Lincoln Child - The Third Gate

Poking around. As she was speaking, Romero’s initial skepticism, if not outright hostility, had slowly returned.

“So I’m to be a rainmaker,” he said. “I may not do any good, but it’s comforting to see me on the job.” He glanced at her. “Now I know where I stand. Thanks for your candor.”

She smiled, but it wasn’t a particularly friendly smile. “You got a problem with candor?”

“Not at all. It clears the air. And it can be very bracing-even enlightening.”

“For example?”

“For example, you.”

“What about me?” she asked sharply. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”

“I know quite a bit, actually. Although some of it is, admittedly, conjecture.” He held her gaze steadily. “You were the youngest child in your family. I’d imagine your older siblings were boys. I’d further imagine that your father devoted most of his attention to them: Boy Scouts, Little League. He wouldn’t have had much time for you-and if your brothers noticed you at all, it would be to belittle you. That would account for your instinctive hostility, your academic overcompensation.”

Romero opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again.

“There was a famous, or at least distinguished, woman a few generations back in your family: an archaeologist, perhaps, or maybe a mountain climber. The way you hang your diplomas carelessly on the wall, slightly askew, suggests an informal approach to academics-we’re all one big happy family, whether we have impressive doctorates or not. And yet the very fact you brought your diplomas at all suggests a deep insecurity about your standing on this expedition. A young woman, one of few among men, on a physically demanding mission in a harsh and unforgiving environment-you worry about being taken seriously. Oh, and your middle name starts with A.”

She looked at him, eyes blazing. “And just how the hell do you know that?”

He gestured over his shoulder with one thumb. “It’s on your nameplate on the door.”

She stood up. “Get out.”

“Thanks for the chat, Dr. Romero.” And Logan turned and left the office.

Logan’s schedule was free until the following morning, so he spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the Station getting his sea legs: trying to get a feel for the place and its occupants. Since he’d already seen the offices, residency, and dive staging areas, he decided to visit the science labs in the Red wing. Though the labs themselves were small, he was astonished by their diversity: not only archaeology but geology, organic chemistry, paleobotany, paleozoology, and several others. The laboratories were modular: each was a stainless-steel box approximately eighteen feet square. While some were occupied, others were mothballed: apparently, Porter Stone cherry-picked the labs he thought might be useful for a particular expedition and then activated them on an as-needed basis.

Next he visited White, which he learned was command and control. Although there were the obligatory secure areas and locked doors, the site seemed refreshingly informal: there were very few guards, and the ones he met were friendly and candid. He did not speak of the curse or his reason for being on the project; judging from the curious looks he occasionally received, however, it was clear that at least a few had been briefed.

The nerve center of White was a large space, staffed by a lone technician sitting at a terminal in a far corner. His back was to Logan, and he was so surrounded by monitors that he was reminiscent of a pilot in a cramped cockpit.

“Catch any shoplifters?” Logan said, stepping into the room.

The tech whirled around, neighing in surprise. A book that had been sitting on his lap flew to the floor, spinning around and coming to rest in a corner.

“Judas H. Priest!” the man said, one hand plucking at the collar of his lab coat. “You trying to give a guy a heart attack or something?”

“No. I imagine that would ruin Dr. Rush’s day.” He stepped forward and extended his hand with a smile. “Jeremy Logan.”

“Cory Landau.” From the mangy thatch of black hair, and the way he’d lounged in his chair, Logan had guessed even from the doorway that the tech was young. But seeing him face-to-face was a surprise. Landau couldn’t have been more than twenty-two or twenty-three. He had brilliant blue eyes, the fresh, peach-colored complexion of a cherub, and-a bizarrely incongruous addition-a narrow Zapata-style mustache. A can of grape-flavor Jolt and a thick pack of chewing gum sat on the desktop before him.

“So,” Logan said. “What do you do around here?”

“What do you think?” the youth replied, leaning back in his chair, surprise giving way to an affected breeziness. “I run the joint.” He took a sip of Jolt. “What did you mean by that crack about catching shoplifters?”

Logan nodded at the array of screens that surrounded Landau. “You’ve got enough LCDs here for the security pit at the Bellagio.”

“Security pit, my aunt Fanny. It all begins and ends right here.” Suddenly Landau’s brow creased with suspicion. “Who are you, anyhow?”

“Don’t worry. I’m one of the good guys.” And Logan flashed his ID.

“In that case, check this out.” Landau waved at the forest of glass panels and the half-dozen keyboards arrayed beneath them. “Here’s where all the data gets entered, all the numbers get crunched by autonomous programs.”

“I thought that was taken care of at the Maw.”

Landau waved a dismissive hand. “You kidding? They’re just the piano builders. I’m the artist who plays the instrument. Watch.”

With a quick flurry of keystrokes, Landau brought up an image on one of the monitors. “See, we receive sensor, sonar, and visual information from the ongoing diving missions. It all comes into a program, here, that maps out the underwater terrain. It’s a beast of a program, too. And this is the result.”

Logan followed the outstretched hand toward the image on the screen. It was indeed remarkable: a fantastically complex wireframe CAD image of an undulating, almost lunar, landscape, thickly honeycombed with tunnels and boreholes.

“That’s what it looks like, forty feet below us,” Landau explained. “With each new dive, our representation of the swamp bed-and the caverns below it-expands.” He demonstrated how the image could be manipulated, zoomed and panned, rotated on the X, Y, and Z axes. “You mentioned the Maw. You seen it yet?”

Logan nodded.

“While you were there, did you get a chance to check out the Grid?”

“You mean, that thing that looks like a bingo card on steroids?”

“That’s it. Well, what I’ve got here is the other half of the equation. The Grid is a two-D representation of what’s been explored so far. And this shows its exact topology.” Landau patted the display with almost fatherly pride. “When we find the-the target, we’ll use this to ensure it is fully mapped and explored.”

Logan murmured his appreciation. “Is this your first assignment for Porter Stone?”

The youth shook his head. “Second.”

Logan waved a hand around. “Is this unusual? All this equipment, tools, expensive setups-just for a single expedition?”

“It’s not for a single expedition. Stone’s got a warehouse somewhere in the south of England. Maybe more than one. That’s where he stores all the stuff.”

“You mean, the vehicles and electronics? Portable labs?”

“So they say. Everything he might possibly need for a particular site.”

Logan nodded. It made sense: like the inactive labs, such an arrangement would allow Stone to get up and running quickly, with as little time wastage as possible, in almost any conceivable climate or terrain.