Serpent (NUMA Files 1)

As I said, Joe, you missed your calling. Bantering aside, how is the, er, backside?"

"I'm not quite ready to run a marathon, but I threw my cane away days ago, sir."

"Glad to hear that. Before we join the others I wanted to congratulate you both on the Nereus affair. I read the reports. Job well done.

"Thanks," Austin said. "Captain Phelan deserves a lot of the credit. He was born too late. He would have looked quite at home with a cutlass in his hand, taming the Barbary pirates. I'm afraid we left his ship in a mess."

Sandecker affixed Austin with his cold blue eyes. "Some things have to be done, Kurt. I spoke to the captain yesterday. The vessel is winding up its work in the Yucatan. He feels fine and tells me the Nereus is shipshape and Bristol fashion once again." Sandecker used the old term to describe a tight ship. "He asked me to thank you again for saving his vessel. So, are you both ready to get back to work?"

Zavala swung his hand up in a grand salute worthy of a Gilbert and Sullivan character. "Shipshape and Bristol fashion," he echoed with a grin.

There was a soft knock, and a side door in the dark-paneled wall opened. A giant of a figure stepped in, ducking his head to clear the door jamb. At six-foot-eight Paul Trout looked as if he'd be more at home on an NBA basketball court than as deep ocean geologist on NUMAs Special Assignments Team. In fact Trout had been offered scholarships at several universities more interested in his height than his brilliant mind.

As befitted his New England heritage Trout was a man of few words, but his Yankee reserve couldn't hide the pleasure in his voice. "Hi, guys. Glad to see you back We've missed you around here." Turning to Sandecker, he said, "We're ready Admiral."

"Splendid. I won't waste time with explanations now, gentlemen. The reasons for this meeting will so

on be made abundantly dear." Sandecker led the way into a spacious and comfortably appointed conference room adjoining his office.

Austin knew right away something big was in the air. The wiry, narrow-shouldered man seated at the far end of the long mahogany table was Commander Rudi Gunn, deputy director of NUMA and a master of logistics. Next to him was the 1960s throwback and computer whiz Hiram Yaeger. Across the table from the NUMA staffers was a distinguished-looking older man whose craggy profile and bristling white mustache reminded Austin of C. Aubrey Smith, the old movie actor who often played blustering British army officers. The younger man sitting beside him was balding and thickset and had a pugnacious jut of his jaw.

Austin acknowledged Gunn and Yaeger with a nod of his head. His gaze bounced off the other men like a stone skipped on water and settled on the woman seated at the far end of the table. Her blond hair was braided dose to her scalp, an arrangement that emphasized her smoky gray eyes and high cheekbones. Austin went over and extended his hand.

"Dr. Kirov, what a nice surprise," he said with genuine pleasure. "It's good to see you."

Nina was wearing a jacket and matching skirt whose soft periwinkle tones set off her honeyed skin. In the back of his mind Austin was thinking what idiots men are. When he first met Nina she had been beautiful as a lightly clad mermaid. Now, fully clothed, with her hidden curves and contours emphasized under snug-fitting silk, she was absolutely stunning.

Her mouth widened in a bewitching smile. "It's good to see you, too, Mr. Austin. How are you feeling?"

"Wonderful, now," he replied. The formality of the polite exchange couldn't mask its quiet intensity. They held each other's hands seconds longer than they should have, until Sandecker broke the spell with an exaggerated clearing of his throat. Austin turned to see the bemused expressions of his NUMA colleagues, and his face flushed. He realized he was reacting like a dewy-eyed schoolboy caught by his girl-loathing pals.

Sandecker made a round of introductions. The older man was J. Prescott Danvers, executive director of an organization called the World Archaeological Council. The other stranger was Jack Quinn of the East Asia Foundation. Sandecker looked at his watch. "Now that we've dispensed with the formalities, shall we get right down to business? Hiram?"

While Yaeger fiddled with the keyboard of a Macintosh Powerbook, Austin took a seat next to Trout. As usual, Trout's appearance was impeccable. His light brown hair was parted down the middle, as was the style during the Jazz Age, and combed back on the temples. He was wearing a tan poplin suit, Oxford blue shirt, and fine of the large, colorfully designed bow ties he was addicted to. In contrast to his sartorial correctness, Trout also favored workboots, an eccentricity some thought was homage to his fisherman father. In reality it was a habit he picked up at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where many scientists wore them.

The son of a Cape Cod fisherman, Trout spent much of his boyhood hanging around the world-famous institution and was offered weekend and summer jobs by scientists who went out of their way to be friendly to a youngster so fascinated by the ocean. His love of the sea later took him to the equally renowned Scripps Institution of Oceanography majoring in deep ocean geology.

"Thought you were down in the Yucatan with Gamay," Austin said. It was unusual to see Trout without his wife. They had met at Scripps, where she was studying for a doctorate in marine biology, and they were married after graduation. Rudi Gunn, an old friend from his high school days, persuaded Paul to come on board as a member of a special team being put, together by Admiral Sandecker. Paul accepted, but only on the condition that his wife went with him. Delighted that he was getting two topnotch people, Sandecker readily accepted.

Trout's chin seemed constantly dipped in thought. As was his habit he spoke with his head lowered, and, although he wore contact lenses, he peered upward, as if over glasses.

Speaking in the nasal twang and broad A of his native Cape Cod, Trout said, "She'd been trying for weeks to make an appointment with a VIP from the national anthropological museum in Mexico City. Guy couldn't change the date, so I'm, here for the two of us."

Sandecker had taken up a post in front of a large rear-projection screen linked to Yaeger's computer. He nodded to Yaeger, and a second later a map of northwest Africa appeared on the screen. Indicating Morocco and using an unlit Managua cigar to point to a blinking red arrow, Sandecker said, All in this room are aware of the attack on Dr. Kirov and the disappearance of her expedition." He turned to Austin and Zavala. "Kurt, while you and Zavala were recuperating, two more expeditions were reported missing."

Taking the cue, Yaeger projected a map of the world on the screen. He pointed to three red blinking arrows. "Mr. Quinn's organization lost a group here in China. Two scientists and their helper have disappeared from India. This one is Morocco."..

"Thank you, Hiram," Sandecker said. "Dr. Danvers, if you could tell us a little about your organization."

"I'd be happy to," Danvers replied, rising. His elegant voice still bore its pseudo-British prep school imprint. "The World Archaeological Council in Washington is a clearing house for information having to do with the world archaeological community At any given moment dozens of projects are under way around the globe, he said with a wave at the map: "They are sponsored by foundations, universities, governmental entities, or combinations of all three. Our job is to collect all this information and dispense it back to them, as needed, in controlled quantities."

"Perhaps .you might give us a specific example," Sandecker coached.

Danvers thought for a moment. "One of our members, a university in this case, recently wanted to do some work in Uzbekistan. With one call to our computer banks we could tell them about all past, current, and future work in that country, provide all the papers published in recent years, bibliographies of reference books, and names of experts in the field. We would have maps and charts, information on practical matters, such as local politics, sources of workers, transportation, conditions of roads, weather, and so on."

Sandecker cut to the chase. "Would you also have records of expeditions that have vanished?"

"Well" Danvers furrowed his frosty brow. "Not as such. It is up to the various members to provide material. As I said, we're collectors and dispensers. Our material is primarily academic. In the Uzbekistan example there would be no mention of a disappearance unless the university provided it. Perhaps warnings that a certain territory might be hazardous. On the other hand, the information might be there, spread throughout the databank, but it would be a question of bringing all that together, and that would be a monumental task"