“Let’s step outside,” she said.
They stepped onto the outside pool area a moment later. There were several hotel guests here as well, sunbathing on the lounge chairs around the pool, but the wind and the crashing surf would make certain that their conversation remained private. Lia pulled out her wallet and flashed an ID at the man.
“Just what is it you want to tell me, Miss, um, Ms. Lau?” he asked as they walked past the pool toward the safety railing above the cliff. “You know, the State Department ID card you just waved at me had your photograph on it, but the name wasn’t Diane Lau.”
“No, it wasn’t. Congratulations for actually reading an ID when it’s showed to you.” Most people just glanced at a proffered ID without really looking at it. “You asked how Jack Pender is. I’m sorry to have to tell you this. He’s dead.”
“He was almost certainly murdered in New Jersey early Wednesday afternoon,” she told him.
“
“We’re working on that, but we have evidence that they may want to kill you as well.”
Carlylse looked thunderstruck. “Who wants us dead? Did we piss someone off? They could always sue us for libel instead …”
“Have you ever written about al-Qaeda, Mr. Carlylse? Or any Islamist terror group?”
“Terrorists?” He shook his head. “This is about
“Let’s sit down, Mr. Carlylse,” she said, gesturing toward a vacant poolside table beneath a brightly colored umbrella. “I need to ask you some questions.”
“Come in.”
“Mr. Rubens?” Ann Sawyer said, opening the office door. “Miranda Franks.”
“Send her in.”
An older woman walked through the door, carrying a file folder in one hand.
“Miranda. What did you find?” Rubens asked her. Franks was from the NSA’s Research Department.
“We might have found what you were looking for, sir,” she said, handing him the folder. “The book isn’t out yet, but it
Rubens took the papers and began reading through them. Then he stopped, went back to the beginning, and began reading more carefully.
“Jesus,” he said quietly. “La Palma?”
“Yes, sir. There’s been a little released on the subject already. There was a Discovery Channel show on it last year. The whole idea is
“How sure are they?”
Franks shrugged. “There are impassioned voices on both sides, sir. Like global warming.”
“You’ve certainly earned your pay this week, Miranda. Thank you.”
He reached for his phone.
“So why are you on La Palma?” Lia asked Carlylse.
“A research trip,” he told her. “Jack and I—” He broke off. “Damn, I can’t believe he’s dead!”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Carlylse — and I’m sorry to have sprung it on you like that. But we think the same people might be planning to kill you as well, and it would help us, help us a lot, if you could tell us why.”
“I understand.”
“So why were you here? Research, you said?”
“Yeah. We were planning a new book on the lost continent of Atlantis.”
Lia kept her face impassive. She’d already endured as much of the fabled lost continent as she cared to some months earlier, when she’d been a passenger on board the
Carlylse continued talking, enthusiasm brightening his face. “You see, we, Jack and I, we’re convinced that the Canary Islands were once the southern rim of a larger, single island, perhaps the size of Spain. The northern edge would have been opposite the Pillars of Hercules, just as Plato’s account claimed.”
“Mr. Carlylse—”
“Vince, my dear, please.”
“Vince, that’s all quite fascinating, I’m sure, but I can’t see terrorists being interested in you and Mr. Pender because of your theories about Atlantis.”
“No. No, I don’t suppose so.” He thought for a moment. “Of course, it could be the other book that brought me to La Palma.”
“And what book is that?”
“More of the 2012 stuff?” she asked. “The end of the world?”
“Some people think so. In the ancient Mayan calendar, their Fourth Sun ends on the Winter Solstice of 2012.”
“What does La Palma have to do with the end of the world?”
“Well, there’s a rift, a geological fault line, running right down the center of the island. Some geologists think that if that fault slips, like in a really big earthquake or volcanic eruption, half of the island of La Palma could fall into the ocean.”
“A landslide?”
“A
“That sounds a bit more promising,” Lia told him. “Go on. I’m listening.”
“You’re shitting me,” Lieutenant General Alexander Douglas said. “Half the island is going to fall into the sea? I thought that was supposed to be California.”
“The theory,” Rubens said, “is … let’s say speculative at best. Most serious geologists discount the possibility completely. They point out that during the last major earthquake on the island, in 1947, the fault didn’t slip at all. And there was a volcanic eruption more recently, in 1971. Again, nothing moved. There’s some question as to just how deep the surface fault extends, and whether or not it’s still active.”
“You’ve done your homework,” Douglas said.
“I made some phone calls just now before calling you. The chair of the Geology Department at Georgetown was able to point me in the right direction. He doesn’t think there’s anything to it.”
“But you do?”
Rubens frowned. “Do I think the island is going to fall into the ocean by itself? No, sir, but lots of people do. There was a program on cable a year or two ago about La Palma collapsing and triggering a megatsunami. And Pender and Carlylse wrote a book about it, tying it in with the 2012-end-of-the-world crap. So my question is … what if La Palma is the actual destination of those suitcase nukes?”
Douglas’s eyes widened. “An underground detonation?”
