The heroin had hit—he had the sniffles to prove it—but he sure couldn’t feel it.

One thing he did feel shortly before landing was another of those unsettling periods of blankness . . . short, but most definitely there.

The 727 banked over the water of Long Island Sound and started in.

2

Jane Dorning had been in the business class galley, helping Peter and Anne stow the last of the after-meal drinks glasses when the guy who looked like a college kid went into the first class bathroom.

He was returning to his seat when she brushed aside the curtain between business and first, and she quickened her step without even thinking about it, catching him with her smile, making him look up and smile back.

His eyes were hazel again.

All right, all right. He went into the john and took them out before his nap; he went into the john and put them in again afterwards. For Christ’s sake, Janey! You’re being a goose!

She wasn’t, though. It was nothing she could put her finger on, but she was not being a goose.

He’s too pale.

So what? Thousands of people are too pale, including your own mother since her gall-bladder went to hell.

He had very arresting blue eyes—maybe not as cute as the hazel contacts—but certainly arresting. So why the bother and expense?

Because he likes designer eyes. Isn’t that enough?

No.

Shortly before FASTEN SEAT BELTS and final cross-check, she did something she had never done before; she did it with that tough old battle-axe of an instructor in mind. She filled a Thermos bottle with hot coffee and put on the red plastic top without first pushing the stopper into the bottle’s throat. She screwed the top on only until she felt it catch the first thread.

Susy Douglas was making the final approach announcement, telling the geese to extinguish their cigarettes, telling them they would have to stow what they had taken out, telling them a Delta gate agent would meet the flight, telling them to check and make sure they had their duty-declaration cards and proofs of citizenship, telling them it would now be necessary to pick up all cups, glasses and speaker sets.

I’m surprised we don’t have to check to make sure they’re dry, Jane thought distractedly. She felt her own steel wire wrapping itself around her guts, cinching them tight.

“Get my side,” Jane said as Susy hung up the mike.

Susy glanced at the Thermos, then at Jane’s face. “Jane? Are you sick? You look as white as a—”

“I’m not sick. Get my side. I’ll explain when you get back.” Jane glanced briefly at the jump-seats beside the left-hand exit door. “I want to ride shotgun.”

“Jane—”

“Get my side.”

“All right,” Susy said. “All right, Jane. No problem.”

Jane Dorning sat down in the jump-seat closest to the aisle. She held the Thermos in her hands and made no move to fasten the web-harness. She wanted to keep the Thermos in complete control, and that meant both hands.