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  For the life of him, he could not understand why the corporate accountant had given him such a hard time about this small loan. Apparently he had done something horrendous, and Emilio had the niggling suspicion that he had not been summoned to Sydney simply to be brought to account. He might well lose his job because of this presumed misdeed.

  He couldn’t imagine why this loan – which, granted, may not have been entirely legitimate – should have had such far-reaching consequences. He had worked his ass off for the Almar Corporation for years, and the company had done very well from him. The only thing he had asked in return was a little understanding now that he found himself in financial straits.

  Besides, a little sympathy wasn’t much to ask, considering that he had almost sacrificed his life for the company when the Learjet crashed.

  What if he ended up unemployed? What then? At the ripe age of fifty-two he was accustomed to a comfortable lifestyle, as was his wife. He doubted that many companies out there would be eager to hire a financial director who had been booted out of his former company on fraud charges. He was too old to start a new gig and, if convicted, his reputation would be too tarnished. He would be passé, a man on his way down, a corporate pariah.

  For Emilio, the turbulence made him feel as though he was on a rollercoaster ride in a cart that had flown off its tracks. His armpits were wet with perspiration and he could smell his own rank body odor.

  He was convinced the plane was going down – and that would make the decision of the tribunal in Sydney a moot point.

  Well, he thought with sardonic humor, at least it would mean one less thing to worry about.

  Sharlene walked past seat 39K, occupied by the woman she had helped stow her cabin luggage at the start of the flight. The woman, who appeared to Sharlene to be either a nun or an aging Goth, was named Mrs Ramagan. People seldom addressed her by her first name because most people did not know her first name. She was, however, a well-known figure in Santa Ana, a community in Orange County, California. She always dressed in black. Another one of her fixtures was a pair of black Ray-Bans – her current pair had almost worn out – because she was hypersensitive to light. She depended on them because, according to the eye specialists she had consulted, she had an aggressive form of actinic conjunctivitis, an inflammation of the eye caused by prolonged exposure to ultraviolet rays. There had been quite a few specialists over the years, and they had tried a variety of ointments, liniments, and other remedies on her. But none of these so-called remedies had improved the redness and swelling around her eyes. She had finally decided to try to live with her condition, and she and her Ray-Bans had become inseparable.

  Mrs Ramagan was stout in build and less than five feet tall. She weighed 128 pounds, which would not have been excessive had she not been so compact. As with many woman her age, her weight was concentrated around her waistline and hips, making her look inelegant in the extreme.

  Citizens in her community thought she led a lonely life in her spartan home filled with crucifixes, depictions of the Virgin Mary, and stately votive candles. But that’s not how she saw it. She had her virtues, her Bible, and a deep spiritual connection with Jesus Christ. In every facet of her life Mrs Ramagan felt blessed, especially in her volunteer work for the disabled at an assisted-living home.

  People loved her there, because her prayers produced results for them. Sick people got better – thanks to her faith in Jesus Christ. Even her sister, Esther, had become suddenly free of the rheumatism that had plagued her life for decades.

  Unfortunately, despite the blessing of a pain-free life, her sister did not share her deep faith. Esther had a college degree. She had always been the smart one. She had such a highly developed brain, in fact, that she couldn’t ever explain to Mrs Ramagan what she had studied without resorting to extremely complicated terms and convoluted sentences. That it had something to do with economics was all Mrs Ramagan could glean from their discussions.

  She and Esther had engaged in many heated debates about religion. Esther refused to believe that the Lord could work miracles. Time and again Mrs Ramagan summed up the miracles she had witnessed in person, including the greatest of them all when the Lord had saved her life. At the age of twenty-four, Mrs Ramagan had fallen seriously ill with a rare type of virus. She had lapsed into a coma, and had found out later that her doctors had essentially given up on her. To their great surprise, however, she had awakened and recovered, remembering nothing from the coma except for a luminescent figure who had appeared before her and emitted a warm, healing brilliance. It had to have been a divine intervention. After her miraculous recovery she had become very devout. The Lord had saved her life for a purpose: so that she could devote herself to Him.

  Esther had told her it was a wonderful story, but she insisted it was nothing more than a coincidence. She attributed all good things that happened to coincidence, even the cure of her rheumatism. Mrs Ramagan felt her sister was being rather ungrateful, but she didn’t want to press the issue and have a falling-out with her.

  No matter how smart she was, Esther knew nothing about theology. She had been an atheist her entire life. Mrs Ramagan regretted that she would never share God’s love and redemption with the only person in the world she truly loved.

  Actually, not the only person.

  Not anymore.

  Mrs Ramagan had sinned. She had let herself be tempted by someone other than the Lord.

  The man’s name was Bob Fletcher, and he had been a patient at the home where she volunteered. Bob was restricted to a wheelchair and was a few years older than she. The first time she met this dear man, she had invested considerable time chatting with him and had enjoyed every minute of it. Since that first day, she and Bob had gotten along famously.

  They had been seeing each other for six months when something happened that Mrs Ramagan could not have imagined even in her most secret dreams. That night, when she was inside his room to tend to him, he had locked the door. Then he started to undress her.

  Mrs Ramagan had been utterly confused. He had done things to her that she had only seen in the magazines and television shows she tried so religiously to avoid. If she happened to stumble on a lurid or even suggestive scene, she would quickly turn the page or change the channel. She had always thought that such intimacies – were they ever to happen to her, God forbid – would be reprehensible and highly unpleasant. But the truth turned out to be surprisingly different.

  The naked truth was that she had had sex. Afterwards, she hadn’t slept for days and she had studiously avoided Bob. He kept calling her until she finally relented. She agreed to see him one more time, but just to tell him that they had made a terrible mistake and that there was no future for them.

  But their visit ended in another round of passionate sex, and when Mrs Ramagan returned home that night she realized even more acutely, and with great abhorrence, that she had very much enjoyed the experience. Never before had she felt anything like it. Her brain had crossed swords with her heart. Horrified by her lustful desires, she swore on all that was holy that she would be faithful to God, who had blessed her so bountifully all her life. And she prayed more frequently and with more emotion, begging the Lord to forgive her sins of the flesh.

  On one occasion she had discussed her dilemma with Esther, who promptly applauded her and gushed how wonderful this was. Her sister, with a man? Apparently miracles did happen, she had avowed, smiling broadly.

  ‘Esther, don’t say that,’ Mrs Ramagan had said worriedly. ‘This is not right at all.’

  But instead of helping her back on to the straight and narrow, Esther wanted to hear more about Bob. What kind of a man was he? What did he look like? Was he good to her? And was he good in bed?

  Mrs Ramagan had blushed furiously and had not deigned to answer any of these questions. She had gone to see Bob one final time, firmly resolved to bring an end to her sinning, but that third encounter had predictably spun out of control. She had lain in Bob’s bed again, completel
y disrobed, abandoning herself to girlish pleasures and passions. The worst of it was that the harder she tried to push him away, the more loving Bob became and the faster her heart beat for him. He suggested that they move in together, that with her help he would no longer be confined to the nursing home. His legs might not be in the best of shape, but his other body parts would work just fine for years to come, he assured her with a smile.

  After she returned home that time, she decided that she needed to be ever more rigorous in her faith if she were to redeem herself in the eyes of the Lord. That she had fallen in love with Bob she regarded as an act of weakness and sin.

  So to her mind it was no coincidence when a few days later she noticed an advertisement in the Los Angeles Times for a position as a missionary in Australia working with the aboriginals. Mrs Ramagan had immediately applied for the job and she had been accepted. Devastated, she had said goodbye to her patients and to Bob – who had shaken his head and cried, unable to understand why she would do such a thing.

  Today, on the Princess of the Pacific, she was on her way to her new job. She hoped that a few months in Australia would cleanse her heart and mind of impure thoughts and convince God to forgive her.

  But despite her constant prayer, she saw signs everywhere that the Lord remained disappointed in her. This turbulence the airplane was experiencing seemed to be one such sign. It was as if He had taken the aircraft in His grip and was shaking it, to remind her once again that, verily, her sins had been great.

  She leaned toward the right, removed her sunglasses, and peered out the window. Despite the darkness, the glow of a nearly full moon highlighted, in stark detail, the wing shaking severely.

  And she saw someone standing on top of it.

  Mrs Ramagan leaned sideways until her nose bumped the small window pane.

  She clearly saw a black figure, ramrod straight. He did not seem the least bit hampered by the streaming wind or the buckling wing.

  Mrs Ramagan crossed herself: once, twice, three times.

  The plane gave another fierce shudder, causing her nose to rub painfully against the window pane. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again the figure was gone.

  Mrs Ramagan kept her gaze riveted on the wing. Was what she had supposedly seen another symptom of her eye problems?

  Sharlene made it into the galley on the upper deck, staggering and lurching as though she were drunk. Braced against the bulkhead to keep from falling, Aaron reached out his arms, caught her, and brought her to him in an awkward embrace.

  ‘It’s pretty fierce,’ he said.

  ‘You can say that again,’ she agreed.

  ‘It’s pretty fierce,’ he repeated with a grin.

  ‘Jesus,’ she admonished, holding on to him. ‘We have a comedian on board. How can you joke around at a time like this?’

  ‘For the joy of seeing you,’ he said, and then kissed her quickly in the turbulence. ‘It’ll be over soon. Are you OK?’

  ‘Not really,’ she said, clasping hold of her necklace, her symbol of strength. The necklace had belonged to her mother, Claudia Thier, who had worn it on every flight except the one that killed her. Her mother had been given the necklace by her mother – Sharlene’s grandmother, Beth – and so the heirloom, the only physical remembrance Sharlene had of her mother, had been in their family for three generations.

  ‘My shift is almost over,’ he said. ‘Wasn’t this supposed to be your break?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, but I couldn’t stay in bed any longer. Who’s coming to relieve you?’

  ‘Mara. She’s probably waiting for the turbulence to settle. I hope so. There’s not much any of us can do for the moment.’

  The plane sank into another air pocket, and as he grasped Sharlene more firmly he caught a whiff of her lilac perfume. His hands slid down to her buttocks and he kissed her neck.

  She felt cold to his touch. Her entire body was tense.

  ‘You’re not liking this at all, are you?’

  It was an inane question, she thought: the answer was so obvious. He too was having trouble standing upright.

  Perhaps there was no need to worry, but she was worried anyway.

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be over soon,’ Aaron repeated over the clatter of trolleys and dishes in the galley. He hoped his voice sounded reassuring.

  ‘Sure,’ she mumbled, listless.

  He frowned. ‘Sharlene?’

  She averted her eyes. ‘It’s nothing. I just had that nightmare again.’

  ‘About the door?’

  ‘Yes, that one.’ She’d had this same dream several times since they started seeing each other. It was always the same. She dreamed she was in a room, and someone was pounding and kicking down the door. But when it finally crashed open, there was nothing behind it, just darkness.

  Every time he asked what she thought it meant, she turned evasive.

  The trolleys kept rattling and the turbulence showed no sign of abating.

  He hugged her again. ‘Everything is going to be fine, trust me,’ he whispered in her ear.

  Although she offered no reply, he sensed how nervous she was by the way she kept clasping and unclasping her hands. And the way she kept glancing around, as if frightened of what she might see.

  A few minutes later, the jolting and bumping and throbbing of the aircraft finally began to ease. They both breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘See? It’s over,’ he enthused. ‘In a few hours we’ll be in Sydney. Then we’ll take a few days off to enjoy ourselves.’

  Several moments later Mara Trujillo joined them in the galley.

  ‘How are things here?’ she asked as she entered, as cheerful as ever.

  The stewardess was a tad overweight, but not unattractive and always jolly. That brief description summed up Mara.

  ‘Fine,’ Aaron said with a smile.

  At last it was his turn to crawl into a bunk and get some sleep. He hoped that Sharlene would start feeling better now that the aircraft had reached calmer air.

  EIGHT

  Cat

  At the first indications of heavy turbulence Jim, in the cockpit, switched on the passenger seat-belt sign. He had returned to his seat ninety minutes earlier. After takeoff, Ben had taken over the controls from him for four hours. Now that the relief pilot was asleep on a makeshift bunk in the back of the cockpit, Jim had joined Greg for the last stretch of the flight.

  ‘I didn’t see that coming,’ Jim said. ‘Nothing that strong, at least.’

  ‘Me, neither,’ Greg concurred.

  Jim studied the instruments. ‘I don’t see anything on radar.’

  ‘Clear-air turbulence?’ his copilot suggested.

  ‘Look at the temperature outside!’ Jim cried out.

  Greg followed his gaze and frowned.

  Heavy turbulence, he knew from long experience, could arise in a violent collision between warm and cold air. Apparently that was what had happened, because the Outside Air Temperature gauge suddenly read –94°, a sudden plunge of 15°. Such extreme cold normally was recorded only in the Polar Regions.

  ‘Check the weather chart again,’ Jim fairly shouted. ‘Did we overlook something? Christ, this turbulence is bad!’

  ‘I don’t think we overlooked anything,’ Greg responded. ‘But I’ll check again.’

  He opened the flight schedule as Jim stared in disbelief at the OAT. The 747 was shaking as if it were the plaything of a divine power.

  ‘No particulars reported from London,’ Greg said. He was referring to the World Area Forecast Center, which was responsible for the weather charts in their flight plan.

  ‘But those temperatures can’t be right,’ Jim said.

  ‘I think a malfunctioning sensor is more likely,’ Greg agreed.

  ‘I have to tell the passengers something,’ Jim resolved. ‘It’s getting pretty rough.’

  He picked up his microphone and pressed the PA button. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he announced, ‘this is your captain spe
aking. We have entered an area of strong turbulence. We should be out of it shortly. I apologize for the inconvenience. For your safety and for the safety of those around you, please remain in your seats until further notice and keep your seat belts securely fastened.’

  As he switched off the PA, he heard someone move behind him. Ben was out of his bunk, hanging on to his chair with both hands.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ he demanded to know.

  ‘Clear-air turbulence, most likely,’ Jim replied. ‘We’re passing through a layer of cold air.’

  Ben whistled between his teeth, glancing at the Outside Air Temperature gauge while the Princess was pounded unmercifully.

  ‘Contact Tokyo,’ Jim suggested. ‘See what they know.’

  Greg pressed the transmit button on the high-frequency radio, which had worldwide reach and was the only way for the pilots to communicate with air-traffic control. The pilot responsible for monitoring the plane’s progress was obligated to report their position once every hour to the closest of the three region points into which the Pacific had been divided: Tokyo in the west, Anchorage in the north, and Oakland in the east. When Greg tried to tune the high-frequency radio and make contact, he received in response a burst of static that exploded through the flight deck.

  Greg tried using the squelch to get rid of the static. Unsuccessful in that attempt, he first tried searching for a higher frequency, then a lower one, to obtain a clear link. The bucking plane made his job difficult, but finally the static cleared and Greg hailed air-traffic control.

  ‘Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo, this is Oceans 5-8-2.’

  No response. Greg waited a few seconds before repeating his call. ‘Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo, this is Oceans 5-8-2. Come in, please.’