how did it go with the redhead?" asked Jason, rather intrigued that Paul had approached her on his own.

"Eh..hard to tell really, she is hard work".

"Hey whilst you were chatting up the redhead, I was doing some research,..if we go just 130 km or so up north there is a place called Fátima"

"Yes, I read about that place, and was hoping we could find the time to go there actually. The apparitions of the Virgin Mary in 1917 were supposedly witnessed there"

"A little coincidental don't you think?" asked Jason "We are in 2017, it is 100 years later"

Paul had thought the same thing and had managed to make up an excuse to the journal about needing to go to Fátima for further investigation, and asking them to pay the bill. He had read a lot about it just before leaving, and according to his latest readings they were due to have a mega festival there to celebrate the centenary. He had felt there was a connection between their investigation in the Algarve and what happened 100 years ago.
Pope John Paul had been an avid fan of Fátima apparently and had been in contact with the last of the three "Pastorinhos", Lúcia, who had witnessed the apparitions. She, unlike the other children had lived long enough to be able to reveal what the Virgin had said to them.  The others had died at a young age of an epidemic outbreak and Lúcia had been the only one to reveal the secrets of Fátima. She had supposedly predicted, Pope John Paul's assassination attempt, after it had happened of course, and had in a sense, made him the man he was.  Mel Gibson used to visit her frequently also, no doubt she had been the inspiration behind his "Passion of Christ". Of course she had been locked away since she had seen the apparitions and become a nun, with hardly any contact with the outside world.
At the time when the three children had seen the Virgin Mary, it had caused a sensation. The event had been witnessed by over 70,000 people, mostly Catholics. Some of the more lucid witnesses suspected it was a mass hysteria and political maneuver to bring about the Russian revolution, whilst others had just 'believed'.

"What I am wondering now", said Paul "is what political maneuver they are planning this time?"

They spent the rest of the flight in deep conversation and in no time at all the plane had landed and they were once again in an airport terminal. The landing had been a little bumpy, but Paul was feeling rather exited about the investigation, now things were about take a different turn, this was real investigative journalism. This was the reason Paul had been chosen for the job he was good at finding connections and coincidences and more often than not it would lead him somewhere significant.
As long as a woman wasn't involved that is.
He watched Silvia and wondered what she was up to, running back and forth in the terminal. After ten minutes or so she came running over to them with a set of car keys.

"I have transportation" she gloated."Need a lift?"

"I think  we should stay here in the terminal until they relocate us to a hotel or something...don't you think Jason?"

Silvia laughed out loud.

"Welcome to Portugal! They are not relocating anybody until the morning when they will provide a bus to the Algarve which will take approximately 8 hours. So if you are lucky, you should get there at around 5pm tomorrow!"

Jason and Paul just looked at one another

"How long will it take to drive to Fátima?" Jason asked her

"This time of night... just over an hour"

"It is over 130 km away how can you do that in just over an hour?" Paul asked her.

"I know a short cut" She winked.

Silvia had decided to keep Jason and Paul close, even if it meant going out of her way a little. The plane had landed 45 minutes earlier so they could go to Fátima and even spend the night there, she hadn't intended to get started till the morning anyway, waking up in Fátima shouldn't make that much of a difference.