The fog is rising slowly over the Samantha Curry Park, where I fell in love, so long ago, and the commuters are beginning to clump up on the freeway running along the park's generous borders. Elsewhere in the world, unbeknownst to the commuters, three evil schemes are being pushed forward with a maniacal and frenzied focus fueld by deep hatred and deeper muisunderstanding; and along the shores of the long Western shore, a gray while is escorting its calf, less than a year in age but timeless in its marine perfection, northward, ever northward. In a small coffee shop in Venice, a tired drifter nurses a small espresso, and sees, far across the beach and the wide blue bay, the traces of the mother whale's passage; but the calf knows nothing of the drifter, and the drifter knows nothing of the calf. NEither of them think about the difficulties being encvountered by the commuters. As the wisps of fog lace their tendrils around the windshields of the anxious commuters making their way into the morning traffic, many of them are unaware that even as they fight their way to work, their fates are hanging on a single telephone call being made from a skyscraper in central San Francisco, far to the north. But like many things, this hinge-point of their futures is a fact, whether they are aware of it or not. Jason Dintham hung up the phone and leaned back in his extravagant executive seat, almost shaking with satisfaction.

(To be continued)....