Racine's lips parted in a thin smile, revealing her perfect white teeth. 'I doubt whether Jules would have liked being called an 'embarrassing problem.' Sebastian deserves no credit. Due to his clumsiness, we almost lost the relic for all time.'
'He never knew it was under the ice. He was intent on bringing out the strongbox.'
'An exercise in futility.' She flipped the cover open on the battered
metal box that sat on her desk. 'The potentially incriminating documents in here were ruined by water leakage years ago.' 'We didn't know that.'
She ignored his excuse. 'Nor did you know the woman archaeologist escaped with the relic. We must get the helmet back. The success or failure of our whole enterprise now rests on its recovery. That fiasco at the Sorbonne was handled badly and brought in the police. Then Sebastian botched another attempt to retrieve our property. The helmet he brought us from the antiques dealer was nothing more than a cheap trinket manufactured in China for the theater.' 'I am looking into that '
'You must stop looking and act. Our family has never allowed failure of any kind. We can never show weakness or we will be destroyed. Sebastian has become a liability. He may have been seen at the Sorbonne. Take care of it.'
Emil nodded. 'I'll deal with him.'
Racine knew her son was lying. Sebastian, was like a mastiff trained to kill on command and was loyal only to her son. Having a servant like that in the superheated pressure chamber that was the Fauchard family could not be allowed, for very practical reasons. She knew that familial ties had never blocked a fatal dagger blow or fended off a smothering pillow when power and fortune were at stake.
'See that you do, and make it soon.'
'I will. Our secret is safe in the meantime.'
'Safe! We were nearly exposed by a chance discovery. The key to the family's future is in the hands of astranger. I tremble to think how many other minefields are out there. Follow my lead. When my wayward chemist Dr. MacLean strayed from the reservation, I brought him back with a minimum of fuss.'
Emil chuckled. 'But, Mother, you were the one who had all the
project scientists except MacLean encounter 'accidents' before their work was done.'
Racine pinioned her son with a cold stare. 'A miscalculation. I never said I was infallible. It is a mark of maturity to admit mistakes and rectify them. Dr. MacLean is at work on the formula as we speak. In the meantime, we must retrieve the relic so we can make our family whole again. Have you made any progress?'
'The antiquities dealer, Darnay, has disappeared. We are trying to track him down.'
'What about the woman archaeologist?' 'She seems to have vanished from Paris.'
'Keep looking. I have sent my personal agents to find her. We must move quietly. In the meantime, there is the threat to our larger enterprise. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is working with NUMA to explore the Lost City.'
'Kurt Austin, that man who rescued the people from under the glacier, was from NUMA. Is there any connection?'
'Not that I know of,' Racine said. 'The joint expedition was in the works before Austin appeared on the scene. I'm concerned that the expedition could see the results of our work and questions would be raised.'
'We can't afford that.'
'I agree. That's why I have put a plan in place. The deep-sea vehicle Alvin is scheduled to make several dives. It will vanish on the first.'
'Is that wise? It would provoke a large search-and-rescue effort. Investigators and reporters will swarm over the site.'
A humorless smile came to Racine's lips. 'True, but only if the disappearance is reported to the outside world. The support ship will vanish as well, with all its crew, before the Alvin's disappearance is reported. Searchers will have thousands of square miles of ocean to contend with.'
'A vanished ship and crew! Your talents have always awed me, Mother, but I never knew you were a magician.'
'Learn from me, then. Use failure as a stepping-stone to success. A ship is steaming toward the Lost City with a hold full of our mistakes. It will be remotely controlled by another vessel several miles away. It will anchor near the dive site. Once the submersible has been launched, the ship will call a Mayday, a fire aboard will be reported, the research vessel will send a boat over to investigate. The boarding crew will be greeted by our hungry lovelies. Once they have finished their work, the freighter will be moved hull to hull with the research vessel and the explosives aboard detonated by remote control. Both ships will disappear. No witnesses. We don't want a repeat of the situation with those television people.' 'A near disaster,' Emil admitted.
'True reality television,' she said. 'We were lucky that the sole survivor is thought to be a babbling lunatic. One more thing. Kurt
Austin has asked for a meeting. He says he has information that might be of interest to our family regarding the body in the glacier.'
'He knows about Jules?'
'We will find out. I have invited him here. If I see that he knows too much, I will place him in your hands.'
Emil rose and came around the desk. He gave his mother a peck on the cheek. Racine watched him as he left the armory, thinking how well Emil embodied the Fauchard spirit. Like his father, he was brilliant, cruel, sadistic, homicidal and greedy. And also like his father, Emil lacked common sense and was impulsive. These were the same characteristics that had caused Racine to kill her husband many years before when his actions were about to jeopardize her plans.
Emil wanted to assume her mantle, but she feared for the future of the Fauchard empire and her carefully laid plans. She also knew that Emil wouldn't hesitate to kill her when the time came, which was one reason she had kept Emil in the dark as to the real significance of the relic. She would hate to have to dispose of her only offspring, but one had to be careful when a viper lived in the house.
She picked up the phone. The chicken farmer Emil had driven off the road must be found and compensated for the damage to his chicks and dignity.
She sighed heavily, thinking that a mother's work is never done.
BLESSED WITH smooth seas and fair winds, the research vessel Atlantis rapidly covered the distance from the Azores Islands and dropped anchor north of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge over a submerged sea mountain called the Atlantic Massif. The seamount rises sharply from the ocean floor about fifteen hundred miles east of Bermuda and just south of the Azores. In the distant past, the massif protruded from the ocean, but now its flat top is some twenty-five hundred feet below the waves.
Alvin was scheduled to dive the next morning. After dinner, Paul and Gamay got together with the other scientists on board to discuss the dive. They decided to gather rock, mineral and plant samples in the area around the Lost City and to record as many visual observations as possible.
The Alvin Group, a seven-member team of pilots and engineers, was up at dawn and by six o'clock they were starting to go through a fourteen-page checklist. By seven, they were swarming over the submersible, checking its batteries, electronics and other systems and
instruments. They loaded still and video cameras on board along with lunches and extra warm clothing for the pilot and scientists.
Then they placed stacks of iron bars on the outside of the hull to make the submersible heavy enough to sink to the bottom. The Alvin trip to the ocean floor was more a free-fall descent than an actual dive. When it was time to come up, the submersible would drop the ballast weights and float to the surface. For safety purposes, the manipulator arms could be dropped if they became entangled, and if the submersible got into trouble it could jettison the fiberglass outer hull, allowing the personnel sphere to rise to the surface on its own. If the submersible got itself into dire straits, the crew had seventy-two hours of life support.
Paul Trout was a veteran fisherman who understood the quirky nature of the ocean. He had checked the weather reports, but he relied mostly on his own instincts and experience. He surveyed the weather and sea conditions from the deck of the Atlantis. The deep-blue sky was unmarred by clouds except for a few wispy mares' tails, and he had seen rougher seas in a bathtub. Conditions were perfect for a dive. As soon as it was light, the dive team had dropped two transponders to the ocean floor in the general area of the Alvin's dive. The transponders
