One Wingbeat Away

When Maggie Tervo decided to launch her ancestral venture, she dropped any pretense of being the dutiful housewife. Unleashing new-found feminist sensibilities, Maggie estimated her existential search for meaning, power, activism-and her missing parents-was a four-hour drive to Canada and a few days digging through public records. Her estimate didn't contemplate murder, mayhem and high-wire acts.

As a member of The Detroit Eight, one of the few grassroot civil rights groups to survive the Sixties, Maggie was finally ready to make her mark as an activist. She was less sure about Oz-the legendary, almost phantom, global human rights initiative. Without joining or declining, Maggie had subjugated her power to Oz for six years because her parents had once supported their work; because her husband and three of The Eights were members.

Because there's no Richter Scale for certain kinds of quakes, no one knew how Maggie's venture would tilt scales, threaten the crime syndicate, or upend the balance of power.