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As the Scots shipping nate was about to step from the office, he turned and looked back at the Jewish precious-stone dealer "After your sons are finished with the stones, what do you think they will be worth?"

Strouser stared down at the ordinary-looking stones, visualizing the crystals "If these stones came from an unlimited source that can be easily exploited, the owners are about to launch an empire of extraordinary wealth"

"If you will forgiveso, your appraisal sounds a bit fanciful"

Strouser looked across the desk at Carlisle and smiled "Trust me when I say these stones, when cut and faceted, could sell in the neighborhood of one million pounds"

"Good God!" Carlisle blurted "That much?"

Strouser lifted the huge 980-carat stone to the light, holding it between his fingers as if it were the Holy Grail When he spoke it was in a voice of adoring reverence "Perhaps even more, much more"

DEATH FROM NOWHERE

January 14, 2000

Seymour Island, Antarctic Peninsula

There was a curse of death about the island A curse proven by the graves ofshore, never to leave There was no beauty here, certainly nothing like the laciers that towered als that floated serenely like crystal castles that one reat landmass of the Antarctic and its offshore islands

Seyest ice-free surface on or near the whole continent Volcanic dust, laid down through thedry valleys and e of color and nearly devoid of all snow It was a singularly ugly place, inhabited only by few varieties of lichen and a rookery of Adelie penguins who found Seymour Island an ample source for the small stones they use to build their nests

The majority of the dead, buried in shallow pits pried froian Antarctic expedition after their ship was crushed in the ice in 1859 They survived tinters before their food supply ran out, finally dying off one by one from starvation Lost for over a decade, their well-preserved bodies were not found until 1870, by the British while they were setting up a whaling station

Others died and were laid beneath the rocks of Seymour Island Some succu the whaling season A few lost their lives when they wandered froht by an unexpected storraves are well ht in the ice passed the winter until the spring e stones, which they mounted over the burial sites By the time the British closed the station in 1933, sixty bodies lay beneath the loathsome landscape

The restless ghosts of the explorers and sailors that roained that one day their resting place would be crawling with accountants, attorneys, plumbers, housewives and retired senior citizens who showed up on luxurious pleasure ships to gawk at the inscribed stones and ogle the couins that inhabited a piece of the shoreline Perhaps, just perhaps, the island would lay its curse on these intruders too

The i ominous about Sey palace, they saw only a re from a sea as blue as an iridescent peacock feather They felt only excite the first wave of tourists ever to walk the shores of Seymour Island This was the third of five scheduled stops as the ship hopscotched a the peninsula, certainly not theto the c