Devil's Gate

“None of which explains why you were diving on a wrecked aircraft at the entrance to that gate,” he said.

“No,” she agreed, not attempting to defend her actions or even offer a reason for them. “Nor does it explain why an aircraft made of aluminum — a nonferrous, nonmagnetic metal — would be drawn in by this decidedly magnetic anomaly.”

She had a point, one that hadn’t dawned on Kurt before. As her words sunk in, she took another sip of the wine.

“Very good wine,” she said. “Would you excuse me? I’m just going to freshen up.”

Freshen up? After trying on three different outfits, she’d spent half an hour in the bathroom of her hotel room fixing her hair and makeup. How much fresher could she get?

Kurt stood politely as she walked away. The truth was, she looked fantastic in a simple black cocktail dress and red high-heeled shoes. Especially in contrast to his somewhat disheveled state. He was still in the clothes he’d been wearing this morning, with a change into dive gear, a quick change back, and no shower in between.

He watched her leave, thought about what she’d just said, and took the opportunity to grab his phone and send a text to Joe.

He typed furiously.

I need anything you can find about this Katarina Luskaya. Why she’s here. Who she’s worked for in the past. And anything about that old plane she was diving on. I need it quick.

A text came back from Joe seconds later.

I must be a mind reader. Already on it. Here are a few links. FYI: the plane was listed as lost out of Santa Maria in 1951. There’s a Civil Aeronautics Board file and a crash report. There’s also a CIA stub on it, but I can’t get access to any of the data.

A CIA stub. Kurt guessed he shouldn’t have been surprised. He started looking over the links Joe had sent, dividing his attention between the entrance to the restrooms and the phone.

IN THE LADIES’ ROOM, Katarina lingered in front of the mirror, hovering over a marble sink. She wasn’t looking at her makeup or her hair or anything besides her own phone.

“Come on,” she urged as the download proceeded sluggishly.

Finally, the screen changed, and a bio of sorts on Kurt Austin appeared. It held more than she expected, more than she had time to read. She scanned the main points, texted a reply to Command saying she’d received it, and slid the phone back into her purse.

A quick check of her hair told her it was as good as it would get, and she turned and walked out.

KURT GLANCED TOWARD THE RESTROOMS, then back at his phone, then back toward the restrooms. He saw the door swing open, read one more line, and stuffed the phone back into his pocket.

He stood and pulled out her chair as she arrived.

“You look so much fresher,” he said, smiling.

“Thank you,” she replied. “Sometimes it’s hard to feel pretty enough.”

Kurt sensed some unintentional truth in what she’d said. He pinned it on a lifetime of competing in a sport that was judged as opposed to one where you scored or you didn’t. Too much subjectivity had a way of making people uncertain of themselves.

“You look stunning,” he said. “In fact, everyone here is wondering why you’re having dinner with a scruffy guy like me.”

She smiled, and Kurt detected a slight blush.

By now the sun had disappeared. They made small talk till the entrees came, and then, after another glass of wine, Kurt decided to reopen the earlier conversation.

“I have a question,” he said. “Why did you dive on that plane alone? You had two sets of tanks on board. Don’t you have a partner?”

“That’s two questions,” she said, again smiling. “I came to Santa Maria with another representative of the government. But he is not part of the Science Directorate. The assignment is my own,” she added. “The tanks came with the boat.”

Kurt guessed that other representative would be a handler of sorts, to watch over her, to keep her both in line and out of trouble.

“Your turn,” he said, taking another bite of the fish.

“I think I might like this game,” she said, then fired away. “You seemed awfully angry when we came up,” she said. “What made you so mad? Was it my violation of your precious ‘exclusivity zone’ or the fact that I never registered in the first place?”

“Neither,” he said. “I don’t like to see people get hurt. You could have been killed down there in that wreck. Another five minutes and you would have been.”

“So Kurt Austin is a man who cares?”

“Absolutely,” he said, offering an intentionally warm smile.

“Is that why you’re in the salvage business?”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Any fool can blow up a boat and send it to the bottom,” she said. “But it takes skill and dedication and far greater risks to bring one back up again. I can see you doing it for exactly those reasons: because it’s harder and because it’s better. And because you like saving things.”

Kurt had never thought of it quite that way, but there was some truth in what she’d said. The world was full of men destroying things and throwing them away. He took pride in restoring old things instead of tossing them out.

“I suppose I should thank you,” she added. “I’m guessing you dove down to salvage me.”

He hadn’t been sure she was in trouble when he’d gone in the water, but he’d been glad to pull her out alive instead of dead. He considered her motivation for taking such a risk in the first place.

“And you’re a competitor,” he said, taking his turn at amateur analysis.

“It has plusses and minuses,” she said.

“National competitions, world championships, the Olympics,” he said. “You’ve spent your whole life trying to prove to coaches and judges and the audience that you’re worthy of their scores, that you even belong in the arena in the first place. Despite a partially torn ligament, you nearly got the bronze in Torino.”

“I nearly won the gold,” she corrected him. “I fell on the last jump. I finished the program on one foot.”

“As I recall you couldn’t walk for a couple of months afterward,” he said, a fact he’d just read on Joe’s update. “But the point stands. A different skater would have backed down, saved her leg for another day.”

“Sometimes you don’t get another day,” she said.

“Is that what drove you on?”

She pursed her lips, studying him and twirling her fork in her angel-hair pasta. Finally, she spoke. “I wasn’t supposed to medal,” she said. “They almost gave my spot to another skater. Most likely, I would never get another shot.”

“You had something to prove,” he replied.

She nodded.

“And this whole thing — an assignment outside your laboratory — I’m guessing this is new to you,” he said. “You must have people back home to impress, maybe you feel you have something to prove to them. Or you might not get another shot.”

“Maybe,” she admitted.

“Nothing wrong with that,” he said. “We all want our bosses to be impressed. But there are places on this earth where you don’t take chances. The inside of a wrecked aircraft a hundred forty feet below the surface is one of them.”

“Haven’t you ever wanted to show someone they were wrong about you?”