The lobby was deserted except for a man holding a square of cardboard with NUMA printed on it. He wore a baseball cap, baggy cargo shorts, sandals, and a white T-shirt emblazoned with an azure blue rectangle enclosing four white stars, Micronesia’s flag.
Austin introduced himself and the others in the party.
“Nice to meet you,” the man said. “I’m Ensign Frank Daley. Pardon my disguise. The locals are used to seeing Navy personnel around, but we’re trying to keep this operation low-key.”
Despite his attire, Daley’s ramrod-straight bearing, razor-precise crew cut, and chin so close-shaven that it shined all marked him as a military man.
“You’re pardoned, Ensign,” Austin said. “What do you have planned for us?”
“We’ve got a chopper waiting to take you to Search Command on my ship, the cruiser
As they walked out to the gray Sikorsky Seahawk that had been awaiting their arrival, Austin asked Daley the status of the search.
“We’ve covered hundreds of square miles using surface and air,” the ensign said. “Nothing so far.”
“Have you dropped sonobuoys to listen for underwater movement?”
Daley patted the nose of the Seahawk.
“This bird was built for antisub warfare. It’s got the latest in acoustic detection. The info from the sensors is transmitted back to the ship and goes into a network computer system. All negative so far, sir.”
“Has the lab site been thoroughly investigated?” Zavala asked.
“As thoroughly as can be done with an ROV,” Daley said.
“I heard that there’s a NUMA ship helping with the search,” Zavala said. “I’ll see if I can borrow their submersible and give the lab site a closer look.”
Austin had been thinking about his conversation with Lee.
“Dr. Lee has a lead we’d like to pursue on the island,” he said. “Could you give Joe a lift out to the ship and pick us up in a few hours?”
“I’ve been told that the entire Navy is at your beck and call, Mr. Austin,” Daley said. “The chopper does two hundred miles an hour. We can be back on the island in no time.”
Austin turned to Zavala, who had started to load their bags onto the helicopter.
“Song has unearthed some interesting stuff about Nan Madol,” he said, “and it might have a bearing on the lab. Can you ride herd on the search operation while we take a quick look?”
“Hold on, Kurt. You go off with the lovely Dr. Lee and I muck around in the mud. What’s wrong with that picture, partner?”
“Nothing as far as I can see,
“I’ll have to admit you’ve got a point there,” Zavala said with an easy grin. “See you in a few hours.”
He got into the helicopter with Daley. The ignition fired the twin General Electric engines to life and the spinning rotors gathered speed. The sixty-five-foot-long aircraft lifted off the tarmac, hovered at an altitude of a few hundred feet, pivoted slowly, and flew over the lagoon toward the open sea.
While the chopper carried Joe off to join the search flotilla, Austin and Lee exited the airport terminal to look for the taxi stand. A young man in his twenties who must have weighed three hundred fifty pounds was leaning against a faded maroon Pontiac station wagon paneled with fake wood, KOLONIA TAXI CO. painted on the door. Austin approached the man and asked him if he knew a tour guide named Jeremiah Whittles.
“Old Jerry? For sure. He’s retired. If you need a guide, I can hook you up with my cousin.”
“Thanks, but I’d like to talk to Jerry,” Austin said. “Can you take me to him?”
“No problem,” the man said with a bright smile. “He lives in Kolonia town. Hop in.”
Austin held the door open for Song Lee, then got in the car beside her. The driver, who said his name was Elwood, shoehorned his body into the driver’s seat, the wagon’s springs groaning and its chassis listing to that side. As Elwood pulled away from the curb, a black Chevrolet Silverado pickup that had been parked several car lengths behind the station wagon followed it across the causeway and into Kolonia, a town of about six thousand whose ramshackle Main Street had a frontier air about it. Elwood turned off Main into a residential neighborhood and stopped in front of a neat yellow house trimmed in white.
The Silverado passed the Pontiac wagon and pulled up a short distance ahead where the driver could watch in his rearview mirror as Austin and Lee went up to the front door. Austin rang the bell and heard someone inside say hello. A moment later, a slightly built man who looked to be in his eighties answered the door.
Jeremiah Whittles first smiled at Lee. Then his eyes turned to Austin and widened in surprise.
“Is that Kurt Austin of NUMA? My God, I don’t believe it! How long has it been?”
“Too long, Whit. How are you?”
“Older, but not necessarily wiser. What brings you to my beautiful island, Kurt?”
“Some routine NUMA stuff for the Navy. I’m showing Dr. Lee here around. She’s interested in Nan Madol, and I couldn’t think of anyone more knowledgeable on the subject than Pohnpei’s best-known guide.”
“Make that best-known
With his pink-skinned pate, thin aquiline nose, kindly yet inquisitive blue eyes behind wire-rimmed bifocals, and slightly stooped shoulders, Whittles resembled a friendly buzzard.
“I heard you had retired,” Austin said.
“My brain was still full of all the facts, like an old stew kettle, but the spine was stiffening up, and I couldn’t turn my head without some difficulty, which I need to do to point out features on the tours. Had to swivel at the waist like a wooden soldier. Then my eyesight started to go. Not much call for a half-blind guide, so I thought it best to call it quits.”
Whittles led the way through rooms filled with Micronesian folk art. There were masks, totems, and carved grotesque figures on every wall and in every corner. He settled his visitors on a screened-in porch and scuttled off to get them some cold bottled water.
In his travels around the world, Austin had seen clones of Whittles, peripatetic Englishmen who attach themselves as guides to famous cathedrals, ancient palaces, and forgotten temples, absorbing every fact, large and small, and becoming local celebrities in the process.
Austin had met Whittles during a tour of Nan Madol, and the depth and breadth of his historical and cultural knowledge had impressed him. Years before, Whittles had served as a navigator aboard a merchant ship that had stopped at Pohnpei and been entranced by its beauty and history. Retiring early from the merchant marine and relying on his savings, he moved to the island and led a monklike existence centered on the ruins. Nan Madol became not only his livelihood but his whole life.
Whittles came back with the water, settled in a chair, and asked Lee what she knew about Nan Madol.
“Not a lot, I must confess,” she said. “Only that it has been called the Venice of the Pacific.”
“Nan Madol is a far cry from the city on the Adriatic,” he said, “but it is impressive nonetheless. It consists of ninety-two artificial islets dating back to 1100 A.D. The builders rafted hexagonal basalt pillars to the tidal flats and reef off Tenwen, some of the pillars more than twenty feet long, and stacked them horizontally to make artificial, flat-topped islets. A grid of shallow canals connects the islets to one another. Because the city is so remote and mysterious, and located where nothing of this sort should exist, it has given rise to theories that Nan Madol was part of the lost continent of Mu or Lemuria.”
“What do
“I think that the reality is more prosaic but still marvelous. The city was the site of temples, administrative centers, burial vaults, houses for priests and nobles, and a pool said to have been the home of a sacred eel . . . How may I help you, Dr. Lee?”
“Do you know of any ruins engraved with unusual carvings similar to those on another island?”
“Only one instance,” Whittles said. “The temple known as the Cult of the Healing Priests. I’ve heard reports of a similar temple elsewhere but have never been able to verify it.”
“What exactly was this cult?” Austin asked.
“It originated on one of the islands near Pohnpei. The priests traveled around the islands tending the sick and became known for their miraculous healing.”
Austin exchanged glances with Lee.
“As a doctor,” she said, “I’m very interested in the healing part.”
“Wish I could tell you more,” he said, “but the civilization degenerated from the effects of internecine warfare.
