Lost City Part 1

Lost City.

by Clive Cussler.

PROLOGUE

The French Alps, August 1914.

HIGH ABOVE the soaring majesty of the snowcapped mountains, Jules Fauchard was fighting for his life. Minutes before, his plane had slammed into an invisible wall of air with a force that jarred his teeth. Now updrafts and downdrafts were tossing the light aircraft about like a kite on a string. Fauchard battled the gut-wrenching turbulence with the skill that had been drilled into him by his strict French flying instructors. Then he was through the rough patch, luxuriating in smooth air, unaware that it would nearly prove his undoing.With his plane finally stable, Fauchard had given in to the most natural of human impulses. He closed his weary eyes. His eyelids fluttered and drooped, then slammed shut as if weighted down with lead. His mind drifted into a shadowy, uncaring realm. His chin slumped onto his chest. His limp fingers relaxed their grip on the control stick. The diminutive red plane wavered drunkenly in what theFrench pilots called zperte de vit esse or loss of way, as it slipped off on one wing in a prelude to a tailspin.Fortunately, Fauchard's inner ear detected the change in equilibrium, and alarms went off in his slumbering brain. His head snapped up and he awakened in a daze, struggling to marshal his muddled thoughts. His nap had lasted only a few seconds, but in that time his plane had lost hundreds of feet of alt.i.tude and was about to go into a steep dive. Blood thundered in his head. His wildly beating heart felt as if it were about to explode from his chest.The French flying schools taught student pilots to fly an airplane with the same light touch as a pianist's on the keys, and Fauchard's endless hours of drill proved their worth now. Using a feather touch on the controls, he made sure not to overcompensate and gently coaxed the plane back on an even keel. Satisfied that the plane was stabilized, he let out the breath he had been holding and gulped in air, the arctic cold striking his lungs like shards of gla.s.s.The sharp pain jolted him from his lethargy. Fully awake again, Fauchard summoned up the mantra that had sustained his resolve throughout his desperate mission. His frozen lips refused to wrap themselves around the syllables, but the words screamed in his brain.Fail, and millions die.Fauchard clamped his jaws shut with renewed determination. He rubbed the frost from his goggles and peered over the c.o.c.kpit cowling. The alpine air was as clear as fine crystal, and even the most distant detail stood out in sharp relief. Ranks of saw-toothed mountains marched off to the horizon, and miniature villages clung to the sides of verdant alpine valleys. Fluffy white clouds were stacked up like piles of newly picked cotton. The sky was luminous in its blue intensity. The summer snow capping the jagged summits was bathed in a soft sky-blue pink from the lowering sun.Fauchard filled his red-rimmed eyes with the magnificent beauty, as he c.o.c.ked his ear and listened to the exhaust sound produced bythe eighty-horsepower, four-stroke Gnome rotary engine that powered the Morane-Saulnier N aircraft. All was well. The engine droned on as it had before his near-fatal nap. Fauchard was rea.s.sured, but his close call had shaken his self-confidence. He realized, to his astonishment, that he had experienced an unfamiliar emotion. Fear. Not of death, but of failure. Despite his iron resolve, his aching muscles further reminded him that he was a man of flesh and blood like any other.The open c.o.c.kpit allowed for little movement and his body was encased in a fur-lined leather coat over a thick Shetland wool sweater, turtleneck, and long underwear. A woolen scarf protected his neck. A leather helmet covered his head and ears, and his hands were enclosed in insulated leather gloves. Fur-lined mountain climber boots of the finest leather were on his feet. Although he was dressed for polar conditions, the icy cold had penetrated to his bones and dulled the edge of his alertness. This was a dangerous development. The Morane-Saulnier was tricky to fly and required undivided attention.In the face of the gnawing fatigue, Fauchard clung to his sanity with the single-minded stubbornness that had made him into one of the richest industrialists in the world. Fierce determination still showed in his flinty gray eyes and the stubborn tilt of his craggy chin. With his long aquiline nose, Fauchard's profile resembled that of the eagles whose heads graced the family crest on the plane's tail.He forced his numbed lips to move.Fail, and millions die.The stentorian voice that had struck fear in the European halls of power emerged from his throat as a croak, the pitiful sound drowned out by the engine's roar and the rush of air past the fuselage, but Fauchard decided a reward was in order. He reached into the top of his boot and extracted a slim silver flask. He unscrewed the top with difficulty because of the thick gloves, and took a pull from the flask. The high-octane schnapps was made from grapesgrown on his estate and was almost pure alcohol. Warmth flooded through his body.Thus fortified, he rocked in his seat, wiggled his toes and fingers and hunched his shoulders. As the blood flowed back into his extremities, he thought of the hot Swiss chocolate and fresh-baked bread with melted cheese that awaited him on the other side of the mountains. The thick lips under the bushy handlebar mustache tightened in an ironic smile. He was one of the wealthiest men in the world, yet he was cheered by the prospect of a plowman's meal. So be it.Fauchard allowed himself an instant of self-congratulation. He was a meticulous man and his escape plan had gone off like clockwork. The family had placed a watch on him after he had made his unwelcome views clear before the council. But while the council had pondered his fate, he'd evaded the watchers with a combination of diversion and luck.He'd pretended to drink too much and told his butler, who was in the pay of his family, that he was going to bed. When all was quiet, he had quietly left his bedroom chamber, slipped out of the chateau and made his way to where a bicycle was hidden in the woods. Carrying his precious cargo in a backpack, he had ridden through the woods to the airfield. His plane was fueled and ready to go. He had taken off in the dawn's light, stopping twice at remote locations where his most loyal retainers had stockpiled fuel.He drained the flask and glanced at the compa.s.s and clock. He was on course and only minutes behind schedule. The lower peaks ahead indicated that he was nearing the end of his long journey. Soon he would make the final approach to Zurich.He was thinking about what he would say to the Pope's emissary when it seemed as if a flight of startled birds took off from the starboard wing. He glanced to the right and saw, to his dismay, that the birds were actually shreds of fabric that had peeled off the airfoil,leaving a ragged hole several inches across. There could be only one explanation. The wing had been hit by gunfire, and the high-pitched roar of the engine had drowned out the noise.Reacting instinctively, Fauchard banked the plane left, then right, twisting and turning like a swallow in flight. As his eyes scoured the skies, he glimpsed six biplanes flying in V formation below him. With uncanny calm, Fauchard switched off his engine as if he were preparing to volplane to the ground in an unpowered landing.The Morane-Saulnier dropped like a stone.Under ordinary circ.u.mstances, this would have been suicidal, placing him in his adversary's gun sights But Fauchard had recognized the attacking planes as Aviatiks. The German-built plane of French design was powered by a Mercedes in-line engine and had originally been built for reconnaissance. More important, the machine gun mounted in front of the gunner could fire only upward.After a fall of a few hundred feet, he gently adjusted the elevator and his plane came up behind the Aviatik formation.He lined up his plane's nose on the closest Aviatik and squeezed the trigger. The Hotchkiss gun rattled and tracer bullets homed in on the target's tail. Smoke poured from the plane and then flames enveloped the fuselage.The Aviatik began a long spiraling plunge to earth. A few well-placed volleys brought down another Aviatik as easily as a hunter bagging a tame pheasant.Fauchard accomplished the kills so swiftly that the other pilots were unaware they were under attack until they saw the greasy black smoke trails from the plummeting planes. The precise formation began to come apart at the seams.Fauchard broke off the attack. His targets were scattered and the element of surprise was no longer on his side. Instead, he put the Morane-Saulnier into a steep thousand-foot climb into the belly of a puffy cloud.As the misty gray walls hid his plane from unfriendly eyes, Fauchard leveled off and performed a damage check. So much fabric had ripped off that the wooden ribs of the wing were exposed. Fauchard cursed under his breath. He had hoped to bolt from the cloud and outdistance the Aviatiks with his plane's superior speed, but the damaged wing was slowing him down.Unable to run, he would have to stay and fight.Fauchard was outgunned and outnumbered, but he was flying one of the most remarkable aircraft of its day. Developed from a racing plane, the Morane-Saulnier, though tricky to fly, was incredibly nimble and responsive to the lightest touch. In an era when most airplanes had at least two wings, the Morane-Saulnier was a mid winged monoplane. From the bullet-shaped propeller spinner to its triangular tail fin, the Morane-Saulnier was only twenty-two feet long, but it was a deadly gnat by any measure, thanks to a device that would revolutionize aerial warfare.Saulnier had developed a synchronizing mechanism that allowed the machine gun to fire through the propeller. The system had out paced the newfangled guns, though, which sometimes fired erratically, and since ammunition could hang fire, metal deflectors shielded the propeller blades from errant bullets.Girding himself for battle, Fauchard reached under the seat and his fingers touched the cold metal of a strongbox. Next to the box was a purple velvet bag, which he pulled out and placed on his lap. Steering the plane with his knees, he extracted a steel helmet of ancient design from the bag and ran his fingers over the engraved surface. The metal was ice-cold to the touch, but heat seemed to radiate from it, surging through his whole body.He placed the helmet on his head. It fit snugly over the leather covering, and was perfectly balanced. The helmet was unusual, in that its visor was made in the form of a human face whose mustache andraptor's nose resembled Fauchard's. The visor limited his visibility and he pushed it up above his brow.Shafts of sunlight were filtering into the cloud dungeon as his cover thinned. He flew through the smoky wisps that marked the edge of the cloud and broke into full daylight.The Aviatiks were circling below like a school of hungry sharks around a sinking ship. They spotted the Morane and began to climb.The lead Aviatik slipped below Fauchard's plane and moved into firing range. Fauchard gave a sharp tug on his seat belt to make sure it was tight, and then he pulled the nose of his plane upward, climbing in a great backward loop.He hung upside down in the c.o.c.kpit, giving thanks to the French instructor who had taught him the evasive maneuver. He completed the loop and leveled out, placing his plane behind the Aviatiks. He opened fire on the nearest plane, but it peeled off and dove at a steep angle.Fauchard stayed on the plane's tail, enjoying the thrill of being the hunter rather than the prey. The Aviatik leveled out and made a tight turn, trying to get behind Fauchard. The smaller plane easily matched him.The Aviatik's move had put it at the mouth of a wide valley. With Fauchard giving the plane little room to maneuver, it flew directly into the valley.h.o.a.rding his ammunition like a miser, Fauchard fired short bursts from the Hotchkiss. The Aviatik rolled left and right and the tracers went to either side of the plane. It flew lower, trying to stay below Fauchard and his deadly machine gun. Again, Fauchard tried to line up a shot. Again, the Aviatik went lower.The planes skimmed over the fields at a hundred miles an hour, staying barely fifty feet above the ground. Herds of terrified cows scattered like windblown leaves. The twisting Aviatik managed tostay out of Fauchard's sights. The rolling contours of the ground compounded the difficulty of a clear shot.The landscape was a blur of rolling meadows and neat farmhouses. The farms were growing closer together. Fauchard could see the roofs of a town ahead where the valley narrowed to a point.The Aviatik was following a meandering river that ran up the center of the valley directly toward the town. The pilot flew so low his wheels almost touched the water. Ahead, a quaint field stone bridge crossed the river as the waterway entered the town.Fauchard's finger was tightening on the trigger, when an overhead shadow broke his concentration. He glanced upward and saw the wheels and fuselage of another Aviatik less than fifty feet above. It dropped lower, trying to force him down. He glanced at the lead Aviatik. It had started its climb to avoid hitting the bridge.Pedestrians crossing the span had seen the trio of advancing planes and were running for their lives. The sleepy old plow horse pulling a wagon across the bridge reared up on its hind legs for the first time in years as the Aviatik skimmed a few yards over the driver's head.The overhead plane dropped down to force Fauchard into the bridge, but at the last second he pulled back on his control stick and goosed the throttle. The Morane-Saulnier leaped upward and carried him between the bridge and the Aviatik. There was a huge explosion of hay as the plane's wheels clipped the wagon's load, but Fauchard kept his plane under control, guiding it up over the roofs of the town.The plane on Fauchard's tail pulled up a second later.Too late.Less agile than the monoplane, the Aviatik smashed into the bridge and exploded in a ball of fire. Equally slow to climb, the lead Aviatik grazed a church steeple whose sharp spire gutted its belly. The plane came apart in the air and broke into a hundred pieces."Go with G.o.d!" Fauchard shouted hoa.r.s.ely, as he wheeled his plane around and pointed it out of the valley.Two specks appeared in the distance. Moving fast in his direction. They materialized into the last of the Aviatik squadron.Fauchard aimed his plane directly between the approaching aircraft. His lips tightened in a grin. He wanted to make sure the family knew what he thought of their attempt to stop him.He was close enough to see the observers in the front c.o.c.kpits. The one on his left pointed what looked like a stick, and he saw a flash of light.He heard a soft tun and his rib cage felt as if a fiery poker had been thrust into it. With a chill, he realized that the observer in the Aviatik had resorted to simpler but more reliable technology he had fired at Fauchard with a carbine.He involuntarily jerked the control stick and his legs stiffened in a spasm. The planes flashed by on either side of him. His hand went limp on the control stick and the plane began to waver. Warm blood from his wound puddled in his seat. His mouth had a coppery taste and he was having trouble keeping things in focus.He removed his gloves, unbuckled his seat belt and reached down under his seat. His weakening fingers grasped the handle of the metal strongbox. He placed it on his lap, took the V strap that ran through the handle and attached it to his wrist.Summoning his last remaining reservoir of strength, he pushed himself erect and leaned out of the c.o.c.kpit. He rolled over the coaming, his body hit the wing and bounced off.His fingers automatically yanked the ripcord, the cushion he'd been sitting on burst open, and a silk parachute caught the air.A curtain of blackness was falling over his eyes. He caught glimpses of a cold blue lake and a glacier.I have failed.He was more in shock than pain and felt only a profound and angry sadness.Millions will die.He coughed a mouthful of b.l.o.o.d.y froth and then he knew no more. He hung in his parachute harness, an easy target for one of the Aviatiks as it made another pa.s.s.He never felt the bullet that crashed through his helmet and drilled into his skull.With the sun glinting off his helmet, he floated lower until the mountains embraced him to their bosom.

The Scottish Orkneys, the presentJODIE MICHAEL SON was steaming with anger. Earlier in the evening, she and the three remaining contestants of the Outcasts TV show had had to walk in their heavy boots on a thick rope stretched out along a three-foot-high berm made of piled rocks. The stunt had been billed as the "Viking Trial by Fire." Rows of torches blazed away on either side of the rope, adding drama and risk, although the line of fire was actually six feet away. The cameras shot from a low side angle, making the walk seem much more dangerous than it was.What wasn't phony was the way the producers had schemed to bring the contestants to near violence.Outcasts was the latest offering in the "reality" shows that had popped up like mushrooms after the success of Survivor and Fear Factor. It was an accelerated combination of both formats, with the shouting matches of Jerry Springer thrown in.The format was simple. Ten partic.i.p.ants had to pa.s.s a gamut oftests over the course of three weeks. Those who failed, or were voted off by the others, had to leave the island.The winner would make a million dollars, with bonus points, which seemed to be based on how nasty the contestants could be to one another.The show was considered even more cutthroat than its predecessors, and the producers played tricks to ratchet up the tension. Where other shows were highly compet.i.tive, Outcasts was openly combative.The show's format had been based in part on the Outward Bound survival course, where a partic.i.p.ant must live off the land. Unlike the other survival shows, which tended to be set on tropical isles with turquoise waters and swaying palm trees, Outcasts was filmed in the Scottish Orkneys. The contestants had landed in a tacky replica of a Viking ship, to an audience of seabirds.The island was two miles long and a mile wide. It was mostly rock that had been tortured into k.n.o.bs and fissures aeons ago by some cataclysm, with a few stands of scraggly trees here and there and a beach of coa.r.s.e sand where most of the action was filmed. The weather was mild, except at night, and the skin-covered huts were tolerable.The speck of rock was so insignificant that the locals referred to it as the "Wee Island." This had prompted a hilarious exchange between the producer, Sy Paris, and his a.s.sistant, Randy Andleman.Paris was in one of his typical raves. "We can't film an adventure show on a place called "Wee Island," for G.o.d sakes We've got to call it something else." His face lit up. "We'll call it "Skull Island." ""It doesn't look like a skull," Andleman said. "It looks like an overdone fried egg.""Close enough," Paris had said, before dashing off.Jodie, who had witnessed the exchange, elicited a smile from Andleman when she said, "I think it rather resembles the skull of a dumb TV series producer."The tests were basically the kind of gross-out stunts, such as ripping live crabs apart and eating them or diving into a tank full of eels, that were guaranteed to make the viewer gag and watch the next installment, to see how bad things would get. Some of the contestants seemed to have been chosen for their aggressiveness and general meanness.The climax would come when the last two contestants spent the night hunting each other using night scopes and paint-ball guns, a stunt that was based on the short story "The Most Dangerous Game." The survivor was awarded another million dollars.Jodie was a physical fitness teacher from Orange County, California. She had a killer body in a bikini, although her curves were wasted under her down-filled clothes. She had long, blond hair and a quick intelligence that she had hid to get on the program. Every contestant was typecast, but Jodie refused to play the bimbo role the producers had a.s.signed to her.In the last quiz for points and demerits, she and the others had been asked whether a conch was a fish, a mollusk or a car. As the show's stereotype blonde, she was supposed to say "Car."Jeezus, she'd never live something like that down when she got back to civilization.Since the quiz debacle, the producers had been making strong hints that she should go. She'd given them their chance to oust her when a cinder got in her eye and she'd failed the fire walk. The remaining members of the tribe had gathered around the fire with grave looks on their faces, and Sy Paris had dramatically intoned the order to leave the clan and make her entry into Valhalla. Jeezus.As she headed away from the campfire now, she fumed at herself for failing the test. But there was still a bounce to her step. After onlya few weeks with these lunatics, she was glad to be off the island. It was a rugged, beautiful setting, but she had grown weary of the backbiting, the manipulation and general sneakiness in which a contestant had to indulge for the dubious honor of being hunted down like a rabid dog.Beyond the "Gate to Valhalla," an arbor made of plastic whalebones, was a large house trailer that was the quarters for the production crew. While the clan members slept in skin tents and ate bugs, the crew enjoyed heat, comfortable cots and gourmet meals. Once a contestant was thrown out of the game, he or she spent the night in the trailer until a helicopter picked him or her up the next morning."Tough luck," said Andleman, who met her at the door. Andleman was a sweetheart, the complete opposite of his hard-driving boss."Yeah, real tough. Hot showers. Hot meals. Cell phones.""h.e.l.l, we've got all that right here."She glanced around at the comfortable accommodations. "So I noticed.""That's your bunk over there," he said. "Make yourself a drink from the bar, and there's some terrific pate in the fridge that'll help you decompress. I've got to go give Sy a hand. Knock yourself out.""Thanks, I will."She went over to the bar and made herself a tall Beefeater martini, straight up. The pate was as delicious as advertised. She was looking forward to going home. The ex-contestants always made the rounds of the TV talk shows to rake over the people they'd left behind. Easy money. She stretched out in a comfortable chair. After a few minutes, the alcohol put her to sleep.She awoke with a start. In her sleep, she had heard high-pitched screams like the sound of seabirds flocking or children in a playground, against a background of yells and shouts.Peculiar.She got up, went to the door and listened. She wondered if Sy had come up with yet another means of humiliation. Maybe he had the others doing a wild savage dance around the fire.She walked briskly along the path that led to the beach. The noise grew louder, more frantic. Something was dreadfully wrong. These were screams of fright and pain rather than excitement. She picked up her pace and burst through the Gate to Valhalla. What she saw looked like a scene from a Hieronymus Bosch depiction of h.e.l.l.The cast and crew were under attack by hideous creatures that seemed half man, half animal. The savage attackers were snarling, pulling their victims down and tearing at them with claws and teeth.She saw Sy fall, then Randy. She recognized several bodies that were lying b.l.o.o.d.y and mauled on the beach.In the flickering light from the fire, Jodie saw that the attackers had long, filthy white hair down to their shoulders. The faces were like nothing she had ever seen. Ghastly, twisted masks.One creature clutched a severed arm which he was raising to his mouth. Jodie couldn't help herself, she screamed ... and the other creatures broke off their unG.o.dly feast and looked at her with burning eyes that glowed a luminous red.She wanted to vomit, but they were coming toward her in a crouching lope.She ran for her life.Her first thought was the trailer, but she had enough presence of mind to know she'd be trapped there.She ran for the high rocky ground, the creatures snuffing behind her like bloodhounds. In the dark, she lost her footing and fell into a fissure, but unknown to her the accident saved her life. Her pursuers lost her scent.Jodie had cracked her head in the fall. She regained consciousnessonce, and thought she heard harsh voices and gunshots. Then she pa.s.sed out again.She was still lying unconscious in the fissure the next morning when the helicopter arrived. By the time the crew had scoured the island and finally found Jodie, they had come to a startling discovery.Everyone else had vanished.

MONEMVa.s.sIA, THE GREEK PeLOPONNESEIN HIS RECURRING nightmare, Angus MacLean was a staked goat being stalked by a hungry tiger whose yellow eyes stared at him from the jungle shadows. The low growls gradually grew louder until they filled his ears. Then the tiger lunged. He could smell its fetid breath, feel its sharp fangs sinking into his neck. He strained at his collar in a futile attempt to escape. His pathetic, terrified bleating changed to a desperate moan ... and he awakened in a cold sweat, his chest heaving, and his rumpled blankets damp from perspiration.MacLean stumbled out of his narrow bed and threw open the shutters. The Greek sunlight flooded the whitewashed walls of what had been a monk's cell. He pulled on shorts and a T-shirt, slipped into his walking sandals and stepped outside, blinking his eyes against the shimmer of the sapphire sea. The hammering of his heart subsided.He took a deep breath, inhaling the perfume like fragrance of the wildflowers that surrounded the two-story stucco monastery. He waited until his hands stopped shaking, then he set off on the morning hike that had proven to be the best antidote for his shattered nerves.The monastery was built in the shadow of a ma.s.sive rock, hundreds of feet high, that tour books often referred to as "the Gibraltar of Greece." To reach the summit, he climbed along a path that ran along the top of an ancient wall. Centuries before, the inhabitants of the lower town would retreat to the ramparts to defend themselves from invaders. Only ruins remained of the village that had once housed the entire population in times of siege.From atop the lofty perch offered by the crumbling foundation of an old Byzantine church, MacLean could see for miles. A few colorful fishing boats were at work. All was seemingly tranquil. MacLean knew that his morning ritual gave him a false sense of security. The people hunting him would not reveal themselves until they killed him.He prowled among the ruins like a homeless spirit, then descended the wall and made his way back to the monastery's second-floor dining room. The fifteenth-century monastery was one of the traditional buildings the Greek government operated as guest houses around the country. MacLean made a point of arriving for breakfast after all the other guests had left to go sightseeing.The young man cleaning up in the kitchen smiled and said, "Kali mem, Dr. MacLean"Kali mera, Angelo," MacLean replied. He tapped his head with his forefinger. "Did you forget?"Light dawned in Angelo's eyes. "Yes. I'm very sorry. Mr. MacLean"That's quite all right. Sorry to burden you with my strange requests," MacLean said in his soft Scottish brogue. "But as I said before, I don't want people thinking I can cure their upset stomachs and stomachaches.""Neh. Yes, of course, Mr. MacLean I understand."Angelo brought over a bowl of fresh strawberries, honeydew melon and creamy Greek yogurt, topped with local honey and walnuts, and a cup of thick black coffee. Angelo was the young monk who served as resident hostler. He was in his early thirties, with dark curly hair and a handsome face that was usually wreathed in a beatific smile. He was a combination concierge, caretaker, chef and host. He wore ordinary work clothes and the only hint of his vows was the rope tied loosely around his waist.The two men had struck up a strong friendship in the weeks MacLean had been a guest. Each day, after Angelo finished his breakfast work, they would talk about their shared interest, Byzantine civilization.MacLean had drifted into historical studies as a diversion from his intense work as a research chemist. Years ago his studies had taken him to Mystra, once the center of the Byzantine world. He had drifted down the Peloponnese and stumbled upon Monemva.s.sia. A narrow causeway flanked by the sea was the only access to the village, a maze of narrow streets and alleys on the other side of the wall whose "one gate" gave Monemva.s.sia its name. MacLean had fallen under the spell of the beautiful place. He vowed to return one day, never thinking that when he came back he'd be running for his life.The Project had been so innocent at first. MacLean had been teaching advanced chemistry at Edinburgh University when he was offered a dream job doing the pure research that he loved. He'd accepted the position and taken a leave of absence. He threw himself into the work, willing to endure the long hours and intense secrecy. He led one of several teams that were working on enzymes, the complex proteins that produce biochemical reactions.The Project scientists were cloistered in comfortable dormitories in the French countryside, and had little contact with the outside world. One colleague had jokingly referred to their research as the "Manhattan Project." The isolation posed no problem for MacLean who was a bachelor with no close relatives. Few of his colleagues complained. The astronomical pay and excellent working conditions were ample compensation. Then the Project took a disturbing turn. When MacLean and the others raised questions, they were told not to worry. Instead, they were sent home and told just to wait until the results of their work were a.n.a.lyzed. MacLean had gone to Turkey instead, to explore ruins. When he'd returned to Scotland several weeks later, his answering machine had recorded several hang-ups and a strange telephone message from a former colleague. The scientist asked if MacLean had been reading the papers and urged him to call back. MacLean tried to reach the man, only to learn that he had been killed several days before in a hit-and-run accident. Later, when MacLean was going through his mail pile, he found a packet the scientist had sent before his death. The thick envelope was stuffed with newspaper clips that described a series of accidental deaths. As MacLean read the clips, a shiver ran down his spine. The victims were all scientists who had worked with him on the Project. Scrawled on an enclosed note was the terse warning: "Flee or die!" MacLean wanted to believe the accidents were coincidental, even though it went against his scientific instincts. Then, a few days after he read the clips, a truck tried to run his Mini Cooper off the road. Miraculously, he escaped with only a few scratches. But he'd recognized the truck driver as one of the silent guards who had watched over the scientists at the laboratory. What a fool he had been. MacLean knew he had to flee. But where? Monemva.s.sia had come to mind. It was a popular vacation spot for mainland Greeks. Most of the foreigners who visited the rock came for day trips only. And now here he was.While MacLean was pondering the events that had brought him there, Angelo came over with a copy of the International Herald Tribune. The monk had to run errands but he would be back in an hour. MacLean nodded and sipped his coffee, savoring the strong dark taste. He skimmed the usual news of economic and political crises. And then his eye caught a headline in the international news briefs:SURVIVOR SAYS MONSTERS KILLED TV CAST, CREW The dateline was a Scottish island in the Orkneys. Intrigued, he read the story. It was only a few paragraphs long, but when he was done, his hands were shaking. He read the article again until the words blurred. Dear G.o.d, he thought. Something awful has happened. He folded the newspaper and went outside, stood in the soothing sunlight and made a decision. He would return home and see if he could get someone to believe his story.MacLean walked to the city gate and caught a taxi to the ferry office on the causeway, where he bought a ticket for the hydrofoil to Athens the next day. Then he returned to his room and packed his few belongings. What now? He decided to stick to his usual routine for his last day, walked to an outdoor cafe and ordered a tall gla.s.s of cold lemonade. He was engrossed in his paper when he became aware that someone was talking to him. He looked up and saw a gray-haired woman in flowered polyester slacks and blouse standing next to his table, holding a camera.'Sorry to interrupt," she said with a sweet smile. "Would you mind? My husband and I" Tourists often asked MacLean to doc.u.ment their trips. He was tall and lanky, and with his blue eyes and shock of salt-and-pepper hair, he stood out from the shorter and darker Greeks.A man sat at a nearby table, giving MacLean a bucktoothed grin. His freckled face was beet-red from too much sun. MacLean nodded and took the camera from the woman's hand. He clicked off some shots of the couple and handed the camera back."Thank you so much!" the woman said effusively. "You don't know what it means to have this for our travel alb.u.m.""Americans?" MacLean said. His urge to talk English overcame his reluctance to engage anyone in conversation. Angelo's English skills were limited.The woman beamed. "Is it that obvious? We try so hard to fit in."Yellow-and-pink polyester was decidedly not a Greek fashion statement, MacLean thought. The woman's husband was wearing a collarless white cotton shirt and black captain's hat like those sold mainly for the tourist trade."Came down in the hydrofoil," the man said with a drawl, rising out of his chair. He pressed his moist palm into MacLean "h.e.l.l, that was some ride. You English?"MacLean responded with a look of horror. "Oh no, I'm Scottish.""I'm one half Scotch and the other half soda," the man said with his horse grin. "Sorry about the mix-up. I'm from Texas. Guess that would be like you thinking we were from Oklahoma."MacLean wondered why all the Texans he met talked as if everyone had a hearing problem. "I never would have thought that you were from Oklahoma," MacLean said. "Hope you have a nice visit." He started to walk away, only to stop when the woman asked if her husband could take their picture together because he had been so kind to them. MacLean posed with the woman, then her husband."Thank you," the woman said. She spoke with a more refined air than her husband. In short order, MacLean learned that Gus andEmma Harris were from Houston, that Gus had been in the oil business, and she'd been a history teacher, fulfilling her lifelong dream to visit the Cradle of Civilization.He shook hands, accepted their profuse thanks and set off along the narrow street. He walked fast, hoping they wouldn't be tempted to follow, and took a circuitous route back to the monastery.MacLean closed the shutters so his room was dark and cool. He slept through the worst of the afternoon heat, then got up and splashed cold water on his face. He stepped outside for a breath of fresh air and was surprised to see the Harrises standing near the old whitewashed chapel in the monastery courtyard.Gus and his wife were taking pictures of the monastery. They waved and smiled when they saw him, and MacLean went out and offered to show them his room. They were impressed by the workmanship in the dark wood paneling. Back outside again, they gazed up at the sheer cliffs behind the building."There must be a wonderful view from up there," Emma said."It's a bit of a hike to the top.""I do a lot of bird-watching back home, so I'm pretty fit. Gus is in better shape than he looks." She smiled. "He used to be a football player, although it's hard to believe now.""I'm an Aggie," Mr. Harris said. "Texas A and M. There's more of me now than there was back then. Tell you what, though, I'll give it a try.""Do you think you could show us the way?" Emma asked MacLean"I'm sorry, I'm leaving on the hydrofoil first thing tomorrow." MacLean told them they might make the climb on their own if they got started early before the sun got too hot."You're a dear." She patted MacLean on the cheek in motherly fashion.He was grinning, admiring their pluck as he watched them depart along the path that ran along the seawall in front of the monastery. They pa.s.sed Angelo, who was coming back from town.The monk greeted MacLean then turned to look at the couple. "You have met the Americans from Texas?"MacLean grin turned to a puzzled frown. "How did you know who they were?""They came by yesterday morning. You were up there on your walk." He pointed to the old city."That's funny, they acted as if this was their first day here."Angelo shrugged. "Maybe when we get old, we'll forget, too."Suddenly, MacLean felt like the staked goat in his nightmare. A cold emptiness settled in his stomach. He excused himself and went back to his room, where he poured himself a stiff shot of ouzo.How easy it would have been. They would have climbed to the top of the rock and asked him to pose for a photo near the edge. One shove and down he would go.Another accident. Another dead scientist.No heavy lifting. Not even for a sweet old history teacher.He dug into the plastic bag he used for his dirty laundry. Buried at the bottom was the envelope full of yellowing news clips which he spread on the table.The headlines were different, but the subject of each story was the same.SCIENTIST DIES IN AUTO ACCIDENT. SCIENTIST KILLED IN HIT-AND-RUN.SCIENTIST KILLS WIFE, SELF. SCIENTIST DIES IN SKIING ACCIDENT.Every one of the victims had worked on the Project. He reread the note: "Flee or die!" Then he put the Herald Tribune clip in with theothers and went to the monastery's reception desk. Angelo was going through a pile of reservations."I must leave," MacLean said.Angelo looked crestfallen. "I'm very sorry. How soon?""Tonight.""Impossible. There is no hydrofoil or bus until tomorrow." , "Nevertheless, I must leave and I'm asking you to help me. I can make it worth your while."A sad look came into the monk's eyes. "I would do this for friendship, not money.""I'm sorry," MacLean said. "I'm a little upset."Angelo was not an unintelligent man."This is because of the Americans?""Some bad people are after me. These Americans may have been sent to find me. I was stupid and told them I was going on the hydrofoil. I'm not sure if they came alone. They may have someone watching at the gate."Angelo nodded. "I can take you to the mainland by boat. You will need a car.""I was hoping you could arrange to rent one for me," MacLean said. He handed Angelo his credit card, which he had tried not to use before, knowing it could be traced.Angelo called the car rental office on the mainland. He spoke a few minutes and hung up. "Everything is taken care of. They will leave the keys in the car.""Angelo, I don't know how I can repay you.""No payment. Give a big gift next time you're in church."MacLean had a light dinner at a secluded cafe, where he found himself glancing with apprehension at the other tables. The evening pa.s.sed without event. On the way back to the monastery, he kept looking over his shoulder.The wait was agonizing. He felt trapped in his room, but he reminded himself that the walls were at least a foot thick and the door could withstand a battering ram. A few minutes after midnight, he heard a soft knock on the door.Angelo took his bag and led the way along the seawall to a set of stairs that went down to a stone platform used by swimmers for diving. By the light of an electric torch, MacLean could see a small motorboat tied up to the platform. They got into the boat. Angelo was reaching for the mooring line when quiet footfalls could be heard on the steps."Out for a midnight cruise?" said the sweet voice of Emma Harris."You don't suppose Dr. MacLean was leaving without saying good-bye," her husband said.After his initial surprise, MacLean found his tongue. "What happened to your Texas drawl, Mr. Harris?""Oh, that. Not very authentic, I must admit.""Don't fret, dear. It was good enough to fool Dr. MacLean Although I must admit that we had a little luck in completing our errand. We were sitting in that delightful little cafe when you happened by. It was nice of you to let us take your picture so we could check it against your file photo. We don't like to make mistakes."Her husband gave an avuncular chuckle. "I remember saying, "Step into my parlor ..." "" '... Said the spider to the fly." "They broke into laughter."You were sent by the company," MacLean said."They're very clever people," Gus said. "They knew you would be on the lookout for someone who looked like a gangster.""It's a mistake a lot of people have made," Emma said, a sad note in her voice. "But it keeps us in business, doesn't it, Gus? Well. It was lovely traveling in Greece. But all good things must come to an end."Angelo had listened to the conversation with a puzzled expression on his face. He was unaware of the danger they were in. Before MacLean could stop him, he reached over to untie the boat."Excuse us," he said. "We must go."They were the last words he would ever utter.There was the m.u.f.fled thut of a silenced gun and a scarlet tongue of fire licked the darkness. Angelo clutched his chest and made a gurgling sound. Then he toppled from the boat into the water."Bad luck to shoot a monk, my dear," Gus said to his wife."He wasn't wearing his ca.s.sock," she said, with a pout in her voice. "How was I to know?"Their voices were hard-edged and mocking."Come along, Dr. MacLean Gus said. "We have a car waiting to take you to a company plane." "You're not going to kill me?""Oh no," said Emma, again the innocent traveler. "There are other plans for you.""I don't understand.""You will, my dear. You will."

The French AlpsTHE AEROSPATIALE ALOUETTE light utility helicopter threading its way through the deep alpine valleys appeared as insignificant as a gnat against the backdrop of towering peaks. As the helicopter approached a mountain whose summit was crowned with three uneven k.n.o.bs, Hank Thurston, seated in the front pa.s.senger's seat, tapped the shoulder of the man sitting beside him and pointed through the canopy."That's "Le Dormeur," " Thurston said, raising his voice to be heard over the thrashing rotor blades. " "The Sleeping Man." The profile supposedly resembles the face of a sleeper lying on his back."Thurston was a full professor of glaciology at Iowa State University. Although the scientist was in his forties, his face exuded a boyish enthusiasm. Back in Iowa, Thurston kept his face clean-shaven and his hair neatly trimmed, but after a few days in the field he began to look like a bush pilot. It was a look he cultivated by wearing aviator sungla.s.ses, letting his dark brown hair grow long so gray strands would show and by shaving infrequently, so that his chin was usually covered with stubble."Poetic license," said the pa.s.senger, Derek Rawlins. "I can see the brow and the nose and chin. It reminds me of the Old Man of the Mountain in New Hampshire before it fell apart, except that the stone profile here is horizontal rather than vertical."Rawlins was a writer for Outside magazine. He was in his late twenties, and with his air of earnest optimism and neatly trimmed sandy-blond hair and beard, he looked more like a college professor than Thurston did.The crystal clarity of the air created an illusion of nearness, making the mountain seem as if it was only an arm's length away. After a couple of pa.s.ses around the crags, the helicopter broke out of its lazy circle, scudded over a razorback ridge and dropped down into a natural bowl several miles across. The floor of the mountain basin was covered by an almost perfectly round lake. Although it was summer, ice cakes as big as Volkswagens floated on the ipirrorlike surface."Lac du Dormeur," the professor said. "Carved out by a retreating glacier during the Ice Age and now fed by glacial waters.""That's the biggest martini on the rocks I've ever seen," Rawlins said.Thurston laughed. "It's as clear as gin, but you won't find any olive at the bottom. That big square structure built into the mountain off to the side of the glacier is the power plant. The nearest town is on the other side of the mountain range."The aircraft pa.s.sed over a wide, st.u.r.dy-looking vessel anch.o.r.ed near the sh.o.r.e of the lake. Cranes and booms protruded from the boat's deck."What's going on down there?" Rawlins said."Some sort of archaeological project," Thurston said. "The boat must have come up the river that drains the lake.""I'll check it out later," Rawlins said. "Maybe I can pry a raise outof my editor if I come back with two stories for the price of one." He glanced ahead at a wide ice floe that filled the gap between two mountains. "Wow! That must be our glacier.""Yup. Im Langue du Dormeur. "The Sleeper's Tongue." " The helicopter made a pa.s.s over the river of ice that flowed down a wide valley to the lake. Rugged, snow-dusted foothills of black rock hemmed the glacier in on both sides, shaping it into a rounded point. The edges of the ice field were ragged where the flow encountered creva.s.ses and ravines. The ice had a bluish tinge and was cracked along its surface like the parched tongue of a lost prospector.Rawlins leaned forward for a better look. "The Sleeper should see a doctor. He's got a bad case of trench mouth.""As you said, poetic license," Thurston said. "Hold on. We're about to land."The helicopter darted over the leading edge of the glacier and the pilot put the aircraft into a slow banking turn. Moments later, the chopper's runners touched down on a brown gra.s.sy strip a couple of hundred feet from the lake.Thurston helped the pilot unload a number of cartons from the helicopter and suggested that Rawlins stretch his legs. The reporter walked to the water's edge. The lake was unearthly in its stillness. No ripple of air disturbed the surface, which looked hard enough to walk across. He threw a stone to rea.s.sure himself that the lake wasn't frozen solid.Rawlins's gaze shifted from the widening ripples to the boat anch.o.r.ed about a quarter mile from sh.o.r.e. He recognized the distinctive turquoise blue-green color of the hull immediately. He had encountered vessels of similar color while on writing a.s.signments. Even without the letters numa painted in bold black letters on the hull, he would have known the boat belonged to the National Underwater and Marine Agency. He wondered what a NUMA vessel was doing in this remote place far from the nearest ocean.There was definitely an unexpected story here, but it would have to wait. Thurston was calling him. A battered Citroen 2C was hurtling toward the parked helicopter in a cloud of dust. The pint-sized auto skidded to a stop next to the chopper and a man who resembled a mountain troll emerged from the driver's side like a creature hatched from a deformed egg. He was short and dark-complexioned, with a black beard and long hair.The man pumped Thurston's hand. "Wonderful to have you back, Monsieur le profess eur And you must be the journalist, Monsieur Rawlins. I am Bernard LeBlanc. Welcome.""Thanks, Dr. LeBlanc," Rawlins said. "I've been looking forward to my visit. I can't wait to see the amazing work you're doing here.""Come along then," LeBlanc said, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the reporter's duffel bag. "Fifi awaits." "Fifi?" Rawlins looked around as if he expected to see a dancer from the Follies Bergere.Thurston irreverently jerked his thumb at the Citroen. "Fifi is the name of Bernie's car.""And why shouldn't I give my car a woman's name?" LeBlanc said with a mock expression of pique. "She is faithful and hardworking. And beautiful in her own way.""That's good enough for me," Rawlins said. He followed LeBlanc to the Citroen and got in the backseat. The boxes of supplies were secured to the roof rack. The other men got in the front and LeBlanc drove Fifi toward the base of the mountain that flanked the right side of the glacier. As the car began its ascent up a gravel road, the helicopter lifted off, gained alt.i.tude over the lake and disappeared behind the high ridge."You're familiar with the work being done at our subglacial observatory, Monsieur Rawlins?" LeBlanc said over his shoulder."Call me Deke. I've read the material. I know that your setup is similar to the Svartisen glacier in Norway.""Correct," Thurston chimed in. "The Svartisen lab is seven hundred feet under the ice. We're closer to eight hundred. In both places, the melting glacier water is channeled into a turbine to produce hydroelectric power. When the engineers drilled the water conduits, they bored an extra tunnel under the glacier to house our observatory."The car had entered a forest of stunted pine. LeBlanc drove along the narrow track with seemingly reckless abandon. The wheels were only inches from sheer drop-offs. As the incline became steeper, the Citroen's tiny workhorse of an engine began to wheeze."Sounds like Fifi is showing her age," Thurston said."It is her heart that is important," LeBlanc replied. Nevertheless, they were crawling at a tortoise pace when the road came to an end. They got out of the car and LeBlanc handed them each a shoulder harness, donning one himself. A box of supplies was strapped onto each harness.Thurston apologized. "Sorry to recruit you as a Sherpa. We flew in supplies for the entire three weeks we're here, but we went through our from age and vin faster than we expected and used the occasion of your visit to bring in more stuff.""Not a problem," Rawlins said with a good-natured grin, expertly adjusting the weight so it rode easily on his shoulders. "I used to jacka.s.s supplies to the White Mountain huts in New Hampshire before I became an ink-stained hack."LeBlanc led the way along a path that rose for about a hundred yards through scraggly pines. Above the tree line the ground hardened into flat expanses of rock. The rock was sprayed with daubs of yellow spray paint to mark the trail. Before long, the trail became steeper and smoother where the rocks had been buffed by thousands of years of glacial activity. Water from runoff made the hard surface slick and treacherous to navigate. From time to time they crossed creva.s.ses filled with wet snow.The reporter was huffing and puffing with exertion and alt.i.tude.He sighed with relief when they stopped at last on a shelf next to a wall of black rock that went up at an almost vertical angle. They were close to two thousand feet above the lake, which shimmered in the rays of the noonday sun. The glacier was out of sight around an escarpment, but Rawlins could feel the raw cold that it radiated, as if someone had left a refrigerator door open.Thurston pointed to a round opening encased in concrete at the base of the vertical cliff. "Welcome to the Ice Palace.""It looks like a drainage culvert," Rawlins said.Thurston laughed and crouched low, ducking his head as he led the way into a corrugated metal tunnel about five feet in diameter. The others followed him in a stooping walk that was made necessary by their backpacks. The pa.s.sage ended after about a hundred feet and opened into a dimly lit tunnel. The shiny wet orange walls of meta-mprphic rock were striped black with darker minerals.Rawlins looked around in wonder. "You could drive a truck through this thing." "With room to spare. "It's thirty feet high and thirty feet wide," Thurston said."Too bad you couldn't squeeze Fifi through that culvert," Rawlins said."We've thought of it. There's an entrance big enough for a car near the power plant, but Bernie is afraid she'd get beat up running around these tunnels.""Fifi has a very delicate const.i.tution," LeBlanc said with a snort.The Frenchman opened a plastic locker set against a wall. He pa.s.sed around rubber boots and hard hats with miners' lights on the crowns.Minutes later, they set off into the tunnel, the scuffle of their boots echoing off the walls. As they plodded along, Rawlins squinted into the gloom beyond the reach of his headlamp. "Not exactly the Great White Way.""The power company put the lighting in when they drilled through. A lot of those dead bulbs haven't been replaced.""You've probably been asked this, but what brought you into glaciology?" Rawlins said."That's not the first time I've heard the question. People think glaciologists are a bit odd. We study huge, ancient, slow-moving ma.s.ses of ice that take centuries to get anywhere. Hardly a job for a grown man, wouldn't you say, Bernie?""Maybe not, but I met a nice Eskimo girl once in the Yukon.""Spoken like a true glaciologist," Thurston said. "We have in common a love of beauty and a desire to get outdoors. Many of us were seduced into this calling by our first awe-inspiring view of an ice field." He gestured around at the walls of the tunnel. "So it's ironic that we spend weeks at a time under the glacier, far from the sunlight, like a bunch of moles.""Look what it has done to me," LeBlanc said. "Constant thirty-five degrees and one hundred percent humidity. I used to be tall and blond-haired, but I have shrunk and become a s.h.a.ggy beast.""You've been a short s.h.a.ggy beast for as long as I've known you," Thurston said. "We're down here for three-week stints, and I agree that we do seem a bit mole like But even Bernie will agree that we're lucky. Most glaciologists only observe an ice field from above. We can walk right up and tickle its belly.""What exactly is the nature of your experiments?" Rawlins asked."We're conducting a three-year study on how glaciers move and what they do to the rock they slide over. Hope you can make that sound more exciting when you write your article.""It won't be too hard. With all the interest in global warming, glaciology has become a hot subject.""So I hear. The recognition is long overdue. Glaciers are affected by climate, so they can tell us to within a few degrees what the temperature was on earth thousands of years ago. In addition, they trigger changes in the climate. Ah, here we are, Club Dormeur."Four small buildings that looked like trailer homes sat end to end within a bay carved from the wall.Thurston opened a door to the nearest structure. "All the comforts of home," he said. "Four bedrooms with room for eight researchers, kitchen, bath with shower. Normally, I've got a geologist and other scientists, but we're down to a skeleton crew consisting of Bernie, a young research a.s.sistant from Uppsala University and me. You can dump those supplies here. We're about a thirty-minute walk from the lab. We've got phone connections between the entrance, research tunnel and lab room. I'd better let the folks at the observatory know we're back."He picked up a wall phone and said a few words. His smile turned into a puzzled frown."Say again." He listened intently. "Okay. We'll be right there.""Is there anything wrong, professor?" LeBlanc said.Thurston furrowed his brow. "I just talked to my research a.s.sistant. Incredible!""Qu'est-ce que c'est?" LeBlanc said.Thurston had a stunned expression on his face. "He says he's found a man frozen in the ice."TWO HUNDRED FEET below the surface of Lac du Dormeur in waters cold enough to kill an unprotected human, the glowing sphere floated above the gravelly bottom of the glacial lake like a will-o'-the-wisp in a Georgia swamp. Despite the hostile environment, the man and woman seated side by side inside the transparent acrylic cabin were as relaxed as loungers on a love seat. The man was husky in build, with shoulders like twin battering rams. Exposure to sea and sun had bronzed the rugged features that were bathed in the soft orange light from the instrument panel, and bleached the pale, prematurely steely gray hair almost to the color of platinum. With his chiseled profile and intense expression, Kurt Austin had the face of a warrior carved on a Roman victory column. But the flinty hardness that lay under the burnished features was softened by an easy smile, and the piercing coral-blue eyes sparkled with good humor.Austin was the leader of NUMA's Special a.s.signments Team, created by former NUMA director Admiral James Sandecker, now vice president of the United States, for undersea missions that often tookplace secretly outside the realm of government oversight. A marine engineer by education and experience, Austin had come to NUMA from the CIA, where he had worked for a little-known branch that specialized in underwater intelligence gathering.After coming over to NUMA, Austin had a.s.sembled a team of experts that included Joe Zavala, a brilliant engineer specializing in underwater vehicles; Paul Trout, a deep-ocean geologist; and Trout's wife, Gamay Morgan-Trout, a highly skilled diver who had specialized in nautical archaeology before attaining her doctorate in marine biology. Working together, they had conducted many successful probes into strange and sinister enigmas on and under the world's oceans.Not every job that Austin undertook was filled with danger. Some, like his latest a.s.signment, were quite pleasant and more than made up for the b.u.mps, bruises and scars he had collected on various NUMA a.s.signments. Although he had known his female companion only a few days, he had become thoroughly entranced by her. Skye Labelle was in her late thirties. She had olive skin and mischievous violet-blue eyes that peered out from under the brim of her woolen hat. Her hair was dark brown, bordering on black. Her mouth was too wide to be called cla.s.sical, but her lips were lush and sensual. She had a good body, but it would never make the cover of Sports Ill.u.s.trated. Her voice was low and cool, and when she spoke it was obvious she had a quick intelligence.Although she was striking rather than pretty, Austin thought she was one of the most attractive women he had ever met. She reminded him of a portrait of a young raven-haired countess he had seen hanging on the wall of the Louvre. Austin had admired how the artist had cleverly caught the pa.s.sion and unabashed frankness in the subject's gaze. The woman in the painting had a deviltry in her eyes, as if she wanted to throw off her regal finery and run barefoot through a meadow. He remembered wishing he could have met her in person. And now, it seemed, he had."Do you believe in reincarnation?" Austin said, thinking about the museum portrait.Skye blinked in surprise. They had been talking about glacial geology."I don't know. Why do you ask?" She spoke American English with a slight French accent."No reason." Austin paused. "I have another, more personal question."She gave him a wary look. "I think I know. You want to know about my name.""I've never met anyone named Skye Labelle before.""Some people believe I must be named after a Las Vegas stripper."Austin chuckled. "It's more likely that someone in your family had a poetic turn of mind.""My crazy parents," she said, with a roll of her eyes. "My father was sent to the U.S. as a diplomat. One day he went to the Albuquerque hot air balloon festival and from that day on, he became a fanatical aeronaut. My older brother was named Thaddeus after the early balloonist Thaddeus Lowe. My American mother is an artist, and something of a free spirit, so she thought the idea of my name was wonderful. Father insists he named me after the color of my eyes, but everyone knows babies' eyes are neutral when they are first born. I don't mind. I think it's a nice name.""They don't get any nicer than Beautiful Sky.""Merci. And thank you for all this!" She gazed through the bubble and clapped her hands in childlike joy. "This is absolutely wonderful^. I never dreamed that my studies in archaeology would take me under the water inside a big bubble.""It must beat polishing medieval armor in a musty museum," Austin said.Skye had a warm, uninhibited laugh. "I spend very little time inmuseums except when I'm organizing an exhibition. I do a lot of corporate jobs these days to support my research work."Austin raised an eyebrow. "The thought of Microsoft and General Motors hiring an expert in arms and armor makes me wonder about their motives.""Think about it. To survive, a corporation must try to kill or wound its compet.i.tion while defending itself. Figuratively speaking.""The original 'cutthroat compet.i.tion," " Austin said."Not bad. I'll use that phrase in my next presentation.""How do you teach a bunch of executives to draw blood? Figuratively speaking, of course.""They already have the blood l.u.s.t. I get them to think 'out of the box," as they like to say. I ask them to pretend that they are supplying arms for competing forces. The old arms makers had to be metallurgists and engineers. Many were artists, like Leonardo, who designed war engines. Weapons and strategy were constantly changing and the people who supplied the armies had to adjust quickly to new conditions.""The lives of their customers depended on it.""Right. I might have one group devise a siege machine while another comes up with ways to defend against it. Or I can give one side metal-piercing arrows while the other comes up with armor that works without being unwieldy. Then we switch sides and try again. They learn to use their native intelligence rather than to rely on computers and such.""Maybe you should offer your services to NUMA. Learning how to blast holes in ten-foot-thick walls with a trebuchet sounds like a lot more fun than staring at budget pie charts."A sly smile crossed Skye's face. "Well, you know, most executives are men.""Boys and their toys. A surefire formula for success.""I'll admit I pander to the childish side of my clients, but my sessions are immensely popular and very lucrative. And they allow me the flexibility to work on projects that might not be possible on my salary from the Sorbonne.""Projects like the ancient trade routes?"She nodded. "It would be a major coup if I could prove that tin and other goods traveled overland along the old Amber Route, through the Alpine pa.s.ses and valleys to the Adriatic, where Phoenician and Minoan ships transported it to the eastern reaches of the Mediterranean. And that the trade went both ways.""The logistics of your theoretical trade route would have been complex.""You're a genius! Exactly my point!""Thanks for the compliment, but I'm just relating it to my own experiences moving people and material.""Then you know how complicated it would be. People along the land route, like the Celts and the Etruscans, had to cooperate on trade agreements in order to move the materials along. I think trade was a lot more extensive than my colleagues would admit. All this has fascinating implications about how we view ancient civilizations. They weren't all about war; they knew the value of peaceful alliances a long time before the EU or NAFTA. And I mean to prove it.""Ancient globalization? An ambitious goal. I wish you luck.""I'll need it. But if I do succeed I'll have you and NUMA to thank. Your agency has been wonderfully generous in the use of its research vessel and equipment.""It goes both ways. Your project gives NUMA a chance to test our new vessel in inland waters and to see how this submersible operates under field conditions."She made a sweeping gesture with her hand. "The scenery is perfectly lovely. All we need is a bottle of champagne and foie gras." Austin leaned over and handed a small plastic cooler to his companion "Can't help you there, but how about ajambon et frontage sandwich?""Ham and cheese would be my second choice." She unzipped the cooler, extracted a sandwich, handed it to Austin and took one for herself.Austin brought the submersible to a hovering stop. As he chewed on his lunch, savoring the crusty baguette and the creamy slab of Camembert cheese, he studied a chart of the lake."We're here, alongside a natural shelf that roughly parallels the sh.o.r.eline," he said, running his finger along a wavy line. "This could have been exposed land centuries ago.""It goes along with my findings. A section of the Amber Route skirted the sh.o.r.e of Lac du Dormeur. When the waters rose, the traders found another route. Anything we find here would be very old." , "What exactly are we looking for?""I'll know it when I see it.""Good enough for me.""You're far too trusting. I'll elaborate. The caravans that plied the Amber Route needed places to stop for the night. I'm looking for the ruins of hospices, or settlements that may have grown up around a stopping place. Then I hope to find weapons that would flesh out the full trade story."They washed their lunch down with Evian water, and Austin's fingers played over the controls. The battery-powered electrical motors hummed, activating the twin lateral thrusters that the sphere rested on, and the submersible continued its exploration.The SEAmagine SEA mobile was fifteen feet long, about the length of a mid sized Boston whaler, and only seven feet wide, but it was capable of carrying two people in one