Free Pinnacle Event by Richard A. Clarke Page A

moment, but at thirty-eight thousand feet, sipping the Dom, staring out the overly large window of the Dreamliner, he had let his prefrontal processor idle. He knew what would happen.
    When it started again, whatever his internal analytics would bring up first would be the most salient, the thing they had been chewing on while the part of his brain of which he was most fully aware had been thinking about the annoying rituals of the airports in Vienna and Doha.
    When they began to surface now for consideration, the thoughts came softly, as though he had always known that they were there, waiting in the queue to be fully recognized.
    Why, part of him asked, why did it have to be him, again?
    He had found the strength to run away and try a different life after all the deaths, on both sides, in the drone program. For a long time after Sandra’s death he woke in the middle of the night in a sweat, thinking that drone was going to fly into his window. That dream had stopped happening, thanks to Dr. Rosenthal and thanks to his new life.
    And that new life was pleasant. It was good for his body and good for his mind. He realized slowly what normal was like, realized how on edge his prior life had been. Sure, he was not contributing to anything, except perhaps raising the level of bar service at Skinny Legs, but why did you have to contribute to something? Most people just lived their lives, without any sense of obligation to do anything more than to be good to their family, their friends.
    Where had he gotten this crazy internal imperative that he had to contribute on a higher plain, make things better, or at least stop them from getting worse? Why did he think that he had to give purpose to his life when we were, after all, just a speck in a multiverse that no human had ever fully understood?
    He had been hiding in paradise, hiding from himself, from dealing with choices he did not want to confront openly. The central choice came down to this: Should he continue to do the work at which he was very good, in a business that was very bad, at least for its participants? It was work that had to be done, but it ate away at those who did it and left them unfulfilled, left some a hollowed-out shell, left others dead. And with some of the now dead, he had let himself develop a bond in life. He had decided that doing nothing, or close to it, was better. The sunsets and the sands, the beer and the books, the wine and the women could fill his day and most of the night.
    Yet he had taken the mission. Because it was an excuse to go back to it all? Because this was a mission, which, if it failed, would have consequences that would make life so much worse for so many? Because he believed, despite suppressing his arrogance, that he might really be the only one who could figure it out? But he was an analyst, that was his strength, and now he was once again in the field, alone and at a disadvantage in almost everything he did. Maybe Jefferson and Locke were more profound than he had given them credit for, arguing that the pursuit of happiness was a goal. Well, he had found some degree of happiness on the hill overlooking that sleepy Caribbean harbor, with Emily and Linda. He wondered if he could ever get that back.
    The sunset on the clouds was fading, even at altitude. It was night in Zanzibar, below, or was that just the name of a track from Thelonious Monk? The Dom was gone and now a new Bach Passion began to play.

 
    8
    THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20
    THE BAY HOTEL, CAMPS BAY
    CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA
    â€œMy name is Cammil,” the bartender began. “You look like you have had a long day.” The small Traders bar was empty, but a welcoming fire was lit in the fireplace, despite the fact that the air conditioning was on.
    Having been until recently a bartender himself, Raymond Bowman felt suddenly at home with Cammil’s greeting, even though he had never been to South Africa before. “Yeah, long flight. Just checked in to the hotel.