Sea of Crises Read Online Free Page B

I don’t trust any place we’d be expected to go.”
    Peter nodded. “What now?”
    “I’m working on it. Better not talk in the car though.”
    “What about the police?”
    Nate had considered that. “I don’t think whoever did that is worried about the police, do you?”
    Peter grimaced, then shook his head.
    They continued down another five flights and stepped out into the garage below the building. As they approached Nate’s car, he studied it suspiciously. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary. However, if a listening or tracking device, or both, had been installed, Nate knew it would take him longer to find than they could afford.
    Fortunately, he had a backup.
    When they pulled out of the garage, the sky was just beginning to lighten. It was early enough that traffic on the Santa Monica Freeway was moving well. At Overland, Nate exited and made his way north to Century City. His office was in one of the twin towers. He did not, however, intend to go to the office.
    Considering he had a staff of one - and he was the one - he knew he wouldn’t be missed.
    Nate had started out years before on a career track much different from his current one. An honors graduate from Northwestern, he’d had his pick of law schools, and he elected to go to the University of Chicago, staying close to the family home in nearby Indiana. When he took his law degree, he again had plenty of options, including offers from a number of top law firms throughout the country. He settled on a blue chip Wall Street firm and quickly established himself as one of the top young litigators in New York.
    Shortly after Nate became a partner, the youngest in the history of the firm, the partnership decided to expand to the West Coast, and Nate was tapped to head up a new office in Los Angeles. At the time it seemed a good opportunity, and Nate agreed to make the move, swapping the small midtown apartment in which he’d spent little time over the previous few years for a beautiful new ocean front condominium, in which, it turned out, he wound up spending even less time.
    Nate had always worked insane hours, routinely staying at the office late into the evening and working through the weekends. If anything, the move to Los Angeles intensified the demand on his time. He made good money, but it came at a heavy personal price.
    He took no vacations, rarely socialized. Though he dated sporadically, he never was able to sustain a meaningful relationship. None of the women he’d gone out with had been able to understand, much less tolerate, the hours his schedule demanded. And, truth be told, he’d considered none of them worth making the effort to try to change.
    At least that’s what he kept telling himself.
    Then, when he had turned forty, it was as if he’d hit a wall.
    His birthday was on a Monday. He arrived in court for an early morning hearing on a discovery dispute, one of those mundane battles that took place constantly in the give and take between attorneys. This one was over whether or not opposing counsel should have provided answers to interrogatories posed weeks before. There was no reason why the other side hadn’t responded. In the scheme of things, the questions hadn’t even been that controversial. The refusal to answer was just part of a game litigants played on a regular basis, forcing their opponents to incur fees, needlessly wasting the court’s time, and ultimately costing taxpayers money.
    Suddenly, the thought of standing before the judge and participating in the charade had been too much for Nate. He asked the bailiff to pass a note to the clerk informing her that he’d become ill, and, just like that, he walked out. In the seven years since, Nate had yet to set foot again in a courthouse.
    He’d managed to burn himself out, and he knew it.
    Employing the same rigorous scrutiny he’d given to his cases, Nate re-evaluated his life. Fortunately, one of the things at which he had excelled as an attorney was making sense out