Austin had seen at the French air museum. He was wearing the same helmet Skye had turned over to her friend Darnay.
A soft gasp escaped from Skye's throat. It was barely audible, but Madame Fauchard stared at Skye and said, 'Is there a problem, mademoiselle?'
'No,' Skye said, clearing her throat. 'I was admiring that helmet. Is it in your armory collection?'
Racine gave Skye a hard stare.
'No. It is not.'
Austin tried to divert the direction of the conversation.
'There is not much family resemblance to you or your son,' he said.
Racine smiled. 'The Fauchards were coarse-featured, as you can see. We favor my grandfather, who was not a Fauchard by blood. He
married into the Fauchard family and took their name as his. It was an arranged marriage, done to bring together two families in an alliance of convenience. There was no male heir to the Fauchards at the time, so they manufactured one.'
'You have a fascinating family,' Skye said.
'You don't know the half of it.' She gazed thoughtfully at Skye for a moment and smiled. 'I just had a wonderful idea. Why don't you stay for dinner? I'm having a few guests over anyhow. We are putting on a masque, as in the old days. A little costume party.'
'It's a long drive back to Paris. Besides, we didn't bring costumes,' Austin said.
'You can stay here as our guests. We always have a few extra costumes. We'll find something appropriate. We have everything you'd need to make yourselves comfortable. You can get an early start in the morning. I won't take no for an answer.'
'You're very gracious, Madame Fouchard,' Skye said. 'We wouldn't want to impose.'
'No imposition at all. Now, if you'll excuse me, I will talk to my son about tonight's arrangements. Please feel free to wander about the first floor of the chateau. The upper floors are living quarters.'
Without a further word, Madame Fauchard whisked off along the corridor, leaving them with only the Fauchard ancestors for company. 'What was that all about?' Austin said, as Madame Fauchard disappeared around a corner. Skye clapped her hands and rubbed them together.
'My plan worked! I purposely babbled on about my arms expertise in the armory to get her attention. Once I set the hook, I reeled her in. Look, Kurt, you said that the Fauchard family was the key to this business under the glacier and the attack at Darnay's shop. We couldn't simply leave with empty hands. What's the problem?' 'You could be in danger. That's the problem. Your mouth dropped open when you saw the portrait of good ol' Jules. She knows you've seen the helmet.'
'That wasn't planned. I was really startled when I saw Jules wearing the helmet I recovered from the glacier. Look, I'm willing to take the chance. Besides, a costume party might be fun. She wouldn't try anything with guests around. She seems quite gracious and not the dragon lady I expected.'
Austin wasn't convinced. Madame Fauchard was a charming woman, but he suspected her Whistler's mother act was pure theater. He had seen the cloud pass over her face at Skye's reaction to the portrait above their heads. Madame Fauchard, not Skye, had set the hook and reeled them in. Warning bells were chiming in his brain, but he smiled anyway. He didn't want to alarm Skye. 'Let's look around,' he said.
It took them an hour to explore the first floor. It covered several acres, but mostly what they saw of it was corridors. Every door they tried was locked. As they made their way through the labyrinth of passageways, Austin tried to memorize the layout. Eventually they came back to the front door vestibule. His unease grew.
'Odd,' he said. 'A building this size must require a large support staff, but we haven't seen a single soul outside of the Fauchards and the servant who brought us the water.'
'That is strange,' Skye said. She tried the front door and smiled. 'Look here, Mr. Worrywart. We can leave anytime we want to.'
They stepped out onto the terrace and walked across the courtyard to the gate. The drawbridge was still down, but the portcullis, which had been up when they entered, had been lowered. Austin put his hands on the bars and gazed through the iron grating.
'We won't be leaving anytime soon,' he said with a grim smile. The Rolls-Royce had vanished from the driveway.
THE ALVIN HAD RISEN like a seagull atop a rolling billow before it dropped in a free fall that ended with a bone-jarring clang of metal against metal. The impact threw the three people inside the Alvin from their seats. Trout tried to avoid a collision with Gamay and the small-framed pilot, but his six-foot-eight physique was ill suited for acrobatics and he slammed into the bulkhead. Galaxies whirled around inside his head and when the stars cleared he saw Gamay's face close to his. She looked worried. 'Are you all right?' she said with concern in her voice. Trout nodded. Then he pulled himself back into his seat and gingerly explored his bruised scalp with his fingers. The skin was tender to the touch, but he was not bleeding. 'What happened?' Sandy said. 'I don't know,' Trout said. 'I'll take a look.' Trout tried to ignore the sick feeling in his gut and crawled over to a view port. For an instant, he wondered if the bump on his head was making him see things. The scowling face of a man stared at him. The man saw Trout. He tapped on the acrylic view port with
the barrel of a gun and jerked his thumb upward. The message was clear. Open the hatch.
Gamay had her face pressed against another view port. 'There's a real ugly guy out there,' she whispered. 'He's got a gun.'
'Same here,' Trout said. 'They want us to climb out.'
'What should we do?' Sandy said.
Someone started banging on the hull.
'Our welcoming party is becoming impatient,' Gamay said.
'So I see,' Trout said. 'Unless we can figure out how to turn the Alvin into an attack sub, I suggest that we do whatever they want us to.'
He reached up and opened the hatch. Warm, damp air rushed in and the same face he had seen in the view port was framed in the circular opening. The man gestured at Trout and pulled out of view. Trout stuck his head and shoulders through the hatch and saw that the Alvin was surrounded by six armed men.
Moving slowly, Trout climbed out onto the sub's hull. Sandy emerged and the color drained from her face when she saw the reception party. She froze in place until Gamay gave her a nudge from below and Trout helped her down to the metal deck.
The Alvin had come to rest in a brightly lit compartment as big as a three-car garage. The air was heavy with the smell of the sea. Water dripped from the Alvin's hull and gurgled down drains in the deck. The muted hum of engines could be heard in the distance. Trout surmised that they were in the air lock of an enormous submarine. At one end of the chamber, the walls curved to meet each other in a horizontal crease like the inside of a large mechanical mouth. The submarine must have gulped the Alvin down like a grouper eating a shrimp.
A guard punched a wall switch and a door opened in the bulkhead opposite the mechanical mouth. The same guard pointed the way with the barrel of his gun. The prisoners stepped through the door
way into a smaller room that looked like a robot factory. Hanging from wall racks were at least a dozen 'moon suits,' whose thick joined arms ended in grasping claws. From his work with NUMA, Trout knew that the suits were human-shaped submersibles used for diving for long periods at extreme depths.
The door hissed shut and the prisoners marched along a passageway between three guards in front and three taking up the rear. The navy-blue jumpsuits the guards wore had no identification markings of any sort. The men were muscular, hard-looking types with close-cropped hair, and they moved with the assurance of trained military men. They were in their thirties and forties too old to be raw recruits. It was impossible to guess their nationalities because they had kept silent, preferring to communicate their wishes with gun gestures. Trout guessed they were mercenaries, probably special warfare types. The parade made its way through a network of passageways. Eventually, the prisoners were shoved into a cabin and the door clicked shut behind them. The small stateroom had two bunks, a chair, an empty closet and a head.
'Cozy,' Gamay said, taking in the tight accommodations. 'This must be the third-class cabin,' Trout said. He had a dizzy spell and put his hand against the bulkhead to steady himself. Seeing the concern in Gamay's face, he said, 'I'm okay. But I need to sit down.'
'You need some first aid,' Gamay said.
