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Many thanks to my assistant Patricia Chichester, who loved this book even while we were both bleary-eyed from late nights spent writing, typing, rewriting, and retyping. Patricia’s careful and quick work on all aspects of the manuscript, including research and working closely with Kate Hartson, made this book possible.

Thanks, too, to my assistant Dianne Francis, who also burned the midnight oil to keep the office running, and who became Nelson DeMille while I was locked in my writing cell. Thank you, Dianne, for keeping the world at bay.

Another good decision, made over vino at a long lunch, was my joining up with Jennifer Joel and Sloan Harris, literary agents extraordinaire, at International Creative Management Partners. Jenn and I go back many years, and Sloan had not had the pleasure of my company until we met at that fateful lunch. We all clicked, and I’m happy and proud to be represented by true professionals.

No writer should try to read a publishing or movie contract, or try to deal with the U. S. Copyright Office. I have been fortunate to have as a friend and attorney David Westermann, who won’t let me sign my name to anything he hasn’t read and revised — including his checks.

When I first wrote The Quest in 1975, my childhood friend Thomas Block, who was a young pilot for Allegheny Airlines, helped with the flying scenes. Thirty-eight years later, I asked the still young US Airways retired Captain Block to take another look at the flying scenes in the book, which he did. He assured me that he had gotten it right the first time, and that the principles of flight had not changed all that much in the past thirty-eight years. I thanked Tom in 1975 for his time and advice, so I don’t need to do it again — but I will. Thanks, Tom.

And last, but never least, I thank my young bride, Sandy DeMille, who said to me, when I was having doubts during the rewriting of The Quest, “This is some of the best writing you’ve ever done. ” That set the standard, and I remembered those words every time I sat down to face a blank page. As Ovid said, “Scribire iussit amor”—Love bade me write.