The Explorer's Code

by Kitty Pilgrim

  Cordelia abandoned drying her hair, put the cocktail dress back into the closet, and pulled out a navy blue jogging suit. She had to report the theft. Should she go to the purser? She dressed quickly, found her card key, and left the suite.

  But standing in the corridor, she knew that there was only one course of action. She started down the narrow hall to John Sinclair’s stateroom. Face your fears, she told herself. You need to get this straight, once and for all!

  She walked to the starboard side of the ship and knocked on Sinclair’s door and waited. Her stomach was in a knot. She could hear the shower running inside. Cordelia pounded on the door, harder. A steward came by and wished her a good evening, but she barely responded. Finally she heard footsteps and a hand on the inside door lever. Sinclair opened the door a crack to look out, and his eyes flashed surprise. When he pulled the door open wide, he was dressed only in a terry robe with a towel around his neck. He started to smile, but it faded quickly.

  “Cordelia! What’s the matter?”

  “Can I come in? It’s important,” she said grimly.

  “Absolutely,” he said, stepping aside, holding the door open for her.

  “I have to talk to you,” she said.

  “Yes, of course, but would you excuse me a second? I’ll be right back,” he apologized, retreating to his bedroom.

  She could hear dresser drawers opening and slamming as if he were looking for his clothes in a hurry. She took a seat on the couch and looked around; his suite was much larger than hers. Out on the private balcony, rain hit the deck in a real squall. A bottle of champagne stood in an ice bucket, and there was a basket of fruit with a red BON VOYAGE ribbon on it. She leaned forward to sneak a peak at the card: Have a great trip. All the best, Charles. Two large white orchids were on the coffee table, along with a photocopy of an article on archaeology and a tan ostrich-skin-covered appointment book. She looked at the book but didn’t touch it.

  The door opened and Sinclair came out of the bedroom wearing a pair of jeans and a blue oxford shirt. His feet were still bare. He walked over to the couch and sat down, looking at her.

  “You’re upset,” he said, staring at her. “Are you upset about . . . what just happened in the elevator?”

  She couldn’t meet his eyes, looked down at the floor, and found herself focused on his bare feet. Once again it crossed her mind that she hardly knew him. His feet were long and he had high arches. He had beautiful feet. Aristocratic feet. Nothing else came into her head, except here she was, sitting in the stateroom of a man she hardly knew, and he had bare feet. She had met him only a few days ago.

  “What’s the matter? You look absolutely spooked.”

  He was staring at her in puzzlement, buttoning the single-button cuffs. He smelled of soap and shampoo, and there were damp marks on the sleeve of his shirt where he hadn’t dried off properly. His eyes moved quickly to her wet hair, the jogging suit, and her trembling hands.

  “Cordelia, what is wrong?”

  She stared at him.

  “Why did you come on this ship?” she demanded.

  His eyes widened.

  “What do you mean?” he asked quietly.

  “What do you want from me? I need to know.” Even to her own ears she sounded upset and angry.

  Sinclair looked at her, perplexed.

  “I thought I already told you. I wanted to get to know you better. I’m sorry. It was presumptuous of me . . .” He looked disturbed. He was still slowly buttoning the cuff of his shirt.

  “Is that all?” she demanded.

  He hesitated.

  “I thought maybe we would spend some time together. And I was hoping that we would . . . get to know each other better. I realize it’s all very sudden, but . . .” He shrugged. “I just thought I would take a chance on the remote possibility that you would be . . . interested in me.”

  His eyes were intense, troubled. Somehow that unhinged her even more, and she felt herself panic.

  “I got an e-mail from someone threatening to kill me. And now the journal is gone. Did you have anything to do with it?” Her voice cracked.

  His eyes widened.

  “Threatening to kill you?” he said, deeply shocked. “I don’t understand. What e-mail?”

  Then she told him, blurting out her suspicions in a rambling tirade. Finally she stood up and stalked over to the glass doors of the suite and stood there with her back to him, staring out at the sea, trying to get control of herself.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said out loud.

  “Cordelia! Stop this!” His voice was horrified.

  She turned and looked at him. He was watching her with shocked eyes, not moving, not speaking.

  “How do I know that I can trust you?” she flung at him.

  “Delia, be reasonable!” His eyes searched her face in bafflement. Some how the use of her childhood nickname broke through to her. She saw how utterly paranoid she was being. She felt a flood of remorse. He must think she was insane! She faced him and tried to explain.

  “John, don’t you understand that I had to ask. I had to know if you have anything to do with this.”

  “But how could you suspect me?” he said quietly, his eyes filled with hurt.

  “John, I just panicked. I’m . . . scared . . .” she admitted, and her lips began to tremble.

  His face softened, his eyes infinitely kind. He extended both arms to her in a mute gesture of reassurance, his eyes begging her to come to him. She couldn’t resist. She flew into his arms, and he closed them over her in a tight hug.

  “You poor darling, you poor darling.” He held her, murmuring into her hair, “I know you’re frightened. But you’re not alone. I am here to help.”

  She finally broke down and cried into his chest, soaking his shirt, as he held her.

  “Shhhh. Shhhhhh,” he coaxed. “It’s all right.”

  Later, as she thought about it, this was the exact moment, when he held her and comforted her, that she began to rely on him. Not just trust him but count on him, the way she had never, ever counted on anyone before.

  He didn’t hesitate. He took charge without a word. He handed her a towel to dry her hair, called the ship’s security, contacted the technology center to get the e-mail traced, ordered a pot of chamomile tea from room service, checked the name of her cabin steward and asked for an immediate interview, and inquired about security tapes from the corridor outside her room.

  Within moments, a Cunard official in a very reassuring white uniform with blue braid was asking Cordelia for a complete accounting of what had happened. Sinclair said very little, but kept his arm around Cordelia’s shoulders as she sat on the couch and gave her account. Half an hour later, it was over. They would report back with what they had found. The Cunard official left, and as the cabin door shut she slumped against Sinclair.

  “My poor Delia, are you feeling better now?” he asked tenderly, tightening his arm around her. She sat up and looked him in the eye.

  “John, that journal was so important to me. I just feel so . . .”

  How could she explain how utterly bereft she felt? And now she was more than a little embarrassed about her tirade.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t think I was very fair to you earlier,” she apologized.

  “Don’t mention it, perfectly understandable,” he assured her, with a wry smile. “After all, I’m a very sinister guy.”

  She laughed, in spite of herself.

  “Cordelia, I hate to ask this, after all we have just been through, but could you have misplaced it? In the library or on deck?”

  “No. I know it was on the coffee table. I was reading it on the couch before bed.”

  “I see. But sometimes when you travel things get a bit disorganized.”

  “John, you don’t understand. I have lived on a ship for the last ten years. I put things in the same place, out of habit, from living in close quarters. I don’t misplace things,” she said defensively.

  “I understan
d,” Sinclair said levelly. “We’ll get the journal back.”

  “It’s not just the journal. Someone wants to kill me.”

  “I know, Cordelia. No one is going to hurt you. They will have to get through me first,” he said as if he meant it. “I won’t let anyone near you. But if you don’t mind, I’ll have to keep you in my sight this evening.”

  “I won’t mind that a bit.” She smiled. “I shouldn’t have accused you—”

  “Don’t . . .” he said, looking at her with great tenderness.

  “I feel like a fool,” she admitted.

  He put his arm around her and didn’t answer. He looked at his watch.

  “How about this? It’s nearly nine o’clock. We can order room service. You’ll feel better if you get some food in you. Forget the fancy dress. You need to relax a bit.”

  Moments later, watching him order dinner on the phone, she felt calm. She sat on the couch, marveling at herself for letting him take charge. He was so totally in command of himself, he had brushed off her accusations without a second thought.

  She watched him on the phone, in his jeans and blue cotton shirt, pacing, as he ordered entirely too much food. And suddenly she realized she was falling in love with him.

  London

  Paul Oakley sat with a cup of flavored coffee he had selected from the machine. It tasted like plastic with the artificial creamer, and he didn’t really want to drink it, but he needed to think. It was eleven o’clock in the morning and he had been at the hospital all night.

  The man in the ICU was unresponsive, and the autopsy tests on the first patient hadn’t come back yet.

  Should he come clean about the missing package? Miles still hadn’t phoned back. That was strange. Miles had communicated frequently while he was excavating. He had even called to say the package had been sent.

  But today nothing. No package, no Miles. The courier company was useless. Oakley had been on the phone with them all morning, and the electronic signature device had an illegible scrawl on it. They kept asking him for the tracking number on the receipt. And today he found out there was no receipt from the airport in Longyearbyen, although the desk clerk remembered a package going out. It was a goddamn mess.

  Oakley stood up and dumped his coffee in the trash. It was possible these patients were dying of something else. He would just have to tough it out for another twenty-four hours until the lab tests came back and he knew for sure what they were dealing with. If the package hadn’t turned up by then, he would alert the Health Protection Agency and the World Health officials. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that; he didn’t want to admit to breaking every law in the book by sending a live virus through the mail.

  LuEsther T. Mertz Library, New York Botanical Garden

  Thaddeus Frost looked out the window of his office and could see the sparkling glass dome of the Victorian greenhouse over the tops of the trees. His office was at the top of the Beaux Arts building that housed the New York Botanical Garden’s vast collection. The solid brick structure with twin towers was set into the rolling landscape. With all the architectural embellishments of the late Victorian era, the focal point was the beautiful bronze fountain, circa 1905, a cascading, sculpted panoply of sea nymphs and goddesses.

  Frost loved looking at the fountain from his second-floor office window. He had chosen botany as his life’s work, and was perfectly contented. Not only did he have access to a herbarium of thousands of specimens, but his real passion—the rare-book library—was just a few steps away. Any day of the week he could hold in his hands the original prints of Pierre-Joseph Redouté and Carl Linnaeus. He could peruse at will the full collection of hand-painted plates of Sir Joseph Banks, the botanist who sailed with Captain James Cook on his first voyage of exploration to the Pacific region in 1768.

  On winter mornings, with the cold outside and the sun pouring through Frost’s window, life was sublime. His office became as warm as a tropical jungle. Once a week, he would soak his orchids and feed them. And then he would make his own coffee, hand-grinding the extremely rare Indonesian kopi luwak beans and steeping them in a French press. With that kind of start, he figured, a week spent in the effort of saving the world’s nearly extinct species of flora constituted a worthy and satisfying life.

  But things were about to change. He walked to the door of his office and closed it, so no one could overhear. He dialed a cell phone on the other side of the world and waited for the connection. As he waited, he examined the Vanda orchids hanging in their pots. The deep purple flowers floated in the bright light from the window. It was a notoriously delicate variety and not everyone could grow them. But Frost had the touch. He sat up straight as the call connected.

  “Mr. Sinclair, this is Thaddeus Frost of Bio-Diversity Trust,” he said. “You don’t know me but I got your number from your Monaco office.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Do you know the whereabouts of Cordelia Stapleton? We have been trying to reach her. Your office said you might know how to get hold of her.”

  “What do you want with her?”

  “We need to speak to her about a serious matter.”

  “What about? If I may inquire,” said Sinclair belligerently.

  “The International Seed Vault.”

  “Surely that is a matter for her lawyer.”

  “No doubt. But we need to talk about the deed to the land in the Arctic.”

  “Look, I can’t speak for her. I would be happy to pass along a message.”

  “She is in grave danger. We need to speak as soon as possible. What is your next port of call? I’d like to meet up.”

  “What makes you think she would agree to meet you?” Sinclair sounded testy.

  “If I know where you are, other people do too. Federal authorities have been in touch with me about a certain e-mail. She needs to take care.”

  “How do we know you have Cordelia’s best interests in mind?”

  “Feel free to have the FBI verify my identity. Come with Ms. Stapleton if you like. But we need to meet, and soon. Where are you putting in next?”

  “It’s no secret. You could look on the itinerary. We are in Kuşadass1, Turkey, tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be there. Can we all meet?”

  “I have to think about it.”

  “Don’t think too long. There are quite a few people on the ship who would like to have a conversation with Ms. Stapleton, and they are not as pleasant as we are.”

  “I’m going to check you out,” Sinclair said cautiously. “If I agree, where do we meet?”

  “I’ll be in Kuşadas1 before you dock. I’ll be in touch.”

  “That’s tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “I’ll be there tomorrow.”

  Thaddeus Frost hung up the phone. He picked up his duffel bag and walked slowly down the stairs, past the beautiful fountain, down the winding path to the exit of the Botanical Garden. He hated to leave his orchids, but it was time.

  Queen Victoria

  Cordelia sat down at the e-mail console while Sinclair loitered in the doorway of the computer center. He had insisted on dogging her every step since last night, even walking her back to her cabin and meeting her at her room before breakfast. Frankly, she was relieved. She still couldn’t shake off the feeling of danger on the ship. She logged in and clicked on her e-mail account.

  Dear Cordelia,

  I have forwarded your last e-mail to the federal authorities and they are tracking it. In the meantime, be careful!! Do you want me to come and meet the ship at the next port of call? I am very concerned.

  Also, in regard to the deed, interest continues over the land rights in Svalbard. The government of Norway wants to set up a meeting. The Bio-Diversity Trust, a nonprofit organization that runs the seed vault, has also contacted us repeatedly.

  We still have not been able to locate the deed to the land. As you know, the physical deed is necessary
in order to proceed on any of these offers. It has not turned up in the town house in London, nor with any known papers in the estate of Elliott Stapleton.

  Please take care. Let me know if you need anything. See you in London, if not sooner.

  With love, Jim Gardiner

  Cordelia sat chewing on her fingernail. She read her first message, clicked on Reply, and wrote:

  Dear Jim,

  I have to admit the e-mail shook me up. But there is no need for you to meet me. I have been meaning to tell you that John Sinclair of the Herodotus Foundation is also here on the ship and has been helping me.

  Bio-Diversity Trust actually contacted us yesterday, and we are meeting with the director, Thaddeus Frost, when we land in Turkey. I’ll tell you about the meeting when I see you in London next week. And don’t worry, I won’t sign anything before showing it to you first.

  I just can’t believe all this interest in this land. I am beginning to think maybe it’s better if the deed is never found.

  Love, Cordelia

  Cordelia opened her last e-mail. It was from Susan. The tone was distinctly sober.

  Delia,

  We have a big problem here: your cabin was ransacked by somebody. They broke in when we were out to dinner. We called the police immediately and they are investigating. I put everything back, and there doesn’t seem to be anything missing. But the box with your parents’ photos and papers was opened and the contents scattered everywhere. I’m sorry to have to tell you this upsetting news. I know how important these things are to you.

  I called Jim Gardiner and told him about it. I figured you would want me to do that.