Uncharted The Fourth Labyrinth - By Christopher Golden Page 0,103
to find. Drake knew the sight must have given Jada pause—her father had hidden his research to keep it out of Henriksen’s hands, and now she had handed the journal and maps over to the man who’d been his rival. It had been the right choice at the time, the only choice—they had more dangerous enemies to be wary of—but Drake could tell the decision didn’t sit right with Jada at all.
Drake had no doubt they would come to regret it. The only question was when that moment would arrive and whether they would be ready for it.
“What’ve you got?” Jada asked, staring at her stepmother. Henriksen might be Olivia’s boss, but when the two women were in the same room, the bitterness and tension existed for the two of them alone.
Olivia smiled thinly. Either she had wearied of her stepdaughter’s hatred and suspicion or she had decided it was time to stop pretending she gave a crap what Jada thought. Whatever happened now, it was all business. They shared certain goals—all of them—and for the moment that was enough to keep them cooperating.
“Quite a lot, actually,” Olivia said. “Why don’t you have a seat.”
Drake waited for a cue from Jada, wondering if she might refuse to sit. But she hesitated for only a moment before sliding into one of the remaining chairs around the table. Drake sat next to her, glancing for a moment at the large screen at the rear of the cabin, which flickered with blank light. The monitor was on but displayed nothing at the moment.
“Are we gonna have a slide show?” he asked. “Fair warning, I tend to fall asleep. Unless it’s the one on fire safety. I like the sirens. And the Dalmatian.”
Henriksen shot him a disapproving glance, and Corelli scoffed like a man about to start a fight in a bar. The women ignored them all. Jada stared impatiently at Olivia, who tapped a couple of keys on the laptop. The plane’s engine whined loudly enough that they had to raise their voices slightly to be heard, and the pungent smell of urine and industrial cleanser came from the bathroom. Drake figured no amount of money could build an airplane without those two elements, but wealthy people liked to pretend they didn’t notice them. The thought crystallized a feeling he’d had in the back of his mind all day: Henriksen was a brat, just a spoiled rich kid grown up into a spoiled rich man. He wanted the secrets and treasures of the fourth labyrinth because he liked to own things that nobody else could have.
“Phoenix Innovations employs a man named Emil Yablonski,” Olivia said. “Yablonski is the most brilliant man I’ve ever met, but he’s almost incapable of functioning socially. He’s a historian and archaeologist, but he hadn’t done fieldwork in more than twenty years. He doesn’t mind e-mail or even the phone, but he doesn’t like talking to people in person. He’d rather you be in the next room than in his office.”
Henriksen waved a hand to indicate she should move along. He slipped into a chair, though still studying the map unfolded in front of him.
“They don’t care about Yablonski,” Henriksen said. “The guy works for me, and I don’t care, either.” He shot a look at Jada. “Part of my company is a think tank. Yablonski has his own division. Now we move on.”
Olivia smiled at her employer, but there were sharp edges to her expression and it was clear she didn’t like being spoken to so brusquely. Drake couldn’t muster much sympathy.
“Yablonski is practically paralyzed with geek joy over the information he’s getting from these translations,” Olivia said. “His exact words were, ‘This changes everything.’ Frankly, I think that’s a rash overstatement. The ancient Chinese writing on the walls and on the ceremonial jars clarifies certain things, confirms others, and gives us some vital clues as to our next step.
“We start with Daedalus. With the writings from the three chambers in the labyrinth of Sobek for comparison, Yablonski has confirmed that Daedalus designed the first three—Knossos, Crocodilopolis, and Thera—though if you want to refer to the Thera structure as the labyrinth of Atlantis, it would make Yablonski very happy.”
“He really thinks Atlantis was there?” Drake asked.
Olivia shot him a withering look, cold and beautiful. “Atlantis is a myth, Mr. Drake. The labyrinth of Poseidon on Thera is the seed from which the roots of that myth grew.”
“Are you saying Daedalus didn’t design the fourth labyrinth?” Jada asked.