Hard Landing

There was no response.

"Ellen, listen to me. Don't think about what you're going to say to me next. Just listen. Are you listening?"

I was listening, and my knees felt weak, knowing what was coming next.

"I am in love with you, Ellen. I am hopelessly, desperately, pathetically in love with you, and I don't want to live my life without you in it. I'm not going to let anything happen to you, Ellen. Don't you know that?"

I turned off the tape.

My hands started to shake and tears streamed down my face. I had listened to that bit of tape over and over. There was nothing on that tape that I hadn't already heard. But listening to it with him, watching his face as he listened to himself deceiving Ellen, using the same line on her that he had used on me, was almost more than I could bear. Any expression, any reaction at all from him might have given me at least a seed of doubt, if that's what I'd wanted. But when he looked up at me, his face was stone. When he looked at me, I felt him measuring my resolve, wondering what it would take to get me to back down, and calculating his risk if I wouldn't. That was the moment when I knew that it was true-that it could be true. All of it.

"It was you," I said, backing away, taking one step, then another until I was up against the opposite wall, as far away from him as I could be in the cramped office. "You were Le

His only reaction was to look down and touch Ellen's note, brushing his fingertips across her words, thinking, perhaps, that he could make them disappear. A tiny smile formed on his lips. "Ellen always did have a flair for the dramatic."

I felt my body begin to collapse in on itself, felt the four walls disappear and the world drop away until it was just the two of us standing in a barren wasteland, barren as far as I could see. And I knew that I was looking at the life that I'd made for myself, and when I looked again, I was alone, desperately alone.

He walked over to the window and stood with his hands deep in his pockets, rocking up and down on the balls of his feet. "That must have been some storm last night. It had mostly blown itself out by the time we landed."

I watched him, stared at the side of his face as he squinted into the bright sun.

"Have you seen the video?" he asked, in a tone that can only be described as jaunty.

"Last night," I whispered, leaning against the wall for support. "I saw it last night."

"I've never seen it. I imagine that it is quite extraordinary. I suppose I'll see it now. Everyone will, won't they?"

When he turned toward me, the light was coming from behind him and I couldn't see his face, but his ma

It pissed me off.

"Why do you suppose she left it here that night?"

"Maybe she got smart and decided she didn't trust you after all."

"I have some ideas about that video," he said, "Would you like to hear them?"

"No." I pushed myself away from the wall and slowly made my way back to my desk. When I got there, I leaned over it, using both arms to support myself.

"What did you tell the authorities?" he asked quietly.

"I told them what I knew at the time."

"Which was what?"

"That on the night of March 15, 1995, Little Pete Dwyer worked Flight 1704 under the influence of alcohol, and his negligence caused that plane to go down. I told them that the incident had been recorded on a surveillance tape from begi

I stopped for a breath, but my lungs wouldn't fill. He was closer now and I could see his face, could almost see the wheels turning as he listened, sifting the facts, and pulling out what he needed.

"What else?"

"I told them that the money for these payoffs and others was embezzled from Majestic Airlines, that Le

I paused again as I remembered talking to the troopers just hours ago, how sure I had been about Ellen, how wrong I had been.

"She threatened Le

"This is why Le

"Le

"Did they believe you?"

"Why wouldn't they? I was very convincing."

"I'm sure you were. Is that all you're going to tell them?"

I plucked his travel schedule off the desk and held it up. "Are you asking me if I am going to tell them that it was not Le

His neck stiffened. "I never even met this Little Pete character."

"Of course not. That would be stupid, and we know that you're not stupid." I dropped the page back on the desk. "That's what Le

"It sounds rather elegant," he mused, "when you put it all together like that, clearly thought out."

"You're saying it wasn't?"

He regarded me with a wistful smile, looking disappointed that I might think ill of him. "Do you know how much the stock price has appreciated since I started ru

He slipped onto the corner of the desk and rested there, half standing, half sitting. He picked up a dish of paper clips and seemed to find it fascinating. "All this business here in Boston, none of it made any difference. Looking back, the Nor'easter deal was going to happen anyway. Le

He dropped the clip into the bowl, put the bowl on the desk, and went back to the window, where he stood with his arms crossed. "A strange thing happens when you operate for any length of time at this level and particularly if you achieve any measure of success, which I have. You start to feel that you can't do anything wrong, that whatever you do is right just because you want to do it." He turned slightly. "Silly, isn't it? And extravagantly arrogant. But you need to be to get where I am." He waited a beat, then came back to the desk and stood across from me. "I convinced myself that I was the only one who could save this company. And Nor'easter. At one time it wasn't clear that the contract would fail, and I thought it best not to risk it. What was a couple of hundred thousand dollars against all the jobs I saved? The tremendous wealth I created?"