The Explorer's Code (8 page)

Now the remains of bodies came to their muddy hands, as if longing to be resurrected. First badly decomposed skeletons, no soft tissue, but bits and pieces mixed with the gravel and dirt. As they dug deeper, there were chunks of protoplasmic goo. Suddenly Miles felt the hair lift on his head.

Eight feet down, there she was. And he knew she would be a good sample. A fully preserved cadaver. Her blue parka crusted with mud, the Arctic fox-fur trim still intact. Clearly the young woman had been obese in life, and for that reason her remains were astonishingly preserved in death. The extra adipose had insulated her remains in the frozen grave.

Miles gestured for the men to stop digging and knelt in prayer. The diggers removed their caps and fell silent. His prayer was inchoate, distracted by intense elation.

Without delay he began to slice her up. Kneeling in the thawed mud, he set to work. The lungs were still frozen as he cut into them with his autopsy instruments.

J
ohn Sinclair walked through the golden district, the Carré d’Or, of Monaco in his shirtsleeves with his jacket slung over his shoulder. His tie was undone, and he had the measured pace of a man who was out too late, with one glass of whiskey too many.

The streets of Monaco were quiet. The gala event was long over. He had stopped for an after-dinner drink with his friends from New York. He had chosen the famous La Rascasse bar, which was popular during race time in Monaco with the Formula One fans. Situated on one of the most difficult turns of the course, it gave spectators a perfect view of the cars as they came around the bend. In addition to its Formula One fame, it was an exceptionally good restaurant. Off-season, as it was now, Sinclair would frequently go there to spend an evening with friends. This evening had been even longer than usual. It was three o’clock in the morning.

After saying his good-byes, Sinclair was glad to be walking. The distance back to the Hotel Metropole was just enough to sober him up from the long evening. It was a gorgeous night, and the town was quiet. For the first time since he had so publicly fought with Shari, he felt good. He had no idea why, he just felt better.

He looked down on the harbor, leaning on the stone parapet above the yacht basin. There were a lot of boats this year. It used to be that two hundred feet was big enough for a yacht, and three hundred feet was vulgar. Now four hundred feet didn’t raise an eyebrow. And the lines were god-awful, all angles and smoked glass. Some even had helicopter landing pads, Jet Skis, minisubmarines, all kinds of tow toys and rafts.

He rested his arms on the stone wall and looked over the boats. The
Udachny
was one of the gaudiest down there.
Udachny
meant “good luck” in Russian. Owned by some superstitious oligarch, no doubt, who was looking over his shoulder counting on luck as he counted the coin.

Back in the late 1920s the British author Somerset Maugham lived in nearby Cap Ferrat, and had called Monaco a “sunny place for shady people.” Of course, nowadays that was not the case. Now a very progressive prince was determined to make Monaco into a shining example for the world. Prince Albert II had become an outspoken leader on environmental issues, and also initiated a real effort to make Monaco’s banking operations more transparent. His work was paying off, earning Monaco the reputation of being above reproach in major international circles. Consequently the real estate was more desirable than it had ever been. Monaco was now seen as a glittering backdrop for corporations and new entrepreneurs, as well as for its more traditional reputation as a playground for the fabulously wealthy, famous, and beautiful.

Nevertheless, Sinclair would hazard there were still crooks, money launderers, and oligarchs mixed in with the superrich in this sunny tax haven. People like that were always drawn to extreme wealth, like flies to a picnic, and they continued to be a scourge, from Dubai to Dubrovnik. Monaco was no exception.

Sinclair draped his jacket over the wall, and something clanked against the stone. He picked up the jacket again and felt in his side pocket. A lady’s purse. He looked down at it in his hand, a small jeweled oval. How did that get there? He searched his fuzzy mind for an explanation. The last drink didn’t help him much. Then it struck him. He had taken it from Cordelia Stapleton as they had posed for photos. He had a quick flashback of offering to hold it for her. She had fled the stage soon after. The bag was small enough not to notice for the rest of the evening. He held it in his hand as he leaned on the wall and considered what to do. He would return it tomorrow. Charles would know where she was staying.

Pretty girl. He had a mental picture of her walking up to the podium in the spotlight. Why did she leave so fast? He didn’t see her after giving her the award. Why did she leave without saying good-bye?

The
Udachny
caught his attention again. The oval windows of the Benetti looked sinister, like eyes watching the night. Very flashy, that Jacuzzi on deck, and a bar on the sundeck, a thirty-six-foot Hinckley speedboat, two Yamaha Jet Skis, a trampoline, two kayaks, and a fourteen-foot Novurania tender. A bloom of satellite gear, three domes, sat on the
upper structure. Not too many people on board from the look of it, just the light on in the master cabin. Sinclair picked up his jacket and headed back to his hotel.

Cordelia slipped off her shoes as soon as she stepped inside the hotel room and closed the door. The room was neat, cool, silent, the air conditioner whirring. Had it been only a few hours since she had left for the gala? It felt like her entire life had changed, not in a dramatic way but in an organic shift—the way the introduction of a nonindigenous species into a natural setting will ultimately alter every living organism in that environment.

She laughed at herself. That was a bit complicated for this time of night. She stepped out onto the hotel balcony. The cool tile floor was soothing to her bare feet. They absolutely
ached
from the unaccustomed high heels.

The view was stunning. A couple of hundred meters away, in Monte Carlo’s
avant-port,
she could see the
Queen Victoria
. The dark gray hull was easily recognizable, as was the black-and-red smokestack. Cordelia admired the lines. It was much more elegant than the white cardboard-box cruise ships. The berth was a semifloating mole attached to the shore on the southern end. The northern end was held in place with eight very large anchor chains, probably about sixty meters deep to the bottom.

She would board the day after tomorrow. Cordelia stepped back off the balcony into the cool stillness of the hotel room. Her laptop was open on the writing desk. She pulled up the chair and started a new message.

Susan. I’m here in Monaco. Do me a quick favor. Send me anything you can find on John Sinclair—Chairman Herodotus Foundation. Thanks a million. Delia.

There was an unopened e-mail in her in-box. She clicked on it.

Dear Ms. Stapleton,

We are writing to you to inquire about a possible sale of land rights in Svalbard that have passed into your ownership as a result of your recent inheritance. We would like to know if you would consider selling or donating this land to our nonprofit organization, Bio-Diversity Trust, which administers the International Seed Vault.

The International Seed Vault is now located on the site of the former Arctic Coal Mining Company owned by Elliott Stapleton. The government of Norway constructed the seed vault on your inherited property without a proper title search. Therefore, the land on which the seed vault is built belongs to you. The government of Norway will undoubtedly contact you in the near future to ask you to sell the rights to the land. We urge you not to do so.

We believe that no sovereign nation should be in possession of the vault. It should remain in trust to protect the common interest of humanity, and its benefits should remain outside the conflict of national interests. We respectfully request that you contact our solicitor at your earliest convenience to discuss this matter.

Yours sincerely,
Thaddeus Frost, Executive Director, Bio-Diversity Trust

She hit the Forward button and sent it to Jim Gardiner in New York. What on earth were they talking about? Jim could figure it out.

She was absolutely exhausted. With the time-zone shift, even her bones were tired, and her head was spinning. She walked to the bathroom, dropping her gown to the floor. She’d pick it up later. Cordelia had barely enough energy to splash water on her face and brush her teeth. Her nightgown felt light and cool. She pulled down the coverlet, slipped into the silkiness of the Frette sheets, and closed her eyes.

But even as tired as she was, Cordelia was not at all sleepy. Her mind was racing through a montage of all the spectacular scenes from the event. She kept hearing the speeches, and replaying the long walk to the podium in the spotlight with John Sinclair looking at her. The scent of his lemony, herbal cologne, and the feel of his hand next to hers. His jacket sleeve brushing her shoulder. What an unnerving man. She reviewed her conversation with Prince Albert II and marveled at how much knowledge he had about environmental matters. She remembered her conversation with Charles Bonnard. She really
must
have jet lag, to refuse a drink with him.

The whole evening had been sensory overload, and she couldn’t find the off switch to her brain. After forty minutes of listening to the soft whir of the air conditioner, Cordelia sat up, turned on the bedside lamp, and picked up the battered leather journal of Elliott Stapleton.

J
ANUARY
1, 1908

I
N THIS LEAP YEAR OF 1908
, I
MAY WELL NEED THE EXTRA DAY TO RECOVER FROM THE FESTIVITIES OF LAST EVENING.
I
SPENT MUCH OF THE EARLY EVENING AT
R
ECTOR’S ON
B
ROADWAY, WHERE
L
ANGDON
H
ALE HAD ASSEMBLED A DOZEN OF HIS COMPATRIOTS.
W
E CONSUMED QUANTITIES OF CHAMPAGNE ALONG WITH OYSTERS THE SIZE OF SAUCERS
. A
LMOST AN HOUR BEFORE MIDNIGHT WE ASSEMBLED IN THE BROAD PLAZA
, T
IMES
S
QUARE, IN FRONT OF THE
T
IMES
T
OWER BUILDING, THE SECOND TALLEST STRUCTURE IN THE CITY.

O
N THE SUMMIT, THEY HAVE ERECTED A 70-FOOT FLAGPOLE AND A LARGE SPHERE, ENTIRELY COVERED IN ELECTRICAL LIGHTS
. W
E WERE TOLD AT MIDNIGHT IT WOULD DESCEND
. T
HE ROWDINESS OF THE CROWD INCREASED AS THE HOUR DREW NEAR.
S
EVERAL OF
L
ANGDON’S FEMALE FRIENDS WERE CLINGING TO ME IN THE HOPE OF KEEPING WARM
. S
UDDENLY THE CROWD BROKE INTO A THROBBING CHANT, AND THE LIGHTED GLOBE STARTED MOVING SLOWLY DOWNWARD UNTIL BRIGHT LIGHTS PULSED THE YEAR 1908.

A
GREAT CHEER WENT UP AND MY COMPANIONS WERE EMBRACING EACH OTHER.
O
NE WAS EMBOLDENED ENOUGH TO PRESS HER LIPS TO MINE IN A CELEBRATION OF THE MOMENT
. W
E THEN REPAIRED TO THE FAMOUS
M
ARTIN’S, BUT BY THREE IN THE MORNING MY ENTHUSIASM FOR THE COMPANY HAD WANED AND I SENT MYSELF OFF TO BED.

The sunlight was blazing in from the balcony. Her reading light was still on and the journal was lying across her chest. Cordelia put the journal gently on the night table and walked outside. It was breezy, her cotton batiste nightgown billowed around her limbs, and the sun warmed her body through the thin fabric. How could she have slept so long? Time to get moving. She wanted to sightsee in Monaco today. She dialed room service and her breakfast arrived within minutes. Hot coffee, croissants, beautiful strawberry jam, and the lovely sweet butter—the kind found only in Europe. She gorged herself on three croissants and fruit, washing them down with the aromatic coffee.

On the way to the shower Cordelia checked her e-mail. Susan had replied.

Delia, I have attached John Sinclair’s bio. It looks like he founded the Herodotus Foundation just after leaving Wharton. He sold his Internet
business at the height of the tech bubble and is now involved in archaeology. I also attached the newspaper account of his wife’s car accident. She died six years ago. John Sinclair is single, but he is currently dating Shari (yes, THAT Shari). I would steer clear of him. He seems like quite a player. I hope you are managing to have some fun. XX Susan.

P.S. Joel asked me out last night! Can you believe it! I almost died of shock. We had Mexican food.

Cordelia smirked and closed down the computer. No wonder Joel wanted her out of the way. She picked up her cup, but the coffee was already cold. She checked the thermal pot and there was none left. As she reached to call room service, the phone rang under her hand.

“Miss Stapleton, a gentleman has returned your handbag to the front desk, and we are sending it right up.”

“Is he still there?”

“No, mademoiselle, he has left.”

Cordelia was relieved she didn’t have to face Sinclair. She didn’t want to explain or apologize for her behavior and her abrupt departure.

“Can you send up another pot of coffee with the purse?”

“Certainly, mademoiselle.”

The waiter came with the coffee and the handbag on a silver tray. She poured a cup and picked up her purse to tip him as he left. There, wedged into the clasp of the handbag, was a personal calling card. The name John Sinclair was engraved in plain black script, and handwritten underneath was his international mobile number. Interesting that he didn’t use his Herodotus Foundation business card. OK, she got it. He wanted her to call for social reasons; it had nothing to do with the foundation or the award ceremony.

She put the card back on the tray and sipped the coffee, looking over at the newspapers. They had been delivered to her door earlier, and she had read them thoroughly already. But she picked up the
Monaco Times
again and looked at the write-up of the ball. She scrutinized a picture of the prince talking to Sinclair, and another of Sinclair standing next to her, holding the award. She didn’t look nervous at all; in fact, she looked very composed. But that moment with him on the podium had been electric. He certainly was a very handsome man. She looked over at his card lying on the room service tray.