Clive Cussler: The Tombs

When they reached the open water far out from the Caminada Headland, they brought the two boats together and tied them. Remi climbed aboard the black-and-gray boat. “Sneakily done.”

“Thank you,” he said. They began to search the black-and-gray boat, concentrating on the cabin. In a few minutes, Remi held up a blue binder with a hundred pages in it. “They’re a company. Have you ever heard of Consolidated Enterprises?”

“No,” Sam said. “Pretty vague. It doesn’t sound like anything specific.”

“I guess they don’t want to rule anything out,” she said.

“At the moment, they’re treasure hunters.” He pointed to a marine metal detector on the deck, ready to be deployed.

“Why use that thing when you can just follow people who find treasures, wreck their equipment, and take over their spot?”

Sam looked around the cabin again. “There’re six of them.”

“Two women.” She nodded and opened the binder again. “Here we go. They’re a ‘field team,’ complete with pictures and names.”

“Take it with you,” said Sam.

“Isn’t taking things crossing the line?”

“Isn’t stranding six people in a swamp forty miles from home crossing the line?”

“I guess you’re right.” She closed the binder and went on deck. “What should we do with their boat?”

“Where’s their home office?”

“New York.”

“Then we’d better drive it back and dock it in the marina,” Sam said. “It’s probably rented from somebody who can’t afford to lose it.”

Remi swung her legs over the gunwale into their rented boat. Sam handed her his mask and flippers, then took off his wet suit and tossed it into the boat too. Remi cast off the line that connected the two boats. “I’ll race you back to Grand Isle.” She started the engine. “Winner gets the first shower.”

Sam restarted the black-and-gray boat and got off to a fair start. Speeding up and heading for the marina at high speed, the bottoms of the boats rising to crest waves before smacking down into the troughs, they arrived almost an hour later nearly even. When Sam tied the black-and-gray boat to the dock, he climbed out wearing a purloined sweatshirt with the hood up over a baseball cap. He walked off the dock, then up the next one, where Remi was tying up their boat. She looked up. “You’re looking smug in your stolen finery.”

He shook his head. “I just smile a lot. It means I’m guileless and friendly.”

She finished with the lines, then stepped to the cabin and tugged once on the new padlock. “Guileless? Being transparent isn’t the same as being guileless. Take me to a long hot shower, a good restaurant, and then maybe we’ll talk about the friendly part.”

LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA

SELMA WONDRASH SAT AT HER DESK IN THE OFFICE ON the first floor of the Fargo house on Goldfish Point in La Jolla. It was still early evening in California, and she looked up from the book she was reading to see the sun beginning to set over the smooth expanse of the ocean. She loved the moment when the sun seemed to sit on the horizon like the yolk of a fried egg. The long Pacific swells came in below the house at the foot of the cliffs, and she thought about how they came to her from across the world. She seldom had time to read books for pure pleasure, but the Fargos had been in Louisiana for nearly a month and what they were doing didn’t require much research effort from her.

She ran her fingers through her close-cropped hair, closed her eyes for a moment, and thought about the book she was reading— The Greater Journey , David McCullough’s book about nineteenth-century Americans who went to Paris. They were like her, people in love with knowledge. For them and her, to learn was to live.

She had, she thought, succeeded in finding the place for her.

As a child, Selma had sometimes imagined a painted portrait of herself, a mousy, uninteresting creature— The Girl in the Front Row With Her Hand Up . She had begun as a prodigy, a child who read at two, and kept reading, learning, studying, calculating, and here she was, a master researcher.

Catching sight of her reflection in the big shiny surface of the window overlooking the ocean, there she was, a small—perhaps compact—middle-aged—no fudging about that—woman, wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt and khaki pants. Well, these were Japanese gardening pants, and stylish.

She had been working for Sam and Remi Fargo for quite some time now. They had hired her right after they had sold their company but before they had built this house. Remi had said, “We need somebody to help us do research.”

“On what?” asked Selma.

Remi answered, “On questions. On anything and everything. History, archaeology, languages, oceanography, meteorology, computer science, biology, medicine, physics, games. We want somebody who will hear a question and devise ways to answer it.”

“I do that,” she’d said. “I’ve studied many of those fields myself, and taught a few. When I worked as a reference librarian, I picked up some sources and know many experts on the others. I’ll take the job.”

Sam said, “You don’t even know the salary yet.”

“You don’t either,” she’d said. “I’ll accept minimum wage for three probationary months and then you can name the figure. I assure you, it will be much higher than you know. You’ll be much more appreciative then than you are now.”

She had never been less than delighted that she’d chosen to work for the Fargos. It was as though she had never looked for a job but instead was to be paid for being a good Selma. She even helped Sam and Remi plan this house. She had researched architecture and architects, materials and sustainable design, and because she had already studied Sam and Remi she could remind them of things they liked and would need space to accommodate. She had also explained what was necessary for a first-rate research facility.

The telephone rang, and she considered letting Pete or Wendy, her junior researchers, pick it up. The idea lasted a half second before she became, as always, the victim of her own intense curiosity. “Hello. This is the Fargo residence. Selma Wondrash speaking.”

“Selma!” came the voice. “Meine Liebe, wo sind Ihr Chef und seine schöne Frau?”

“Herr Doktor Fischer. Sie sind tauchen im Golf von Mexiko. ”

“Your German is better every day. I’ve made a fascinating discovery and I’d like to discuss it with Remi and Sam. Is there any way I can reach them right away?”

“Yes. If you’ll give me a number where you can be reached, I’ll ask them to call you as soon as I can get them above the surface.”

“I’m in Berlin. The number here is . . .”

As Selma wrote down the number, she was already thinking she would put the McCullough book aside. Albrecht Fischer was a professor of classical archaeology at Heidelberg. It wouldn’t hurt to spend some time this evening reviewing a few of his recent academic publications just to see what might be next. “Thank you, Albrecht. I’ll get Sam and Remi’s attention as soon as I can.”

Late in the evening, after their romantic dinner of shrimp etouffee, softshell crab, and bread pudding at the Grand Jatte and a moonlit walk home along the Gulf, Sam and Remi had just gotten into bed when his cell phone rang.

As Sam dropped his feet to the floor to get his phone from the top of the dresser, Remi raised her head and leaned on her elbow. “Mine has an off switch.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I forgot it was on.” He flipped his thumb across the screen. “Hello?”