SAN PEDRO, CALIFORNIA FOUR HOURS LATER
After her arrival at the harbor, Helen was making a final check of the crated equipment strapped down across the deck of the Pacific Voyager. She only hoped that they would have enough room on the river tug Incan Wanderer and the river barge Juanita when they transferred the equipment in Colombia. Kennedy and his team had three more crates than she had allowed them. On her clipboard she made a check mark by each space that indicated the weight of his crates. She frowned when she added it all up.
“Robby, where’s Dr. Kennedy?” she asked her brightest graduate student. He tossed a coiled rope to one of young girls who populated Helen’s expedition and pointed toward the stern of the Pacific Voyager.
She bit her lip and handed him the clipboard with the manifest on it. “Give this to the captain,” she said, as she turned toward the stern. “Tell him we are over by three hundred pounds, but still within his load capacity.”
“You got it, Doc.” He watched her for a moment, wondering if maybe he should accompany her to see Kennedy and his men. But he decided that if anyone could handle these guys, it was Dr. Zachary. His eyes next sought out Kelly. She was on deck, checking her camera equipment. The thick-rimmed glasses and dyed hair didn’t hide her beauty, but they did go a long way toward hiding her identity. He figured everyone on the ship would find it difficult to recognize her.
Helen approached Kennedy and his associates, who were huddled near one of the ships large stern cleats. They were deep into conversation when Kennedy looked up and saw her walking toward them. He nodded and his men turned and walked away, but not before Helen noticed one of them partially raise his hand toward his forehead. Kennedy’s eyes locked on the man in question and he quickly lowered his hand and moved off. She wondered what that was all about.
“Professor Zachary, we about ready to shove off?” Kennedy asked as he straightened and walked over to meet her.
“I have a meeting to attend, but we should be able to depart in about twenty minutes.” She zipped up her dark blue coat. “Doctor, according to the manifest, you have three crates that were not accounted for nor inspected, and the weight of those three crates placed us over our limit. It makes me wonder if you were trying to get these items past me.”
Kennedy, a man of about twenty-six with short cropped blond hair, laughed. “My pharmaceutical company sent us two computers and a fluoride analyzer at the last minute. Nothing earth shattering, quite boring stuff really.”
“Then you wouldn’t mind if I inspect them?”
“Not at all, I’ll have them opened for you. I don’t think it should delay us more than two hours. It’s a royal pain but they’re packed quite well because of their sensitive components. But we don’t want to break any rules. Mr. Lang, will you unstrap the analyzer and her component computers and break down the crates for the—”
“That won’t be necessary, Doctor,” Helen said, irritated by the possible delay. She was nervous and didn’t trust Henri St. Claire at all. It felt as if he might drive onto the dock at any moment and catch them before they could make their way out to sea. “Your pharmaceutical company picked up the remaining portion of the bill for this trip, but please don’t assume that gives you the right to circumvent my authority.” She turned and strode away.
“I would never think of it,” he said to her retreating form. “We value this opportunity to examine the fauna of this new and unexplored area of the basin for the chance at—” He trailed off, giving up his rehearsed speech when she didn’t slow down. His eyes remained on Helen as she started down the gangplank toward the ship’s offices.
Helen entered the office and removed her coat while her eyes adjusted to the brightness of the interior. She finally saw the man sitting in the corner with one of his long legs crossed over the other.
“I honestly thought you were going to keep me waiting all night long in this smelly place,” he said as he stood.
“I imagine you’ve been in worse places.” She greeted him with a hug.
“As a matter of record, my dear, your father and I shipped out of this very harbor a million years ago bound for that paradise we know as Korea.” He released her and looked her over. “You, young lady, look exhausted.”
“Goes with the territory.” She patted him on the chest and then sat on the edge of a desk that occupied the center of the office.
“So, you finally got the grant you always wanted for this mysterious field trip. Are you excited?”
“I will be if we ever get out of here,” she answered as she looked at her father’s oldest friend and family attorney. She was sorry for having to lie to him about where the money came from. She managed to force the guilty thought from her mind. “I’ve got a secret mission for you, Stan.”
“Ooh, sounds mysterious,” he said jokingly.
“You don’t know the half of it,” she said, thinking, If he only knew. “You’re the only one I can trust to do what I ask, and not ask a bunch of silly questions.”
“At my age, I’ve learned to only ask pertinent questions, never silly ones. What do you want me to do?”
Helen stood and walked to the door. She bent down and retrieved the aluminum case that contained the fossil. She held out the case to the attorney.
“If for some reason I don’t make it back by September first, or call you by that date on the satellite phone, I need you to take this sample to Las Vegas and give it to a friend.”
Stan took the case and looked at his friend’s daughter.
“You’re kidding, right?”
Helen reached into her pocket and placed an envelope of the top of the container.
“The address is in here, along with my friend’s name. There’s also a brief on the expedition. My friend has the resources to know how to track me, so for security reasons and your safety, I didn’t leave him directions on how to find me. Stanley, will you do this for me?”
He didn’t say anything at first, as he made his way to the desk and placed the container on it. Then, “What have you gotten yourself into, Helen? Just where in the hell are you going and why do you need to leave me with such a cryptic list of instructions?”
She smiled and once again patted him on the left lapel. “You worry too much; it’s just a competitive type thing, the race for the prize.”
“And what prize is that?”
“A big one, Stanley.” She rose on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. “It’s dangerous only because the place is so remote. I have fifty people coming with me, so I’m not in this alone. Will you do this for me?”
He was about to respond when the ship’s horn sounded and drowned out his answer. He grimaced. When the horn stopped blaring there was a quick rapping at the office door and Kimberly Denning, a third-year student, poked her head through.
“Captain said he has to get this tide or you can forget about sailing until morning,” Kimberly said, then vanished.
Helen grabbed her coat and put it on. “Wish me luck?” she asked Stan.
“I do. I just wish I knew what it was you were up to.”
She smiled and turned for the door, raising her hand in good-bye. “All I’ll tell you is that, when I get back, no one will look at the world the same way again.”
The door opened and Helen was gone. Stan took the white business envelope from the top of the container as he made his way to the window. Helen turned when she reached the top of the gangplank and waved at him, and he held the envelope up and waved back. Her students were lining the rails and waving at family who were in the parking lot. To Helen’s right, standing away from her and her students, was a group of men who were watching from the railing. They weren’t waving, just leaning against the steel gunwale as the ship’s crew cast off her thick rope lines. Stan watched as the ship drifted away from the pier with her horn sounding. There was an explosion at her stern when the engines began turning her screws and the Pacific Voyager started making for the open sea.
Stan turned from the window and looked down at the envelope he held in his hand. He squinted and moved to stand by the desk lamp. Helen’s womanly scrawl was written across the white paper in flowing lines. Stan looked up through the window at the receding lights of the blue-painted Pacific Voyager and then back at the name and address on the envelope. He read it aloud to himself: “Dr. Niles Compton, c/o the Gold City Pawnshop, 2120 Desert Palm Avenue, Las Vegas, Nevada.
“A pawnshop?” he said wonderingly.
He placed the envelope in his overcoat and looked out the window again, now taking in the few family members and friends of Helen’s students as they started their cars and moved out of the small parking lot. Then Stan, for no reason that he knew of, got goose bumps down his arms as the vehicles departed. He didn’t believe in premonitions or any of the other strange sciences that occupied the newspapers these days, yet had a distinct feeling that he would indeed deliver this envelope to that pawnshop in Las Vegas. And that the families that had watched their loved ones sail into the night would never again see them alive.
Stan picked up the aluminum container and made for the door. He allowed himself one last look out into the harbor, but the ship’s running lights had vanished into the dark Pacific waters.