“Then let’s leave it here for now.” Mac herded them back into the ship’s hold. “We’ll continue to keep guards posted at the channel entrance in case word of this treasure reaches the wrong ears. We can come back later with some lead shielding and extract the device. Get it somewhere safe.”
They clambered out of the frozen ship and back to the shore of the icy river. Mac’s plan made sense, but Elena hated any delay. She stared longingly back at the stranded ship, anxious to know its history.
As she turned around, a thunderous boom shook through the channel. The river sloshed its banks. Chunks of ice crashed into the water.
She hurried closer to Mac. “Another glacialquake?”
“No . . .”
As the blast echoed away, a new noise reached them. Rapid popping, like a chain of firecrackers going off.
She stared up at Mac.
“That’s gunfire,” he said and took her hand. “We’re under attack.”
2
June 21, 12:28 P.M. GMT
Reykjavik, Iceland
Who the hell thought this was a good idea?
Joe Kowalski huffed loudly and sank his large bulk deeper into the steaming heat of the hot spring. Sweat pebbled his brow. His fingertips had desiccated into sickly prunes. Curling his lip with distaste, he inhaled the rotten-egg odor of the sulfurous waters. He feared he’d stink like this all day.
So much for a romantic detour.
That was the excuse his girlfriend, Maria Crandall, had given for stopping at the Blue Lagoon. The resort lay nestled within a black lava field, dotted with mounds of mossy green. It was also positioned halfway between Iceland’s Keflavík International Airport—where they had landed an hour ago—and the smaller domestic airfield just at the edge of Reykjavik, which offered the only flights to Greenland. Unfortunately, the next scheduled departure wasn’t for another three hours.
So, Maria had suggested this side trip while they waited.
With a sigh, he rolled his forearm out of the water to check the time—then shook his head at his bare wrist. His missing watch reminded him of the three warnings given to them upon checking into this corner of the resort, called the Retreat.
First, they were told that in order to preserve the purity of the waters, they would be required to shower naked before entering the baths. It was the only part of the experience he had appreciated. He remembered soaping every square inch of Maria’s sleek body in their private changing room’s shower, appreciating her curves as she leaned on one long leg, the way she twisted her wet blond hair into a pile atop her head, how her breasts would lift with each . . .
Nope. He shifted his bulk. Best think of something else right now.
This was a public pool.
To distract himself, he remembered why he was even here in the first place.
The second warning about this resort concerned cell phones. Such devices were forbidden within the confines of the interconnected pools. Kowalski was fine with this. Especially considering it had been an unwelcome call from his boss, Director Painter Crowe, that had set him on this path from sultry Africa to the icy freeze of Greenland.
He and Maria had been visiting the Congo, where they were scheduled to spend a week at Virunga National Park. Maria had been hoping to visit—or at the very least, spot—Baako, the western lowland gorilla she had released into the wild two years ago. He had hoped for the same. The big hairy lug had left an ape-sized hole in his heart. So, he had to hide his disappointment when Painter had called about some discovery in Iceland and wanted Maria’s input. Maria had dual degrees in genomics and behavioral sciences, with a specialty in all things prehistoric. It seemed an ancient ship with a priceless treasure had been found deep within the ice of Greenland. Maria was immediately intrigued and suggested they recruit a former colleague of hers from Columbia University, a friend who specialized in nautical archaeology.
They were due to meet up with her in Greenland as soon as they landed. He almost checked the time again, then remembered the third warning about this place. The geothermal seawater was rich in caustic silica and risked damaging anything metallic. That meant any chains, rings, watches would have to be left in the changing room. Which included his cheap Timex.
But that wasn’t the most disappointing item he had to abandon.
He sulked deeper into the water.
He had thought the reunion with Baako might have made for the perfect moment. Then that got screwed up. So, when Maria suggested a romantic detour to these hot springs, it sounded like a great fallback position. He had pictured palm trees, bubbling baths, glasses of champagne. He scowled at the reality: an interconnected series of concrete swimming pools filled with sulfurous waters, all surrounded by severe cliffs of black volcanic rock.
He shook his head.
Maybe it’s not meant to be.
Maria was certainly out of his league.
He was just a navy seaman who had stumbled his way into an elite covert group tied to DARPA. His fellow Sigma teammates had been pulled from various special forces groups and retrained in scientific fields. He only had a GED and an innate skill at blowing things up, which cast him as the unit’s demolitions expert. Though he was proud of his role, he could also not escape a deep vein of insecurity—of being a fraud. Sigma’s symbol was the Greek letter ∑, which represented the “sum of the best,” the merging of brain and brawn, of soldier and scientist. But Kowalski knew Sigma counted far more on the thickness of his bicep than on the sharpness of his mind.
And I can accept that.
But he feared someone else would not.
A sharp whistle drew his attention to Maria’s slim figure as she swam on her back, scissor-kicking her legs to propel her toward him. She impressively held aloft a drink in each raised arm.
“How about giving a girl a hand, big guy?”
He smirked and gave her a slow clap. “You know you ought to throw away your lab coat and start waitressing. Especially in that bikini. You’ll make a fortune.”
She slid up beside him and sat on the submerged bench, not spilling a drop from either glass. “Take this.”
He accepted the tall glass filled with some sickly green concoction. “I’m guessing this is not beer.”
“Sorry. It’s all healthy living here.”
“So, you got me a mug of algae.”
“It’s fresh. They scraped it off the bottom of the pool this morning.”
He glanced at her to see if she was serious.
She rolled her eyes and leaned against him. “It’s a smoothie, jackass. Kale, spinach, I think . . .”
He held his glass away. “I think I’d rather have the pool algae.”
“There might be some in there actually. But they blended it with bananas. Which only seemed appropriate, considering . . .” She lifted her glass and tapped it against his. “To Baako.”
He sniffed the contents with a grimace. “Ugh. I don’t think even a starving gorilla would drink this.”
“Not even when I bribed the bartender into adding three shots of rum to yours?”
“Really . . . ?” He reconsidered his drink and took a sip. He tasted the banana—then the sweet burn of rum on his tongue and up his nose. He nodded his approval.
Not half bad.
She took a deep swig from hers and turned those deep blue eyes toward him. “Of course, I had them put four shots in mine.”