After seven years at DARPA Sam retired with the vague notion of bringing some of his own wild ideas to reality, and moved back to California. It was there, two weeks later, that Sam and Remi met at the Lighthouse, a jazz club on Hermosa Beach. Sam had wandered into the club for a cold beer and Remi was there celebrating a successful research trip looking into rumors of a sunken Spanish ship off Abalone Cove.
Though neither of them had ever called their first meeting a case of “love at first sight,” they’d both agreed it had certainly been a case of “pretty damned sure at first hour.” Six months later they were married where they’d first met, in a small ceremony at the Lighthouse.
At Remi’s encouragement Sam dove headfirst into his own business and they struck pay dirt within a year with an argon laser scanner that could detect and identify at a distance mixed metals and alloys, from gold and silver to platinum and palladium. Treasure hunters, universities, corporations, and mining outfits scrambled to license Sam’s invention and within two years the Fargo Group was seeing an annual net profit of three million dollars, and within four years the deep-pocketed corporations came calling. Sam and Remi took the highest bid, sold the company for enough money to see themselves comfortably through the rest of their lives, and never looked back.
“I did a little research while you were in the shower,” Sam said. “From what I can gather, I think we may have a real find on our hands.”
The waiter came, deposited a basket of warm ciabatta and a saucer of Pasolivo olive oil, and then took their orders. To start they ordered calamari with red sauce and porcini mushrooms. For entrees, Sam selected a seafood pasta with pesto-sauteed bay scallops and lobster, while Remi chose a stuffed shrimp-and-crab ravioli in basil white cream sauce.
“What do you mean?” Remi asked. “Isn’t a submarine a submarine?”
“Good Lord, woman, bite your tongue,” Sam said, feigning shock.
Where Remi’s forte was anthropology and ancient history, Sam loved World War II history, another passion he’d inherited from his father, who’d been a marine during the United States’ island-hopping campaign in the Pacific. The fact that Remi had little interest in who exactly sank the
The Lucerne did not pull into an IHOP, nor did it stay on the main road for very long, turning south onto Black Road after only a few miles. The streetlights had long since disappeared, leaving Sam and Remi driving in pitch blackness. The earlier drizzle had turned to a steady rain and the BMW’s windshield wipers beat out a rhythmic squeaking thump.
“How’s your night vision?” Sam asked her.
“Good . . . why?”
In response, Sam turned off the BMW’s headlights and accelerated, closing the distance to the Lucerne’s taillights.
Remi looked at her husband, her eyes narrowed. “You’re really worried, aren’t you?”
He nodded, jaw clenched. “Just a feeling. Hope I’m wrong.”
“Me, too. You’re scaring me a little, Sam.”
He reached over and gave her thigh a squeeze. “Now, have I ever gotten us into trouble—”
“Well, there was the time—”
“—without getting us back out again?”
“No.”
“Do we have a signal?” he asked.
Remi pulled out her cell phone and checked the reception. “Nothing.”
“Damn. We still have that map?”
Remi rummaged through the glove compartment, found the map, and opened it. After thirty seconds she said, “Sam, there’s nothing out here. No houses, no farms—nothing for miles.”
“Curiouser and curiouser.”
Ahead, the Lucerne’s brake lights flashed once, then again, then turned right and disappeared behind some trees. Sam pulled up to the turn and slowed just in time to see the Lucerne’s taillights turn again, this time left into a driveway about a hundred yards down the road. He turned off the engine and rolled down the passenger window. Through the trees they could see the Lucerne’s headlights go out, followed by the sound of a car door opening then closing, followed ten seconds later by another.
Then a voice: “Hey . . . don’t!”
Frobisher’s voice. Clearly agitated.
“Well, that settles it,” Sam said.
“Yep,” Remi said. “What do you want to do?”
“You drive to the nearest house or wherever you can get reception and call the police. I’m going to—”
“Oh, no, you’re not, Sam.”
“Remi, please—”
“I said no, Sam.”
Sam groaned. “Remi—”
“We’re wasting time.”
Sam knew his wife well enough to recognize the tone in her voice and the set of her mouth. She’d planted her feet and that was that.
“Okay,” he said, “but no stupid chances, okay?”
“That goes for you, too.”
He grinned at her and winked. “Am I anything but the epitome of caution?” Then: “Don’t answer that.”
“In for a penny—” Remi started.
“In for trouble,” Sam finished.
They had little hope of following any footprints in the mud so he and Remi dashed across the clearing and began picking their way through the paths and tunnels formed by the boiler graveyard. Sam found two pieces of rebar and gave the shorter one to Remi and kept the longer one for himself. They’d gotten only fifty feet or so when they heard a faint voice through the falling rain.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about . . . what piece?”
It was Ted.
A male voice said something in return, but neither Sam nor Remi could make out the words.
“That thing? It was a piece of a bottle. Nothing important.”
Sam turned his head, trying to catch the sound and narrow in on where it was coming from. Using hand gestures, Sam pointed ahead and to the left, under an arch formed by a boiler that had half collapsed against its neighbor. She nodded. Once they were through the arch the voices became more distinct.
“I want you to tell me exactly where you found it,” the unidentified man was saying. The voice was accented, either eastern European or Russian.