I was sitting on a wet bike in frigid water, watching waves the size of three-story buildings slide toward me, hump up, then hump up again getting even taller before crashing down with a sound like a Las Vegas casino imploding. I could be in one of those casinos, a fancy one, too, because they liked me and wanted me to work for them, or I could be on Wall Street moving around billion-dollar chunks of money. But instead I was here, cold and anxious and very soon I'd have to drive the wet bike in front of one of these waves, dragging a beautiful redhead behind me on the end of a towline, and if -- when--she fell I'd have to go get her. Or die trying. That was the part I didn't like, the "die trying." My name is T. R. Macdonald and believe it or not this was the good part. People hadn't started stuffing me in the trunks of cars or shooting at me. Yet.