Free The Green Gyre by Saul Tanpepper Page B

strength was managing the mundane details. He was really good at it.
    The point was, if Adam couldn’t sympathize with his old buddy’s situation, nobody would.
    The deal had promised to net Mark’s nascent waste disposal company a minimum infusion of seventy million dollars, and it came with surprisingly few conditions. Granted, he would’ve had to give up a small percentage of the ownership — a token amount of control, really — but it was well worth the sacrifice considering the return it would bring. That was the nature of speculative enterprise, especially where the environment was concerned. And just think of the government contracts!
    He’d been so confident in his ability to broker the deal that he’d leveraged everything he had on it over the past year: his entire fortune, a mortgage on a four-million-dollar condo in the Upper East Side, a marriage barely out of the starter’s gate, his reputation.
    “I’ve got a dozen employees who haven’t seen a paycheck in months!”
    “I know, Mark,” Adam said, placatingly. “I know.” Of course he did, he was one of those employees— not twelve, actually, but twenty-two now, plus the half-dozen barge crews they’d recently signed. He lived in a tiny apartment in an older neighborhood in Union City, drove an eight-year-old Prius to a garishly decorated (in his opinion) office in the North Bay overlooking the Oakland shipyards. Mark had given him a fancy company phone, but Adam always felt self-conscious using it. On the other hand, his own personal phone — the one he was white-knuckling while a pack of leather-clad motorcyclists split lanes past him at a breakneck, eardrum-piercing pace — was on its third contract extension; it was a modest flip model whose battery barely held any charge anymore, yet, at this moment, stubbornly refused to die on him. So, yeah, he knew what Mark was saying.
    “I want her head!” Mark screamed. “This bleeping Auntie Dote!” It had all slipped away while he slept, right through his fingers like so much water, leaving him with the maddening urge — the need  — to throttle someone. “Get me the bleeping writer’s name. I want to know who the bleep her source is! Get me the bleep bleeping blog-owner too, while you’re at it! Get me—”
    He stopped at the top of the bridge, suddenly aware of the odd shadow preceding him down the walkway, staining the world like an undrinkable claret stains a tablecloth. The leading edge was racing away into the depths of Central Park, engulfing walkways, ponds, and trees in its wake. The world had fallen into a premature twilight, strange, golden, and shadowless. He lifted his eyes and—
    “Jesus Christ!”
    Ducking, he stumbled but managed to catch himself against the low stone wall of the bridge, his knees buckling beneath him from shock and his teeth clacking together. Blood flooded into his mouth; he didn’t even notice he’d bitten his tongue.
    “Sorry?” Adam tried but failed to keep the weariness from his voice. “I got you on speaker, Mark, and didn’t quite catch that last bit. Did you say ‘Get Jesus?’ I don’t think he’s in my contacts.” He laughed uneasily.
    But the phone in Mark’s hand was forgotten and so was Adam on the other end of the call. Everything in that moment was forgotten, and not just the park and the people but now his anger over the blown deal and the sharp clot of pain inside his mouth. Everything melted away the instant he’d seen the ship.
    An insane thought raced through his mind and, just as quickly, was gone: They’re closing the lid, locking us in .
    He crouched, mouth agape, his hand stuck to his ear as if glued there. The strap of his satchel slipped from his shoulder to his elbow. The bag — and the expensive computer inside of it — slammed into the cement with a muffled crack! He didn’t notice this either. He’d lost all sensation, all motor control. Indeed, he might have emptied his bladder right there on the