Max Highfield sits in the Emirates First Class Lounge in a fury because his bodyguard is not with him. Max believes he had a clear arrangement with Henk: Max would bring business, and Henk would provide top protection. Instead, Max is alone, irritated by small indignities like fetching his own salad, and annoyed that the bodyguard will only meet him in Dubai.

A nervous teenage fan approaches and asks for a photograph. Max indulges the request, but the encounter only sharpens Max's resentment that he has been left unprotected and exposed to strangers. After the teenager returns to his parents, Max tries to call Henk, only to be told by a staff member that calls are not allowed in the lounge; Max responds with his usual vanity, insisting that being Max Highfield should exempt him.

When Henk does not answer, Max compares him unfavorably with Jeff Nolan, who, Max thinks, would always have picked up. Max reflects that he has burned bridges and will now judge Henk by how the Dubai bodyguard performs. Unlike in the past, when bodyguards were mostly a status symbol, Max now feels he may genuinely need protection because he has started receiving death threats.

The latest message, warning that someone knows what Max did and that he will not get away with it, leaves Max privately shaken. While thinking about an old film he once hoped would win him prestige, Max drifts into memories of disappointment, vanity, sadness, and mortality. By the end of the chapter, the luxurious lounge feels lonely rather than glamorous, and Max is forced to confront that, for perhaps the first time, he is truly thinking about death.