A/N: Alright, so I wrote another chapter today instead of doing the millions of other things I should be doing. But at this point, I don't really care.
Chapter Three – Airborne
"Come on, Snowy. Our flight is about to leave."
The Brussels airport was, as always, lined with crowds preparing for flights to who-knows-where for reasons who-knows-why. Several languages floated through the air of the terminals, dominantly French, Flemish, and English, mixed in with a few other East and West European languages. Flights for England and France seemed to be popular that evening, though exactly why would probably never be known.
Tintin, dressed in his usual traveling garb of trench coat and matching newsboy cap, had been waiting patiently in the queue for the upcoming flight to Brasilia* for what he thought was around half an hour. Finally, the people in front of him began to move forward, and he turned back to look for his companion. He spotted the little white terrier trotting back towards him, the bone from a now nonexistent chicken wing held carefully in his jaws.
Tintin rolled his eyes slightly and picked up his bag off of the ground, taking the bone while he was leaning over. "Snowy, how many times must I tell you not to dig through others' trash?" He would have said more, but the mob behind him was starting to push forward as well. He just dropped the bone into a waste bin as he passed it and boarded the plane.
He scanned the rows of seats as he ambled down the center aisle, making his way to his own seat toward the back of the plane. There was probably no more than fifty people – besides himself, of course – on the plane, and no one seemed to stand out in any way. The majority of the passengers was made up of Brazilian-looking men and women, but there were a few Europeans aboard as well: a businessman with a suitcase at his feet, writing furiously on a yellow legal pad; a sleeping blonde-haired girl with a gray fedora pulled low over her face; a tired woman with an infant sleeping in her arms.
Tintin settled down in his seat a couple of rows behind the businessman and placed his own suitcase in the seat beside him, Snowy curling up happily at his feet. He dug the map that the Baxter girl had given him and surveyed it once again, barely noticing the tiny town of Japurá nestled along a bend in the Rio Amazonas. He thought back to the expedition, and how they had placed their base of operations there rather than in a larger city. It must have taken them a while to get there. "Remarkable..."
Snowy growled quietly, flattening his ears and slinking forward so that he was standing beside his master's feet in a protective gesture. He was facing the front of the plane, toward the cockpit, and when someone in front of them moved, he growled slightly louder.
Tintin smiled faintly, reaching down to scratch the dog behind the ears. Snowy stopped growling when he did so, but still didn't keep his eyes off of whatever he was looking at. "Don't worry, Snowy; we'll be arriving in Brasilia before you know it."
Maybe no one will even try to kill me this time, Tintin thought to himself, and smiled amusedly. That would make this trip even better.
-x-
The curtain separating the cockpit from the cabin shook slightly as it was drawn back, forming a tiny hole between the wall and the curtain's edge barely large enough for one brown eye to peer out and observe the passengers from.
"Who is it?" The hushed voice was that of a man with a Brazilian accent, the whisper barely coherent over the blast of the engines.
The pilot of the plane, sitting disinterestedly in his chair waiting for the control tower's approval to take off, removed a paper from his pocket and read the inscription off to the Brazilian man, speaking in an American Midwest accent. "Teenager. Ginger hair. Probably got a little white dog with him."
"Him?" The Brazilian laughed, carefully keeping his voice quiet. "That's impossível – impossible!
The American, with a muffled irritated groan, got up from his seat and pushed his co-pilot out of the way, looking out from behind the curtain himself. "Yep, that's him. He's that annoying little Belgian reporter, the one who busted that Rastapopoulos guy a week or so ago. Name's Tintin."
The Brazilian shook his head, snatching the paper out of the pilot's hands and comparing the description with the young man himself with swift jerks of the head. "No. Não. Isso não é possível!" He started murmuring to himself in Portuguese, letting himself ramble. "Não há maneira de o garoto poderia ter feito nada! Basta olhar para ele!"
The pilot, who was fortunate enough to know some Portuguese, let him ramble. "Ignore how he looks. That kid's probably two times stronger and ten times smarter than you." If the Brazilian co-pilot was offended by that, the pilot didn't notice, and continued with his speech. "Busting up crime rings and tracking down smugglers are what he does every day. I've seen his name at least once in nearly every newspaper across Europe, and even a few in America. And most of them he didn't even write."
The Brazilian crossed his arms. "Of course, I don't know about this. I'm only the person who never hears about news until it's years old. But I must admit," he added with a contemplative pause, "I can't wait to see what he's got."
"Damiãno, go and send a message to Casa de Ladrões. Tell them that's it's a code blue: Belgium, 5469E. They've been expecting this for quite some time."
The Brazilian simply nodded, putting on his headset and sitting down in the co-pilot's chair.
The American followed suit, only waiting for another moment before they were given the all-clear. "Finally. Let's get this bird off the ground."
A/N: A fellow Brazilian Fanfictionite friend of mine, Dr. Mois, is helping me out with LotS this go around, so that I can be more accurate with my descriptions of Brazil (a country which I have never actually gone to). So thanks in advance, DM! :) (By the way, if any other Fanfictionites out there need help with anthing Brazilian, talk to DM about it. He/she will help straighten you out.)
PS: Yes, I now refer to the members of this fanfiction-writing community as Fanfictionites. There is nothing wrong with that.
