Outside, the cold afternoon air immediately fogged his glasses. Scott tugged a neatly folded handkerchief from the breast pocket of his wool suit and wiped off the fog as he crossed the parking lot. It’d be dark soon, and he wanted to get down the mesa before the roads worsened. He got behind the wheel of the Taurus and set the briefcase on the seat next to him. He backed out of the parking space and turned toward the gate. At the traffic light, he turned left across the concrete and steel bridge that spanned the canyon between the laboratory and the town of Los Alamos. Once across the bridge, he turned right onto state highway 502 that lead south through town, past the small airfield, and then down the mesa to Santa Fe.
Back in the early days of Los Alamos, they carved the road out of the piñon and mesquite covered mesa wall and had never really improved on the original work. The ride gave a beautiful view of the valley and the other mesas, but Scott had seen it many times before and the vista had become mundane. The afternoon rush of people from the lab had passed, and the road was nearly deserted. Ice formed on his radio antenna and made inroads on the windshield even though he had the defroster on full.
Black ice might be forming on the road, but Scott had to consciously force himself to keep his speed below forty. The deal had taken the better part of two years to arrange, but now that it was finally a go, he had to stay on top of things.
Nearly halfway down the mesa he rounded a curve and had to slow as a delivery truck pulled onto the road from the shoulder, blocking his lane. Belching dense black smoke from its exhaust, the truck slowly accelerated. Scott hung back as they entered a series of curves.
They were doing less than 20 mph. His fingers drummed against the steering wheel. He cursed under his breath and sounded his horn.
There was no response from the truck.
“Damn fool. There’s no excuse for this. It never fails. Anytime I’m in a hurry I encounter some moron putzing along.”
Scott started around the truck but pulled back in immediately. They were in a long sloping curve to the right, and he couldn’t see more than a hundred feet ahead. He was in a hurry, but he wasn’t crazy. In about a mile, the road straightened out for a short stretch, and he could easily pass the truck there. Might as well relax, he told himself.
The dash clock read after six, Caitlin’s meeting with the new clients should be over. He clicked the power button on the cell phone.
“Dial Caitlin,” Scott said and waited for the connection.
***
The sun was a ball of crimson fire, only half-seen above the distant horizon. Its light gleamed off the bridge and bathed the aircraft carrier passing beneath it with a ruddy glow. The bridge dwarfed the carrier, which in turn dwarfed the score of sailboats that flanked its passage through San Francisco’s Golden Gate. Caitlin Maxwell stood at the railing. She held her drink in one hand and clutched her linen jacket together with the other. Although she was nearly a thousand feet above the breakers, the wind bore the distinctive briny odor of the sea.
Dean Koenig touched her elbow, and her raven hair fanned out to the side when she turned to him.
“Magnificent view isn’t it?” he asked.
“Magnificent? It’s like looking down on the mortals from atop Mount Olympus.”
The observation deck at the top of the Pacific Rim Suites, built on what had been the officer’s housing complex of Presidio Army Post, enjoyed an immense panoramic view of the coastline, the Bay, and the city. From the northeast corner, Caitlin could see the hills around Napa Valley, the green oasis of distant Muir Woods, and the gray skyline of Oakland. The foreboding walls of inescapable Alcatraz were visible to the left of Coit Tower. To seaward, the windblown cliffs on the western edge of the peninsula held dozens of homes that teetered on the brink of destruction as if waiting to plummet to the surf during the next winter storm.
“Mount Olympus? You missed your calling, Caitlin. You should have been a poet.”
She chuckled, faint and melodious. “No, I tried poetry. I never had the feel for it. Poetry requires a measure of innate talent that I lack.”
“I find it hard to believe you lack anything,” the voice came from behind her.
She turned to greet Carl Teigue. The meeting with Teigue and Koenig on Caitlin’s improved data interface had gone into overtime, and they’d moved from the main floor lounge to the hotel’s rooftop bar. On the third round of drinks, the men concluded that the packaging Caitlin had offered them two hours earlier was exactly what they needed.
Caitlin felt certain they had made up their minds before coming upstairs. She’d seen the surreptitious glances that passed from Koenig to Teigue as he proposed they adjourn to the bar. The blue-eyed Teigue, at thirty-two, was married, but the forty-four-year-old Koenig was a perennial bachelor and Caitlin had known since lunch that he was going to try to entice her back up to his apartment.
She wasn’t sure what her response would be. Still, the obvious attraction he showed was flattering and reminded her that it’d been six months since her last physical encounter with a man. That had been the start of her separation from Scott. Maybe she had spent too much time worrying about business and not enough enjoying life.
Teigue was saying something Caitlin could scarcely hear over the wind. “It’s been a pleasure, Caitlin. I have to run, or Sandra will worry about me.”
