The setting wasn’t wasted on Bruno. “Some view,” he said appreciatively. “Right out over Husky Stadium.”

But as soon as they were seated, he was back to his subject, addressing them all. “Did you know that in 1799, Napoleon asked his men to leave him alone inside the Great Pyramid for a few minutes, just like Alexander the Great did, back in-whenever it was. And when he came out he was white as a ghost. When they asked him about it, all he did was shake his head and tell them he never wanted to talk about it again. No one’s ever been able to explain it.”

“If it smelled the way it did when I was there,” Gideon said, “I think I might be able to explain it.”

A smaller man might have taken offense, but Bruno merely laughed his happy laugh. “Okay, but there’s some kind of energy there. Explain to me why, if you wrap a wine bottle in a damp newspaper and stand on the very top of the pyramid, and hold it up above your head, and the conditions are right, sparks come out of-”

“Honey,” Bea said, “give the poor man some rest. Let’s go get our food, and then make your pitch.”

It was Mediterranean buffet night at the faculty club. Julie and Gideon found themselves facing each other across the salad section of the buffet table, over platters of hummus, cold stuffed grape leaves, and feta-cheese-and-tomato salad.

“Not that I’m not having a good time,” Julie said, “but have you figured out what this is about yet?”

Gideon shook his head. They’d been wondering since Rupert had called to ask them to dinner. Gideon taught at the university’s Port Angeles branch, sixty miles and a half-hour ferry ride from the main campus in Seattle, and didn’t ordinarily come into the city more than once every two or three weeks. Julie, a supervising ranger at Olympic National Park’s Port Angeles headquarters, got in even less frequently. It had been six months since their last meal at the faculty club. And never before had they gotten an invitation from Rupert LeMoyne.