That could be a problem. Natasha needed Lourds up and thinking correctly if she was going to have a real chance at finding Yuliya’s killers.
But Natasha was also aware that on some level she didn’t like the idea of Lourds being with another woman. Another. She caught that quirk in her thoughts and was unhappy with herself.
She thought about going to Lourds’s door and crashing the party, then decided that was too juvenile. Instead, she went to her room and ordered a bottle of Finlandia Vodka. It gave her a small sense of satisfaction to put it on the room’s tab and know that Leslie was going to have to account for it.
Excitement burned through Leslie when she heard the running water and the steam coming out of the bathroom. Lourds was in the shower. It wasn’t exactly what she had in mind, but it would be fun. She felt a smile spread across her face.
The television was on and was tuned to CNN. The computer was open on the desk and she could see that he’d been working.
Leslie hesitated, though. Okay, you’re in or you’re out, she told herself. She took a quick breath, dropped her handbag, kicked off her shoes, and peeled her clothes off.
Totally starkers, she stepped into the bathroom.
Lourds lay in the deep bathtub with his head back and his eyes closed. At first Leslie thought he was asleep. But when she moved toward him and her shadow tracked across his face, he snapped his eyes open.
When he saw her, he didn’t try to cover up or act modest. He just lay there and looked at her. Then he smiled.
“I don’t suppose you accidentally ended up in the wrong room,” he said.
Leslie giggled. That she hadn’t expected. But one of the things she’d come to appreciate about Lourds over the last nineteen days she’d known him was his sense of humor.
“No,” she said. “I didn’t.”
But he didn’t invite her in, either.
“Do you mind?” she asked as she pointed to the bath.
“Not at all. Although seating could be a little difficult.”
Leslie stepped into the bath with her feet outside Lourds’s legs and sat across his thighs. For a moment she didn’t know how interested he was going to be in what she had in mind. If he wasn’t intrigued he would have sent you away. Then his interest manifested, hard and insistent, as it glided up between her thighs and pressed against her lower stomach.
“Well, now,” Lourds said, grinning. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“It’s not pleasure,” Leslie said. “Yet. But I think it will be.” She leaned into him and kissed him deeply. The heat of his body lit flames inside hers. Her mind swirled and her thoughts shattered into a kaleidoscope of sensory overload.
He smelled of soap and male musk. His lips tasted like wine. Leslie could only hear her heart beating inside her head as his rough hands roved freely over her body. He gripped her hips and pulled her in for a tighter fit, but he didn’t try to penetrate her. His proximity was maddening, though, because it was right there.
Leslie rolled her hips and tried to capture him so he would slide into place. He flexed his thighs and avoided her intimate embrace.
“Not yet,” he whispered against her throat.
“I thought you were ready,” she said.
“I am,” he told her. “But you’re not.”
She started to object and tell him that she was ready. If anyone would know she was ready, it was her. And she was more than ready.
His hand slipped in between them as they kissed. He bit her lips as he touched her gently. She doubted he’d find what he was looking for. That bloody spot—the one that felt so good—was never in the same place twice. At least, that was the way it seemed.
But he did find it. His fingertips rubbed just hard enough to rob the breath from her lungs. She bent her back and leaned away from him so she could press her clitoris against his fingers. She rocked with him and couldn’t believe he’d so easily found what she sometimes got frustrated searching for.
He bent toward her and kissed her face and neck. But she was so locked into the vibrant need coursing through her that she couldn’t respond.
In the next instant, warmth flooded her loins as her hips jerked toward him. She bucked and rocked as she rode his hand. The world came to a quiet and gentle stop. She took a shuddering breath.
“Wow,” she whispered. She leaned into him when he drew his hand back. His chest felt warm and solid against her breasts.
“ ‘Wow,’ indeed,” Lourds agreed.
“Am I ready now?”
“I think you are.” With surprising strength, Lourds stood in the tub and stepped out. Leslie kept her legs tight around him.
He deposited her on the floor, then briskly toweled her dry. Even that contact sent her senses reeling. It was made even worse when he leaned in to kiss her but somehow avoided her own efforts.
“You’re a tease,” she accused.
“I hardly think so.”
She toweled him off, too, but was more direct with her attentions. She dropped to her knees and took him into her mouth. That caught him by surprise, but he resisted her best attempts to bring him over the edge. That was more than a little frustrating, but she looked forward to breaking down his resistance.
“Okay,” he said in a thick voice. “That’ll be enough of that.”
“For the moment,” she agreed.
Lourds bent and picked her up in his arms, cradling her like a child. She luxuriated in feeling small and defenseless in his embrace, though she knew she was anything but. The hunger in her belly fired anew as he carried her to the bed.
He laid her on it gently, then climbed aboard with her. She looked up into his eyes as she felt his hand nudge between her thighs and start caressing her again. She had no doubt now that he could bring that to a successful conclusion again, but she wanted more.
She rolled him over onto his back, threw a leg across his hips, and pushed herself on top. She teased him for a moment, raking her slick loins against his erection, but figured out that he could handle any amount of teasing that she wanted to dish out.
Leslie laughed.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“You,” she said. “I hadn’t thought you would have this kind of control.”
“Not control,” Lourds said. “Consider it a compliment. I want you to enjoy yourself.”
“I am.” Leslie canted her hips a final time and eased him into her, claiming his flesh as her own. “But I like it best when I’m in control.” She settled onto him, found the rhythm of the bed, and proceeded to grind him into dust.
CHAPTER
15
BASE CAMP
ATLANTIS DIG SITE
CÁDIZ, SPAIN
SEPTEMBER 4, 2009
F
ather Emil Sebastian roused when he heard his name called. When he looked up from the cot where he slept, he saw a hooded figure looming over him. Panic nearly throttled him because the figure reminded him of the nightmares he’d had for the past few weeks since his descent into the underground.
Then the figure adjusted the flame inside the lantern he carried.
Demons wouldn’t need a lantern, Sebastian thought. His fear subsided. How could he have thought such a thing?
If he hadn’t already been seeing disturbing images when he slept, though, he might have blamed the horror movie some of the dig workers had watched on DVD last night. He hadn’t intended to join them, but he loved a good scary story. He’d been fond of the genre since he was a kid—it was a childhood thrill he couldn’t put away in spite of his fifty-six years.
“Are you awake, Father?” the young man asked politely. The lantern revealed his features then. They were angelic, not demonic. His voice was almost too soft to be heard over the constant throb of the diesel generators that supplied the base camp with electricity.
“I’m awake, Matteo.” Sebastian fumbled on the tent floor beside his bed and found his glasses and watch. It was 3:42.
A.M.
“Has so
mething happened?”
There had been three cave-ins so far, but—thank God!—none of them had yet proved fatal. Four men had gone to the hospital with broken bones, though.
“Nothing bad, Father,” Matteo said. “What’s happened is good. Come see.”
“Help me find my shoes.” In the darkness and with his night vision so impaired, Sebastian had trouble finding things. Worse yet, he couldn’t actually remember where he’d taken his shoes off.
Matteo played the lantern around and pointed to the father’s feet.
“You’re still wearing them, Father,” the young man said.
“Ah, so I am.”
“You’ve got to stop doing that,” Matteo told him. “You’ll get fungus.”
Sebastian knew that from the countless warnings they’d been given before the advent into the cave system that had been revealed during the underwater quake that had dredged up the new shoreline from sixty feet of water. The cave system, after having been underwater for so long, remained a wet environment. Bacteria and fungus could grow rapidly.
During the first few months of the operation, they’d had to build retaining walls against the sea and pump the water from the caves. It remained that way for each new cave they opened. When Sebastian had gone to bed—or, to cot—the pump team had still been working on draining the cave they’d found two days ago.
Sebastian stood and stamped his feet to check the blood circulation. Sometimes when he slept in his shoes, his feet turned completely numb.
“You should at least change your socks,” Matteo said.
Grudgingly, Sebastian knew the boy was right. He sat back down, took a pair of fresh socks from the duffel near the bed, took off his shoes, and put them on. Then, grimacing with disgust, he put his shoes back on again.
“So why did you come for me, Matteo?” he asked as he stood once more.
“They’ve drained the cave. They think they’ve found another.”
“We expected there to be another cave.” In fact, they still expected a number of caves. whatever had sundered the original coastline had also wreaked havoc with the catacombs that had undermined the ancient city.
Surrounded by the sea as it had been nine or ten thousand years ago, the original builders had taken steps to compartmentalize the catacombs. If one area flooded, they could shut down the next.
“Yes, but not like this.”
Sebastian clapped the young man on the shoulder. “Then let’s go see what they’ve found.” He stepped through the tent flap, but paused long enough to pick up his rechargeable flashlight from the charging plate. He didn’t relish the idea of getting lost in the dark, twisting maze of the cave system.
Outside the cave, three of the Swiss Guard assigned to the excavation team stood at attention. They wore casual clothing suited for the chill of the caves and spelunking, and pistols.
Sebastian had protested the presence of the weapons, but he hadn’t been able to convince their captain to relinquish them. So far there hadn’t been any incidents where they’d proved necessary, but the guard didn’t accept the idea that that meant there wouldn’t be such incidents eventually. The men were well trained and polite, but they remained ever watchful.
The base camp area smelled of diesel and salt water. The tang of dead fish remained as well. When the sea had given up the coastline and revealed its secret, and when the caves had been pumped dry, sea creatures had been marooned. They’d died by the hundreds and their rotting corpses had to be evacuated.
He’d been told the offal apparently made good fertilizer. At any rate, it disappeared from the camp.
As they passed the food tent, Sebastian stepped inside momentarily to retrieve two bottles of water and a pastry. He admitted the pastry was a want, but he needed the water. No one was supposed to walk anywhere without water in case they became lost. That had happened a few times as men, drawn by their curiosity, had gone off exploring on their own.
They still hunted riches, Sebastian knew. All the stories of Atlantis had filled their heads with hopes of fabulous wealth.
For himself, Sebastian didn’t know what to think. He’d expected something. Instead, all they’d found so far were artifacts that carbon-dated back many thousands of years, proving them interesting in their own right, but nothing that really spoke of the civilization that had been there.
Much of the city had been lost. When the waves had drunk Atlantis down, the sea had purged the city. Torn asunder in the cataclysm—whether it was the fabulous towers shown in the illustrations Sebastian had seen, or if it were only huts—the city was shattered and spread across the sea bottom.
whatever remained of it was buried beneath thousands of years of accumulated silt. Unless the sea chose to give it up, it might not ever be found.
Sebastian slid the bottles of water into the pockets of the long coat he wore against the chill of the cave. He followed Matteo’s lead as they trailed along the yellow nylon rope that marked the path.
Strings of electric lights hung from the cave wall, but every time Sebastian left the base camp he was aware of entering the darkness waiting in the interior of the earth.
RADISSON SAS HOTEL LEIPZIG
LEIPZIG, GERMANY
SEPTEMBER 4, 2009
The strident ring of a cell phone woke Lourds amid a tangle of soft limbs and seductive curves. In the dim glow from the clock radio on the nightstand he saw the blond highlights of Leslie’s hair.
So it wasn’t a dream.
He smiled at that. He’d been so tired last night that he hadn’t been certain he didn’t just dream the encounter.
Gently, he disentangled one arm and reached for the phone.
“Is it mine?” Leslie asked in a soft voice.
Lourds looked. There were two cell phones on the nightstand.
“No,” he said. “It’s mine.”
“Good.” Leslie rolled off him and curled up in the blankets.
As he punched the TALK button and brought the phone to his ear, Lourds admired the smooth expanse of her back and the supple curve of her naked derriere.
“Lourds,” he answered.
“Thomas?” The woman on the other end of the connection sounded panicked.
Lourds focused immediately. He knew the voice, but he couldn’t remember who it—
“This is Donna Bergstrom. Professor Marcus Bergstrom’s wife.”
“Yes, Donna.” Professor Bergstrom also taught at Harvard. He was in the paleontology department. His wife was a professor of economics. Since he was a neighbor as well, Bergstrom watched over Lourds’s house whenever he was out of the city. They often had cookouts and invited Lourds over.
“Something terrible has happened. Marcus was shot.”
Lourds swung his legs over the bed and sat up. “How is he?”
“He just got out of surgery a few hours ago. The doctor says he’s going to be fine. He’s strong and he’s a fighter.”
“He is that,” Lourds agreed. Bergstrom played soccer as well. “What happened? Was he mugged?”
“The police say it was a home invasion,” Donna said.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Lourds felt Leslie shifting behind him. He glanced at her and found her sitting cross-legged on the bed with a sheet around her hips. “Did they do anything to your house?”
“It wasn’t our house,” Donna said. “It was yours. Marcus saw a gas van at your house. So he went to see what was going on.” The woman broke down in tears. “They shot him, Thomas. Shot him for no good reason at all.”
Lourds tried to placate the woman, but the whole time he felt certain that his friend hadn’t gotten hurt for no reason at all. Lourds had inadvertently left them in harm’s way. The guilt was almost overwhelming.
______
Seated in the passenger seat of the corporate helicopter, Patrizio Gallardo peered down at the Radisson SAS Hotel.
“Ready?” the pilot asked over the headset.
“Ready,” Gallardo responded. He glanced over his shoulder
at the eight men in the passenger area. All of them were dressed in black suits that covered the silenced pistols they carried. Briefcases carried spare magazines.
DiBenedetto sat smoking despite the pilot’s desire for him not to. His blue eyes burned bright with the drug coursing through his system. Farok sat calm and resolute with his hands between his knees. Pietro and Cimino looked a little tense. Getting into and out of the hotel wasn’t going to be easy.
The helicopter swooped down to the hotel rooftop and hovered only inches above. Gallardo opened the passenger door while DiBenedetto and Farok opened both side cargo doors. The nine men, with Gallardo in the lead, dropped to the rooftop and streaked for the rooftop access.
Cimino used a shaped charge that didn’t sound any louder than a firecracker to blow the lock on the door. By the time the helicopter had cleared, they were inside the building and headed down to the seventh floor.
Lourds would never know what hit him.
RESTRICTED LIBRARY STACKS
STATUS CIVITATIS VATICANAE
SEPTEMBER 4, 2009
Murani stared at the book he held. It represented both promise and condemnation. It was the only book outside the Bible that he knew truly did that.
Oversized and leather-bound, the book was an illustrated manuscript with obscure origins. It was written in Latin, and he believed it had been written in Rome at the height of the empire. After Rome fell, however, and the Germanic tribes rode through her walls and into her streets, libraries had burned in their wake. Some of the books had been taken out to the Netherlands, where they were copied by the Irish monks and kept alive.
Murani wanted to believe the copy he had was the original. He didn’t like the idea that other copies might exist in the world. Once a secret spread, it was hard to control.
He sat at one of the antique tables deep in the stacks and breathed in the aroma of dust, old paper, and leather. He could still remember the excitement he’d felt when he’d first been permitted entrance into the room after becoming a member of the Society of Quirinus.
The Atlantis Code Page 22