Dean Koontz - Cold Fire

Two hours into the flight, Jim still had no idea where he was expected to go when he got off the plane at O'Hare. He was not concerned about whoever, because he had learned to be patient.

The revelation always came, sooner or later.

Nothing in the airline's magazine was of interest to him, and the inflight movie sounded as if it were about as much fun as a vacation in a Soviet prison. The two seats to the right of him were empty, so he was not required to make nice with a stranger. He tilted his seat slightly, folded his hands on his stomach, closed his eyes, and passed the time-between the flight attendants' inquiries about his appetite and comfort-by brooding about the windmill dream, puzzling out what significance it had, if any.

That was what he tried to brood about, anyway. But for some curious reason, his mind wandered to Holly Thorne, the reporter.

Hell, now he was being disingenuous, because he knew perfectly well why she had been drifting in and out of his thoughts ever since he had met her. She was a treat for the eyes. She was intelligent, too; one look at her, and you knew about a million gears were spinning in her head, all meshing perfectly, well-oiled, quiet and productive.

And she had a sense of humor. He would give anything to share his days and his long, dream-troubled nights with a woman like that.

Laughter was usually a function of sharing-an observation, a joke, a moment. You didn't laugh a lot when you were always alone; and if you did, that probably meant you should make arrangements for a long stay in a resort with padded walls.

He had never been smooth with women, so he had often been without them.

And he had to admit, even before this recent strangeness had begun, he was sometimes difficult to live with. Not depressive exactly but too aware that death was life's companion. Too inclined to brood about the coming darkness. Too slow to seize the moment and succumb to pleasure.

If He opened his eyes and sat up straighter in his seat, because suddenly he received the revelation that he had been expecting. Or part of it, at least.

He still did not know what was going to happen in Chicago, but he knew the names of the people whose lives he was expected to save: Christine and Casey Dubrovek.

To his surprise, he realized they were on this plane with him-which led him to suspect that the trouble might come in the terminal at O'Hare, or at least soon after touchdown. Otherwise he would not have crossed their path so early. Usually, he encountered the people he saved only minutes before their lives were thrown into jeopardy.

Compelled by those forces that had been guiding him periodically since last May, he got up, headed to the front of the plane, crossed over to the starboard side, and started back that aisle. He had no idea what he was doing until he stopped at row twenty-two and looked down at the mother and child in seats H and I. The woman was in her late twenties; she had a sweet face, not beautiful but gentle and pretty. The child was five or six years old.

The woman looked up at him curiously, and Jim heard himself say "Mrs.

Dubrovek?" She blinked in surprise. "I'm sorry. do I know you?" "No, but Ed told me you were taking this flight and asked me to look you up." When he spoke that name, he knew Ed was her husband, though he had no idea where that knowledge had come from. He squatted down beside her seat and gave her his best smile. "I'm Steve Harkman.

Ed's in sales, I'm in advertising, so we drive each other nuts in about a dozen meetings a week.”

Christine Dubrovek's madonna face brightened. "Oh, yes, he's spoken about you. You only joined the company, what, a month ago?" "Six weeks now," Jim said, flowing with it, confident the right answers would pour out of him even if he didn't know what in the hell they were.

"And this must be Casey.”

The little girl was in the seat by the window. She raised her head shifting her attention from a pop-up storybook. "I'm gonna be six tomorrow, it's my birthday, and we're gonna visit grandpop and grandma They're real old, but they're nice.”

He laughed and said, "I'll bet they're sure proud to have a granddaughter cute as you.”

When Holly saw him coming along the starboard aisle, she was so startled that she almost popped out of her seat. At first she thought he was looking straight at her. She had the urge to start blurting out a confession "Yes, all right, I've been following you, checking up on you, invading your privacy with a vengeance"-even before he reached her. She knew precious few other reporters who would have felt guilty about probing into his life, but she couldn't seem to eliminate that streak of decency that had interfered with her career advancement ever since she'd gotten her journal ism degree. It almost wrecked everything for her again-until she realized he was looking not at her but at the brunette immediately in front of her Holly swallowed hard, and slid down a few inches in her seat instead of leaping up in a frenzy of confession. She picked up the airline's magazine which she'd previously discarded; slowly, deliberately she opened it to cover her face, afraid that too quick a move would draw his attention before she had concealed herself behind those glossy pages.

The magazine blocked her view of him, but she could hear everything he was saying and most of the woman's responses. She listened to him identify himself as Steve Harkman, a company ad executive, and wondered what his charade was all about.

She dared to tilt her head far enough to peek around the magazine with one eye. Ironheart was hunkered down in the aisle beside the woman's seat, so close that Holly could have spit on him, although she was no more practiced at target-spitting than she was at clandestine surveillance.

She realized her hands were trembling, making the magazine rattle softly. She untilted her head, stared at the pages in front of her, and concentrated on being calm.

"How on earth did you recognize me?" Christine Dubrovek asked.

"Well, Ed doesn't quite paper his office with pictures of you two," Jim said.

"Oh, that's right," she said.

"Listen, Mrs. Dubrovek-" "Call me Christine.”

"Thank you. Christine. I've got an ulterior motive for coming over here and pestering you like this. According to Ed, you've got a knack for matchmaking.”

That must have been the right thing to say. Already aglow, her sweet face brightened further. "Well, I do like getting people together if I think they're right for each other, and I've got to admit I've had more than a little success at it.”

"You make matches, Mommy?" Casey Dubrovek asked.

Uncannily in synch with the workings of her six-year-old's mind, Christine said, "Not the cigarette kind, honey.”

"Oh. Good," Casey said, then returned to her pop-up storybook.

"The thing is," Jim said, "I'm new in Los Angeles, been there only eight weeks, and I'm your classic, original lonely guy. I don't like singles' bars, don't want to buy a gym membership just to meet women, and figure anybody I'd connect with through a computer service has to be as desperate and messed up as I am.”

She laughed. "You don't look desperate or messed up to me.”

"Excuse me, sir," a stewardess said with friendly firmness, touching Jim's shoulder, "but I can't allow you to block the aisle.”

"Oh, sure, yeah," he said, standing up. "Just give me a minute.”

Then to Christine: "Listen, this is embarrassing, but I'd really like to talk to you, tell you about myself, what I'm looking for in a woman, and see if maybe you know someone.?" "Sure, I'd love that," Christine said with such enthusiasm that she was surely the reincarnation of either some hillbilly woman who had been a much sought-after troth-finder or a successful schatchen from Brooklyn.

"Hey, you know, the two seats next to mine are empty," he said "Maybe you could sit with me the rest of the way. ”