The Explorer's Code (23 page)

She wore her white jeans and turquoise tunic, but now, nestled in the hollow of her neck, was a delicate gold necklace with the beautiful enameled “evil eye” symbol so popular in Turkey.

The salesman in the jewelry store had explained that it was a
nazar,
an amulet from ancient mythology that protects against envy, the covetous “evil eye” of others. In the store, she had suddenly turned to Sinclair.

“John, I think I could use one of these.”

“Great idea!” he had agreed.

Together they had selected a beautiful 18-karat chain and hanging
from it a small enameled blue, black, and white oval charm—a stylized image of an eye.

“Turn around,” he had said. “Allow me to put this on you. For luck.”

She held her dark hair up so he could fasten it around her neck. He fumbled a bit with the clasp but managed to get it eventually, fighting the urge to bend forward and kiss the nape of her neck.

A
t the Royal London Hospital, Oakley fired up his computer and checked his e-mail. There was a message from his secretary, along with a clipping from
Svalbardposten,
Longyearbyen, Norway’s weekly newspaper. That was unusual.

Was it an article about the dig? Oakley was still deeply concerned that Miles had not been in touch. There really was no explanation as to why he wasn’t back yet, unless he had found something incredible. Yet why no phone call? And the package of samples was still missing.

Oakley opened the e-mail and froze.

“Oh my God,”
he said in horror.
“Oh my God.”

The headline seared across his brain: “British Scientist Killed by Polar Bear.” Miles had been attacked by a polar bear and was dead! It happened in the graveyard in Longyearbyen. Paul doubled over, groaning in anguish. He put his hands over his mouth and rocked back and forth, moaning, staring at the screen, unwilling to believe it. He could not comprehend the horror of it.

Miles was his dearest friend and colleague. Dead. Oakley pushed away the mental picture of what it would be like to meet that kind of death. The image of his friend’s face kept flashing through his mind. When was the last time he saw him? He had been smiling, confident of their expedition. That was the last impression he had of him.

How many years had they worked together? Their real connection came when they had worked on SARS in 2003, and avian flu in 2004. But they really bonded, and spoke daily, after the first human-to-human transmission of bird flu in Thailand. It was then they both realized it was a race against time. After that, Miles had had a major breakthrough, cultivating
the SARS virus in a containment laboratory in London. He was brilliant.

Miles was dead, but with that knowledge came a new certainty. It was now clear why the samples had not turned up—because Miles had been killed by the bear. The samples probably were never sent. But if they had not been sent, where were the samples now? And that still didn’t explain the patients at the Royal London Hospital.

C
ordelia floated in the hydrotherapy pool of the
Queen Victoria
spa and let the power jets massage her neck and shoulders. The bubbles in the immersion pool tickled as they passed over her limbs. Suddenly, suspended in the water, she was reminded of the time she used to spend swimming in the ocean, after work. It was a nice memory. She lay back and relaxed.

When she looked up, Anna was coming toward her. Her voluptuous figure was barely covered by a hot-pink sequined bikini. Cordelia didn’t know a lot about sequined bikinis, but this one didn’t look seaworthy to her. Anna lowered herself by the ladder into the bubbling pool and bounced over to Cordelia.

“Hello, dahling.”

Cordelia smiled a quiet hello. Anna lay back and let the bubbles massage her neck.

“This is great. Almost as good as sex.”

Cordelia let the comment pass. There was an awkward silence between the two of them until Anna spoke again.

“This man is sexy, Cordelia, this John Sinclair.”

Anna’s angular face was grinning above the foaming water.

“He’s a good friend,” Cordelia said, edging away.

“He’s only a friend?” asked Anna. “That’s too bad. I see the way he looks at you. He wants more.”

“He’s a friend,” said Cordelia again, pointedly.

“Have you known him long?” asked Anna. “When did you decide to take this cruise with him?”

Cordelia swam over to the ladder. She’d had about enough of this line of questioning.

“He’s a friend of my family,” she lied.

Cordelia climbed out of the pool and headed to the eucalyptus steam room. She pulled open the wooden door and the smell of the eucalyptus wafted out. It was heavenly. As she entered into the dense steam, there appeared to be only one other person in the steam sauna. Cordelia walked deep into the tiled room and sat on the warm bench. Her muscles relaxed in the heat, and the eucalyptus opened up her sinuses. She closed her eyes and gave herself over to it. After a moment, the other person stood up as if to walk out, but then turned and stood in front of the door. Cordelia opened her eyes, and through the steam she could barely see the lumpy shape of Gjertrud, in a floral swim suit.

“Oh, hello,” said Cordelia. “I didn’t recognize you at first.”

“I need to talk to you,” said Gjertrud quickly. “I’m from the government of Norway. I came here to ask you to meet with us over the deed to the land in Svalbard.”

Cordelia stood up. What was this! Gjertrud was a government agent? The shock hit her.
She was being followed on the ship.
Suddenly she felt very vulnerable. Then anger flared up. How
dare
they pressure her like this!

“I don’t want to discuss it. Especially in here,” said Cordelia firmly. She flushed with anger. In the tiny closed sauna, her breathing became constricted. She was dripping sweat, and she wiped her face with a towel.

“We know there are other people on the ship who are trying to steal the deed. We only want to protect you,” said Gjertrud. Her manner was completely changed, and her tone was much more forceful than she had ever sounded before.

“You might have a good reason for wanting the deed,” said Cordelia. “But I don’t think this is an appropriate place to discuss it.”

“We’ll set up a meeting. Name a time. We can do it here on the ship.” Gjertrud’s tone softened to a plea. She was still blocking the door.

Suddenly the room was intensely close and entirely too hot. Cordelia felt like she would faint. She pushed past Gjertrud and flung open the door. Rushing out into the cool air, she nearly knocked Anna over.

T
he ICU at the Royal London Hospital was assembled in full force. Patient number two was dying, lungs filled with blood, foaming at the mouth. In the enclosed room, severe respiratory distress sounded like a freight train.

The Health Protection Agency doctor stood back in weary resignation. He had been there for nearly forty-eight hours, and now
two
patients were fatal.

“Get Oakley on the phone. I want to talk to him about these lab tests. I can’t figure this thing out.”

“We called him already, Oakley is on his way,” the nurse replied.

“Human-to-human transmission of H5N1 is very, very rare. It requires close contact, people in the same family living together.”

The doctor looked at the nurse as if she had the answer.

“How do a young prosperous Russian man and a vagrant contract the same disease? It couldn’t be human-to-human transmission. It defies logic.”

The doctor riffled through his clipboard charts. “Oakley better get here quick. This looks
just
like the 1918 pandemic. And
that’s
been extinct for nearly a century.”

S
inclair sat in the main lounge waiting for Cordelia. He watched the cruise director shaking her hand in farewell. As of this morning, there was no sign of the journal. They hadn’t stopped looking for it since Cordelia reported it missing two days ago. They were turning the ship inside out. Yesterday they had gone through every piece of dirty linen in the laundry in the hope that it had been scooped into the laundry cart when the bedding was changed. Sinclair couldn’t imagine the logistics of sorting through the used sheets of a thousand passengers.

Cunard had also been incredibly efficient about the e-mail threat. The electronic message had been forwarded to the police in the States, and a full investigation was under way.

Sinclair mentally reviewed his plan for the next few days. Cordelia needed to get off this ship; she was too visible. He had decided Ephesus was a good hideout until they were scheduled to meet Jim Gardiner in London.

He envisioned the steep road leading up to his house and concluded that the place was perfectly situated. The countryside near it was almost impassable, so it was very defensible. People could not easily approach on foot. The steep incline would require hand-over-hand climbing, and even then it involved dangerous footholds on uncertain terrain. As for vehicles, the narrow road was clearly visible from his front veranda. Any vehicle could be heard from at least a mile away, as its motor would reverberate off the cliffs all around. There was no way anyone could approach without being noticed.

Cordelia came over, putting her passport in her bag.

“All done. We just leave our luggage outside the cabin door after midnight, and it will be delivered to the quay in the morning.”

Sinclair didn’t move. He stayed hunkered down in the armchair. Sitting there for a moment, he just wanted to enjoy the sight of her.

“Aren’t you hungry?” she asked. “It’s almost seven. We need to dress for dinner.”

“You really like all this formal dressing for dinner, don’t you?”

“After tonight I won’t get much chance to dress up. Soon I’ll be back on the Alvin, in a T-shirt and jeans all day.”

As she said it, her voice caught in midsentence. Their eyes met. She quickly looked away, and there was a moment of strained silence. He ignored the implication of her comment and began gathering up his things. She took him by the hand.

“Let’s see what’s on the menu tonight,” she said, dragging him to his feet. He came willingly.

As coffee was being served, Sinclair looked at the group around the table. Who knew who these characters were? The seat for Gjertrud was empty. Now Sinclair knew why. She didn’t dare show her face after the sauna incident. But Norway was not about to give up on the deed. He was sure Gjertrud would be the first of many to try to talk Cordelia into giving the land to Norway.

Sinclair looked at the others with new suspicion. Who were these Russians, anyway? Anna was eating escargots with an obscene voluptuousness. Vlad was in the process of ordering a bottle of astronomically expensive cognac. Joyce Chin was spooning up flan from the spa menu, very smug in her brittle New York self-confidence. Was she trying to get the deed for financial gain? All she ever talked about was money. Sinclair even had suspicions about Bob and Marlene. Of them all, however, the Texas couple seemed the most innocuous—almost like legitimate vacationers.

Tomorrow he and Cordelia would be getting off the
Queen Victoria
. But they were not going to tell anyone about their plans. There was no way to guess who else was on Cordelia’s trail.

As they were walking out of the Britannia Restaurant, Sinclair leaned close to her ear to pose a question.

“Want to take a walk on deck?”

Cordelia turned, delighted. “Of course!”

Sinclair took her arm and started toward the elevators.

“I have to say, I’m going to miss the ship when we leave tomorrow.”

Cordelia looked at him with a rueful smile. “To think I was angry with you for coming.”

“Were you? I had no idea,” Sinclair deadpanned.

Cordelia smiled affectionately at him.

“Give me a moment to go back to my room; I want to change into flat shoes. I’ll meet you on deck three.”

“Nothing doing. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

“Then come with me. I really don’t want to have someone creep up on me again.”

“I won’t let
that
happen, don’t worry.”

“I have to admit, I was pretty unnerved by Gjertrud in the spa,” she said as she carded her door and pushed it open. “But nothing is going to happen to me in my own cab—”

She stopped suddenly.

He was standing behind her and couldn’t see into the room. But he saw her back stiffen. She didn’t speak, just stepped aside and pointed to the coffee table. The journal had been returned!

M
alik was parked on the quay at Izmir when they disembarked the
Queen Victoria.
Sinclair spotted his skinny arm waving out the window, and directed the porter over to the ramshackle van. As they approached, Malik looked at Cordelia in surprise.

“Malik, this is Cordelia Stapleton,” Sinclair said while he paid the porter.

“Cordelia, this is my assistant, Malik.”

Malik reached across to open the door for her, but a dog bounded into the front seat.

“And my dog, Valkyrie,” added Sinclair.

“Kyrie, get in the back,” said Malik.

The Norwegian elkhound looked at him and back at Cordelia.

“Kyrie, in the back,” commanded Sinclair, but the dog shot out the door. Sinclair tried to get a hand on her collar without success. The dog was running circles around him. He heaved the bags into the car, raising a cloud of dust.

“Malik, do you ever clean this thing?”

“No sir.”

Sinclair climbed into the backseat, dusting off his pants. The dog followed and sat on his lap, and tried to lick his ear. Cordelia watched from the front seat, laughing.

“She missed you.”

Malik turned and gave Sinclair a wink, clearly referring to Cordelia.