necessary steps of the process.
And finally!
We can resolve all of the questions we have faced and go on with our lives, unconcerned about fate, because we have dominated the enigma that sought to muddle our future.
This, then, is a tale that takes into consideration all of these factors and attempts to overcome each as it arises. It is about character. It is about strength. It is about doubt. It is also about vindictiveness and callous misadventure. Mostly, it is about human nature and the frailties that lie within each and every one of us, although we may not always comprehend all of their ramifications.
What is the underlying word that best describes it all?
Perhaps—
Fear!
Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till earth and sky stand presently at God’s great judgment seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!
—Rudyard Kipling
Chapter 1
Friday, October 18, 1974
I
This is a unique morning in the Wells household in suburban Riverwoods, although no day could truly be called typical for Phil and Jana, because every day has always had its own character. As they sit looking across the table at each other over breakfast, conversation has come to a brief halt, a rare event. It is not what it may appear to be to an outsider. There is no conflict. There is something else entirely at work here.
As Jana meets Phil’s intense gaze, there is nothing but love and admiration to be seen there. She is thinking how lucky she is to have him. Since their marriage nine years ago, everything has come up aces for them, both personally and in their business. As close as they were on their wedding day, that closeness has grown by geometric progression day by day. To look at him, you might think him to be plebian. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In reality, he goes much deeper than that. At five feet ten, with dark blond hair, he is no different from the average man on the street. His face is much like many others, handsome but not overwhelming. With a square jaw and sloping nose, he fits the profile of many others of Teutonic background. It is what’s inside him that breaks the mold. He is sharp as a tack when it comes to business, extremely considerate on an interpersonal level and can display lightning reactions.
While Jana continues to look silently at him, Phil is thinking on much the same track as he stares unflinchingly into her radiant eyes, but not about her physical beauty. She is everything that Phil is not. She is drop-dead gorgeous. She is five feet four inches tall, has shoulder-length lustrous raven hair, a button nose, big beautiful whiskey-brown eyes, and a figure that just won’t quit. On top of all of that, she can boast of an IQ that puts her right up with the Mensa crowd. He’s always been proud to show her off.
The business, PD Express, an air taxi service that Phil co-owns with his partner Don Swanson, has been almost too good lately. Since their early days, they have added many names to their regular client list, so many in fact that neither of them has been able to spend as much time at home as they would wish. As a charter pilot and aircraft wheeler-dealer, Phil is committed to too much time in the air.
Now he is contemplating the next two weeks when he will not be doing any flying at all. He and Jana have made plans to stay away from it all for those two weeks. She has been running the office for several years and knows almost as much about the operation as Phil or Don or their other pilots and mechanics. She could use a break as well.
What they have planned is not at all what you might expect. Since Jana was reunited with her father, Fritz Marsh, shortly after their nuptials, she has seen him many times but never for long enough at any one given time. Now she is going to spend the next two weeks with him at his home in Terre Haute. This will be her longest separation from Phil since they first met, but they both agree that it will be a nice change of pace for them. During that time, Phil will be off on an adventure that he always secretly coveted. Where he is going, there will be no phones, only a radio for emergencies. Many times over the years, he has flown his best client and sometimes benefactor, Jim Bellingham, to Jim’s cabin north of International Falls in Canada. He only does this in the winter months when they can land on a frozen lake nearby. After waving goodbye, Phil would head for home and leave Jim to do whatever it was that he did up there for the next few days, until either he or Don would fly back to pick him up. He always wondered what the fascination was to be there in the cold. Now he is going to try to find out. Not at Jim’s cabin but at a place even more remote. Through a connection with one of his other clients, he found out about a small loggers cabin on Fitzwilliam Island near the north extremity of Lake Huron on the Georgian Bay. The cabin is not used very often anymore. The island itself is not a place where anyone lives full-time. This makes it an ideal place to read, think, explore, and not do too much else.
Fitzwilliam is where Phil will be going. After he flies Jana to Terre Haute, he will return to Meadowwood Airport, the base of PD’s operations, where his BMW will be waiting for the drive up the shoreline of Lake Huron to Tobormory at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula. There, he will be picked up by a prearranged charter pilot for the short hop to the island. Of course, he will desperately miss Jana, but he can well imagine their reunion.
With breakfast finished, it is time for some last-minute doubts to surface.
“Are you sure we should do this, Phil?” asked Jana. “I didn’t think it was going to be so hard when we first talked about it, but I’m really going to ache for you for two whole weeks. Do you realize that we’ve never been separated for that long?”
“I know, princess. That part of it won’t be easy for me either, but this is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy your stay with Fritz. You never had much of a chance to spend any real quality time with him since Don found him for you nine years ago. Don’t worry. I’ll keep in touch until I get to the island. Even there, I’ll be able to reach you, at least indirectly, by radio. You know you’ll be in my thoughts all the while, especially since I’ll be alone through most of the time. Anyhow, we still have today to be together. I won’t just drop you in Indiana and run, you know. I want to see your dad too, at least for a few hours before I have to come back here.”
“You’re right,” admitted Jana. “Dad and I will be able to really talk for a change. I’d like to find out more about all those years we were apart, and I’m quite sure, so will he. You and I have the rest of our lives to spend together, but I don’t know how many more chances I’ll get to spend time with him. It’s a good plan, and I’m not about to back out.”
So it seems that while both of them still have some doubts, the matter is settled, once and for all. Their separate vacations will go off as planned, and they should both be better off for it in the overall scheme of things.
II
Hans West looks every bit the image of the sea captain that he is, tall and slender but with a physique that comes from hard work. Just two inches short of six and a half feet tall, he is a man you would not want to trifle with. Contrary to his appearance, he is a very gentle gentleman who makes friends with ease. At the same time, he wields firm control over his ship and the crew who sail it with him. He cuts quite a figure on the bridge with his nearly white blond hair, a short blond beard and his dark, dark ever-watchful eyes blazing toward the horizon.
