“He said that Kovacs had come up with a way to stop a polar reversal even after it had been started. I said I wouldn't pull out if he could come up with a fail-safe plan.”

“Where would he begin to find something like that?”

“There's evidence that Kovacs survived after the war, and that he moved to the U.S., where he remarried. I think his granddaughter knows about the antidote to a polar shift. Her name is Karla Janos.”

“Does Gant know this?”

“He would if we're right about Doyle.”

Austin pondered the implication of the answer. “Ms. Janos could have a bull's-eye on her back. She should know that she may be a target. Do you know where she lives?”

“In Alaska. She's doing some work at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. But Tris said she's on an expedition to Siberia. She may be cold, but she should be safe there.”

“From what you've told me, Margrave and Gant have a long reach.”

“You're right. What should we do?”

"We've got to warn her. The safest course for you is to stay 'dead.'

Do you have a place to stay? Someplace Margrave or Gant don't know about?"

“I've got a sleeping bag on my Harley and a pocket full of cash, so I don't have to use credit cards that can be traced. My cell phone calls are laundered through half a dozen remote stations, so they're practically impossible to trace.” He pulled the little black box out of his pocket. “I put this together for fun. I can route phone calls to the moon if I want to.”

“I'd suggest that you stay on the move. Call me this time tomorrow and we'll have a plan in place by then.”

They shook hands and went back to their boats. Austin waved good-bye and pulled off at his house, while Barrett rowed his scull back to the boat rental place half a mile farther along the river. Austin put his boat up in its rack. In the few seconds it took to climb the stairs to the living room, he had put together a plan.

NUMA 6 - Polar Shift

21

TEN THOUSAND YEARS after the last woolly mammoth shook the earth beneath its feet, its bones and tusks are providing the fuel for a booming international trade. The center of that trade is the city of Yakutsk in East Siberia, about six hours by plane from Moscow.

It is an old city, founded in the 1600s by a band of Cossacks, and was long considered the last outpost of civilization for explorers. It gained later fame, or notoriety, as one of the islands in the Gulag system, where enemies of the Soviet state found ready employment as slave laborers in the gold and diamond mines. Since the nineteenth century, it has been the world capital for the woolly mammoth ivory trade.