standing beside her waiting for an answer to his question.
It occurred to Cindy that perhaps she could manage both.
She smiled at Derek Eden. "Tell me again. What was it you said?"
"I said it was noisy in here."
"Yes, it is."
"I wondered if we might skip the dinner and go somewhere quieter."
Cindy could have laughed aloud. Instead, she nodded. "All right."
She glanced around at the other hosts and guests of the Archidona Children's Relief Fund press party. The photographers had stopped taking pictures; so there was really no point in staying any longer. She could slip out quietly, and not be noticed.
Derek Eden asked, "Do you have a car here, Cindy?"
"No, do you?" Because of the weather, Cindy had come in a taxi.
"Yes."
"All right," she said, "I won't leave here with you. But if you're waiting in your car, outside, I'll come through the main doors in fifteen minutes."
"Better make it twenty minutes. I'll need to make a couple of phone calls."
"Very well."
"Do you have any preference? I mean where we'll go?"
"That's entirely up to you."
He hesitated, then said, "Would you like dinner first?"
She thought amusedly: the "first" was a message---to make quite sure she understood what she was getting into.
"No," Cindy said. "I haven't time. I have to be somewhere else later."
She saw Derek Eden's eyes glance down, then return to her face. She sensed the intake of his breath, and had the impression that he was marveling at his own good fortune. "You're the greatest," he said. "I'll only believe my good luck when you come out through those doors."
With that, he turned away and slipped quietly from the La Salle Salon. A quarter of an hour later, unnoticed, Cindy followed him.
She collected her coat and, as she left the Lake Michigan Inn, drew it closely around her. Outside it was still snowing, and an icy, shrieking wind swept across the open spaces of the Lakeshore and the Outer Drive. The weather made Cindy remember the airport. A few minutes ago she had made a firm resolve: she would still go there, later tonight; but it was early yet---not quite half-past nine---and there was plenty of time---for everything.
A porter forsook the shelter of the Inn doorway and touched his hat. "Taxi, ma'am?"
"I don't think so."
At that moment the lights of a car in the parking lot came on. It moved forward, skidding once on the loose snow, then came toward the door where Cindy was waiting. The car was a Chevrolet, several models old. She could see Derek Eden at the wheel.
The porter held the car door open and Cindy got in. As the door slammed closed, Derek Eden said, "Sorry about the car being cold. I had to call the paper, then make some arrangements for us. I got here just ahead of you."
Cindy shivered, and pulled her coat even tighter. "Wherever we're going, I hope it's warm."
Derek Eden reached across and took her hand. Since the hand was resting on her knee, he held that too. Briefly she felt his fingers move, then he returned his hand to the wheel. He said softly, "You'll be warm. I promise."
PART TWO Chapter Seven
FORTY-FIVE MINUTES before its scheduled departure time of 10 P.M., Trans America Airline Flight Two - The Golden Argosy, Captain Vernon Demerest commanding---was in the final stages of preparation for its five-thousand-mile, non-stop journey to Rome.
General preparations for the flight had been under way for months and weeks and days. Others, more immediate, had continued for the past twenty-four hours.
An airline flight from any major terminal is, in effect, like a river joining the sea. Before it reaches the sea, a river is fed by tributaries, originating far back in time and distance, each tributary joined along its length by others, either greater or smaller. At length, at the river's mouth, the river itself is the sum of everything which flowed into it. Translated into aviation terms, the river at the sea is an airliner at its moment of takeoff.
The aircraft for Flight Two was a Boeing 707-320B Intercontinental Jetliner, registered number N-731-TA. It was powered by four Pratt & Whitney turbofan jet engines, providing a cruising speed of six hundred and five miles per hour. The aircraft's range, at maximum weight, was six thousand miles, or the straight line distance from Iceland to Hong Kong. It carried a hundred and ninety-nine passengers and twenty-five thousand U.S. gallons of fuel---enough to fill a good-size swimming pool. The aircraft's cost to Trans America Airlines was six and a half