The father had stood, then. His gaze flat and noncommittal, no room in it even for contempt.

The son had hated his eyes for their resemblance to his own.

“I’ll give you some advice, off the record,” the father said. “Go about your life, make what you can of it. But know your boundaries. Don’t look past the rim of the bowl. Don’t expect to share my name. And don’t ever dare to return here. I said this was your one and only chance, and I meant it. If you try to see me again, contact me in any way, you’ll be pissing in a very goddamned strong wind.”

The father had allowed a few seconds to pass, as if to make certain his warning had been absorbed. Then he waved his hand toward the door in a gesture of dismissal, held it out until the son had risen from his chair and turned his back.

Now, as the memory finished running its cold, cold course through his mind, DeVane lingered by the Chimera ’s open porthole for several moments, as he had lingered before departing the table of his father those many years gone by.

He realized his pallid hand was spread open in front of him, looked down at it with constricted anger, and lowered it to his side. Then he shut and latched the porthole, and pulled the curtains across them with a sharp jerk of his wrist, expelling both breeze and sunlight from the room.

Traces of his memory stayed in the air with him somewhat longer.

DeVane had listened carefully to his father’s words, let them sink in and work their changes. He had remembered them, as advised, and in that sense proved himself an obedient son.

But he had bided his time—and returned.

And when he did, the wind, that goddamned strong wind, had been blowing relentlessly in his favor, feeding his sails all the way.

FOUR - GABON, AFRICA CALIFORNIA

FOUR

GABON, AFRICA CALIFORNIA

AS HE LUGGED HIS FEET TOWARD THE RIO DE GABAO Hotel’s atrium and wearily braced for the dinner reception organized by his cultivated Gabonese hosts, Pete Nimec pressed a multifunction button on his wristwatch twice to check its Annie-Meter, which was not what the integrated feature was actually supposed to be called. What the feature was supposed to be called, going by the user’s manual he’d barely skimmed, was either “To-Do List” or “Reminder Calendar” or “Countdown Alarm” . . . or maybe something else kind of similar he’d given up trying to remember.

There were, Nimec thought, too many brand names and trademarks and jargonese catch words for all the countless gadgets floating around these days. Or possibly it just seemed there were too many when you cruised into your forties, and were old enough to remember a time when the pocket transistor radio was considered a modern marvel, and the black-and-white portable television became an affordable household fixture that would eventually render the behemoth family console obsolete.