Upon A Pale Horse (Bio-Thriller) Read online

  He’d need to touch base with Becky at some point, obliquely, through some sort of a cutout, to let her know that he was okay. They’d been dating for four years, getting serious, discussions of weddings and children increasingly common, and she knew nothing of his sudden disappearance, which was for the best. If she was questioned, there wasn’t much she could tell anyone that would put her at risk – all she really knew was the early part of his saga, where he’d developed a fascination with cattle.

  The plane jolted as it rolled back from the gate, and then the turbines kicked up with a whine and they were taxiing in the worsening gloom towards their position, third for takeoff. The woman across the aisle’s lips moved slightly as she reclined with closed eyes, and Keith realized with a start that she was praying.

  Of course she was. She still believed in a God that would protect her from harm. Keith had long ago discarded those notions in favor of the harsh evidence that this was all there was. Part of him wished that he could escape into the belief of an afterlife where good deeds were rewarded; or barring that, could at least knock back a dozen mini-bottles of hard liquor to numb his soul. But it was no good. Nothing could provide solace at this point but confirmation of the truth.

  The engines wound to high pitch and then he was pressed back into his seat as though by an invisible hand. Rain streaked off the wings, leaving white froth as evidence of their passage. He joined his praying cabin mate in closing his eyes, and waited for the lift into the air that would signal the true finality of his escape. The aluminum tube hurtled down the runway until physics took over, the curved upper surface of the wing creating lift at somewhere around a hundred fifty miles per hour, and the jet leapt into the sky, gray as elephant hide, and ascended into the clouds with a roar.

  Sixteen minutes later, Flight 418 to Rome disappeared from JFK’s radar screens, vaporizing east of Long Island, over the Atlantic.

  TWO

  Bad Day by the Bay

  March 8, San Francisco

  Jeffrey Rutherford pedaled hard as he glided between weaving cars, avoiding the cable car tracks as he wound his way through early rush hour traffic to his office in the financial district. Steam drifted from manhole covers as he crested the final rise – it was all downhill from there, the hard part of his thirty-minute commute from his flat in the Marina district done, gravity now his friend.

  A foghorn sounded from the distant bay as he broke through the lingering haze on Nob Hill like a wraith on wheels, the street otherworldly under a dense blanket of fog that had yet to burn off. A bike messenger darted from an alley in front of the car he was trailing, nearly causing an accident, and he clenched down on the brakes, narrowly missing the Jaguar’s rear bumper as both his tires skidded along the asphalt. The truck behind him blared its horn, as though Jeffrey were to blame for the abrupt stop, and he gave the driver the finger before swinging around and shifting through the gears, the race down the slope akin to flying as the wind whistled in his ears.

  Two blocks before he hit Market Street, he rolled up onto the sidewalk and leapt nimbly from the Trek hybrid, pausing in front of the bronze glass office building’s entry doors before shouldering the bicycle and carrying it into the lobby. The two security guards eyed him skeptically, as they did every morning he rode to work instead of driving his car, and the younger of the two men offered a wave.

  “Top of the morning to you boys,” Jeffrey called as he approached them. “You have a place for this in the back room?”

  Same question every time, a comforting formality for everyone.

  “Sure thing. You know the way by now.”

  Jeffrey walked past the bank of elevators to a steel door at the rear of the building and twisted the knob, then set his bicycle against the nearest wall and tossed his helmet on the seat. The bicycle thing had started as a concession to the girl he’d been dating a few years back, who had been all about the environment and sustainability and green living. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, and it always made him smile when he thought about how the bike had lasted a lot longer than the relationship.

  The trip to the fourteenth floor was fast – there still weren’t many workers arriving, it being a good forty minutes before business hours. Jeffrey stepped out of the elevator and strode down the marble-floored hall to the suite of offices leased by his employer of five years: Michelson, Roth, and Loaming, attorneys at law, where he was one of thirty associates working long hours for too little money. He ducked into the bathroom, shrugged his backpack off, and set about making himself presentable. Khaki trousers, a blue oxford button-up shirt, burgundy loafers to match his belt. Gone were the days of gray pinstripes, at least in these offices – most of the clients he met with were either high net worth captains of industry or Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, neither of whom favored formality. The senior partners still trotted out vested suits and somber dispositions, but that was all show, he knew, to give the firm an air of gravitas whenever a new prospect showed up looking for representation.

  The firm dealt in intellectual property, contract law, real estate, and Jeffrey’s niche, asset protection, which usually amounted to structuring things so obscenely wealthy clients didn’t have to pay taxes. It hadn’t been his first choice of specialties, but he’d been convinced that it would be a lucrative direction after two years working a contract law desk at another firm, and had dived into the discipline with enthusiasm when he’d gotten a whiff of the money to be made doing it right.

  Which he was still waiting to see manifest in any real way. Unfortunately, even with his annual bonus, his hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year income didn’t go a long way in San Francisco, and unless he made partner at some point, or went into private practice and risked it all trying to build a book of business, he was just another overworked stiff putting in very long hours to make others rich.

  Studying himself in the mirror, he ran a brush through his dark brown hair and then slipped it back into his backpack along with his riding togs. At least he wasn’t running to fat – the riding more than ensured that even though he was chained to a desk most of his life, he used up more than he took in. That wasn’t the case for the other attorneys in their late twenties he knew. A sedentary lifestyle and no time for exercise had already worked its magic on many of his peers, and the doughy look of the well-fed and soft was the norm, as was a future of heart disease and obesity that he was hoping to avoid. He took another look at his strong cheekbones and hazel eyes and noted the slight discoloration beneath them – it had been an endless month with a heavy workload, and his normal hours now ran twelve per day at the minimum, six days a week.

  The bathroom door swung open and another young man stepped in, taking in Jeffrey before he moved to a stall.

  “Hey, cowboy, good morning. You trying to save a few bucks on gas again?” the newcomer asked in a mocking tone.

  “Bill, you should know better. It’s not the gas, it’s the frigging parking. Thirty bucks a day. Who’s got that kind of mad loot to throw around?” Jeffrey quipped, finishing his inspection.

  “One day, my boy, one day,” Bill replied. Jeffrey was all of a year younger, but Bill looked to be a decade further down the road, courtesy of too many working dinners with clients. Bill was one of the M&A group, which as far as Jeffrey could tell spent as much of its time eating and drinking with clients on their tab as doing actual work.

  The toilet flushed and Bill went to the sinks and rinsed his hands, studying his crisp white shirt and dark gray slacks, then allowed his eyes to drift over to where Jeffrey was finishing with his bag.

  “What have you got going for lunch today?” he asked.

  “Same as ever. Chinese take-out at my desk. I’m still buried. It never stops.”

  “Too bad. I’ve got a meeting with some fat cat clients and you could come along. They could probably use some asset strategies.”

  “Let me take a rain check. Feel them out, and if they’re serious, I’ll make time. But if I go with you, I’m just going to h
ave to stay two hours later to make up for the time I lose.”

  Bill shook his head. “Suit yourself. Shrimp cocktails, lobster Thermidor…Mmm.”

  “Eat an extra one for me.”

  Jeffrey made his way to his small office and dropped the backpack into a corner before confronting the heaping mound of documents on his desk. It seemed to grow overnight, papers multiplying like paper bunnies, and he groaned before squaring his shoulders and turning, reluctant to start the day before grabbing a mug of coffee. Work could wait a few more minutes – he needed to rehydrate and get some caffeine in him so he could think clearly.

  In the break room, Jeffrey made small talk with one of the paralegals, Samantha, as the coffee brewed. Jeffrey didn’t typically mingle with his coworkers – not due to any elitism on his part, but rather because his mind was always on other things, and he just couldn’t see the point of being chatty. Samantha prattled on about what a handful her eight-year-old was, and he felt himself tuning out, as if sucked into the depths of a long tunnel where the break room was a dot at the far end. He exhaled with a palpable sense of relief when the machine was done spewing forth its brew, and waited for Samantha to pour herself a cup and leave before attending to his own.

  Back in his office he sat behind his generic desk and peered at his flat-screen monitor, checking his messages for anything urgent. The usual invitations to seminars and requests for clarification clogged his inbox, but his attention was drawn to one from Cindy Lower, his ex-girlfriend – another casualty of his long hours, demanding schedule, and the general apathy they created. He clicked it open and read the terse, one-sentence message advising him that she’d slipped his key beneath his apartment door half an hour ago, and wishing him a nice life.

  Short and sweet, that was Cindy’s way. Another attorney he’d met at one of the neighborhood watering holes, they’d gotten along well enough, but she’d really wanted someone who didn’t have as many demands as he did. Attorney-attorney relationships rarely worked, and theirs had been no different. Things had gradually grown more distant over the past four months until it was obvious to them both that it was time to move on. Jeffrey had mixed feelings about that, but when all was said and done he wasn’t heartbroken – they’d shared some laughs, given it a try, and discovered that it wasn’t meant to be. Their parting last week had been civil – some might say passionless – as only the conclusion of discussions between two lawyers could be, and in his mind he’d already begun to move on. He was quite sure she had; Cindy wasn’t one to let time slip by without her agendas being met.

  He typed a single word response – Thanks – and went through the rest of his mail, pausing to read a few attachments dealing with jurisdictional issues and IRS bulletins on the use of non-grantor trusts. That part of his morning ritual concluded, he was just digging into the pile of contracts in front of him when his intercom buzzed at him like an angry hornet. Jeffrey stabbed the line on and leaned forward.

  “Mr. Rutherford, I have a woman on two who is asking to speak to you.”

  “A woman? Who is it?”

  “Rebecca Simms.”

  Jeffrey racked his brain, the name vaguely familiar, but it elicited no immediate connection with a face. He eyed his three-quarters-empty coffee cup and debated whether he could leave whoever this was on hold for a few minutes while he replenished it, and then thought better of keeping a potential client waiting.

  “Sure. Put her through.”

  He pressed the blinking button for the held call. “Jeffrey Rutherford,” he said in his best professional adult voice, always feeling like a fraud when he used it.

  “Jeffrey? It’s Becky.”

  He blinked as the name registered. It was his brother’s girlfriend of now…was it three years? Could it have been that long? He’d spent a week with them on his last trip to D.C., where they both lived, and an image of a perky woman of diminutive stature with freckles drizzled across her cheeks sprang to mind.

  “Becky! Sorry I didn’t put two and two together on the Rebecca Simms thing. To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked with sheepish jocularity.

  “I guess nobody got in touch with you…” she said, her voice tight.

  “In touch with me? About what?”

  “I…I wanted you to hear it from me first, and not see it on the news,” she started, and then trailed off.

  A tickle of apprehension played in Jeffrey’s stomach. “What’s wrong, Becky? It’s Keith, isn’t it? Is he okay? Was he in an accident?” Jeffrey demanded.

  “Yes. I mean…no, he’s not okay, and yes, he was in an accident…” Becky’s voice cracked on the last word, and Jeffrey’s anxiety went five-alarm, dreading what was to come.

  “What?” he said, standing, suddenly uncomfortable sitting down. “What happened?”

  “He…he was on a plane. You probably saw the news already. It was the one that disappeared yesterday. Out of JFK.”

  His chest felt like someone was tightening a steel band around it, constricting his ability to breathe. “No, I didn’t see anything…”

  “It blew up minutes after takeoff, Jeff. No survivors. They’re all dead, Jeff. Everyone’s…dead. Keith’s–”

  The clatter of the handset against the glass protective desktop was as loud as a rifle shot in the small room.

  THREE

  The Italian

  Rome, Italy

  Antonio Carvelli read the paper as he sipped his postprandial espresso at the sidewalk café on the bustling viale Regina Margherita where he religiously retired after his exhausting lunch, taking in the young female students with an appreciative eye over the top of the day’s newspaper. Pigeons dodged the hurrying pedestrians with typical Italian fearlessness, much as jaywalkers made a sport of being narrowly missed by racing traffic on the boulevards.

  Two stunning brunettes clad in pants as tight as second skins meandered by, their rapid-fire discussion lost to him as a delivery truck ground its gears, the diesel engine roaring as the hapless driver struggled to find third. One of the pair’s gaze darted at his position, catching his look, and smiled in a way that clearly indicated that he had not a chance in hell of ever seeing anything more of her.

  Carvelli sighed and returned to his reading, his study of the local fauna concluded, at least for a time. He’d read the long article on the jet crash in the United States, noteworthy in Italy primarily because nineteen Italian tourists had been lost, and then moved to lighter fare, skimming over a long editorial parsing the finer points of some proposed immigration legislation as he digested his meal. The stance of the author was clearly anti-Muslim, voicing the popular opinion that immigrants should be free to do as they liked, as long as they conformed to the local norms and didn’t try to convert Saint Paul’s into a mosque or force everyone to wear veils.

  Two more pages, and he was confronted with the bare upper torso of an aspiring starlet rumored to be the companion of a top government minister – not necessarily a scandal, even though he was married, because, well, look at her. It was freely understood that men were only human and could be ensnared every time if tempted with succulent flesh, especially if accompanied by alcohol. The minister had of course denied everything, which was obligatory, but nobody believed him, and the corners of Carvelli’s mouth tugged upward into a small smirk as he studied her profile. He knew the man in question, and if he could muster the energy to take that on, more power to him.

  The waiter returned, seeing that Carvelli’s cup was empty, and placed the check on the table as he cleared it, as was his custom with the professor. Carvelli folded his paper, stood, and fished in the pocket of his immaculately tailored navy gabardine slacks to extract a wad of bills. After leafing through them, he left a generous tip. His time for introspection over, he proceeded down the sidewalk, back to his office on the campus of La Sapienza, Università di Roma, where he’d been a professor as well as a research scientist for the last three decades.

  A stiff breeze tousled his thinning, graying hair, worn lon
g. He donned a pair of sunglasses as he walked, traffic streaming by, everyone in a hurry, on Roman time, where the lifestyle was to rush madly. But it was a lifestyle he was accustomed to, and which he wouldn’t have traded for anything – it kept him alive, feeling young and vital, even as fifty disappeared in his rear view mirror and sixty became an ominous immediacy rather than a distant destination.

  Twice divorced, he kept a small apartment near the university where he spent the week before retiring to his family’s country estate on weekends, usually with a young conquest in tow. He knew he was a stereotype, the lecherous academic who was only too willing to participate in the experimental phases of his students’ educations, but he didn’t care. Life was short, and after two failed attempts to understand the insanity of his mates, he was now a confirmed bachelor, and happier for it. His peers could snigger all they liked – he had no complaints, and only wished he’d gone down that road a decade earlier.

  Carvelli turned the corner and glanced up at the front gates of the university grounds – his second home, where he’d spent most of his adult life after a brief period in the private sector, which hadn’t suited his temperament. He’d inherited a fair amount of money when his parents passed on; he was one of three siblings, all legatees to a dynastic fortune of no small proportions, so he didn’t have the innate drive to climb a corporate ladder in pursuit of filthy lucre. The only thing that had ever interested him was the research side of his work, and developing a better arthritis salve hadn’t been his cup of tea, no matter what the pay.

  As head of his department, most of his time was spent in the lab, which was as it should be. His career was punctuated by frequent publication of his abstracts and periodic books, all in his areas of specialty – epidemiology and virology. His latest had been a local hit, tracing the history of malaria and the more interesting story of the companies that had fought to develop anti-malarial drugs, only to see their innovations squashed by larger competitors who didn’t want a cure cutting off their revenue from lucrative treatment patents.