Atlantis Endgame Read Free Page B

Linnea, young and earnest and ardent about the archaeology. Gordon swinging between finishing his doctoral work and getting lured by the government into the supersecret Project Star, during the years the Iron Curtain still blocked off the East.
    What could he say? He could say—
    "Here's your seltzer, sir. Now, are you folks ready to order?"
    Ashe accepted the drink, and the waiter launched into a recital of a long list of specials. Ashe took a slug of cold seltzer, fighting the urge to tell the guy to take a hike.
    Linnea smiled. "Oh, I'm sorry, we haven't even looked at our menus yet. Would you come back later?"
    "Sure. Just wave a hand," the waiter said, and he left.
    Linnea leaned forward. "The last time you and I saw one another, it you remember, we were walking along the harbor at Heraklion."
    "I remember."
    "And yon told me, in pungent and specific detail that I can still recall to this day, what a fatheaded doormat I was to do all J.J,'s work at the dig."
    Ashe winced and shook his head. "And I've regretted it ever since, though I know that doesn't excuse it."
    "Why should you excuse it? You were right. I did do all his work and let him take the credit. A lot of that was the cultural conditioning of the time—that's what ladies did. And you were right about J.J. incidentally: he really wasn't interested in archaeology or in any of the other degrees he almost got. He was just marking time until his father died suddenly and he took over the business, which he ran until the day he died. And I am delighted to say that my son never showed any interest in inheriting it. The new CEO is, in fact, a woman."
    Ashe nodded.
    "Well, bear with me now, Gordon, because it all ties together." She chuckled softly and again tilted her head. "After you and I had our little talk and you vanished into the ether, J.J. inherited, like I said. And since I was pregnant with the twins—and you know how primitive conditions were at the dig—and J.J. didn't want his little princess working, we both dropped out, moved to New York City, and I became a housewife until the morning I became a widow."
    She finished her seltzer and sat back, sighing. "So as I said, my year of being a hermit passed, and then I looked around and realized that I had a life. Not as a morn or a wife, but as me. And I'd always loved archaeology, with a passion. I subscribed all these years to Archeology and a half dozen other scholarly magazines. So I decided to go back to school. No hurry and I don't care if I even graduate, because I'd never take one of the rare jobs from some young person struggling to follow his or her dream. J.J. did leave me very well off, so I can do what I want. Which, this last winter, was to go back with some students on a little dig."
    She leaned forward, and Ashe did as well. "Not to Crete this time, but to Thera itself. And that's where I found what I sent you."
    Ashe now drew the printout from his coat pocket. The picture in itself was nothing of interest to anyone who might glance casually at it: a photo of a hoop earring of beaten gold, somewhat dull, with bits of mud and debris stuck to it, but on the clearest part, quite distinct, was a jeweler's mark. A modern jeweler's mark.
    Ashe looked down at it and up at Linnea's face.
    She said, "You disappeared that spring from classes, and you kept giving these evasive answers when people asked what you were doing. And a couple of times the department secretary said you got calls from these guys from Washington, DC, which was quite a ways from our university."
    Ashe said nothing.
    Linnea grinned. "I tried to find you afterward, I have to admit. At first to continue the argument. That comment about doormats did stick in my craw, but as the years went by, and J.J. still called me his little princess, I realized that you were right all along. It stuck because it was true. Oh, I loved him, and he loved me, but J.J. never did see me as an adult in my own right—and I guess the role I got in the habit