Her aide corralled the artist toward an area with couches and a wet

bar off to one side. As Michelle slid into her desk chair and reached for

the telephone, the aide took the artist's drink order and a few seconds

later began packing ground espresso into the machine to draw him a

cappuccino.

"Michelle Hunt."

"It's me," a gravelly voice said.

^

18 CLIVE CUSSLER

The voice was one that needed no introduction. He had swept her

off her feet when she was a young woman of twenty-one, freshly arrived

from Minnesota, seeking a new life of fun and sun in 1980s Southern

California. After an on-again, off-again relationship, necessitated both

by his inability to be bound to a relationship, as well as his frequent

absences for business, she had borne his son at age twenty-four. And

though his name never appeared on the birth certificate-nor had

Michelle and he actually lived together before or since-the pair

had remained close. At least as close as the man allowed anyone ever

to come.

"How are you?" she asked.

"I've been okay."

"Where are you?"

It was the standard question she asked him to break the ice. Over

the years the answers had ranged from Osaka to Peru to Paris to Tahiti.

"Hang on," the man said easily. He stared at a moving map on a

forward wall near the cockpit of his jet. "Six hundred and eighty-seven

miles from Honolulu on the way to Vancouver, British Columbia."

"Going skiing?" she asked. The sport was something they had enjoyed

together.

"Building a skyscraper," he answered.

"You're always up to something."

"True," he noted. "Michelle, I called because I heard our boy has

been sent to Afghanistan," he said quietly.

Michelle had been unaware-the deployment was still secret and

Chris had not been able to disclose his destination when he'd been

dispatched.

"Oh my," she blurted, "that's not good."

"That's what I thought you'd say."

"How'd you find out?" Michelle asked. "I'm always amazed by your

ability to ferret out information."

"It's not magic," the man said. "I have so many senators and other

politicians in my pocket I've had to buy larger pants."

"Any word on how it's going?"

"I guess the mission is proving harder than the president envisioned,"

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SACRED STONE 19

he said. "Chris is apparently leading a hunter-killer squad to locate the

bad guys. Limited contact so far-but my sources claim it is cold and dirty

work. If he doesn't contact you for a while, don't be surprised."

"I'm afraid for him," Michelle said slowly.

"Do you want me to put in a fix?" the man asked. "Have him pulled

out and sent stateside?"

"I thought he made you agree never to do that."

"He did," the man admitted.

"Then don't."