“Wy there?

“No. Im hanging up now.

“Hold on. You said you had something to tell me.

A brief pause. “Yeah, but not right now.

“Okay, Liam said. There was something in the tone of Jims voice that warned him he wasnt going to like it, whatever it was. “It sounds like it can keep.

“Not indefinitely, Jim said, and hung up.

Liam drove out to the airport, and was lucky enough to see 68 Kilo coming in on final. It was a runway paint job, smooth as silk, and Liam, safely on the ground, could admire the skill and the professionalism and be proud that his woman was so good at her job.

He thought of his wife, put in a coma by a drunken driver, from which she had never woken. He had enjoyed married life. He liked snuggling beneath the covers every night with the same woman. He liked drinking coffee with her the next morning and talking about what the day would bring. He liked coming home to eat dinner with her, catching up on what had gone right and wrong with the day. Hed liked long, lazy weekends on the couch, reading and watching television and eating popcorn and making love.

There hadnt been as much of that last as he would have liked, given the responsibilities of his job, but Jenny had never complained. Jennifer. Jenny with the light brown hair. Jenny-fair, their high school French teacher had called her, and fair she had been. He still missed her, would always miss her. Theyd been best friends all through middle school and high school, and when they came back from their respective colleges it had seemed as natural as breathing to marry. There had been no highs and no lows in his relationship with Jenny, no uncertainty, no anxiety.

Unlike his relationship with Wy. With Wy, it was either mountaintop or abyss. But then he hadnt known there were mountains to scale or an abyss to plumb during his marriage to Jenny.

He missed his friend more than he did his wife, and he missed his son more than either of them. He wondered if he should be ashamed of that fact. He wondered if Jenny would understand.

The Cessna stopped ten feet away. Practically before the prop had slowed, the passenger door opened and a man bailed out. “Bailed was the right word; he managed to miss the step on the strut entirely and hit the ground walking, rapidly, in the opposite direction.

Liam had exited planes in just that manner himself on one or two occasions, and he sympathized. “Rough flight? he said to Wy as she walked toward him.

She shook her head and smiled. “That was Mr. Frederick Glanville of the Internal Revenue Service. He went out to Kokwok to perform an audit.

Liam began to grin. “Let me guess. Hed never flown in a small plane before.