And horsey. Even a billionaire could be good at horsey.
Watching her caused a smile to crack the set expression that usually dominated his visage. He waved. She waved back and turned toward Emily on her left. Both giggled anew. Then Alyssa sprang up with a blanket over her head and all three girls dropped out of sight.
Settling back in his seat, he returned to his work. He wondered what it must be like to be that young, that innocent, that ten. He didn’t remember. He didn’t remember much of anything, really, before being found by traders from the Vanavara trading post. Half dead from starvation, half frozen from the Siberian cold, he had been nursed back to health by the locals, his name found in a hand-scrawled slip of paper in his pocket.
In his delirium he had babbled in a strange language. Or perhaps several. His deeply religious rescuers believed that he had been speaking tongues.
Whatever he had been speaking, in the course of his gradual convalescence he had demonstrated a remarkable facility for languages, rapidly acquiring Russian, Mandarin, and lastly English. Since he was obviously neither Russian nor Chinese, the local authorities presumed he had somehow wandered into their territory from the nearby District of Alaska. A lost hunter perhaps, or an overly ambitious gold prospector from Nome.
Returned home by ship to Ketchikan and then sent down to Seattle, it was assumed that like so many prospectors the benumbed stranger had lost everything.
He spent some time recovering in a veteran’s hospice with a spare cot, then worked for food and board by sweeping streets.
Marveling one day at one of the new adding machines that held pride of place in the administration office where he redeemed his vouchers, he was drawn to the round keys and ink ribbon that replaced so much manual accounting drudgery. People called it a computer. He called it a wonder, and went to work for the American Arithmometer Corporation, the company that manufactured it, later called Burroughs1.
Decades of time, hard work, and a piercing brilliance led him from the sales room to the Boardroom, eventually becoming head of a division, and then CEO of its 1986 high-tech spin-off, Burroughs Labs.
Though he had acquired money, power, and the notoriety that came with both, still he felt unfulfilled. Something was missing.
Something significant. Something of great importance. Something of himself.
He’d met Jade in the summer of 1989. Beautiful, intelligent, and most important of all unquestioning, she had given him happiness.
And Paige.
If only her mother had lived to see what a startlingly bright, vivacious child their girl had become. But their joy proved too brief. Jade was taken from them in childbirth, and he had been plunged again into darkness.
His daughter was a flickering ember of the light that once was, and as Paige grew, her father found solace and purpose as her provider, protector, and teacher.
But though she gave Raef Eisman a lightness, she could not bring him light. Deep in his soul were secrets, told only to Jade, that he was no closer to unlocking.
For example, how he continued to look and feel not a day over fifty when by his own account he must be at least one hundred and twenty.
His ‘great uncle’ was the one who had taken the job at Burroughs in Detroit. It was his ‘father’ who had risen to the crest of the company. And it was the ‘son’ who now sat as Chairman of the Board of Burroughs Labs. All the same man, a clever century-old ruse to forestall questions.
It had worked well, as had most everything he had tried in four generations as he built his assets and made astute investments in property, stocks, and people. Live long enough and you see patterns repeat, the law of averages, the purity of numbers. With the foresight that experience brings, fortune was almost a certainty, even if it seemed at times like he got whatever he wanted, just for saying it out loud . . .
Ten years from now he would have to set the stage for his next heir to help up the corporate ladder. Maybe a distant ‘nephew’ for it was known that Raef had no son, and the industrial military complex was not his choice for Paige. Some day he would find an explanation for the mystery of his ongoing youth. Some day he might even find out how he had come to be stumbling around Siberia in 1908. Some day.
But today he was on a plane to Sydney with his little girl, and tomorrow there were important meetings to be had at Burroughs’ Oceania office.
He turned back to his sheaves of work.
It was a single bolt that struck the plane.
All the lights went out and screams filled the darkness as a flash of blue efflorescence rippled through the inside of the cabin in an instant. As the big jumbo dropped a couple of hundred feet and oxygen masks unfurled from their hidden overhead compartments, panicked screams rose anew.
More stoic than most, even Eisman clutched at the armrests of his seat. As soon as the plane steadied from its violent shaking, interior lights snapped on. He blew a sigh of relief and immediately turned to the rear of the cabin. Stewards trying to right a crashed drinks cart blocked his view of Paige’s row, and he ignored their cries to put on his seatbelt as he tried to push past them.
The slight strain in the Captain’s voice as it reverberated over the intercom system was understandable.
“Sorry about that, folks. Something to tell your friends about when we arrive in Sydney. We have clear skies ahead, the storm is now behind us and as soon as we get the cabin back in order I’m sure there will be a run on beverages, so please be patient as we fill your orders.”
Relieved sighs and nervous tittering sounded from various corners of the plane. A good executive, Eisman reflected. Someone he wouldn’t mind having on his staff at Burroughs.
Still blocked in the aisle, Raef saw that the metal drinks cart had slammed hard into the rear of one of the passenger pods. It actually appeared to be steaming and fused into the plastic, though that was clearly impossible.
Impatient with a delay of mere seconds when it prevented him checking on his girl, he doubled back and made better progress up the opposite aisle.
“Paige?”
No response. He raised his voice.
“Paige.” Still nothing. Had she slipped out of her seat belt? Given the speed and severity of the drop, she could have slammed into the overhead bins. The closer he got to the rear of First, the more uneasy he became.
Hopes of seeing Paige and her new friends leap up from behind the last row to laugh and make faces at him faded swiftly as he neared the rear curtain. It was too quiet. Had all three of them been hurt and if so, how seriously?
“Paige, are you and your friends all ri—?”
The last word caught in his throat. He couldn’t tell if his daughter was all right or not.
Because she wasn’t there.
Neither were the other two young travelers, Emily and Alyssa. Like trail markers, open packages of candy and chips showed where they had been sitting. But of the girls themselves there was no sign. He frowned and looked around sharply.
“All right, Paige, ladies. Enough. Come on out from wherever you’re hiding.” Little girls and their games, he thought. His irritation increased as he commenced a search of First Class, checking under seats and behind rows as well as in front of them.
The bathrooms, he told himself. They had retreated, fled, or simply rushed to use the bathroom. That made sense. Both lavatories were in use. He waited patiently. But as adults emerged from each one his irritation grew. Maybe the girls had left First and gone back into the Business Class section. The most likely area was the upper deck. Climbing stairs inside a plane was still a novelty for children.
But they weren’t upstairs, either.
Paige had flown with him often enough to know better than to take off her seat belt and run around a plane while the Fasten sign was still illuminated. Maybe she or one of her friends had needed to use the bathroom real bad, and with both of the lavatories in First occupied they might have rushed aft no matter what the seat belt sign said. Muttering to himself, he returned to their row to
await their return.
It was then that he saw it, almost hidden under a mess of scribbles and papers on their seats. Paige’s bronze and gold amulet. The one she never took off. It lay on the leather seat without the gold strand that normally looped through it, and without the girl it was ever attached to.
He picked it up, warm to the touch, then rang for the attendant.
“Where are my daughter and her friends?”
The stewardess blinked as she met the passenger’s gaze. Looking at the empty seats she replied: “Everyone was belted in for the storm.” She smiled professionally. “Kids that age are full of pent up energy. Probably running it off somewhere in back.”
He didn’t smile. “I’ve looked there already, and upstairs. What about the parents of the dark-haired girl, Emily? Check with them—and find all three girls right now.”
“Yes sir.” The attendant bustled away while Raef made another sweep of the economy cabin from fore to aft.
When the stewardess found him twenty minutes later it was with the head steward and the father of the other girl in tow. That was not encouraging, Eisman thought. They were accompanied by the co-pilot. That was downright ominous. Eisman’s gaze swept them all. They wore a unified look of unease. It was left to the steward to step forward.
“Sir . . . Mr. Eisman. We . . . we can’t find your daughter. Or the other two girls.” The other father was pale and agitated, eyes wide with concern.
Eisman’s voice was as cold as the air outside the plane. “What do you mean, you can’t find them?”
The steward wished to be anywhere else in the world but on that particular flight at that particular moment.
“We’ve checked every seat, both over and under. I had the crew make a full search of the plane. We checked everywhere, every possible hiding place in case the girls were playing a game. Under seats, every luggage compartment, every lavatory. We checked the crew sleeping quarters down in the tail, we even checked the empty serving carts in the galleys. On the unlikely possibility they somehow managed to access the cargo bay, the assistant steward and I put on masks and coats and went down there too. Of course we can’t check every piece of cargo while we’re in flight, but once we’ve landed we can . . .”
The co-pilot broke in. “I’ve already radioed Sydney, Mr. Eisman. A special medical team will be waiting on the ground as soon as we pull up to the gate. If the girls are somewhere in the belly . . .” He stopped, unwilling to go on. He didn’t have to. If Paige and her friends had become trapped in the cargo section of the plane they were unlikely to survive the remaining hours of cold and thin air. It was not impossible, but—
Raef headed back to the nosecone of the plane where he knew a hatch in the forward deck of First Class gave access to a small electronics bay, through which the cargo section could be accessed.
“I want to go down there. Now. I’ll look for myself. Give me a breathing mask.” Despite the circumstances he nearly smiled. “Cold doesn’t bother me.”
By the time AN888 arrived in Sydney he was exhausted from searching the cargo bay from one end to the other, pawing through stacks of luggage and forcing paths between pallets of commercial goods. Having to rotate personnel to accompany him, the crew could only marvel at his stamina in the biting cold and low pressure.
They had to all but force him back into his seat while the plane landed. Then it took three members of airport security to wrestle him bodily off the plane. He was crying and fighting the whole time. Curses and threats alternated with tears as he screamed his daughter’s name.
“Paige, Paige!”
His eyes blazed as he fought wildly with the police and airport personnel who now surrounded him. “Let go of me! I want that plane sealed. Sealed and taken apart rivet by rivet until she’s found!” His voice cracked. “I’ll fire everyone, you understand? Everyone! I’ll buy the goddamn airline! I’ll . . !”
Inconsolable and out of his head with grief, he was whisked by dark suited Burroughs Labs representatives to a private hospital on the harbor city’s North Shore. It took two days and a combination of sympathetic visitors and proper medication to calm him down. What remained was a smoldering determination.
The duty nurse who entered the room on the third morning expected to encounter a convalescing patient. She was shocked to discover him standing by the window, dressed complete to tie and hand-made shoes. Holding a phone to his ear, he turned to acknowledge her presence.
“Mr. Eisman—sir—you’re supposed to be in bed. The doctor—”
“Tell the doctor to attend to sick people. This is a hospital; I’m sure there are plenty of them. I’ll be checking myself out shortly.”
“Checking your— Sir, you can’t. Only a senior member of staff can authorize that.”
A thin smile creased the patient’s face. “Watch and learn.” As the stunned nurse retreated to find a superior, the billionaire’s connection came through.
“This is Raef Eisman. I need to speak to William Hills. Yes, I know what time it is in New York. Wake him up—we’re buying a healthcare company today.” He looked down at himself, reasonably pleased.
Hospital garb had never suited him.
1 Search “Burroughs” at the Center for the History of Information Technology in the Charles Babbage Institute: http://www.cbi.umn.edu. Or Google “Burroughs” and “Computing” in Image view for other archival material. In 2010 Burroughs Labs was annexed by a special arm of the military to ‘specialize in the development of new technologies in the interest of national security’ (FOI-DGML1009A-C78). Divisions of non-military interest were sold by private treaty in 2010.
THE SPACES BETWEEN
FEDERATED STATES OF MICRONESIA
DECEMBER, 2001
THEY HELD AN empty-casket funeral for the other two girls. But Raef Eisman did not attend, nor did he respond to the offers to share the ceremony from the other mourning, bewildered parents. Because while he grieved over Paige’s disappearance, he was far from ready to surrender her to the past tense. Others bade their goodbyes to those presumed dead and gone. Paige was merely—gone.
It was left to Hills to console the head of Burroughs Labs and coax him from his despair. Depression and obsession is what other members of the Board called it. The junior seats and advisors said nothing, of course. They were too polite to do so. Too understanding. And too terrified of Raef Eisman’s wrath to paint a target on themselves. But Hills . . . if anyone could bring back the perceptive, indomitable, decision-making chairman of the board, it was his closest confident William Hills. He had to do it. For the sake of the company, for his own wellbeing, for the good of the shareholders. The company had a reputation to maintain.
Not to mention its stock price.
Raef Eisman’s Manhattan corner office was large, clean, and functional; one of several maintained in the different countries he frequented. The view outside the two glass walls was sweeping, from the Empire State Building to the Hudson.
Visitors were always understandably distracted. Eisman was not. Like the rest of his office, the work on his desk was laid out with mathematical precision. Or as he had put it more than once, “Function follows form.”
Having been summoned, Hills stood quietly before his boss and friend, waiting for Eisman to finish perusing the short-form contract that represented Burroughs Labs’ latest deal with a foreign military.
Tall and slender, older than Eisman, he could still keep up with the younger man on the racquetball court or in a lap pool. Military service followed by freelance security work in Africa had instilled in Hills the need to maintain strength in body as well as mind.
Eisman trusted him completely, even letting him teach Paige the rudiments of taekwondo. The girl would have been ready to test for the next belt, Hills thought, if . . . if only . . .
“Sir? You wanted to see me?”
Eisman’s tone as he spoke indicated that even though he had not acknowledged Hills’ arrival, he was perfectly aware of the other man’s presence.
>
“Yes, Bill.” He did not look up from his work. Eisman’s ability to focus and work on multiple tasks simultaneously was a source of unending astonishment to allies and competitors alike. “I’m going to file a class action suit against Ansett over these disappearances. Cut off all their political support from banks and governments. They’ll be out of business by next Easter if I have my way.”2
“Sir,” Hills’ tone was gentle. “Raef, it’s been nearly six months. There’s no sign of the missing and—”
“The families of the others are already on-side, especially those of the two stewards the airline denied were ever on that flight and who disappeared along with the girls. Don’t try to talk me out of this, Bill. The airline is stonewalling, has been from the beginning. Such abrogation of responsibility, such deceit, it’s inexcusable. Worse that that, it’s criminal.”
His voice rose slightly. “They’re not going to get away with this. I’m not going to let them get away with this.”
Hills knew that steely tone. He’d known and worked with it for twenty years, the time he had served Eisman. He had been there for him when Eisman’s wife Jade had died in childbirth—indeed he had been at the hospital for Paige’s early birth and was the last of the two men to speak to Jade alive. He had been there through Raef’s ascent to the post of CEO following his father’s demise, and his decisions as a single parent raising Paige alone.
He was there for him then, and he was present for him now. Unlike others who saw only an abstract of the man through snatches of meetings and conferences, Hills was not intimidated by the gimlet-eyed Raef Eisman; scourge of company competition, canoodling politicians, and conspiring usurpers. But he was worried for him. Instead of fading in the aftermath of Paige’s disappearance, Eisman’s refusal to accept what others had long since dealt with had only intensified with time. And now this . . .
Echoes of Worlds Past Page 2