The plane's pilot cleared up one mystery. He said he'd been waiting on the lake for the reporters to return from the glacier, when a big man he had brought in showed up at the beach in LeBlanc's Citroen. The man said the other reporters were staying overnight, and that he needed a ride out immediately.
Skye watched the float plane skim across the lake for a takeoff and she broke into laughter. "Did you see Renaud? He was using his injured hand to push other people out of the way so he could get on first."
"The mocking tone of your voice suggests that you are not sorry to see Renaud leave," Austin said.
She pretended she was washing her hands. "Good riddance to bad rubbish, as my father used to say."
Lessard was standing next to Skye, and he had a sad look in his eyes as he watched the float plane leap from the lake and head toward a valley between two mountain peaks.
"Well, Monsieur Austin, I must go back to work," he said in a mournful voice. "Thank you for the excitement you and your friends have brought to this lonely outpost."
Austin grasped Lessard's hand in a firm grip. "The rescue would have been impossible without your help," Austin said. "I don't think you'll be alone for long. When the story gets out, you'll be inundated with reporters. The police will be sniffing around here as well."
Lessard looked more pleased than annoyed. "You thin so?" He beamed. "If you'll excuse me, I'd better get back to my office to prepare for visitors. I'll have a truck drive you back to the lake if you'd like."
"I'll walk with you," Skye said. "I've got to pick up something I left in the plant."
Zavala said of Lessard, "That gentleman apparently isn't content with his fifteen minutes of fame. Now, if you are through with my services "
Austin put his hand on Zavala's shoulder. "Don't tell me you want to leave this garden spot so you can to get back to Chamonix and your French pastry."
Zavala's eyes followed Skye. "It appears I'm not the only one partaking of the local delicacies?"
"You're way ahead of me, Joe. The young lady and I haven't even had our first date yet."
"Well, I'm the last guy to stand in the way of true romance." "Nor am I," Austin said, walking Zavala to the helicopter. "See you in Paris."
THE TRAFFIC JAM was horrendous even by Washington standards. Paul Trout had been sitting behind the steering wheel of his Humvee, staring with glazed eyes at the wall-to-wall carpet of cars clogging Pennsylvania Avenue, when he turned suddenly to Gamay and said, "My gills are starting to close up."
Gamay rolled her eyes in the way of a wife long used to her husband's eccentricities. She knew what was coming. Paul's family said only half-jokingly that if a Trout stayed away from his ancestral home for too long, he would start gasping for breath like a fish out of water. Therefore she wasn't surprised when he made an illegal U-turn, displaying the contempt for rules of the road that seems born into Massachusetts drivers.
While Paul drove as if he were on Desert Storm maneuvers, she used her cell phone to call the airline for reservations and to let their NUMA office know they would be away for a few days. They whirled through their Georgetown town house like twin tornadoes, packed their overnight bags and dashed to the airport.
Less than two hours after their shuttle flight landed in Boston,
they were on Cape Cod, strolling along Water Street in the village of Woods Hole, where Trout had been born and raised. Woods Hole's main thoroughfare is about a quarter of a mile long, squeezed between a salt pond and a harbor, and bordered on both sides by buildings that house organizations devoted to marine and environmental science.
The most conspicuous of these is the world-renowned Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Nearby, in a vintage brick-and-granite edifice, is the Marine Biological Laboratory, whose research programs and library of nearly two hundred thousand volumes attract scholars from around the globe. Within walking distance of the MBL is the National Marine Fisheries aquarium. On the outskirts of the village are the U.S. Geological Survey and dozens of sea education institutions and private companies that produce the high-tech underwater gadgets used by ocean scientists the world over.
A breeze was coming off the harbor from the direction of the Elizabeth Islands. Trout paused on the tiny drawbridgejthat separates Eel Pond and Great Harbor and he filled his lungs with salty air, thinking that there must be some truth to the gill-closing story. He could actually breathe again. /
Trout was the son of a local fisherman and his wife, and his family still owned the low-slung Cape Cod cottage where he had been raised. His intellectual home was the Oceanographic Institution. As a boy he used to run errands for some of the scientists who worked at the institution and it was at their encouragement that he had specialized in deep-ocean geology, a move that would bring him eventually to NUMA and its Special Assignments Team.
Within hours of their arrival, Paul had checked on his house, touched base with several relatives and stopped off for lunch with Gamay at a local watering hole where he knew everyone at the bar. Then he began to make the rounds. He was visiting the Institution's Deep Submergence Lab where an old colleague was bringing him
up-to-date on the latest in autonomous underwater vehicles, when the phone rang.
"It's for you," his colleague said, handing Trout the phone. A voice boomed on the line. "Hello, Trout. This is Sam Osborne. Heard down at the post office that yo
u were back in town. How are you and your lovely wife?"
Osborne was a phycologist, one of the world's foremost experts in the science of algology, or the study of algae. After years of teaching, he still talked in a range that was two or three decibels above that of a normal human being.
Trout didn't bother asking how Osborne had tracked him down. It was impossible to keep anything secret in a village the size of Woods Hole. "We're fine, thank you. Nice of you to give me a call, Dr. Osborne."
Osborne cleared his throat. "Weller actually I wasn't calling you. I wanted to speak to your wife."
Trout smiled. "I don't blame you for that. Gamay is much prettier than I am."