The First Billion

As for the postscript, well, it went as he had imagined. The immediate transfer out of the theater of operations. The flight stateside. The firm and not so polite request that he resign his commission and never speak of the incident again. More he never learned. Who'd gathered the intelligence? Who gave the order for the raid? Why had the abort command come so late? Was the fuel light faulty? Was the allied locator on the fritz? What did it matter? No amount of rationalizing could scrub the blood off his boots. He had committed the cardinal sin: He had killed his own.

Now, if he didn't watch out, he'd have another name to add to the list. Not a heat signature in desert fatigues, but his best friend in the world. The man who'd stood by his side at weddings, christenings, and funerals. The man he'd worked alongside twelve hours a day, week in, week out, for seven years. The man he'd sailed with to Hawaii, ate steaks with at Alfred's, got drunk with at the Chaya. The only man he knew who gave a good goddamn about John J. Gavallan from Brownsville, Texas.

"Hey, Graf," Gavallan called silently across the miles. "Hang on, bud, I'm coming to get you. Don't ask me how or when, but I'm coming."

Hundred-hour war, the world had called it. Piece of cake.

Gavallan looked down at Henry. The boy looked like he was smiling.

Piece of cake, kid.

19

Ker-thump!

Cate Magnus woke from a sound sleep, stirred by the jarring thud. The noise had come from downstairs. The den, she thought at first, still fuzzy. No, the study, she decided a second later, pinpointing the sound as having come from the room directly beneath her. Sitting up in bed, she trained an ear to the silence. The house was still and part of her wondered if she'd heard anything at all, or if the noise had simply been the slamming of a car door down the block.

It was early morning, and a predawn mist cloaked the bedroom in a grainy light. After a few seconds passed, she was able to make out the ottoman at the foot of the bed and the pile of magazines stacked on top of it. The Economist, Vogue Italia, Harvard Business Review, and, God help her, the National Enquirer. Throw them out, she ordered herself. All of them, before they become a fire hazard. Her eyes flitted to the hand-carved walnut desk under the window where she worked on her precious journals, black-speckled notebooks stuffed with daily musings, ideas for the column, personal promises, resolutions and dreams, press clippings of current events, photographs, drawings, and caricatures- a thirty-year-old's running commentary on the world and her place in it.

In the corner stood her rotting, half-drunk armoire, teetering to one side on its bum leg. Beside the armoire rested her easel, her vase and brushes, and the fisherman's bait box that held her oils and acrylics. With the painting I've done lately, I ought to throw those away too, she thought. The guarantee date on her precocious talent had expired ten years ago. But for her treasured possessions, she found no comfort in the familiarity of her surroundings. After a two-year absence, the room remained unfamiliar, foreign, more a hotel room in a distant city than the home for which she'd scrimped and saved for so long.

Ker-thump!

The low-pitched noise came again, confident, brazen. Cate could feel the floorboards shiver, as if the house had been punched in the gut. The noise came from the study. Sure of it now, she acknowledged the first intimation of fear. Her stomach knotted itself into a ball and, holding her breath, she sat very, very still. She was not by nature easily frightened, but of late she'd been on edge. She was, she realized, a woman alone in a three-story house in a part of town that might be called "lovingly frayed." Or less generously, "down at its heel."

The workers!

It came to her in a shower of relief. At once, her body slackened and her lungs opened for business again. As quickly as her fear had come, it vanished.

For the last twenty days, her home had been a hive of activity as laborers from every guild assembled beneath her roof to help with the pouring of a new concrete slab beneath the existing structure. She'd learned quickly that tradesmen were no respecters of the eight-hour day. Electricians were as likely to show up at seven at night as seven in the morning. Carpenters were happy to stay until you kicked them out.

It's Howie, she told herself, the long-haired foreman who looked as if he couldn't lift a hammer. He's come to check on the job's progress and bum his morning espresso. Caffeine freaks seemed to find one another, and neither Cate nor Howie could start the day without their Lavazza double espressos.

Or maybe it was Gustavo, the drop-dead-gorgeous Basque bricklayer who didn't go a day without asking her for a date. "Meez Magnus, we go deen-er together. You like ke-bab? I show you perfect good time, non?" Ten rejections, and still no sign of giving up.