Of course she was. She still believed in a God that would protect her from harm. Keith had long ago discarded those notions in favor of the harsh evidence that this was all there was. Part of him wished that he could escape into the belief of an afterlife where good deeds were rewarded; or barring that, could at least knock back a dozen mini-bottles of hard liquor to numb his soul. But it was no good. Nothing could provide solace at this point but confirmation of the truth.
The engines wound to high pitch and then he was pressed back into his seat as though by an invisible hand. Rain streaked off the wings, leaving white froth as evidence of their passage. He joined his praying cabin mate in closing his eyes, and waited for the lift into the air that would signal the true finality of his escape. The aluminum tube hurtled down the runway until physics took over, the curved upper surface of the wing creating lift at somewhere around a hundred fifty miles per hour, and the jet leapt into the sky, gray as elephant hide, and ascended into the clouds with a roar.
Sixteen minutes later, Flight 418 to Rome disappeared from JFK’s radar screens, vaporizing east of Long Island, over the Atlantic.
TWO
Bad Day by the Bay
Jeffrey Rutherford pedaled hard as he glided between weaving cars, avoiding the cable car tracks as he wound his way through early rush hour traffic to his office in the financial district. Steam drifted from manhole covers as he crested the final rise — it was all downhill from there, the hard part of his thirty-minute commute from his flat in the Marina district done, gravity now his friend.
A foghorn sounded from the distant bay as he broke through the lingering haze on Nob Hill like a wraith on wheels, the street otherworldly under a dense blanket of fog that had yet to burn off. A bike messenger darted from an alley in front of the car he was trailing, nearly causing an accident, and he clenched down on the brakes, narrowly missing the Jaguar’s rear bumper as both his tires skidded along the asphalt. The truck behind him blared its horn, as though Jeffrey were to blame for the abrupt stop, and he gave the driver the finger before swinging around and shifting through the gears, the race down the slope akin to flying as the wind whistled in his ears.
Two blocks before he hit Market Street, he rolled up onto the sidewalk and leapt nimbly from the Trek hybrid, pausing in front of the bronze glass office building’s entry doors before shouldering the bicycle and carrying it into the lobby. The two security guards eyed him skeptically, as they did every morning he rode to work instead of driving his car, and the younger of the two men offered a wave.
“Top of the morning to you boys,” Jeffrey called as he approached them. “You have a place for this in the back room?”
Same question every time, a comforting formality for everyone.
“Sure thing. You know the way by now.”
Jeffrey walked past the bank of elevators to a steel door at the rear of the building and twisted the knob, then set his bicycle against the nearest wall and tossed his helmet on the seat. The bicycle thing had started as a concession to the girl he’d been dating a few years back, who had been all about the environment and sustainability and green living. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, and it always made him smile when he thought about how the bike had lasted a lot longer than the relationship.
The trip to the fourteenth floor was fast — there still weren’t many workers arriving, it being a good forty minutes before business hours. Jeffrey stepped out of the elevator and strode down the marble-floored hall to the suite of offices leased by his employer of five years: Michelson, Roth, and Loaming, attorneys at law, where he was one of thirty associates working long hours for too little money. He ducked into the bathroom, shrugged his backpack off, and set about making himself presentable. Khaki trousers, a blue oxford button-up shirt, burgundy loafers to match his belt. Gone were the days of gray pinstripes, at least in these offices — most of the clients he met with were either high net worth captains of industry or Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, neither of whom favored formality. The senior partners still trotted out vested suits and somber dispositions, but that was all show, he knew, to give the firm an air of gravitas whenever a new prospect showed up looking for representation.
The firm dealt in intellectual property, contract law, real estate, and Jeffrey’s niche, asset protection, which usually amounted to structuring things so obscenely wealthy clients didn’t have to pay taxes. It hadn’t been his first choice of specialties, but he’d been convinced that it would be a lucrative direction after two years working a contract law desk at another firm, and had dived into the discipline with enthusiasm when he’d gotten a whiff of the money to be made doing it right.
Which he was still waiting to see manifest in any real way. Unfortunately, even with his annual bonus, his hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year income didn’t go a long way in San Francisco, and unless he made partner at some point, or went into private practice and risked it all trying to build a book of business, he was just another overworked stiff putting in very long hours to make others rich.
Studying himself in the mirror, he ran a brush through his dark brown hair and then slipped it back into his backpack along with his riding togs. At least he wasn’t running to fat — the riding more than ensured that even though he was chained to a desk most of his life, he used up more than he took in. That wasn’t the case for the other attorneys in their late twenties he knew. A sedentary lifestyle and no time for exercise had already worked its magic on many of his peers, and the doughy look of the well-fed and soft was the norm, as was a future of heart disease and obesity that he was hoping to avoid. He took another look at his strong cheekbones and hazel eyes and noted the slight discoloration beneath them — it had been an endless month with a heavy workload, and his normal hours now ran twelve per day at the minimum, six days a week.
The bathroom door swung open and another young man stepped in, taking in Jeffrey before he moved to a stall.
“Hey, cowboy, good morning. You trying to save a few bucks on gas again?” the newcomer asked in a mocking tone.
“Bill, you should know better. It’s not the gas, it’s the frigging parking. Thirty bucks a day. Who’s got that kind of mad loot to throw around?” Jeffrey quipped, finishing his inspection.
“One day, my boy, one day,” Bill replied. Jeffrey was all of a year younger, but Bill looked to be a decade further down the road, courtesy of too many working dinners with clients. Bill was one of the M&A group, which as far as Jeffrey could tell spent as much of its time eating and drinking with clients on their tab as doing actual work.
The toilet flushed and Bill went to the sinks and rinsed his hands, studying his crisp white shirt and dark gray slacks, then allowed his eyes to drift over to where Jeffrey was finishing with his bag.
“What have you got going for lunch today?” he asked.
“Same as ever. Chinese take-out at my desk. I’m still buried. It never stops.”
“Too bad. I’ve got a meeting with some fat cat clients and you could come along. They could probably use some asset strategies.”
“Let me take a rain check. Feel them out, and if they’re serious, I’ll make time. But if I go with you, I’m just going to have to stay two hours later to make up for the time I lose.”
Bill shook his head. “Suit yourself. Shrimp cocktails, lobster Thermidor… Mmm.”