It was a Sunday, and the university was mostly empty, her heels echoing loudly on the tiled floor. She got as far as the parking lot at the front of the building when she realized she had left the photos on her desk. She went back, stuffed them into a large manila envelope that she threw in the bottom drawer of her desk, and locked the drawer. She took out her pad again and quickly scribbled a note to a very dear friend. She had no real reason for writing the note to him in particular… just something at the back of her mind told her it might be wise.
"Dear Nick," she wrote. "Have discovered something up here that is truly incredible. I'm afraid I'm about to get mixed up in some nasty local politics. Will tell you more when I see you in Washington next month. Love, Lydia."
She put the note into an envelope, addressed it to Nick Carter, care of a post office box in Washington, D.C., then put a stamp on it and stuffed it into her pocket.
The land south of Reykjavik is covered with a layer of black ash, fallout from an eruption of Mount Hekla in 1948. Not a twig or stick grows in the field, and the overall effect is a landscape as bleak and as barren as the far side of the moon. As Lydia Coatsworth's small rented car putted into this black area, leaving the city behind, she felt a sudden chill, as though she were entering the Land of the Dead. She always felt this way when she came up here. It was silly, she told herself. The sun was shining, and she'd been on this road dozens of times in her trips between the lab and the observation post at the fissure. Still, for some reason, the place gave her the creeps, especially today.
She drove slowly, examining every rock formation and dip in the landscape as if she were seeing it for the first time. If the pumping station were out here somewhere, it was well hidden, for she'd never seen it. Never even seen anyone on this road.
No, she thought. That wasn't quite true. There was a man she encountered from time to time. He drove a rusted-out Saab, she remembered now. He was a large man. She'd waved the first time she had seen him, but he had not returned the greeting. The second time, she did not wave; in fact she barely even noticed him. A taciturn local, nothing more.
She was wondering about him when something caught her eye and made her slam down hard on the brake pedal, bringing the car to a sliding hall. A power line running parallel to the highway, which she had seen and ignored a dozen times, now seemed odd to her. Something was wrong. Suddenly she realized what had struck her as being out of place. From one of the large insulators above, a cable ran down the girder and disappeared into a conduit underground. She got out of the car and let her eyes scan the horizon. There were no houses, no buildings. No need for electricity out here.
A pump would need a source of power, she told herself. A gas generator would eat gallons of gasoline or diesel fuel, and make a lot of noise. She pulled up the collar of her coat against the chill wind and headed for a large, dark mound on the horizon in the distance. It was the only possible place something could be hidden from view of passing motorists.
It took nearly an hour to hike across the field of cinders and ash. Half the leather had been scuffed from the toes of her boots and her feet felt like lead. Twice she'd told herself she was chasing shadows. No matter what the physical evidence, a project this big was impossible to hide in Iceland.
She rounded the far side of the huge mound, and her previous qualms about the long, probably fruitless walk and the improbability of her theory suddenly evaporated. Nestled between two hills of cinder, painted black for camouflage from the air, was a hooked drainage pipe. Probably an overload unit of some sort for the pipeline that certainly was below.
Her heart leaped into her mouth. She approached the pipe very slowly, half expecting something or someone to jump out at her. She ran her hand along the smooth surface. The metal was vibrating. The pump was not far away, and it was working.
She should go back, she told herself. Get someone. Petur Tomasson. He'd know whom to contact. He could come out here with a crew.
A door slammed somewhere close, the sound very distinct out in the open. Boots crunched across the cinders. She froze next to the pipe, her pulse beating in her throat.
A car door slammed, and an engine started. In the cleavage between the two hills she caught a glimpse of a rusted-out Saab heading for the road, and then it was gone.
A flood of relief washed over her, but in the next instant she realized the man — whoever he was — would see her car parked down on the road. He'd have to wonder where she had gone.
It was terribly important for her at this moment not to be seen. She decided it would be better if she waited up there. Behind the mounds, out of sight of the road. If he came back, she could run the other way. But if he hadn't returned within fifteen minutes or so, it would probably mean he wasn't coming back. Maybe he hadn't seen her car. Maybe he hadn't even noticed it.
She brushed the ash off the pipe and leaned back against it. The wind made an odd moan as it swept unimpeded over the hills from the ocean that was not too far away. There was no movement out here. No life… other than the man. Even the sun seemed to stand still in the sky.
But Lydia Coatsworth was, among other things, an impatient woman when she was nervous, and she began to see the absurdity of her situation here. Damnit. She was a scientist, after all, with an international reputation. There weren't any No Trespassing signs posted here. She was within her rights to explore the countryside off the road.
She dusted herself off and headed around the hill. She had heard a door slamming. A heavy, metal door. About fifty yards around the far edge of the hill she came upon what at first appeared to be an old-fashioned fallout shelter, a steel door was set into a steel bulwark of cinder block. In front of it a section of land had been leveled off to accommodate several vehicles.
Her mouth started to go dry again, and she began to have second thoughts about what she was doing. She didn't need this, she told herself. She was a scientist, not a private eye. A quiet life of study — wasn't that why she had gotten into this business? Nobody said anything about ferreting out energy thieves.
Still, there was the door and behind it… what? Proof? Summoning up her courage, she walked up and found it was unlocked. She gave a little push, and the door fell open.
Inside, it was pitch-dark. She groped along the wall for a light switch, found one, and a caged bulb flashed on overhead.
She was standing in a large, immaculately clean tiled room with a concrete floor. On the wall in front of her was a series of dials and wheel valves set into a burnished metal control panel. The constant humming told her that a gigantic engine of some sort was at work somewhere beneath her.
Two doors led off this main room. She chose the one to the left, opened it, and switched on the light. She found herself on a catwalk above two stories of pipe maze, all seemingly color-coded, gleaming as though this were a brand-new installation.
She killed the light, walked back into the control room, closed the door, and crossed to the second door. As she opened it a cloud of cement dust rose to meet her. She flipped on the switch.
The room was huge, bigger than the other two combined, and only half-finished. Scaffolding towered overhead, and the floor was strewn with construction debris and plastic drop cloths. From the size of it, it looked as though they'd hollowed out the entire inside of the mound. Whoever they were, they were up to something much bigger than just siphoning off a little geothermal energy.
A piece of machinery the size of a small house stood in one corner on a bed of massive timbers. She walked over and threw back a piece of the protective plastic covering. It looked familiar somehow. The tag dangling from the valve wheel was in German. It gave the port of origin as Mainz. Mainz… what did she know about Mainz? Then it struck her. Mainz was where Steuben and Sons had their foundry. They were the largest manufacturers of nuclear reactor components in the world. She had done a paper on the subject in her first year of graduate school. Her professor had believed that if students wanted to study geology, they might just as well understand the significance of their finds… such as the uses of nuclear fuels. And he never allowed any of his students to do anything by half. She had learned her subject well.