Lost City

by Clive Cussler

  "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 passed 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 the others 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 café, where he found himself glancing with apprehension at the other tables. The evening passed 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 café 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 muffled 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 cassock," 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."

  3

  The French Alps

  THE 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 knobs, Hank Thurston, seated in the front passenger'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 sunglasses, 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 passenger, 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 passes 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 mirrorlike 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 passed over a wide, sturdy-looking vessel anchored near the shore 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 out of 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. La Langue du Dormeur. 'The Sleeper's Tongue.' "

  The helicopter made a pass 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 crevasses 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 grassy 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 reassure himself that the lake wasn't frozen solid.

  Rawlins's gaze shifted from the widening ripples to the boat anchored about a quarter mile from shore. He recognized the distinctive turquoise blue-green color of the hull immediately. He had encountered vessels of similar color while on writing assignments. 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 Citröen 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 professeur 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, snatching 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 Citröen. "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 Citröen 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 altitude 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 Citröen'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 fromage 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 jackass 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 crevasses filled with wet snow.

  The reporter was huffing and puffing with exertion and altitude.

  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 passage ended after about a hundred feet and opened into a dimly lit tunnel. The shiny wet orange walls of metamorphic 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 c
ouldn'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 constitution," LeBlanc said with a snort.

  The Frenchman opened a plastic locker set against a wall. He passed 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 masses 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 shaggy beast."

  "You've been a short shaggy 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."