rigid, conventional thinkers in the academic crowd.
As he shaved and dressed for dinner, Sebastian whistled tunelessly. He could not help but think that now, after years of controversy, scorn and neglect, all of his work would soon be vindicated, all of his theories proved.
Lex closed her eyes and felt the hot water wash over her. After two weeks in the wilderness, followed by a day of travel, the shower felt almost like a religious experience.
Searching the stall for a bar of soap, she found a packet of Savon de Marseille, an expensive handmade olive oil soap from the south of France. She sniffed, then frowned. Probably the same soap Charles Weyland offered to the fancy set at his Parisian hotel. She wasn’t surprised. Like the high-end clothes and expensive gear she’d found in her closet and these ridiculously opulent accommodations, everything Weyland had provided was top of the line. But Lex still didn’t like to be bought—a gilded cage was still a cage. And she much preferred a pitched tent 15,000 feet up Everest’s North Face.
On the other hand, she did need to get clean. Ripping open the packet and squeezing the soap into her hand, Lex considered her opinion of Weyland, now that she’d actually met him. All evidence so far pointed to one conclusion: another billionaire eccentric. And this expensive expedition: a singular waste of time, and a dangerous one that would probably get most—if not all—of them killed.
She’d seen Weyland’s type before—too rich, too bored, too full of themselves. Dilettantes who become temporarily fascinated by a subject, only to flit like a magpie to the next bright, shiny idea that flashed across CNN. Lex resented their ilk, not because she was jealous but because men like Weyland possessed money and power, and wasted both. They drifted through life without accomplishing anything beyond building a Godzilla-sized stock portfolio, while scientists and researchers who dedicated their entire careers and reputations to a cause were forced to bow and scrape for the crumbs they’d toss as an afterthought or a tax deduction.
As Lex rubbed the pricey soap into a thick lather and applied it to her taut body, she could almost hear the voice of Gabe Kaplan, the foundation’s fund-raising director, ringing in her head with all the charm of a never-ending Nike commercial: “C’mon, Lex, get with the program. Bowing and scraping costs us nothing and gains the foundation everything. Just do it.”
Lex accepted the money Weyland promised to help the Foundation of Environmental Scientists, but she refused to be a party to the expedition’s collective suicide.
At best, Lex figured Weyland and company would sail to Bouvetoya Island; Quinn and his cronies—walking environmental disasters to the last man—would poke a hole in the ice; and all those archaeologists talking about a pyramid would find a huge pile of quartz, or shaped ice, or volcanic fissures or one of a dozen other natural formations that somehow mimicked the appearance of a temple complex.
The worst scenario was too horrible to contemplate.
Lex well recalled her climbs to the summit of Everest. Air so thin she felt like she was breathing through a half-collapsed straw. Temperatures at 40 below, winds at 100 miles per hour. The excruciating pain of moving her body up 3,000 feet in a day and trying to breathe, let alone eat or drink, at the 29,000-foot mark.
That was a picnic compared to what Weyland and his expedition would face if something went wrong.
Without Lex, they didn’t stand a chance. As she rinsed the luxurious suds off her cocoa-hued skin, Lex tried to convince herself that their odds wouldn’t be much better if she did go with them. She lingered a moment longer under the warm water. The shower may have washed her free of any hypocrisy she felt having contemplated Weyland’s offer, but it didn’t wash her free of the guilt she was feeling leaving this team behind.
Lex dressed in a pair of Levi’s and a sweater from the stocked closet and left the rest of the clothes untouched. She didn’t have any clean clothes of her own, or she wouldn’t have taken anything.
As she was packing up her meager belongings, there was a knock at the stateroom door.
“I spoke with Mr. Weyland,” Max Stafford told her. “The money has been wired to the foundation’s account. The helicopter is refueling to fly you back home.”
Max turned to leave.
“Who did you get?”
He paused in the doorway but did not turn.
“Gerald Murdoch,” he said, closing the door.
Fifteen minutes later, Lex pounded on the door of Charles Weyland’s shipboard office.
“Come—”
Lex burst through.
“—in.”
Weyland was seated in a leather chair behind a large oak desk. Though not opulent, the office was large and well appointed. Before Lex arrived, the industrialist had been reviewing personnel records. Ironically, it was her file he was reading.
“Gerry Murdoch has two seasons of ice time. He’s not ready.”
Weyland looked away. “Don’t worry about it.”
Lex leaned across his desk. “What about Paul Woodman or Andrew Keeler?”
“Called them.”
“And?”
“They gave the same bullshit answer that you did,” said Max Stafford as he came through the door.
“Mr. Weyland. What I told you in there wasn’t bullshit. If you rush this, people will get hurt, maybe die.”
Weyland faced her again, his eyes angry. “Ms. Woods, I don’t understand your objections. We’re not going to Everest. We need you to take us from the ship to the pyramid and then back to the ship. That’s all.”
“What about inside the pyramid?”
“You don’t have to worry about that. Once we’re at the site we have the best equipment, technology and experts that money can buy.”
Lex met his anger with her own. “You do not understand. When I lead a team I don’t ever leave my team.”
Weyland slapped his palm down on the desk. “I admire your passion as much as your skills. I wish you were coming with us.”
But Lex just shook her head.
“You’re making a mistake,” she told him.
Weyland tapped the weather report on his desk. “The wind sheer is dangerous right now. Captain Leighton assures me that we’re moving out of the worst of it, but he thinks you should postpone your helicopter ride for a couple of hours.” He rose and stepped around his desk. He reached out and touched her arm.
“Think about my offer. Join the others for dinner, and if you don’t change your mind, I’ll have the helicopter fly you back in a couple of hours.”
“He wasn’t kidding about the food,” a wide-eyed Miller exclaimed between bites of succulent crabmeat.
“More wine? Chateau Lafite ’77, an excellent year.”
Miller nodded and Sebastian poured. Then the archaeologist raised his glass. “A fine vintage, for a French. And, for the record, it tastes even better out of plastic.”
Sebastian’s first meal aboard the
It didn’t look as if Mr. Weyland would be dining with them tonight, or that fellow Stafford. Fortunately, Sebastian’s dinner companions more than made up for any disappointment.
“That fellow dishing up the chow. I think I saw him on The Food Channel,” said Miller.
“Watch a lot of television?” Sebastian asked.
“Not much else to do in Cleveland…. Not since my divorce.”
“So you’re from Cleveland?” said Thomas.
“That’s right. I was born in Cleveland. Bought my first chemical set in Cleveland. Blew up my parents’ garage
