The Explorer's Code (44 page)

He was distressed that Cordelia was up there without him, and without Thaddeus Frost. Sure, Sinclair and Charles were capable guys, but they were up against trained killers. The faster this was over, the better.

Thaddeus Frost had called him in the middle of the night with the news of the attack against Sinclair and the agent. He hadn’t slept since. The Norwegian authorities would have to get involved now. Gardiner figured three dead bodies at the bottom of a coal mine was a genuine international nightmare, and was going to require all kinds of reports and paperwork. Hell, if it were up to him he’d bury them on the spot and call it a day. It’s not like they would be missed. But they all had to play by the rules, even if the Russians didn’t.

Gardiner sighed. Today was going to be a long one, and he hadn’t had time for breakfast. Maybe he would get a donut at the airport before the plane took off.

In the SAS first-class lounge, a woman in a leopard-print blouse was hunched over her coffee. She smiled at Jim Gardiner when he walked in.
Gardiner gave her a polite nod. He was balancing his coffee and donut in one hand and his briefcase in the other, headed for the chairs across the room. He had barely settled in when she came tottering over, her stilettos creating serious ambulatory problems for her.

“Excuse me, do you have a pen?” she asked. “I need to write down a phone number.”

“Sure,” said Gardiner. He started digging in his jacket pocket. It wasn’t there. Damn. He opened his briefcase and started looking for it among the documents.

As he was rummaging, Anna drew his attention away from his coffee like a magician, creating a distraction with her other hand. She pointed at the briefcase.

“Is it there? I think I see it in the bottom there.”

He looked deeper into his case. She quietly opened a large topaz ring on her right hand by lifting the jewel. Underneath the stone was a small cavity filled with white powder. It was an antique poison ring—a surefire bet for assassins for centuries.

Gardiner was still rummaging as her right hand moved quickly. White powder fell into his coffee. He never saw it.

“Got it,” he said, holding up the pen triumphantly. “You have good eyes, it was on the bottom.”

Thaddeus Frost walked into the first-class lounge at Heathrow and spotted Jim Gardiner right away. He was wearing the red tie they had agreed upon as a signal. The American lawyer was having coffee and a donut in the far corner. He looked avuncular, easygoing, just the way he had sounded on the phone. Thaddeus scanned the room automatically. The only other occupant was female, middle-aged, blond—no threat.

He walked over to meet Jim Gardiner. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the woman take a look at her watch and rush out of the lounge at a fairly good clip, clearly late for a flight. Why did people cut it so close?

Gardiner stood up to shake hands. Frost noticed immediately that the older man was sweating heavily. That was strange. The lounge was as cold as an icebox. Must be the sugar; donuts will do that to you. Come to think of it, that donut smelled as if it had been cooked in rancid, partially hydrogenated cooking oil. That was bad enough, but then Frost caught a whiff
of the coffee. God-awful swill. Then he sensed a different kind of smell in the steam coming from the cup.

He reached over and picked up the coffee cup. It was half empty.

“Where’d you get this?” Frost asked.

“The kiosk just past the security gate,” said Gardiner.

“Don’t drink it,” Frost said. He smelled it again, and put it back down on the table.

“It’s not that bad,” said Gardiner. “Not the best, but not terrible.”

“There is something wrong with it.”

“How can you tell?”

“I can smell it.”

“Are you kidding me?” Jim Gardiner started to smile. “What are you, some kind of coffee expert?”

“Actually, yes.”

“So where do the beans come from?” joked Gardiner, mopping his face with a handkerchief. “Kona or Sumatra?”

“There is a chemical additive in this. Did someone go near it?”

Jim Gardiner was sweating even more profusely; he started to wobble on his feet.

“Nobody.”

His eyes rolled back in his head. He fell sideways and Thaddeus Frost caught him, staggering under the weight. He lowered him gently, and Jim Gardiner passed out cold on the floor.

John Sinclair was sleeping with Cordelia in the crook of his arm in room 15 of the Spitsbergen Hotel. His phone was still in his hand. The vibration had jolted him awake.

“Sinclair.”

He listened, and was instantly alert.

“What can I do?” he asked.

He listened for a moment more and hung up.

Cordelia was starting to stir. On the far side of the bed, Charles was snoring lightly.

“John, who was that?” she asked, still half asleep.

Sinclair pulled himself up, disentangling his arm from underneath her.

“You better wake up, Delia, it’s not good.”

Cordelia sat up, her hair in her face, her eyes half open. On the far side of the bed, Charles stirred, pulled his coat over his nose and continued to sleep.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, becoming alarmed.

“It’s Jim Gardiner. He was at Heathrow and . . . well, he has had an . . . accident.”

“An
accident
? A
plane
accident?”

“No, not that kind of accident. He’s on his way to the hospital, but the paramedics got to him in time and he should be all right.”

“What
happened
to him?” she cried out, now fully awake.

“Delia, he was poisoned.”

Sinclair knocked on the door of room 12. Erin was the last person he wanted to bother, especially this morning. He figured she would be very badly hurt after her severe beating yesterday. Still, Frost had told him to rouse her.

When she opened the door, Sinclair recoiled. The entire surface of her face was blue-black with bruises. The antiseptic ointment she had put on them made the purple and black welts shiny and even more livid. Her features were swollen, nearly obliterated. Her eyes were slits, and her bottom lip was distended, split, and crusted with dried blood.

“Sorry to disturb you,” apologized Sinclair.

“What’s up?” she asked. She spoke through the broken lips carefully, trying not to move her mouth.

“We have a problem, can we come in?”

Erin looked out into the hall and saw Charles and Cordelia standing next to Sinclair. She opened the door wider to let them all in.

“Wow, Sinclair. A real party! Come on in. It’s BYOB, so I hope you came prepared.”

They all filed in and took seats as Sinclair began to outline the plan.

A half hour later, Charles was the first to arrive in the lobby. The lounge was empty and the check-in counter stood unattended. Through the picture window he could see the first rays of sunlight appearing over the jagged
peaks, and within an hour it would be fully light. He heard Sinclair’s footfall on the stairs and turned to confront him.

“You want to tell me what is going on before Cordelia gets down here?” Charles asked testily.

“What do you mean?” asked Sinclair, slipping on his light parka.

“Don’t be dense,” said Charles irritably. “You are going to have to explain to Cordelia why you were sleeping with that woman.”

“She knows?” Sinclair looked surprised.

Charles gave him a dark look.

“Yes, she
knows
; we walked into the room.”

Sinclair spun on his friend. “How’d she get in?”

“The desk clerk gave her the key. Cordelia looks just like Erin in disguise. Remember?”

Sinclair groaned. “I never thought of that. She saw the bed?”

“She sure
did,
” said Charles. “It was pretty torn up. And lingerie was hanging from every piece of furniture. It looked like a bordello in there.”

Sinclair sighed, and finally answered.

“Nothing happened.”

“Well, my friend, it doesn’t matter if
I
believe you. Cordelia is the one you have to convince.”

Sinclair stayed silent.

“Why the
hell
didn’t you tell me you were coming up here with an agent?” Charles demanded. “You don’t trust me?”

“I didn’t want Cordelia worried. And I figured the less you knew, the less you would have to lie about.”

They stood silently, looking out at the daylight growing stronger behind the mountains.

“You can’t do everything by yourself
all
the time, Sinclair.”

Sinclair looked at him, puzzled. “I asked you for help, Charles, didn’t I?”

“Yes. Babysitting. And you came up here to face down dangerous criminals on your own. Did it ever occur to you that these people are trying to
kill
you?”

“I am aware of that,” Sinclair said. “Last night we were almost . . . well, it’s over now. But don’t think I was the hero; Erin was the one who turned that around.”

“She doesn’t
look
like she won,” observed Charles darkly. “What happened?”

“I still can’t forgive myself for what happened to her. But they’re dead now.”

Charles’s eyes narrowed.

“
Dead?
Did you kill . . .” Charles scrutinized Sinclair’s face.

Sinclair stayed silent.

“OK, look, John, we need to get help,” Charles said quietly. “This is too much.”

“We
have
help. Erin is a trained agent. Thaddeus Frost is on his way.”

“Then why don’t we just stay
here
and wait for him?”

Sinclair turned to face Charles. “Because I don’t know who else is out there; they could be on the way here right now.”

Charles turned away from him with irritation. “Let’s forget the deed.”

Sinclair turned to Charles and grasped his arm. His voice was urgent. “I need to get her out of here, right away. And she needs to claim the deed or they will never leave her alone. Can’t you see that?”

Charles shook his head, perplexed. “I don’t know . . .”

“Look, I can’t just sit here and wait for somebody to come after her.”

“All right,” Charles said reluctantly. “But if we are going to do this, let’s get going and get it over with.”

“Thank you, Charles,” said Sinclair. “We will just keep moving until Thaddeus Frost gets here.”

The Land Rover headed out down the mountainside, with Sinclair driving and Charles riding shotgun. Literally. In the backseat, Cordelia looked over at Erin, silent and determined. Erin’s pistol was in her hand, resting against her knee. Her bruised face was nearly buried in the hood of her parka. There was an alertness to her body that signaled there was danger in what they were about to do.

The day was bright already, but no one was stirring. The town set its own pace, independent of solar activity. This time of year, the inhabitants of Longyearbyen were inured to the early sunrise and got up much later.

The town was stretched out below, but the vehicle was not headed down into the valley. Sinclair had sketched out the details to them quickly and efficiently. They would drive farther into the mountains, follow the rim of the bowl, and take the narrow track roads along the top of the jagged peaks. It was circuitous, but it was the best way to avoid notice.

The next part of Sinclair’s plan violated every Norwegian law and a couple of American ones too. It was called breaking and entering in
any
legal system in the world, but there was no other way. Sinclair and Cordelia would enter the museum and find the deed while Erin and Charles stood guard outside. With so many people looking for the deed, it was too dangerous to wait any longer for official permission to take it.

The Land Rover jostled along the bumpy track, and the trip seemed endless. When they finally pulled up to the museum, Sinclair surveyed the terrain. He wanted to park out of sight, but the back of the small building was flush against the cliff, and there was no place to hide the vehicle.

“I’m not so comfortable with this,” said Sinclair. “Let’s make it fast.”

Sinclair and Cordelia got out quickly and walked up to the wooden steps.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Sure you are up to it?” he asked again. She looked up at him. He was rugged and handsome in the early Arctic glare. His eyes were intense blue, and the day-old stubble defined his strong jaw. How far they had come together in such a short time.

She gave him a brave smile. “Yes, John, let’s go. I want to get back to London as quickly as possible to see Jim Gardiner. That’s all I care about right now.”

Sinclair went up the steps first and surveyed the entrance. The door was no problem. Most breaking and entering in this vicinity was done by polar bears, and they never bothered with locks, they just smashed down the doors. So while the wood of the door was sturdy enough to inhibit bears, the lock was ridiculously flimsy. Sinclair started in on it with an improvised pick—his folding field knife.

“How do you know how to do that?” Cordelia asked as he carefully probed the lock.

“I had some misspent teen years. The family liquor cabinet was my training ground,” he replied. He twisted the knob and it turned easily. “After you.”

The air in the museum hit them in the face: cold and very musty—like old hides that hadn’t been cured properly. Their footsteps echoed hollowly on the wooden boards. They walked through the vestibule, past the polar bear skins and an antique dog sledge propped in the corner. The shedlike exhibition space was large, and a staircase led up to a second floor. The
museum display was very rudimentary; all the objects of interest were either hanging on the walls or in freestanding cases in the middle of the room.

“You take the left side, I’ll take the right,” directed Sinclair.

They walked around scanning the glass cases for old papers, or anything that resembled a deed.

“Anything?”

“No,” said Cordelia. “This is all about the whaling and mining operations in Spitsbergen at the turn of the last century. There are no real documents.”

“Let’s go upstairs,” suggested Sinclair. “I’m sure the curator’s office is up there. The deed may be in a desk drawer, or even a safe.”