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. “And anything else that might be out there,” she added.
    McCarter placed his tumbler back on the bar. “Speaking of that, what exactly will we be looking for anyway?”
    She hadn’t given out details yet. She didn’t want any leaks. “You’re not going to wait for the offical briefing, are you?”
    “Not if I can help it.”
    She pursed her lips and then relented. “I suppose a little sneak preview wouldn’t hurt.”
    She took another sip of her drink. “As I told you before, we’ve discovered evidence suggesting the existence of an organized tool-using culture in the Amazon over two thousand years ago. Unlike the current native groups, this culture seemed to use stone as a medium and may have even smelted metals such as gold. What I left out was that we believe they were a branch of the Mayan race.”
    “The Maya in the Amazon?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
    “I realize the thought is contrary to what most Maya scholars believe. One guy I talked to called it silly science.But we have some concrete evidence and some local folklore that I think you’ll find interesting in regards to what we’re looking for.”
    He furrowed his brow. “Which is?”
    “A very old place,” she said. “Ancient even in comparison to the classic sites of the Maya. You would know it as the Citadel, or by the name Tulan Zuyua.”
    McCarter’s eyes grew wider. Tulan Zuyua was a name out of Mayan mythology. It was the mythical birthplace of the Mayan people; their version of the Garden of Eden, a legendary city once shared by the different Mayan tribes before they went off on their own.
    “Well,” he said, almost dumbfounded. “You don’t think small.”
    “Never,” she said. Certainly, there was nothing small about the goal. And that was only the half of it.
    “What evidence do you have suggesting Tulan Zuyua actually exists—let alone down here?”
    “We have a chain of artifacts, none conclusive but all suggestive. We believe they show evidence of Mayan writing in a more ancient hieroglyphic style than found at the classic sites in Central America. An older culture with a single starting point, and we intend to find it.”
    She noticed McCarter lean a little closer as she spoke. His interest seemed piqued.
    “I’d share the details with you tonight,” she added, “but I don’t want to spoil the surprise.”
    He frowned and leaned back. “Well, then,” he said, as if making some tough decision, “I choose not to pry, though I must say I’d like to.”
    “A gentleman,” she said. “As I’d been told to expect.”
    “I admit, it does sound interesting,” he said. “At least to someone like me. But what’s your interest in all this? I thought NRI was a big lab of some kind, a research house working with all the high-tech companies.”
    She nodded. “We are. We do industrial design and tech research, for the most part. But we also grant endowments to other sciences. And we do a lot of PR work, things that all our member corporations can claim to be part of.” The words slid from her mouth with ease, unforced and completely believable. She’d said them before in different forms, different places. Neither McCarter or the others would ever know where the money really came from, or what it was for.
    “So this is a PR job?” he asked. “I suppose that means we’ll end up with Nike logos on our equipment and a Budweiser sign over our camp.”
    “Nothing that drastic,” she said. “Though you may have to dress up as a giant cheeseburger for a series of interviews with the BBC.”
    He laughed.
    “Honestly,” she said, “there are no strings attached. Except that you do the best you can. And in that vein, I’ll tell you all that I know tomorrow. It’ll be up to you to take us from there.”
    McCarter promised not to be late and Danielle said good night before walking off toward the elevators.
    As he watched her go, McCarter had to admit that she’d somehow brought out the