Francesca was ready when he arrived at the Trouts' Georgetown house to pick her up. He chatted with Paul and Gamay long enough to be polite, then drove to his favorite Korean restaurant, housed in an unpretentious building in Alexandria.

Austin recommended that they order below, thin strips of marinated beef cooked on a hot plate on the table. Ordinarily it was one of his favorite meals, but he hardly tasted it; he was too busy looking at Francesca. She was dressed simply in a stone washed denim dress whose light blue color set off her dark complexion and long luxurious hair that seemed to have captured the light of the sun. It was hard for Austin to reconcile the picture of this cultured and beautiful woman, who was clearly delighted over the simple pleasure of a civilized meal, with the tale he had heard of her reign as a white goddess among savage Indians. She seemed relaxed and entirely at ease, but even as they laughed over her inept use of chopsticks, Austin couldn't shake the feeling he experienced when they first met. Despite the civilized veneer, the jungle had seeped into her blood. He saw it in the feline gracefulness of her movement, and the watchfulness in her dark eyes. It was a quality that fascinated and attracted Austin, and he vowed to see more of Francesca when he returned from his mission.

Which was why it was all the more painful when Austin apologized for calling it an early night. He had much to do be fore leaving for Alaska, he explained. As he dropped her off on the Trouts' doorstep, he asked if she would like to go out again when he returned.

“Thank you. I'd like that, very much,” she said. “I plan to be in Washington for some time and hope we can get to know each other better.”

“Until then,” Austin said. 'At a time and place to be announced."

She smiled and pecked him lightly on the lips. “It's a date.”

NUMA 2 - Blue Gold

CHAPTER 29

<11/3/2001>

With Sandecker's backing Austin had no trouble commandeering a NUMA jet. Streaking across the country at five hundred miles per hour, the turquoise Cessna Citation Ultra had refueled at Salt Lake City before pushing on to Anchorage. After the all-night trip they arrived as the morning light cast a rosy glow over the Chugach Mountains on the outskirts of Alaska's big city, which some of the locals call Los Anchorage. They were airborne within minutes. Dashing on to their destination in Nome.

Shortly after the NUMA jet took off from Anchorage, Zavala came back from the galley with a couple of steaming mugs of coffee. Austin was studying an old map spread out on the table that folded down between the seats. He was directing his attention to a fist of land whose knuckles jabbed at the former U.S.S.R. a few miles across the Bering Strait.

Settling into the chair opposite Austin's, Zavala sipped his coffee and looked out the window at the vast land mass below. Black mountains edged by rivers and heavy forests were visible through a scattering of whiskered cirrus clouds.