Lost City (NUMA Files 5)

motive for evil. I'd wager that anyone in this room would sell his firstborn rather than pass up the chance to live forever."

"Not everyone," said Austin.

"What do you mean? Given the chance, who wouldn't want to live forever?"

Austin gesturing toward the sheet-draped gurney. "Ask the old soldier lying on that table."

I HATE TO THROW cold water on this warmhearted reunion," Gamay said. "But with all this talk of red-eyed monsters and the Philosopher's Stone, we've~forgotten we have some unfinished business to attend to."

After the meeting with Mayhew, they had gone to their hotel lounge to discuss strategy. Sandy, the Alvin pilot, had been anxious to leave, and Mayhew had put her on a flight to London where she could catch a plane home. The scientists were still being debriefed.

"You're right," Zavala said, lifting his glass to the light. "I'm way behind in my goal to drink all the top-shelf tequila in the world."

"That's very laudable, Joe, but I'm more interested in the survival of the world, not its tequila supply," Gamay said. "May I sum the problem up in one word? Gorgon weed."

"I haven't forgotten," Austin said. "I didn't want to spoil your reunion with Paul. Now that you've brought the subject up, what's the situation?"

"Not good," Gamay said. "I've talked to Dr. Osborne, the infestation is spreading faster than anyone imagined."

"The mining operation has been stopped. Won't this halt the spread of Gorgon weed?" Austin said.

Gamay heaved a heavy sigh. "I wish. The mutated weed has become self-replicating and will continue to spread. We'll see harbors clogged along the east coast of the U.S. first, then Europe and the Pacific coast. The weed will continue its spread to other continents."

"How long do we have?"

"I don't know," Gamay said. "The ocean currents are moving the stuff all around the Atlantic."

Austin tried to picture his beloved ocean turned into a noxious saltwater swamp.

"Ironic, isn't it?" Austin said. "The Fauchards want to extend their lives, and in doing so they will produce a world that may not be worth living in." He looked around the table. "Any idea how we can stop this thing?"

"The Lost City enzyme holds the key to halting the weed's spread," Gamay said. "If we can figure out the basic molecular makeup, we may be able to find a way to reverse the process."

"My body is covered with bumps and bruises that tell me the Fauchards don't give up family secrets easily," Austin said.

"That's why Gamay and I should go back to Washington to set up a conference at NUMA with Dr. Osborne," Trout said. "We can try to get a flight out of here the first thing in the morning."

"Go to it." Austin looked around at the weary faces. "But first I suggest we all get a good night's sleep."

After bidding his friends a good-night, Austin found a computer room off the hotel lobby, where he did an abbreviated report for Rudi Gunn and sent it off by e-mail with the promise to follow up with a call in the morning. He rubbed his eyes a few times as he was typing and was glad when he pressed th

e SEND button and sent the message winging across the ocean.

He went up to his room and noticed that someone had called his cell phone. He returned the call, which turned out to be from Dar-nay. He had located Austin through his NUMA office.

"Thank God I have found you, Monsieur Austin," the antiquities dealer said. "Have you heard from Skye?"

"Not lately," Austin said. "I've been on the move or out at sea. I thought she was with you."

"She left here the same day she arrived. We had discovered what looked like a chemical equation etched into the crown of the helmet and she wanted to show it to an expert at the Sorbonne. I saw her off at the train. When I didn't hear from her after that night, I called the university the next day. They said she hadn't been in."

"Maybe she's been sick."

"I wish that were so. I called her apartment. There was no answer. I spoke to her landlady. Mademoiselle Skye never returned to her home after visiting me in Provence."

"I think you had better call the police," Austin said without hesitation.

"The police?"