Charon's Landing (13 page)

Rufti opened his mouth to speak, but Khalid cut him off instantly. “Shut up. Don’t say a word. Whatever you say right now will be a lie, so save your breath.

“Because of your position within the government and the uncertainty of the times, we both know I can’t mount an official investigation, but you’d better believe that I’m not going to let this end here today. Now more than ever the UAE and OPEC have to show the world a united front. I want you to know that I will fight you, Rufti. I will fight you as the Minister of Petroleum for the UAE, I will fight you as a friend of the royal family, and I will fight you as a man who believes in justice. Consider yourself warned. Whatever it is you’re scheming, will not succeed.”

Khalid whirled away but turned back to the startled Rufti.

“We’re leaving now, my two cousins and I. When we reach Al-Ain, I’ll send a truck back to take you to that important meeting in Ajman. The truck should return in about an hour. It will be the longest hour of your life. Use the time wisely. Think about what I said, because if I don’t like your explanations next time we speak, there will be no truck to come to your rescue.”

Khalid’s parting words were spoken over his shoulder as he and his clansmen were striding across the hardpan toward the trucks. Rufti tried to follow, but his tremendous bulk slowed him to the point of capitulation. He stopped, watching the rapier figure of Khuddari gliding across the desert, the falcon on his arm, flanked by the robed Bedouin.

Rufti stood still for many long minutes after the sound of the departing trucks had been swallowed by the emptiness of the desert. When finally his rage abated to the point where he could think, a sickening smile piled up skin and fat atop his cheekbones. “You are too late, Khalid Al-Khuddari. Charon is already at his landing and ready to cross the River Styx with the soul of the United States as his passenger. You’ll never know who paid the toll, because you are going to be the first to die.”

L
ast night had ranked on the top ten list of Mercer’s worst. Following the attack, he spent four hours in the pandemonium of DC General’s emergency room. Ultimately, he was given an adhesive bandage for the cut on his cheek, a paper shot glass with two aspirins for his pain, and a prod in the chest to prove his ribs weren’t broken. The whole time, two uniformed cops guarded him as if he were public enemy number one.

Just as dawn was tinting the eastern horizon, he was released from the hospital and taken to the Arlington police station for a further three hours of inane, repetitive questions. There was no doubt that he was innocent of any wrongdoing, but it seemed that the cops needed to fill their quota of harassment and Mercer was unlucky enough to be there at the wrong time. He was allowed to leave with a stiff warning to stay in the Washington area and to report any suspicious activities in his neighborhood.

Mercer shed his tuxedo jacket as he made his way up to the bar on the second floor of his home. Whether he picked up the jacket later that day or later that year made no difference to him. His head ached fiercely, and his mouth felt as if a furry rodent had spent the night in it. His eyes were red-rimmed and gritty. He’d had a good buzz when he’d left Tiny’s, but now all he had was a raging hangover and an exhaustion that ran to his bones.

He knew that the attack last night had not been a random occurrence. He had been targeted as surely as Jerry and John Small. He was certain that Howard was also a target and more than likely dead by now. And linking them was the
Jenny IV
.

What had been aboard the derelict that was worth killing to protect? Mercer wondered. His only clue was the mangled piece of stainless steel with the name roger on it, and he wasn’t even sure if there was any significance to it.

And now with two confirmed deaths, a possible third, and the attempt on his life, Mercer recognized that the stakes had been raised too high for him to play alone. He needed help. He cracked open a Heineken from the antique refrigerator, settled himself at the bar, and reached for the cordless phone. The private cell phone number he dialed was part of the directory he carried in his head.

“Hello?”

“Dick, Mercer here.”

“Oh, shit. What’s happened now?”

Dick Henna was the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and one of Mercer’s closest friends. They had met during the crisis in Hawaii and had maintained a tight relationship ever since. Mercer was always welcome for dinner at Henna’s house, and his wife, Fay, was determined to get him paired up.

“That’s a cheery greeting,” Mercer said. “But you’re right, something’s up. I was attacked last night coming home from Tiny’s.”

“Jesus. You all right?” While technically a bureaucrat, Henna had never lost the razor edginess he’d acquired from his years as a field man.

“Yeah, I’m fine, a few cuts and bruises. The kid who attacked me is dead, and I think that it was an assassination attempt made to look like a mugging.”

“Why do you say that?” There wasn’t a trace of doubt in Henna’s voice, but he was a cop and took nothing as fact until he had evidence.

“The kid who tried to kill me, Jamal Lincoln, was from Anacostia, which means he was ten miles from his home turf. All of the vehicles on the street around my neighborhood had the proper parking stickers or were accounted for by the police. He might have taken the Metro here, but he attacked me after midnight, which would have left him with no way to get home afterward. There had to have been an accomplice in the area last night who dropped him off, then fled after the attack went wrong.”

“Yeah, and?”

“Come on, Dick, I don’t need to tell you that muggings usually happen within a mile or two of the perpetrator’s home, in an area well known to him. And muggers don’t act in teams, with one guy waiting in a getaway car. It’s usually just snatch and run and make sure your victim isn’t in any shape to follow.”

“You might have something, but I doubt it. He may have been in Arlington visiting friends and needed cab fare home and you were the closest ATM.”

“I’d agree if two people I went fishing with in Alaska last week weren’t found dead yesterday morning, and I suspect that the other guy who was with us is dead too. I’ve been trying to call him but I keep getting his machine.”

Mentioning Alaska piqued Henna’s interest. Because of the increased tension in the country concerning the opening of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, anything that took place in Alaska was of priority importance. “I thought you were doing work with some tunnel-digging machine or something.”

“I was. When we finished, I went fishing with the inventor, Howard Small, and his two cousins.”

“And you’re saying they’re all dead?”

“I’m not positive about Howard, but I’m pretty sure. In fact, one of the reasons I’m calling is to ask you to send someone to his house in Los Angeles and see if he ever got back from the trip.”

“No problem. What makes you think you’re being targeted?”

Mercer told Henna the story of finding the
Jenny IV
and his suspicion that something else besides the fire had aided in her destruction. He mentioned how the heavy support arms of the net-hauling cranes had been shorn off and the radio antennas were all snapped at their roots. He held the steel fragment in his hand as he described it to Henna, giving an account as thorough as a pathologist’s autopsy report.

“Any idea who Roger is?”

“No. I made a few calls to the boat’s home port, and no one knew anybody connected to her named Roger. And the Harbor Master didn’t remember anyone else on board the morning she left for her final voyage.”

“What’s your take on all this?” Mercer heard an interest in Henna’s voice that surprised him. Something was definitely up.

“I don’t know. Something on the
Jenny IV
exploded after she had caught fire and put out the flames. What could’ve detonated without tearing the ship apart is a mystery. I want to ask you to have your lab people at Quantico take a look at this piece of steel and see if they can get anything from it. I’ve been staring at it for a few days and it’s gotten me nowhere.”

“Sounds like a good idea. I’ll send over a messenger this afternoon. If you were anybody else, I’d say you’re being paranoid. But I know you, and I know trouble follows you like an obedient dog. What are you going to do?”

“Me? I want to find out what your lab boys can dig up, then I’m getting the hell out of Dodge. I don’t want to be around when someone makes another attempt on my life.”

“Listen, Mercer, you and I both know that Alaska is the number-one topic around dinner tables in this country right now. That’s why I’m taking this so seriously. It’s possible your friend in California is fine, just taking a couple more days off after your trip, and your attack may be a coincidence, but until I can prove that, this has my full attention.

“I have strict orders from the President concerning Alaska,” Henna continued. “Anything — and I mean
anything
— deemed even remotely threatening is run to ground, no questions asked as to how many agents it takes or how much it costs. He wants weekly reports concerning the activities of the environmental groups that have set up shop in Valdez and Anchorage and copies of the threatening letters sent to oil companies starting to operate in the Refuge. We’re averaging eighty threats a week and I’ve got field agents taking them all seriously. Is it possible that one of these groups is after you? As I understand, the work you were doing dealt with the building of the second Trans-Alaska pipeline, right?”

“Yes, Howard Small collaborated with the construction firm building TAP Two. His final test hole, through a mountain about ten miles north of Valdez, runs parallel to the old pipe and will be used to run the new one. The mini-mole saved about ten weeks of heavy blasting and earth moving,” Mercer replied, knowing where Henna was heading. “But security was pretty tight; few people knew what we were doing up there. Besides, that wouldn’t explain why Howard’s cousins were killed. I admit that my evidence is circumstantial, but if it does add up, then there is definitely something going on that your agents haven’t picked up.”

“It’s my ass in the sling if something happens to the new pipeline or the teams working in the Refuge,” Henna said. Mercer knew his friend was hooked. “Circumstantial evidence is better than none at all. Listen, do you want some protection? It may take a few days to analyze that metal fragment.”

Mercer thought about it for a moment and then agreed. “I’m no hero. Send a whole platoon of soldiers if you want. The more the merrier.”

“I’ll assign an agent until you leave town. We should be able to get to the bottom of this, provided we get something from the sample. I’ll give you a call as soon as I hear from the field team in L.A. about Howard Small, and I’ll make sure we have some answers from the lab by Monday morning.”

Mercer gave Howard Small’s phone number and address to Henna before hanging up. He drained the last of his Heineken and thought about another to counter his hangover, but what he needed was a long shower and about eight hours of sleep.

Before padding to his bedroom, he went to the locked trunk at the bottom of his office closet. Opening it, he retrieved a Beretta nine-millimeter pistol and a black shoulder holster. The gun was U.S. military issue, a gift from Dick Henna to replace the one Mercer had lost in Hawaii last year. Henna had also given him a permit to carry the weapon anywhere in the United States except on commercial aircraft. He closed the trunk, tucking the loaded gun and a spare clip under his arm. This was the first time he’d felt he’d needed it since Henna had given it to him, and its presence was a powerful reassurance.

The courier came for the steel fragment ten minutes after he’d gotten out of the shower. The bruises on his body were mottled dark rose and purple. Ignoring his bed, Mercer had been sitting at the bar, staring at the cryptic remnant when the courier arrived with the agent who was to take the first shift guarding his house. After handing over the steel plate and conferring with the guard for a few minutes, Mercer fell into a deathlike sleep.

Dick Henna called two hours later.

“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but it appears Howard Small is dead. A neighbor who’d been watching Small’s house said she hadn’t seen Howard since he left for Alaska. There was no luggage, and the answering machine had about two dozen messages on it. A closer examination turned up a bullet hole in the floor and traces of blood on a carpet that matches Small’s, and what appears to be the body of a cat lodged in the drain under the kitchen sink. The house had been professionally sanitized, no prints, no tire treads, nothing but the blood, the bullet hole, and the cat.”

“Then it’s no coincidence. We’re being hunted.” Mercer’s voice was thick with unfocused anger.

“Looks that way. The piece of steel was just delivered to Quantico and Dr. Goetchell said she would have a preliminary report by late tomorrow morning. As soon as I get it, I’ll let you know, and then I want you to vanish.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be the invisible man.”

Mercer was woken again, just past six o’clock. This time it was a pounding at the door that dragged him from the blissful embrace of oblivion. The skylight over his bed was a darkening square, the sky above swollen with rainclouds. He threw on a pair of jeans and a shirt and spun down the stairs. His injuries had stiffened, so he moved like an old man, shuffling and slow.

He looked through the peephole and saw Special Agent Mike Peters standing next to someone he thought he’d never see again. He swung open the door with a tired smile.

“I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but this woman insisted that I tell you she was here.”

If Aggie Johnston was beautiful in a designer dress, she was absolutely enchanting in jeans and a plain white T-shirt, her hair tucked under a baseball cap. Her face had the clean scrubbed look of a college coed, except for the enticing pout of her lipsticked lips that drew attention to her understated sensuality.

“You’re quite a surprise,” Mercer said, catching her green eyes.