With that, Nina, Chase and Amoros left the Oval Office, a young aide escorting them through the White House corridors. ‘Thought that went okay,’ said Chase. ‘Well, my bits did, anyway.’
Nina ground a fist against her forehead. ‘Oh, God! I can’t believe I made an ass of myself in front of the President!’
‘Twice in two minutes, an’ all,’ Chase commented.
‘
‘Don’t worry about it, Nina,’ Amoros said reassuringly. ‘You did fine.’
Chase waved a thumb at the medal round her neck. ‘And you got a nice piece of bling out of it.’
‘Eddie,’ Amoros chided, ‘the Presidential Medal of Freedom is
Nina felt mildly affronted as well. ‘Yeah, come on, Eddie. I wouldn’t make fun of you if you got a medal from the Queen.’
‘Who says I haven’t?’ Chase replied, deadpan.
Nina regarded him suspiciously. Even after having known him for over two years, she still wasn’t quite able to tell whether he was being serious or, as he called it on the frequent occasions when he was doing so, ‘taking the piss’. ‘Nah,’ she said at last. ‘If you’d really got a medal from the Queen, you’d have told me by now. Even you couldn’t keep that a secret.’
He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. I’ve got medals, though. I just don’t make a big deal about them. They’re in a box somewhere.’
‘Well, maybe you can dig them out and show them to me when we get home. We’ve got time before the flight.’
Chase grinned. ‘I didn’t say the box was
Nina was indeed recognised on the Acela high-speed train to Penn Station, but it wasn’t because of the medal, which she returned to its presentation case before leaving the White House.
The discovery of Atlantis had not taken place under ideal conditions - the backer of Nina’s expedition had ulterior, genocidal motives. So the Western nations behind the founding of the International Heritage Agency, under the auspices of the United Nations, had in large part set it up in order to devise a much more innocuous cover story.
Such a story had finally been agreed upon, and a carefully staged programme of media coverage arranged to reveal it to the public, with Nina, fittingly enough, at its head. As a result, she had recently been doing the publicity rounds in newspapers, magazines and even TV - hence her being spotted by a man who asked for her autograph. ‘Bit more of this,’ said Chase as they left the train, ‘and you’ll be in all the tabloids.’
‘God, no! I don’t want
‘You’re a star to me, love,’ said Chase, putting a hand round her waist before casually sliding it down to grope her butt. She bumped her hip against his to push him back as a reminder that they were still in public. ‘So if they made a film about our lives, who do you reckon’d play us? Shame Cary Grant’s dead, he’d be perfect for me.’
Nina gave the squat, balding, broken-nosed Englishman a sidelong look. ‘Riiiight,’ she said, running a hand through his close-cropped hair. ‘You just keep on dreaming.’
While Chase returned to their apartment to finish packing, Nina took a cab to the United Nations building on the bank of the East River. She rode the elevator up through the tall Secretariat Building and made her way to the IHA’s offices.
‘Dr Wilde!’ said Lola Gianetti, standing up from her post at the reception desk to greet her. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here today. How was the White House? Did you meet the President?’
‘I did.’ Lola let out a muffled squeak of excitement. ‘And I’m sure I made an ass of myself, but Hector told me not to worry about it, so it can’t have been that bad.’ She turned for her office. ‘Sorry, I can’t hang around - I promised Eddie I’d be quick. If we miss the flight, he’ll . . .’ She considered it. ‘Huh. He probably wouldn’t be too bothered, actually.’
‘You’re meeting his family in England, aren’t you? Good luck with that. The first time I met my boyfriend’s family, I was petrified. His mom hated me!’
‘Yeah, thanks for that, Lola,’ said Nina with a pained smile as she walked away.
It only took a few minutes to copy the files she wanted from her computer on to a flash drive, and a couple of phone calls reassured her that the IHA operations she was overseeing would be in safe hands for the few days she was away. Gathering up her notes, she left her office - only to encounter an unexpected face in the corridor.
‘Matt!’ she said. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine, thanks!’ replied Matt Trulli, giving her a hug. The spike-haired, slightly overweight Australian submarine designer had helped Nina on her previous adventures, risking his own life to do so, and on her recommendation had decided to accept a somewhat quieter job in one of the IHA’s sister agencies. Nina still wasn’t used to seeing him in a suit, although he retained some vestiges of his old beach-bum look - today his shirt had three open buttons and his tie’s knot was about level with his heart. ‘Heard you and Eddie just got given the keys to the country. Nice one!’
‘Thanks. What’re you doing here? I thought you were in Australia with UNARA.’ The United Nations Antarctic Research Agency was gearing up to explore the unique ecosystems of the prehistoric lakes beneath the ice sheets of the South Pole.
‘Nah, got a while yet. We’re waiting for winter to finish down there. I’ve been on a bit of a world tour, though - came up from the UNARA office to tell your sub guys about my trip to Russia. The Russians are the experts at getting subs to work under ice, so I picked up a few pointers. Handy being an Aussie - if I’d been a Yank, they probably wouldn’t even have let me into the country, the way things are at the moment. Even got to go aboard one of their nuclear missile boats. Pretty cool, in a terrifying this-could-blow-up-the-world sort of way.’
‘Let’s hope that doesn’t actually happen.’
‘Too right.’ Trulli looked towards Nina’s office. ‘Is Eddie around?’
‘No, he’s at home. We’re flying to England later.’
‘Oh, meeting his family?’ Nina nodded. Trulli pursed his lips. ‘Good luck with that! This girl I was once seeing? Going fine, until I met her family. They couldn’t stand me!’
‘Thanks for the reassurance, Matt!’ said Nina in not-entirely-mock despair. ‘Anyway, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go. We’ll catch up properly when I get back.’
‘Will do,’ Trulli said as she walked away. ‘Oh, and don’t worry about the meet-the-family thing. It’ll be fine, probably!’
‘Thanks again, Matt!’ Nina replied through her teeth as she entered the reception area.
‘Dr Wilde,’ called Lola as she passed, ‘I just remembered there’s some mail for you. What do you want me to do with it?’
Nina paused at the door. ‘Is there anything important?’
‘Memos, mostly. Nothing urgent. Oh, and some stuff for the crank file.’
‘Great,’ Nina sighed. Since becoming the public face of the IHA, she had to her annoyance also become the locus for seemingly every crackpot on the planet with a theory about UFOs, lost civilisations, sea monsters, psychic powers . . . ‘Maybe I should take something to read on the plane in case I need a laugh. Anything good?’
‘The usual. Crystals and black helicopters and pyramid power - oh, and someone who says he knew your parents.’
Nina felt an unpleasant twinge in her stomach: her parents had died twelve years earlier, murdered while on their own quest to find Atlantis. If some crank was just using them to get her attention . . . ‘What’s his name?’
