Charon's Landing (40 page)

Aggie waited for a few more minutes before leaving the hotel, making certain that Mercer had gone. The parking lot was nearly deserted; a dark van was parked near the exit doors and a dilapidated pickup occupied the closest space to the hotel’s lounge. Aggie’s rented car was next to the van, nosed in close to the building.

She fished her keys from her pocket, the large key ring snagging until she dug it out with considerable effort. Her concentration was centered on the silver circle of the key latch on the door of her car, and she didn’t notice that the van’s engine was running. When the side door of the van crashed back against its roller stops, Aggie snapped around, shifting the key in her fist so that it stuck from between her fingers like a metal claw. It was a purely reflexive action, practiced many nights walking to her car in Washington.

Two figures leaped from the side door of the van. They moved in concert, trapping Aggie between them, penning her between the two vehicles. She whirled, facing both men in a fraction of a second, growing frantic as she realized how well set up this had been. One of the men held a white rag in his hand, carefully keeping it away from his body as if the scrap of cloth contained something unspeakable. Aggie recognized him as the man who’d tried to molest her at the bar the night before. She turned her back on the unfamiliar assailant to concentrate on the threat she recognized. When she did this, the other man rushed up from behind, grasping her arms and locking them behind her back, holding her immobile.

She snapped a foot against the instep of the man holding her. As his grip relaxed for a fraction of a second, Aggie twisted from him, whipping around and raising her arm to smash her elbow into the man’s jaw. The attacker staggered against the van, not quite knocked unconscious, but dazed. There was a small gap between him and her car and Aggie shot for it, jinking herself to break free.

The attacker holding the rag jumped for her. A strong hand grasped her shoulder, steel fingers digging into the flesh below her neck. Aggie was nearly paralyzed by the pain. She tried to shake herself free, but the remorseless pressure increased until she cried out, falling to her knees.

A hotel window in front of the two vehicles opened and a bare-chested man thrust his head out of the opening normally reserved for a screen. His face, ruddy but kind, was stubbled with gray beard. The thick hair on his chest and belly was as black and tight as the pelt of a mink.

“What the hell you doin’ there?” His voice had a thick backwater drawl.

Abu Alam released Aggie Johnston and dropped the chloroform-soaked rag, twisting his body so that his coat twirled up, clearing the pistol grip of his SPAS-12 shotgun. His hand found it instantly and brought it to bear, the Velcro of the special shoulder rig parting with just the slightest tug. The first blast destroyed the window glass, the birdshot not spreading quite enough to hit the fatally curious hotel guest. The next shot, the two coming so close together that the sound blended as it rolled across the parking lot, hit the man full in the face, stretching his head backward like a rubber Halloween mask until it reached a breaking point and the contents of his skull sprayed the hotel room walls.

One second he was leaning out of the window, mildly concerned, the next second he was a headless corpse leaching purple-black blood from a ragged stump that had once been his neck. Alam tucked the Franchi shotgun back under his leather coat and faced Aggie once again. Her face had gone completely white, her lips juddering as she lay at his feet.

“Get in the van,” Alam ordered as he picked up the drugged rag.

Aggie couldn’t move. She stared over Alam’s shoulder at the space that had been a human being. But as Alam came forward, his tight mouth locked in a sickening leer, Aggie began to recover, scrambling to her feet. The man she had hit before had recovered and grabbed once again, this time keeping a vise grip on her arms, bracing his legs out of her range. Aggie could feel the man’s erection being ground into her buttocks. Abu Alam clamped the rag over her mouth, her green eyes going wide.

Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t fight the cloying, hospital-sweet chloroform, and her mind began to dim, her body to lose feeling. One man’s hard fingers rubbing against her crotch no longer felt real to her. She had become a mannequin, a plastic effigy of herself that was being carefully folded into the back of the van, her legs positioned apart so that Abu Alam, Father of Pain, could stare at her denim-covered groin while his assistant drove.

MERCER expected bedlam, pandemonium, or at least a small-scale riot when he arrived at the Alyeska Terminal’s Operations Control Center. However, the parking lot in front of the blocky building was devoid of the usual fleet of red Alyeska trucks, and the loud hailers mounted under the eaves of the roof were quiet. Atop the building, the skeletal radio tower was completely hidden by fog, and up behind the OCC, the power plant and the three-hundred-and-ten-foot-tall stacks of the vapor recovery plant could be seen only because of their flashing safety strobes. Within the building, the hallways were empty, eerily quiet. His boots were heavy and strident as he headed toward the control room.

Andy Lindstrom, Alyeska’s Chief of Operations, was standing over one of the blue-faced command consoles, a coffee cup resting on the fake wood-grain desk nearby. Seated in front of him was a young man in a black turtleneck that showed a heavy dusting of dandruff on his sloping shoulders. The young man’s blotchy red face was rapt as he watched computer code scrolling across one of the multiple screens. Mercer could see that his glasses were filthy, and where they curved over his lumpy ears, the tips had been gnawed.

Mike Collins was on the phone, a booted foot on one of the black and chrome chairs, a large cigar clamped between his teeth. The underarms of his western-style shirt were dark with perspiration stains, and the scar on his cheek was a vivid purple. Lindstrom and the computer operator ignored Collins’ verbal assault on whoever was on the other end of the line.

“Fuck you, Ken. You’ve never had a problem borrowing our equipment and even my men when you’ve got some crisis, so don’t tell me that the riot at the depot is an internal matter and shouldn’t concern your State Police, all right? I’ve got men en route from Pump Stations 5 and 6, but it’s going to take them a few hours to get there. According to my people on the scene, the Fairbanks police have units at the riot, but they’re over-matched by the sheer number of protesters.” Collins paused as he listened to the State Police representative. His scar turned from purple to red and his eyes hardened. “I know they haven’t called you for backup. For Christ’s sake, why the hell do you think I’m talking to you now?
I’m
requesting aid. Jesus, Mary, and the Unlucky Bastard who Never Screwed his Wife, aren’t you listening to me? We need help at the equipment depot, Ken, and we need it now!”

Collins dropped the receiver back in its cradle with a satisfying crash and turned to Mercer, anger and frustration written all over his face. “To think I used to be a cop like that and just as stuck on the fucking rules and regulations. Christ, what a mess.”

“What’s going on?” Mercer asked, slipping out of his jacket and tossing it on a table at the back of the room.

“Everything,” Andy Lindstrom answered for his Security Chief. “Mercer, this is Ted Mossey, our resident computer expert, though right now the infernal machines seem to be a few runs up on him.”

Mossey made no move to stand or shake Mercer’s hand, but he did glance over his shoulder. Mercer recognized him from the night before. Mossey had been in the bar during the fight between the oil workers and the PEAL activists, although he had not gotten involved. He knew Mossey recognized him too, for the womanly young man turned away too quickly, reabsorbing himself with his computers. For just an instant, Mercer was sure that Mossey was frightened of him.

What the hell was that about?

Lindstrom lit a cigarette from the spent stub of the last one. He knuckled fatigue from his red-rimmed, watery eyes. “The shit seems to be hitting the fan around here. Early this morning, some of our security force at the Fairbanks depot found four people inside the perimeter fences, near the next shipment of material heading for the North Slope. They arrested the trespassers and called the cops immediately. Then, about ten this morning, PEAL held a big press conference in Fairbanks claiming we’re holding several of their people illegally. Accused us of snatching them off the streets like a bunch of Gestapo storm troopers, for Christ’s sake. The damned reporters never thought to call us and hear what really happened. They just ran with PEAL’s press kit. Within a couple of hours, about two hundred people were protesting outside the depot’s main gates. It was peaceful at first, but it’s turning into a riot now, bottles being thrown over the fences, protesters lying down on the access roads, that sort of shit. Get this — the protesters there now aren’t even PEAL. It’s a mishmash of groups, mostly native rights advocates and antinuclear demonstrators, which doesn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense, but hell, once someone starts griping, every nutcase in the state is ready to join in. These mobs multiply and mutate faster than a virus.”

“Any connection to your computer problem here?” Mercer asked.

“No,” Lindstrom said tiredly. “The computer problem is headache number two for the day. A couple hours ago, the whole system crapped out. It froze up solid, keyboards wouldn’t work, disc drives, nothing. Ted’s been trying to find out what happened.”

“What do you think?” Mercer directed his question at Mossey’s vulturine shoulders and back.

“Lockdown like this? I’d guess a glitch in the config or maybe a power spike fried the operating bats.”

“Any chance a hacker did this?”

“No, the problem’s too deep. The security protocols would have detected an unauthorized entry, stopped it automatically, and backtracked so fast the hacker would have been busted still at his terminal. This system’s tighter than the FBI mainframe.”

“That reminds me.” Mercer turned to Collins.

Anticipating, Collins spoke first. “Yeah, I called. I can’t believe you have the FBI director’s personal cell phone number. Jesus, that was really something, talking to Dick Henna, I mean.”

“Deep down, Mike, he’s a cop, just like you. He has a bigger office and a longer title, that’s all. Did he say that he would contact Elmendorf?”

“Yes, he said Admiral Morrison contacted General Kelly, the Air Force’s man on the Joint Chiefs. We’ve got full cooperation.”

“Mercer, the Air Force? What are you expecting, World War Three?” Lindstrom remarked jokingly.

“Boy Scout training, Andy. Be prepared.”

“Guys,” Mossey spun himself from the computer, his face pinched. “I’m having a hard enough time with this without you talking, okay? I could use a little quiet while I work. And I certainly don’t need that cigarette smoke.”

“Yeah, sure, Ted,” Lindstrom said, taken aback by Mossey’s harsh tone. The computer operator had been nothing but docile since starting work at Alyeska. Lindstrom assumed that Mossey was more confused by the system’s problem than he was letting on. “We’ll head back to my office. Call if you find anything.”

“Fine,” Mossey breathed and turned back to the scrolling screen, his bony fingers poised over the keyboard like a musician waiting for his cue.

Back in Lindstrom’s office, the wait began.

“Jesus H. Christ, relax,” Lindstrom said, seeing how anxious Mercer appeared. “We talked about this yesterday. We all agreed that if someone wanted to use liquid nitrogen to disrupt the oil flow, the only logical place would be the equipment depot in Fairbanks, and we caught the bastards at it last night.”

“Did they have any nitrogen tanks with them? Any stainless steel cylinders?” Mercer shot back moodily.

“Well, no. They were probably there to scout around for the best places to use their stuff. Shit, that depot is something like forty acres, with buildings and piles of equipment scattered all over the grounds. It takes a couple of hours just to find the bathrooms.”

Mercer’s silent glance quieted Lindstrom immediately. Mike Collins nodded his approval at Mercer, the assuring compliment of one professional to another.

A few quiet minutes went by.

“The computer system,” Mercer asked, “how much of your operation does it control?”

“Well, hell, everything. You know the way the world works nowadays. Nothing happens unless the computer gives you permission first.”

“Could it shut down the entire pipeline?”

“Sure. We can remotely operate the whole system from here, but we don’t. All of the pump stations are autonomous, monitored twenty-four hours a day, and they have ultimate say as to what happens at any location. If they have a problem, they can shut down the line too.”

“Is there any sort of automatic override? Any way the system can take over from the pump stations, cut them out of the loop and run independently?”

“I don’t follow you.”

Mercer spoke slowly and clearly so there could be no question as to his meaning. “Can your computer take over the pipeline?”

It took Lindstrom a few seconds to respond and when he did, he didn’t like his answer. “I don’t know.”

The phone rang, and Collins and Lindstrom both gave a startled jump. Lindstrom answered, listened for a few seconds, then handed the phone to his Security Chief. He turned to Mercer, nervous fingers fumbling to light a cigarette. His eyes had gone wide and his face was dewed with sweat despite the chill seeping into the building. Collins spoke little, just grunting a few times and once muttering a quiet obscenity. When he hung up, he had visibly whitened and his hands were trembling.

“That was Ken Bassett with the State Police. There’s been an accident. Both vans carrying men from Pump Stations 5 and 6 to augment security at the depot went off the Dalton Highway. There are two cruisers there now, but it appears no one survived.”

“When?” Mercer’s voice was like a whip crack.

“The police just got there, but the vans may have gone off the road awhile ago. Guessing from where they crashed and what time they left the pump stations, I’d say at least six hours.”