“What’s he going to do?” Jason grumbled. “I got the flu. He’s going to tell me to stay home, take aspirin, drink a lot of fluids, and rest.”

“Maybe he’ll give you some antibiotics,” Helen said.

“There’s some antibiotics left over from last year,” Jason said. “They’re in the medicine cabinet. Get them! I don’t need a doctor.”

Saturday was not a good day. By late afternoon Jason admitted that he was definitely worse despite the aspirin, fluids, and antibiotic. The discomfort in his chest had worsened to pain. His temperature had risen to one hundred and three, and he’d developed a cough. But what he complained about most was a splitting headache, along with generalized aching muscles.

Attempts to reach Dr. Goldstein were unsuccessful. The doctor had gone to Connecticut for the weekend. His answering service advised Helen to take her husband to the local emergency room.

After a long wait, Jason was finally seen by the emergency-room physician, who was impressed with his condition, especially after a chest X ray. To Helen’s relief, the doctor advised Jason’s immediate admission to the hospital and referred the case to Dr. Heitman, who was covering Dr. Goldstein’s inpatients. The diagnosis was influenza with secondary pneumonia, and the emergency-room physician started Jason on intravenous antibiotics.

Jason had never felt worse in his life as he was taken to his hospital room just before midnight. He complained bitterly about his chest pain, which was excruciating when he coughed, and about his headache. When Dr. Heitman came by to see him, Jason pleaded for relief and was given Percodan.

It took almost a half hour for the pain medication to have an effect. By that time Dr. Heitman had departed. Jason lay on his bed, exhausted but unable to sleep. He sensed a mortal battle was raging inside his body. Allowing his head to loll to the side, he looked at Helen in the half light and gripped her hand. She was maintaining a silent vigil. A tear traced a path down the side of Jason’s face. In his mind’s eye Helen was still that young woman who’d wandered into his shop in the Plaka all those years ago.

Helen’s image began to fade as welcome numbness suffused Jason’s body. At twelve-thirty-five A.M. Jason Papparis fell asleep for the last time. Mercifully, he was unaware when he was later rushed to the intensive care unit by Dr. Kevin Fowler, who waged an unsuccessful battle for his life.

____

ONE

Monday, October 18

4:30 A.M.

The hum of the commuter plane’s engines was ragged. One moment they were screaming as the plane headed inexorably earthward, the next they were eerily silent, as if they had been inadvertently switched off by the pilot.

Jack Stapleton watched in terror, knowing that his family was aboard and there was nothing he could do. The plane was going to crash! Helplessly he shouted NO! NO! NO!

Jack’s shouting mercifully yanked him from the clutches of his recurrent nightmare, and he sat bolt upright in bed. He was breathing heavily as if he’d been playing full-court basketball, and perspiration dripped from the end of his nose. He was disoriented until his eyes swept about the interior of his bedroom. The intermittent sound wasn’t coming from a commuter plane. It was his telephone. Its raucous jingle was relentlessly shattering the night.