Lost City

Not every job that Austin undertook was filled with danger. Some, like his latest assignment, were quite pleasant and more than made up for the bumps, bruises and scars he had collected on various NUMA assignments. 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 classical, but her lips were lush and sensual. She had a good body, but it would never make the cover of Sports Illustrated. 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 passion 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 in

museums 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 competition while defending itself. Figuratively speaking."

"The original 'cutthroat competition," " 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 lust. 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 Sorbo

"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 passes 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 shoreline," he said, ru

"It goes along with my findings. A section of the Amber Route skirted the shore 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."