A pair of anti-terrorism officers watched us check through into the boarding lounge. They stood behind the easyJet woman and took us in as we came through. One was about 30, the other about 40; both hard as nails. The younger did the Speedy Boarders; the other the common herd. What was remarkable about them, apart from their being there at all, was their Zen-like stillness and the slow economy of their eye movements. The check-in desk was a maelstrom of anxiety and pocket fumbling and the easyJet woman was working both queues like an acrobat. And there, just beyond, were these two very still individuals who appeared to be more in tune with the spirit world rather than with the information being relayed from their own eyes and ears. As I passed by them, my person, I felt, was being scrutinised chiefly on an extra-sensory level. There was nothing airy-fairy about these gentlemen’s faces, however, which stated clearly that their mediumistic gifts could be backed up at short notice by a supplementary propensity for state-sanctioned violence.
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