It is also true that eight days ago a U.S. submarine patrolling the Sea of Japan shot down a North Korean test missile in North Korean airspace. A DPRK spokesman called it an act of war and promised to retaliate in kind. Well, no. He had promised to fill the mouths of every American with ashes. The Supreme Leader himself didn’t say anything. He hasn’t been seen since the assassination attempt that didn’t happen.

“They wouldn’t be that stupid,” Fidelman says to the big man, talking across the Korean girl. “Think about what would happen.”

The small, wiry, dark-haired woman stares with a slavish pride at the big man sitting beside her, and Fidelman suddenly realizes why she tolerates his paunch intruding on her personal space. They’re together. She loves him. Perhaps adores him.

The big man replies placidly, “Hundred dollars.”

LEONARD WATERS IN THE COCKPIT

North Dakota is somewhere beneath them, but all Waters can see is a hilly expanse of cloud stretching to the horizon. Waters has never visited North Dakota and when he tries to visualize it, imagines rusting antique farm equipment, Billy Bob Thornton, and furtive acts of buggery in grain silos. On the radio the controller in Minneapolis instructs a 737 to ascend to flight level three-six-zero and increase speed to Mach Seven Eight.

“Ever been to Guam?” asks his first officer, with a false fragile cheer.

Waters has never flown with a female copilot before and can hardly bear to look at her, she is so heartbreakingly beautiful. Face like that, she ought to be on magazine covers. Up until the moment he met her in the conference room at LAX, two hours before they flew, he didn’t know anything about her except that her name was Bronson. He had been picturing someone like the guy in the original Death Wish.

“Been to Hong Kong,” Waters says, wishing she weren’t so terribly lovely.

Waters is in his mid-forties and looks about nineteen, a slim man with red hair cut to a close bristle and a map of freckles on his face. He is only just married and soon to be a father: a photo of his gourd-ripe wife in a sundress has been clipped to the dash. He doesn’t want to be attracted to anyone else. He feels ashamed of even spotting a handsome woman. At the same time, he doesn’t want to be cold, formal, distant. He’s proud of his airline for employing more female pilots, wants to approve, to support. All gorgeous women are an affliction upon his soul. “Sydney. Taiwan. Not Guam, though.”

“Me and friends used to freedive off Fai Fai Beach. Once I got close enough to a blacktip shark to pet it. Freediving naked is the only thing better than flying.”