The pinnacle is a lonely
place.
Who will take the mission and do right?
Who knows what 'right' is?
Who can cross a sea of failures and win?
I woke 'early' that morning. The sun stood high. No trace of the storm remained. Looking at the ocean from Ross' balcony, everything seemed normal, peaceful, and serene. The cruise missile episode appeared like one of those dreams that come in the night and are quickly forgotten, the kind that one leaves behind when the new day dawns. The tragic episode seemed to have this kind of unreal quality. It had suddenly ended and given way to the real world. It was a warm, clear morning. The sun shone brightly. A perfect calm lay upon the water. And more dreamlike than that, had been to find Heather at my side when I woke.
We were the first ones up. She had joined me moments later on the balcony.
"Is this real?" I asked. I squinted at the sunlight,
She just smiled and nodded.
I went inside and started the coffee kettle as a diversion, hoping for a chance to sort out my thinking. But without avail. To my delight, she had followed me to the kitchen. With nothing more to do there we went back to 'bed' for a quick cuddle on the camping mat on the living room floor, that I had been sleeping on, waiting for the others to wake up.
"I'm terribly sorry for leaving you that day," said Heather.
"Nonsense!" I replied softly. "You might have saved our lives. I admire your sensitivity to what had been required under the situation back then. It is I, who should apologize!"
She put a hand over my mouth. "Don't apologize!"
We lay there for a while, silently, smiling at each other. I remembered the times we had spent together like this in the mornings, those precious times.
"Did Ross tell you that we are going to be married soon?" she broke the silence. "And then we are going to have a baby."
"Hey that's great news! And no, Ross didn't say anything about that."
"You guys saved the world just for my child," she said and grinned, "and you didn't even know."
"Not me," I said, "it was you who had saved the world."
"No, you did that," she repeated. "You got Ross' attention onto the fishing boat."
"Yes, but it was only because you and Sylvia were talking about me. I wanted to stop that."
"You heard everything?"
I nodded.
"You scoundrel!"
We developed an argument over this incidence that turned into a pillow fight that woke everyone else up.
Since Ross had only one double bed that he let Sylvia use, and only one chesterfield on which he slept himself, it was camping style for the rest of us. Heather and I had chosen to camp in the middle of the living room, while Tony had preferred to sleep on the balcony.
"Did you notice how jumpy Ross was last night?" said Heather. At this point we were surveying the world once more from the balcony with our coffees in hand. "He is already behaving a bit like a prospective father," she added.
I didn't really have time to answer. I noticed a helicopter approaching from the sea. It touched down on the beach. A man with a baseball cap got off, wearing a bright red jacket. In the view of the binoculars the man looked remarkably like Fred, my boss, Ferdinand Constantine. Yes, I soon realized that it was Fred all right.
"Hi Pete," he called out to us as he arrived at the top of the trail to Ross' place. He didn't seem surprised to see me. Obviously, he knew where he could find us. He had been the first to know about the wonderful place that we had bought. He came straight to the balcony where everyone was, enjoying the morning coffee.
