Options


I relaxed a bit at Laughlin's question, happy to be back on more familiar ground for the moment. "If those statues are important to Stroeker, he'll be back for them. One option is to try and locate the statues, then watch them for him. They were in his cabana, but for all I know all of them have been moved to the island by now. Checking his cabana would settle that, one way or the other, assuming it isn't being watched. Normally, I'd want to question the man we found prisoner on the island, assuming he survives, but we'll need a translator for that. Unless you can use 'magic' to accomplish that feat." Somehow, I very much doubted it.

"It is possible in theory," Laughlin replied. "But I don't have the skill. I prefer to learn languages myself. However, I specialize in Nilotic and Altaic dialects. Which doesn't help much here."

"Another option is to talk to one of the natives who does speak English, and see what they can tell us about the situation. You mentioned that there was a woman in the village you had spoken to earlier. Perhaps she might be approachable. The trick is to find out what's going on without asking questions of the wrong people. Namely the ones who tried to kill us. That certainly wasn't done by magic."

"Agreed. I'd be leery of the woman in the village. She talked to everyone. The cultists would learn of us fairly quickly. Even assuming she's not one of the cultists. There is a Catholic priest in the village, however."

"All right. But first, I'd like to go over that incident with the luggage with you. Can you describe what happened in as much detail as you can remember?"

"Well, I got off the plane and picked up my luggage from that little rack where they'd left it. It's pretty distinctive and fairly expensive. Seven hundred pounds in London. Then I noticed a large, fat man in a white suit and a red fez - unusual for Tonga, to say the least. I approached to see if he was a friend from Cairo when he whirled around as if he'd seen me, even though he was facing away. He prodded me with this black cane he was carrying and asked if we'd met before. We hadn't and I told him so. But it was odd. Odd enough that I contrived to track him. I know that he left Tonga immediately and returned to the Middle East, where he still was when my tracking expired two days ago. Later, when I opened my luggage, I found it wasn't mine. It contained Hector Bromowitz' speech, along with his slides and a copy of a very old book. Plato's Critias. Have you heard of it? It's been missing. Missing for seventeen hundred years."

I let out a low whistle. "Not something you'd expect to turn up in someone's luggage. I've never heard of it, though. What's the significance of it? Besides the fact that it's been missing for a long time."

"It's where Plato discusses Atlantis. Only copied fragments survived the fire at Alexandria in the fourth century. But this book purports to be a true copy of the whole thing. It's fairly authentic Attic Greek from the fifth century BC, but the book itself is probably no older than the sixteenth century. I made copies before I returned the book, and I've been translating a bit each night. Interesting, but it doesn't seem relevant to our situation here."

"No. Stroeker wouldn't care about that kind of thing, beyond what kind of price he could get for it." I paused, as something occurred to me. "You copied the whole thing? How long did it take Bromowitz to realize he had the wrong suitcase? It can't have been that long."

He smiled, leaning close enough that his lips brushed my ear. "It's magic," he whispered.

Much to my annoyance, I jumped slightly. It was strangely unnerving to have him that close to me, and I was now even more acutely aware that he was only wearing a towel. "Why did I just know you were going to say that?" I responded, trying to act unruffled. "Hmm, how long did it take Bromowitz to notice the mix-up? And what did he say to you when he found you?"

Laughlin sat back and replied, "He hadn't opened my luggage by the time I found him. He was very suspicious, sure that I was up to something, which only makes sense, given that the man's a raving paranoid."

"Did he say anything that you think might connect him to Stroeker, or the statues we saw on the island?"

Laughlin thought that over, serious again. "No. No, I don't think so. The conference has several dozen fevered believers in the extremely unlikely. They're the best cover someone like me could have. What concerns me more is the North African. He looked wealthy. I wonder if he was buying what Stroeker was stealing?"

"Possibly. If so, he left before taking delivery. That would be unusual behavior for a buyer. They usually at least like to see what it is that they're getting."

"Damn," said Laughlin. "I'm out of ideas for the moment, then. How was Stroeker going to get those crates off the island? The airstrip is small, so they weren't going out that way. It had to be by sea, then. Have there been any ships docking recently?"

I thought back over the last few days, but the only ship I could think of was the Hippocampus, the research vessel that Theresa had arrived on. Doctor Laszlo Volk, who I'd learned was a noted seismologist, was in charge of it. Volk had seemed highly genial and scholarly, not much like a smuggler to my way of thinking.

I shook my head in response to Laughlin's question. "Just the Hippocampus, and unless Stroeker was planning to hijack it, that seems unlikely to be our ship. Volk doesn't seem the smuggler type, and while I admit it could be an act, smugglers don't usually disguise themselves as noted scientists. It's too easily checked on. Volk might have noticed if there were any other vessels in the area, though."

"And yet there has to be a ship. Maybe it hasn't arrived yet. We'll need to keep an eye out." He paused briefly, then continued, "And another matter. Someone tried to kill us today by sabotaging our air tanks. That means that either Stroeker is on to us or the cultists are. Or both. One of us should stay awake tonight, just in case."

That thought had occurred to me as well. "My money's with the cultists, personally. The only people you told our destination to were natives. Although Stroeker could have paid someone to let him know if anyone expressed an interest in that island." I sighed. "There are still too many unknowns with this. I think you're right about taking precautions, though. We should sleep in shifts. The question is, do we stay at one of our cabanas, or try to find someplace less known? We might be able to lure the killer out if we do the former.

"Hey, you're the Fed. What do you say?"

"I feel it's worth the risk. Although, given our luck so far, we'll wind up with a Tongan on our hands who doesn't speak English. I can't speak for you, though. If you'd rather not tempt fate, I'll understand. Hell, my ass will be in a sling if my superiors find out I let a civilian get involved in this at all."

"And where would that same ass be if you let a civilian get his throat cut because you wouldn't involve him," Laughlin pointed out. "It's too nice to be in a sling, either way."

He winked and went to look out the cabana window into the storm. I pretended not to notice, still very aware of that towel. "No signs of anyone," he observed. "Do you want the first shift or the second?"

"I'll take the second shift." I looked around the cabana. "Ideally, we should make it look like someone is sleeping in the bed, while we are concealed elsewhere. There aren't many hiding places in here, though." Pretty much none, except for behind the couch, or in the bathroom.

"All right," he said, taking a sheet from the bed and replacing the covers. "Wake me up in four hours." Then he lay down behind the couch with the sheet wrapped around him and was asleep in mere minutes. Apparently he thought that by second shift I meant that I wanted to sleep the second shift, not be on watch for it. I didn't care enough to correct him.

I checked to make sure that Laughlin wasn't visible to someone entering through the door or front windows, locked them, then went back to the bedroom, and used pillows to make it look like someone was sleeping in the bed. Once everything was set, I went to sit near Laughlin behind the couch. With my back to the wall, I could easily monitor both the door and the bedroom for intruders.

I sat listening to the rumble of the rain on the roof and the shutters, and remembered the sound of rain on my family's roof when I was a girl. Not torrential rains, like this, but gentle showers that would lull me to sleep. It was hard not to be lulled by the sound now, but I'd had plenty of practice on stakeouts.

As the hours passed quietly, I watched Kyle Laughlin, one of the richest men in the world, sleeping wrapped in a towel and sheet nearby. He claimed to be a sorcerer. Why, if that were true, would he tell me? What was his real agenda?

My shift concluded uneventfully, and I briefly considered not waking Laughlin up at all and just finishing the night out, then thought better of it. I gave him a gentle shake, then whispered, "This is your wake up call, Dr. Laughlin."

He groaned and stretched, his athletic body at odds with his sleepy look and rumpled hair. Realizing that he wasn't wearing anything, he drew the sheet closer around himself. "See anything?" he asked, rubbing his eyes and moving to sit against the wall beside me.

I resisted the urge to expound on the double-meaning of that question. "No. It's been quiet so far. Maybe they still don't realize we survived. I doubt it, though. Word gets around pretty fast in a community this small." I stretched a bit myself, feeling stiff after four hours of sitting. "Do you know how to use a gun? Or will you be relying on your magical arts this evening?" I smiled slightly, able to joke more about it now. Maybe because I was so tired that the incident didn't seem quite real, anymore.

"Smith and Wesson beats four aces every time," he responded. "And I'm a pretty good shot. Get some sleep," he suggested, holding out his hand for the pistol. "Sounds like the rain is letting up."

I handed him Stroeker's gun. "That just means Stroeker, and the cultists, will be more likely to be moving about. Wake me if you hear anything." And with that I stretched out in the spot where he had been sleeping, keeping one hand near my knife, and tried to fall asleep.


Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth
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Last modified on August 21, 2002 by Kris Fazzari.