Lost City

"Kurt said this helmet may contain the key that unlocks the Fauchard puzzle," Skye said. "I must get it back to Paris so I can show it to a cryptologist or a mathematician at the university."

"That's unfortunate," Weebel said. "I had hoped to reproduce this lovely piece. Later, perhaps?"

Skye smiled. "Yes, Monsieur Weebel. Maybe later." He replaced the helmet in its case and handed it to Skye. She and Darnay thanked him and said their good-byes. She asked Darnay to take her to the train station. He was disappointed at her decision to leave, and tried to persuade her to stay. She said she was anxious to get back to Paris, but promised to return soon for a longer visit.

"If that is your decision I must respect it," Darnay said. "Will you be seeing Mr. Austin?"

"I hope so. We have a di

"I can take care of myself, Charles." She kissed him on the cheeks. "But if it makes you feel any better, I will call Kurt on my cell phone." "That does make me feel better. Please give me a ring when you get home."

"You worry too much," she said. "But I'll call you." True to her word, she tried to call Austin as the the train sped north. The clerk at Austin's hotel said he had left a message for her. "He said he had a matter of some urgency to attend to and would be in touch with you."

She wondered what was so urgent that he would leave on such short notice, but from what she had seen, Austin was very much a man of action, and she was not surprised. She was sure he would call her as promised. The trip from Aix took just under three hours. It was late evening when the train arrived back in Paris. She hailed a taxi to take her back to her apartment.

She paid her fare and was walking up to her door when someone said in a loud voice: "Excusez mwa. Parlay-voo Anglay?"

She turned, and in the illumination from the streetlight saw a tall, middle-aged man standing behind her. The smiling woman by his side had a Michelin Green Guide clutched in her hand.

Tourists. Probably American, from the atrocious accent. "Yes, I speak English," she said. "Are you lost?"

The man gri

Skye tried not to smile, wondering why anyone would want to find the Louvre at night. "It's on the Right Bank. You are some distance from it. But it is a short walk to the Metro station and the train will take you there. I can give you directions."

"We have a map in our car," the woman said. "Perhaps you could show us where we are."

Even worse. Paris was no place for drivers who didn't know the city. She followed them to their car, which was pulled up at the curb. The woman opened the back door, leaned in, then pulled her head out.

"Would you reach across the seat and get the map, dear? My back "

"Of course." Holding the bag with the helmet in her left hand, Skye leaned into the car but saw no map on the seat. Then she felt a pinprick on her right haunch, as if she had been stung by a bee. As she put her hand on the sting in reflex, she was aware that the Americans were staring at her. Inexplicably, their faces started to dissolve.

"Are you all right, dear?" the woman said.

"I " Skye's tongue felt thick. The thought she. was trying to express fell apart.

"Why don't you sit for a minute?" the man said, pressing her into the car.

His voice seemed to come from far away. She was too weak to resist when he took the helmet case from her hands. The woman slid in beside her and shut the door. Skye was vaguely aware that the man had gone around to the driver's seat and that the car was moving. She looked out the window but saw only blurred images.

Then a black curtain descended over her eyes.

TROUT WAS THE picture of scientific diligence as he checked the graph displayed on the spectrometer screen and jotted down his observations in a notebook. It was the third time he had analyzed the same mineral sample from the Lost City and the note taking had nothing to do with what was on the screen. Using his talks with MacLean as a guide, Trout was drawing a sketch of the island.

The laboratory didn't look like much from the outside. It was housed in three Quonset huts that had served as support crew quarters for the old British submarine base that once occupied the island. Two of the half-cylinder-shaped buildings of corrugated steel had been welded together end-to-end. A third hut was attached at the midsection so that the lab space was in the form of a large T. An entire hut was taken up by batching vats and the rest of the space was used for scientific analysis.

The dull-olive exteriors were patched with rust and projected a general air of neglect, but inside, the huts were warm and well lit. The spacious lab was equipped with state-of-the-art scientific tools,

as up-to-date as anything Trout had seen in a NUMA facility. The main difference was the addition of the guards, who idled near each door with automatic weapons slung over their shoulders.

MacLean said he had been brought in by plane, which had given him a bird's-eye view of the island. As the plane made its approach, he'd seen that the island was shaped like a teacup. High vertical cliffs ran around the perimeter of the island, broken in one place by a long, tapering harbor. A crescent-shaped beach about a half mile long was sandwiched between the harbor and low cliffs that rose sharply to a high wall whose face was snow-white with a swirling blizzard of seabirds.

The submarine pen was at the head of the inlet. A road ran from the crew quarters above the pen's entrance, along the cliffs that bordered the harbor. After the road passed an abandoned church and moldering graveyards and the ruins of an old fishing village, it merged with another way that led inland, climbing through a narrow pass, then descending to the island's interior, once the caldera of a long-dead volcano.

In contrast to the rocky ramparts that protected it from the sea, the interior was rolling moorland dotted here and there by small thickets of tenacious scrub pine and oak. The road eventually terminated in the former naval base that now housed the lab complex under Strega's command.

MacLean was walking across the lab toward Trout's station. "Sorry to interrupt your work," he said. "How is your analysis coming?"

Trout tapped the notepad with his pen. "I'm between a rock and a hard place, Mac."

MacLean leaned over Trout's shoulder as if they were conferring. "I've just come from a meeting with Strega," he said in a low voice. "Evidently the test of the formula was a success."

"Congratulations, I suppose So that means we have outlived our usefulness? Why aren't we dead already?"

"Strega may be a murderous lout, but he's a meticulous organizer. He'll see to the details of wrapping up the operation on the island first, so he'll have time to enjoy himself without distraction. My guess is that tomorrow he'll take us on a lovely picnic and have us dig our own graves. "

"That gives us tonight," Trout said. He handed the notebook to MacLean "How does this jibe with your observance of the island topography?"

MacLean examined the map. "You have a skill at cartography. It's accurate in every detail. What now?"

"Here's how I see it, Mac. As Kurt Austin would say, KISS." "Pardon me?"