“They gave me a stimulant. I've been awake for some time. Your drugs will wear off soon.”

“Did anyone mention what happened to Paul? He was up stairs when the kidnappers broke in.”

Francesca shook her head. Putting aside her worst fears, Gamay said, “Do you have any idea where we are?”

“No. Our host didn't tell us.”

“You mean you've spoken to someone I can thank for these glorious accommodations?”

“Her name is Brynhild Sigurd. Those were her men who kidnapped us.”

Gamay started to reply, but Francesca pursed her lips and shifted her eyes from left to right. Gamay caught the hint. They were being bugged and probably watched.

“I only have a few minutes. I just wanted you to know I've agreed to work with Ms. Sigurd on my desalting process. We'll have to stay here until the project is complete. I don't know how long it will take.”

“You're going to work with the person who kidnapped us?”

“Yes,” Francesca replied with a stubborn tilt of her chin. “I wasted ten years of my life in the jungle. There's a great deal of money to be made, but beyond that I believe Gogstad has the best chance of bringing my process to the world in an orderly and controlled fashion.”

“Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

“Yes, I'm absolutely sure,” she said.

The door slid open, and one of the guards motioned for Francesca to leave. She nodded, then leaned over and gave Gamay a hug. Then she stood quickly and went off with the guards. Alone once more, Gamay pondered what had just happened. As their eyes met briefly, Francesca had winked. There was no mistake about it. Gamay was pleased to think there was more to Francesca's startling announcement that she was working for the enemy, but there were more immediate concerns. She lay back on her cot and closed her eyes. Her first priority was to give her body and brain a rest. Then she would try to figure out how to escape.

NUMA 2 - Blue Gold

CHAPTER 35

The man floated high above the cobalt-blue waters of Lake Tahoe, suspended from the parasail under a red-and-white canopy that billowed over his head like an old-fashioned round parachute. He sat in a reclining Skyrider chair attached by a towline to the moving winch boat two hundred feet below.

The rider clicked on his handheld radio. “Let's go around for one more pass, Joe.”

Zavala, who was at the wheel of the boat, waved to show that he had heard Austin's instruction. He put the ParaNautique winch boat into a big, slow turn that would take them back along the lake's California side.

The maneuver gave Austin a sweeping view of the lake. Lake Tahoe is on the California-Nevada border in the Sierra Nevada about twenty-three miles southwest of Reno. Ringed by rugged mountains that are covered with snow in the winter, Tahoe is the largest alpine lake in the United States. It is more than a mile high, more than sixteen hundred feet deep. The lake is twenty two miles long and about a dozen miles wide and lies in a fault basin created by ancient forces deep in the earth. Two-thirds of its two-hundred-square-mile area is in California. At the north end it empties into the Truckee River. At the south end a river of money empties into the coffers of the high-rise gambling casinos at Stateline. The first white man to discover the lake was John C. Freemont who was on a surveying mission. To English speakers the Washoe Indian name for the lake, Da-ow, which means “much water,” sounded like Tahoe, and the pronunciation stuck.