Havoc - v4 (46 page)

Dawn was just brushing the eastern horizon when Cali Stowe brought the big Riva close to shore, where Booker Sykes and Devrin Egemen were waving her in. Behind them the camp was still, littered with the corpses of fifty terrorists. The Janissaries had won but at what cost? She scanned the beach for Mercer but there was no sign of him.

“He’s not dead,” she whispered as tears formed in her eyes. “He’s only a little wounded. He’s okay.”

As soon as she was in earshot she shouted, “Where’s Mercer? He’s not dead. He can’t be.”

Booker and Devrin looked at her stonily. She dropped the anchor and raced for the stern dive platform. She didn’t even kick off her shoes before jumping into the cool lake and stroking for the shore.

She scrambled to her feet as soon as it was shallow enough and charged out of the water, practically colliding with Booker. “Where’s Mercer?” she screamed.

There was blood on Booker’s uniform and his eyes were glassy with exhaustion. He could barely stay on his feet. Devrin was in even worse shape. His pants leg was sodden where he’d taken a bullet.

“He was underground when Professor Ahmad blew up the entrance to the tomb,” the young Turk said.

Cali fell to the ground and started to sob. “Was there anybody else down there?” When no one answered her Cali knew the worst. “How many?”

“Four, including Poli Feines,” Booker said.

“He might already be dead.” Her sobs turned into choking gasps as the enormity hit her. Mercer was dead. “Oh God, oh God.”

Booker hunkered down next to her. “We don’t know that for sure. He’s one tough piece of work. We’ll dig him out. We just need to get people here with heavy equipment.”

“That will take days. What if he’s injured? He could be bleeding to death right now.”

“Honey, there’s nothing we can do,” Booker soothed. “The quicker we get going the quicker we can come back. We’ll call Admiral Lasko and he’ll get the ball rolling. We have to go. Devrin needs to show that leg to a sawbones.”

“But…” Her voice trailed off.

“Cali, I know you think you should stay but sitting here watching a pile of dirt isn’t going to help him. We can be back here first thing tomorrow with a chopper and enough people to get him out.”

“I just can’t. I mean he’s…”

“I can’t believe it either but this is the only thing we can do. Come on.”

Cali let Booker draw her to her feet. They used the terrorists’ speedboat to motor out to the Riva. Booker and Cali had to carry the injured Janissary onto the luxury yacht. The scholar was going into shock from exhaustion and loss of blood. They set him in Cali’s cabin and they tucked blankets around his shivering body after Booker had redressed his wound. Booker asked Cali to stay with Devrin until he fell asleep, and then climbed up to the cockpit. Cali stroked Devrin’s feverish forehead, carefully brushing back his hair, her emotions in such turmoil that she could focus on nothing but the simple gesture.

The big engines rumbled to life and the Riva started to pull away from shore. Cali left Devrin and made her way to the stern window. The camp was quickly receding behind them as Booker brought the boat onto plane, a fat white wake forming a V that spread across the whole width of this narrow part of the bay.

She was about to turn away when she spotted something else marring the flat surface of the water. She almost dismissed it as a rogue wave but something piqued her curiosity, a vague sense of something she knew was caused by grief. Still, she ran out into the open dive platform. Unable to make out what had caught her interest she launched herself up the stairs to the top deck for a better vantage.

“Book,” she screamed, and when he didn’t hear her over the rumbling diesels, she ran up and smacked him on the shoulder. “Go back. Go back. There’s someone in the water.”

“What?”

“There’s someone in the water. Turn around.”

Booker shot her a dubious look but cranked the wheel over anyway. They backtracked fifty yards, keeping the engines at low RPMs, both of them scanning the water but unable to see anything except their own wake.

“You sure you saw something?”

Doubt crept into Cali’s eyes. “I thought I did.”

“Come on, we’ve got to get Devrin to a hospital.” He had cranked the wheel again and eased up the throttles when Cali shouted and pointed. On the crest of their fading wake a man was lying facedown in the water. Booker changed direction and gunned the engines. In seconds they were gliding by the pitiable figure.

“I don’t believe it.”

Cali grabbed a life ring and jumped over the side of the boat. The ring was torn from her hands when she hit the water and was driven deep but she found it when she resurfaced. She began to paddle wildly, pushing the ring ahead of her. It hit the man and turned him over. One arm came out of the water and draped over the flotation device. Mercer lifted his head from the water with a rakish grin on his battered but still handsome face. “I never figured Booker would try to steal my girl.”

Cali kissed him hungrily but Mercer had to push her back. His mouth was a bloody mess. “How?” she asked as they bobbed in the water.

“The tunnel was only partially collapsed,” Mercer panted. “I used Poli’s scuba gear to swim down until I found a place where the earthquake had opened up the ceiling enough for me to fit through. I let buoyancy do the rest.”

“Hi, Harry. I’m home,” Mercer called as he stepped through the doorway, feeling like a suburban husband from a fifties TV show.

Harry must have gotten the same feeling because he growled down from the upstairs bar, “I’m not getting your pipe and slippers.”

“What about mine?” Cali asked with a smile.

“Pipes are unladylike and I’ve got a foot fetish so I’d rather see you without slippers.” Harry’s tone then darkened. “Can you guys come up here? There’s something you have to listen to.”

Mercer was on crutches because of his bad knee and it took him a few moments to negotiate the curving staircase. Harry got up from his bar stool when they entered. He looked at the crutches and scoffed. “I lost my leg fifty odd years ago and only just started using a cane, while you get a little boo-boo on your knee and you’re on crutches.”

“Painkillers too,” Mercer said a little dreamily. “Lots and lots of painkillers, which I plan to mix with a drink and promptly pass out.”

Harry kissed Cali’s cheek. “With his face all banged up like that no one would blame you for dumping him and going out with me.”

“I don’t think I could keep up with you,” she teased back.

“I’d go easy on you.” He smiled lecherously. “Seriously, when Mercer called from Egypt I was very relieved you were okay. And Booker too. I like him.”

“What about me?” Mercer asked sarcastically.

“I’ve seen your will. I get the house if you buy the farm so I was rooting for the terrorists.”

“You’re all heart.” Mercer settled onto one of the couches, laying the crutches on the floor. Drag sprawled on the opposite couch with his legs raised stiffly in the air. If not for his snoring Mercer would have thought he was dead. “You’ve got something we need to hear.”

Harry went behind the bar. He fixed drinks for everyone, then set the answering machine on the polished mahogany. Cali handed Mercer his gimlet and sat next to him. “Couple of things actually. First off, Ira called with a report out of Russia. Seems they recovered seventy barrels of plutonium from that train. They’re on their way to a permanent storage facility.”

“We counted sixty-eight,” Cali said.

Harry held up a finger for her to be patient. “They did a check of them and discovered two had recently been submerged in sea water.”

“We were right about Popov then,” Mercer said. “He was in Novorossiysk to find those last two drums and cover his ass.”

“Ira said that his arrest, trial, and execution took place yesterday.”

“Gotta love Russian justice,” Mercer said. “What’s the second thing?”

“A guy called yesterday when I was doing the crossword. I let the machine pick it up but when I figured out what I was listening to I grabbed the phone. Listen for yourself.” He pressed the play button.

“Ah yes, Dr. Mercer, I apologize for not calling sooner; however I was on an archaeological dig near Ephesus.” Mercer didn’t recognize the voice but the accent sounded Turkish. The speaker also sounded elderly. “This is Professor Ibriham Ahmad of the University of Istanbul. I understand you wanted to discuss the legend of the Alembic of Skenderbeg. There’s really nothing to it but I will be happy to talk to you. Feel free to—” The answering machine beeped.

“That’s when I picked up,” Harry said.

The warm glow of the Percocets coursing though Mercer’s veins turned into a cold chill. When he found his voice he said stupidly, “And you talked to him.”

“For about twenty minutes. And I can tell you right now that he’s not the guy who kidnapped Cali or saved our butts in Atlantic City or died in Alexander’s tomb four days ago like you told me.”

Mercer and Cali just stared at each other.

“He is the professor you originally called about Skenderbeg,” Harry went on. “He’s an expert on him, knew everything down to his hat size but he said that the legend of him using a weapon belonging to Alexander the Great is just that, a myth. It never happened.”

“Well he’s wrong. I saw the damned thing.”

“I’m just repeating what he told me. He also said that he’s never heard of any new Janissary order.”

It took Mercer a second to grasp what Harry was telling him. “Then the guy in Egypt and Russia?”

“Isn’t Ibriham Ahmad, Skenderbeg guru and professor at the University of Istanbul,” Harry finished for him.

“Who was he?” Cali asked.

Harry shrugged. “Couldn’t tell you. It’s not like any of us asked him for ID.”

“Toss me the phone, will you, Harry?” Mercer rifled through his wallet for a slip of paper. He held it up. “This is the phone number of the nurses’ station in the Aswân hospital.” Mercer dialed and let it ring for a minute before someone picked up. It took a few moments to find someone who spoke English. Harry smoked through a cigarette. Cali went to the kitchen to get some ice for Mercer’s knee. “I’d like to speak with Devrin Egemen,” Mercer said when an English-speaking doctor came on the line. “He’s a young Turkish man brought in with a gunshot to the leg a couple of days ago.” Mercer shook his head as he listened. He thanked the doctor and hung up. “Devrin left the hospital yesterday without permission. They don’t know where he went.”

After a pause Cali asked, “What does this mean?”

“Other than the fact he sacrificed himself to stop Poli and Al-Salibi,” Mercer replied, “we’ll never know who he was.”

“Consider this,” Harry said. “They guarded their secret so closely that the world expert didn’t know about them. Now they’ve gone back to ground.”

“Our government is negotiating the location of Alexander’s tomb with the Egyptians so we get the alembic, so hopefully they’ll never need to emerge again.”

“Well I do have something else,” Harry said in a brighter tone. “After I transcribed Chester Bowie’s notes about adamantine I finished the rest of his letter. As we all know he was partially right about the mythological ore and was dead bang on about how the ancient Greeks created mythological monsters out of fossil bones. He has another theory that might be worth checking out.”

“What’s that?” Mercer asked warily.

“He believed that the story of Jason and the Argonauts is true, sort of. He believed that the
Golden Fleece
Jason sought was actually a treasure barge used to pay for the protection for a queen of Thessaly’s children when she sent them to live in the kingdom of Colchis. He thinks the barge sank in a storm on the Black Sea off the coast of present-day Turkey.”

Mercer and Cali broke out in laughter.

“What?” Harry said, looking from one to the other.

“No more adventures, my friend. Chester Bowie’s got his place in the history books. If someone else wants to prove the rest of his ideas they’re welcome to it. I’m done.”

“That goes double for me,” Cali agreed. “I want nothing more to do with Bowie, ancient legends, or myths.”

“Hey, come on,” Harry wheedled. “There could be a fortune out there for us. Think about it, a treasure barge loaded with loot. We’d be rich.”

“I’ve got everything I want right here.” Mercer put his arm around Cali as he spoke. She nestled into his embrace.

“Oh great.” Harry threw up his hands. “You end up with the girl and I’ve got nothing.”

“You’ve got the satisfaction of knowing you helped mankind,” Cali said sweetly.

“That don’t pay the bar tabs,” he groused.

“And I’ll pay you back the twenty grand I borrowed in New Jersey,” Mercer added.

Harry suddenly looked like he wanted to be anywhere but in this room. “Ah, you, ah, don’t have to bother.”

Trepidation crept into Mercer’s voice. “Why? What did you do?”

“You know I was on a roll, right, at the craps table, I mean, and if you’re on a streak you keep going, right? Well, Tiny knows a guy who floats a game. It was a sure thing. I couldn’t lose so I sort of borrowed something of yours for collateral.”

“You didn’t?”

“I did.”

“Did what?” Cali asked, switching attention between the two men.

Harry looked at her with an expression more pitiful than anything Drag was capable of. “I used Mercer’s Jag to cover my marker.” He turned to Mercer. “If it makes you feel any better I lost the rest of my thirty grand, too. Besides, Ira promised to cover all your expenses. We can get your car back no problem, or better yet buy a new one. And I swear on my soul Tiny and I will never borrow it, either.”

Mercer’s head was cradled in his hands. “Harry, when the vodka and Percocets wear off, you and I are going to have a very long talk about boundaries—like how I need to set some. Drinking twenty grand worth of my booze over the years isn’t the same as hawking my car.” He looked at his old friend with a rueful smile. “And you don’t have a soul.”

Knowing he’d be forgiven, Harry’s old face scrunched up in a matching grin. He lofted his highball in a salute. “You’re a prince and I don’t care what anyone else says about you.”