Lost City (NUMA Files 5)

"He had already stopped it. He destroyed the computations for the basic formula and etched them into the helmet. Clever. Too clever. We had to start all over again. There were a million possible combinations. We kept the mutants alive with the hope that one day they might reveal the secrets of the formula. The work was interrupted by wars, the Depression. We were close to succeeding during World War Two when our laboratory was bombed by Allied planes. It set back our research by decades."

Austin chuckled. "You're saying that the wars you promoted hurt your research. The irony must not have escaped you."

"I wish it had."

"In the meantime, you got older."

"Yes, I got older," she said with uncharacteristic sadness. "I lost my beauty and became a crackling old crone. Still, I persisted. We made some progress in slowing aging, which I shared with Emil, but the Grim Reaper was catching up with us. We were so close. We tried to create the right enzyme, but with limited success. Then one of my scientists heard about the Lost City enzyme. It seemed to be the missing link. I bought the company doing research on the enzyme, and enlisted Dr. MacLean and his colleagues to pursue round-the-clock research. We built a submarine that could harvest the enzyme and set up a testing laboratory."

"Why did you have the scientists at MacLean's company killed?"

"We're not the first to dispose of ^scientific team so they won't talk about their research. The British government is-still investigating the deaths of scientists who worked on a Star Wars missile defense project. We had created a new batch of mutants and the scientists threatened to go public with the news, so we got rid of them."

"The only problem with your scientists is that they hadn't really finished their work," Austin said. "Pardon me, but this operation sounds like a clown convention."

"Not an inaccurate analogy. I made the mistake of letting Emil handle things. It was a big mistake. Once I took control again, I brought back Dr. MacLean to reconstitute a research team. They managed to recoup much of the work."

"Was Emil responsible for flooding the glacier tunnel?"

"Mea culpa again. I had

not brought him into my confidence about the true significance of the helmet, so he never tried to find it before flooding the tunnel."

"Yet another mistake?"

"Luckily, Mademoiselle Labelle removed the helmet, and it is now in my possession. It provided the missing link and we closed down the lab. So you see, we make mistakes, but we learn by them. Apparently, you don't. You escaped from here once, yet you came back to certain disaster."

"I'm not certain that's the case."

"What do you mean?"

"Have you heard from Emil lately?"

"No." For the first time there was doubt in her face. "Where is he?"

"Let us go and I'll be glad to tell you," Austin said.

"What are you saying?"

"I stopped off at the glacier before coming here. Emil is now in custody."

"A shame," she said with a flip of her fingers. "Too bad you didn't kill him."

"You're bluffing. This is your son we're talking about."

"You needn't remind me of my familial obligations," she said coldly. "I don't care what happens to Emil or his cretinous friend Sebastian. Emil planned to usurp me. I would have had to destroy him myself. If you've killed him, you did me a favor."

Austin felt as if he had just been dealt a pair of deuces in a high-stakes poker game.

"I should have known that mother snakes sometimes eat their eggs."

"You can't insult me with your silly taunts. Despite its internal friction, our family has grown ever more powerful through the centuries."

"And created a river of blood in the process."

"What do we care for blood? It is the most expendable commodity on earth."

"Some people might argue with that."