“Opinion? I see we’re still choosing our words carefully, Dr. McCauley. So here’s the deal, if I find anything relevant, do me a favor, no more visits and keep it between us. My insurance deductible went way the hell up because of you!”
Sixty-three
DeMeo and Solera were cruising along A45 heading south on a sleek six cylinder gray and black BMW K1600 GTL. Lucia held him tightly. Occasionally her fingers would wander. That was an unmistakable signal for DeMeo to pull the rented motorcycle off the road, which he did with no argument. So far they’d made three stops. He wasn’t sure he could live up to another. But the vision excited him and he’d give it all he could.
A few more miles down the highway his cellphone rang. He wore an earphone and microphone in his helmet.
“So, where are you?” McCauley said on the other end of the call. It was extremely noisy.
“Apparently not out of earshot, boss. I hope the number helped.”
“Thanks. I left a message.”
“Where are you heading?”
“So far, on the road to debauchery. Eventually the Amalfi Coast.”
“Okay. But please, Pete, be careful.”
“Hang on for a sec. Too noisy. Gonna pull over.”
DeMeo slowed and rolled to a stop. Cars that hadn’t kept up with him, now passed at blistering speeds.
“Okay, what were you saying?”
“Waiting for a call back. Meanwhile, please be careful.”
“All’s fine,” he said lasciviously. “Meanwhile, are you going to do what you promised?”
“Thinking about it.”
“You do it! Talk to the priest, then quit this. Maybe in a few years you can write a paper on it. Whatever it is.”
“Right.”
“Do more than think. Have your conversation with your fellow traveler.”
“Okay.”
Lucia’s hands were wandering again.
“Gotta go. I’ll call you when…I,” DeMeo laughed, “…recover. Bye.”
DeMeo flicked the kickstand, stepped off the motorcycle and removed his helmet.
“So who was on the phone? Seemed like work. I don’t want you to think about work.”
DeMeo laughed. “How’d you know?”
“Your body is like, how to explain, an echo chamber. Hellooo…helloooo.”
She continued to busy her hands. “No, no, no. Let’s get back on the road. I need a real hotel bed.”
“What if I can’t wait?” she cooed.
“You do have that problem!”
DeMeo stretched his legs and was ready to gun the bike. But Lucia kissed his neck and nuzzled up to his ear. “So, who was on the phone?”
He turned half way around. “Just my boss.”
“I thought you were through.”
“I am.”
“Good answer, silly man,” she said “But when we check in, you’ll have to fill me in.” Her fingers put an exclamation point where none was needed.
Sixty-four
McCauley quickly realized the conversation with Katrina wasn’t going well. But, it was worse than that. They were circling each other in Kritz’s flat, taking turns as predator.
“I’ve had to worry about you since you first showed up!” he said.
“You were only worried about your own standing and what I’d report,” Alpert shot back.
“As a spy.”
“In an open, academic, and professional evaluation.”
“Bullshit. You came with a holier than thou attitude. I didn’t need anyone under my feet then and I sure as hell don’t want the responsibility watching over you now.”
“You misogynistic, anachronistic, self-absorbed twit. Do you think for one minute that if I simply return to Cambridge, which is only thirty minutes away, I’ll be any safer than I am under your supreme care? For that matter, what about you? You call game over and think everything will be okay back in New Haven? Jesus, McCauley, you’re one of the strangest creatures I’ve ever dug up!”
Alpert was winning the battle of the words. McCauley exhaled slowly.
“I’m sorry, I thought it would be better for you to go home.”
“Wrong. Sure I’m scared, but don’t think it’ll all get better sending me away. Show me what you’ve got inside those briefs,” Alpert said hearkening back to their first conversation.
They stared at one another and then broke up.
“You were doing great until the underwear reference,” he offered.
“I wasn’t referring to your underwear, mister. Your balls!”
“I got it.”
“Then get this. We’re doing this together, just like we started.”
“Why do I feel like I’ve known you longer?” McCauley asked.
“An argument will do that. Running for our lives will do that.”
“Yes, I guess it will.”
“So tomorrow we see Bovard in France. Together,” Alpert affirmed. She was clearly the victor.
“Together.”
Sixty-five
McCauley and Alpert took an inexpensive ninety minute easyJet flight from London’s Gatwick Airport to Lyon, France. After another forty-five minutes, much of it uncomfortable thanks to a cabbie with a particularly heavy foot, they gratefully arrived at Claude Bovard’s home on the outskirts of the historic town.
The French explorer invited McCauley and Alpert to sit down and join him in a bottle of Bordeaux. They both passed and asked for some stomach quenching Coke. Bovard seemed to understand. “Ah, you undoubtedly had one of our Grand Prix hopefuls,” he said. “There are many. The worst, however, are in Nice. They try to set a new record every time they drive from the airport. Quite the experience.”
Alpert laughed. McCauley just wanted to curl up into a ball and rest, but the soda soon refreshed him. While Bovard casually spoke, Quinn took in the explorer’s living room, decorated with artifacts from decades of explorations representing every continent in the world. He identified fossils from a distance: a footprint of a Brachiosaurus from the late Jurassic period, likely from Colorado, and a backbone from a Tyrannosaurus rex that inhabited an even older earth. Bovard noted his interest and pointed out plaster molds of three-feet tall stalagmites and photographs of cave dweller paintings.
Quinn and Katrina appreciated his explanation, however, they hadn’t come for a Cook’s tour. Nor did Claude Bovard invite them there for small talk.
“Yes,” the seventy-nine-year-old explorer suddenly said.
“Yes?” McCauley responded with uncertainty.
“Yes, it is now time for questions and answers. I have seen what you speak of.”
Bovard settled into a leather chair as dry, worn, and craggy as the features on his face. His most notable feature — his eyes. They were the completely hypnotic, maybe because of the marvels the explorer had observed through his life.
“Your principal work has been on the surface, correct?” Bovard stroked his full white beard. He looked the part of a spelunker.
“You could say that.”
“The most beautiful and extraordinary discoveries are not sifted through screen meshes in the daylight, they’re revealed by the narrow light from a helmet in the darkest, coldest environs. That’s where true art is to be discovered — art that the earth has created.
“Based on what Dr. Alpert explained on the telephone, you search for evidence of death,” the old explorer continued. “My work constantly demonstrates that the earth is truly alive.”
“Both are important,” McCauley said in an almost challenging tone.