Vulcan's Forge (15 page)

Mercer heard Tish’s rich laughter before the front door had closed behind him.

 

JENNIFER Woodridge looked up in shock as Mercer entered his outer office.

“And where have you been since yesterday?”

“I took a long lunch, Jen, and just lost track of the time.”

“Right. Next time you do that, let me know first so I can cover for you. Richard has been frantic trying to reach you.”

As if by mystic perception the phone rang. It was Richard Harris Howell, the corpulent, whiney deputy director of the USGS, Mercer’s immediate boss.

“Dr. Mercer, I need to see you in my office right away. I have a list of travel vouchers in front of me that we need to discuss.” Howell was more accountant now than scientist. “It seems that you abused government money on that South Africa trip.”

Mercer held the receiver away from his ear while Howell continued in this vein for another minute. “You’re right, Rich.” Mercer knew that Howell hated that nickname. “Listen, I’ve got some stuff to clear up here. I’ll be in your office in ten minutes.”

Mercer hung up the phone, forestalling any complaint. “I’m sure he’ll waddle right over. Tell him I went to the bathroom.”

“Where are you really going?”

Mercer sat on the corner of her desk and affected a mock serious tone. “Jen, I can’t implicate you in this. What if Howell resorts to torture?” She giggled. “As soon as the little toad leaves, take the rest of the day off. Ah, hell, take the week off, I don’t think I’ll be around much.”

“Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Just keep Howell off my back.”

He grabbed his briefcase from his inner office and descended to the basement of the USGS building, where the extensive data archives were stored.

Although Mercer had not met the USGS chief archivist, Chuck Lowry, he had heard about him. Most people who fought in the Vietnam War agreed that their tour had changed them in some profound way. The staff at the USGS believed that two tours in ’Nam had perhaps made Chuck Lowry a little more sane, but by no stretch of the imagination was Lowry a normal man. He wore eight-hundred-dollar sports coats and tattered jeans. His face was hidden behind a beautifully manicured beard, but his hair was a gnarled mess. The black eyeglass frames perched on his squat nose had no lenses, and he swore like a truck driver but possessed an amazing vocabulary.

When Mercer entered the computer room of the USGS archive, Lowry was seated behind his desk, a trashy romance novel in his hand. A brass plaque next to the telephone read, “Eschew Obfuscation.”

“I purchased this yesterday,” Lowry said, holding up the garishly covered book, “along with a packet of condoms and an economy-size jar of Vaseline. Fucking cashier didn’t even bat an eye. The times are fecundating a truly preternatural disinterest between people. The book, though, is delightful. Except the authoress constantly describes the heroine’s breasts as supple and the hero’s torso as glistening under a sheen of manly sweat. If she does it once more, I will track her down and truncate her. Who are you?”

“Philip Mercer. I’m a temporary consultant.”

“Oh, Jen Woodridge works with you.”

“You know her?”

“Just as a potential stalking victim.” Mercer hoped Lowry was joking. “You’re the guy that’s busting Howell’s balls, right?”

“Let’s just say he and I don’t get along.”

“That’s been his problem since he first darkened our door. He doesn’t play well with others. He’s also a vexatious little dilettante with a permanent fecal ring environing his mouth from so much ass-kissing. What brings you to my Dante-esque nook?”

Mercer ignored the fact that he understood only about a quarter of Lowry’s words. “I need to see the seismic records of Hawaii during May of 1954.”

“Somewhat obtuse request, but I can oblige. Come back tomorrow, I’ll have everything you need.”

“Sorry, Chuck, this can’t wait. I’ve got Howell breathing down my neck again, so I have to get out of here ASAP.”

“In any way will this research piss off that cock-in-the-mouth?”

“Only to the effect that it has absolutely nothing to do with my contract with him.”

“Good enough, walk this way.” Lowry hopped off his chair and shuffled into a back room, doing a perfect impression of Lon Chaney’s “Igor.”

Lowry seated himself in front of a computer terminal that was hooked into the data retrieval mainframe and lifted a heavy data reference book from the drawer beneath the keyboard. He thumbed through it slowly, whistling the theme from
Gilligan’s Island
. Several minutes passed before he put the book aside and began hammering at the keys.

“I always type fortissimo rather than pianissimo—lets the fucking machine know who is Maestro around here.”

Mercer could not suppress a grin at Lowry’s antics. After a few minutes at the keys, the computer chirping, whirring, and beeping, Lowry pushed himself away from the terminal. “There, seismic records of the Hawaiian Islands for May of 1954. Why the fuck you want it, I’ll never fathom. Now I’ll return to Bimbo St. Trollop and her hero, the redoubtable Major Tough Roughman.”

Lowry left the room and Mercer took his seat at the computer. Because of the tremendous volcanic activity in and around Hawaii, the records, even for a single month, would take days to assimilate, but he had a specific date in mind.

Twenty minutes later, Mercer shut off the computer and thanked Lowry for his help.

Lowry’s response was a quote from the romance novel. “Tough tore the bodice from her young flesh, exposing her supple breasts to the pirate crew.” Lowry looked up. “This bitch writer is going to die.”

Mercer chuckled and closed the door to the archive. He took the stairs directly to the street. Because the Jaguar, or what was left of it, was still impounded, he was forced to take a cab back to his house.

Tish and Harry were not home, but a note taped to the television screen in the rec room stated they had gone to Tiny’s bar. Mercer was furious for a moment, but realized that Tish would be just about as safe there as at the house. Before he could join them at Tiny’s he had to place a call to New York City, to set up what he hoped was the beginning of a plan.

Ocean Freight and Cargo, the KGB, or whoever was behind all of this had gotten Mercer into the fight. Now it was time to return the favor.

“O
ur man’s name is Mercer. Dr. Philip Mercer,” Dick Henna announced as he entered the Oval Office.

“About fucking time,” Paul Barnes, the acting head of the CIA, said. There was no love lost between the two men.

Also in the office with the President was Admiral C. Thomas Morrison, the second African-American to be chairman of the joint chiefs in U.S. history and a man who didn’t play coy about possible political aspirations.

“Who is he, Dick?” the President asked.

“He’s a mining consultant, currently working for the USGS. The reason it took so long to ID Mercer was that a cop friend of his impounded his Jaguar at the Anacostia auxiliary lot. If I hadn’t put extra men on the case, we never would have found him.” Henna took a seat. “I can only assume the woman is with him.”

“Why does that name sound familiar to me?” the President said more to himself than the men seated around him.

“Sir,” Barnes spoke up, “he was involved in a CIA operation just prior to the Gulf War. I’m sure his name was mentioned during a briefing by my predecessor.”

“That’s right. I was serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee then.”

“Yes, sir. Dr. Mercer accompanied a small team of Delta Force soldiers into Iraq to investigate their capabilities of mining weapon’s-grade uranium. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that the Iraqis hadn’t obtained any from foreign sources, but we needed to know if the uranium ore mined near Mosul was pure enough to be enriched into plutonium 239. The data Mercer’s team brought back guaranteed that our troops would not face a nuclear threat. That was the last piece of intelligence President Bush needed before commencing Operation Desert Storm.”

“As I recall, there were some losses during that mission,” the President commented.

“Yes, there were. Four of the commandos were killed in an ambush at the mine site. In the debriefing afterward we learned that Dr. Mercer took charge of the remaining force and led them safely out of Iraq.”

“He seems to be a capable man,” the President remarked.

“That’s true, but we’re still left with the question, why did he kidnap Tish Talbot, killing a half-dozen men in the process, including two agents of the FBI sent to protect her.”

“He did not kill my men.” Henna snorted. “The man found dead in the hospital room had blood under his fingernails. It matched the blood of my men on guard down the hall.”

“Then who the hell was the man in the hospital room?” Admiral Morrison asked.

“He’s not in our files,” Henna replied. “But INTERPOL thinks they have a match. They also might be able to identify the bodies found on the street and in the metro. I should know in an hour or so.”

“We still don’t have a why yet, gentlemen,” Barnes said acidly, his scalp an angry red.

“We’ll have Mercer in custody shortly,” Henna snapped. “We just missed him at his office, but I have agents planted around his house in Arlington as of ten minutes ago. When we have him, we will get our why. Oh, there is one more thing. NOAA received a bill from a maritime law firm in Miami—for information that was faxed to Philip Mercer’s house.”

“What was the information?” asked the President.

“We don’t know, sir. We got the runaround from the law office. A court order is being rushed through right now to search their files. We should know what Mercer wanted by late today.”

“I must say that, so far, Dr. Mercer has been a lot smarter than any of us.” The President spoke softly, a sure sign that he was keeping his temper in check. “And if Dr. Talbot is with him, she is probably in more capable hands than ours. So far he has saved her life at least once and managed to elude our best efforts to find him. Now he’s launched an investigation of his own—which seems to have more direction than ours. Am I right?”

The President’s accusation was met by silence.

“When Dr. Mercer is found, I want him brought to me. There will be no charges filed against him. Perhaps he can shed more light on what’s happening in the Pacific. Does anyone have anything else to add?”

“Since our briefing yesterday,” Admiral Morrison said, “I have put our Pacific Fleet on standby alert. Two carrier groups are steaming toward Hawaii from the Coral Sea. The
Kitty Hawk
is in position right now, along with the amphibious assault ship
Inchon
. Both vessels and their support ships are three hundred miles south of Hawaii.”

“I don’t know if they’ll be needed, but it’s a good idea to have some firepower standing by.” The President rubbed his hands against his temples. “Gentlemen, we are right now facing a puzzle with no clues. If Ohnishi is behind the sinking of the
Ocean Seeker
, Dr. Talbot may be the only person who can provide any evidence against him. We must find out what she knows. Until then, we’re playing blindman’s bluff with an enemy who has surfaced twice, but has yet to be seen. That is all.”

The President asked Dick Henna to stay and dismissed Barnes and Morrison. “Dick, since this whole episode is taking place within our borders, you are the man in charge. I want to know, right now, what your opinion is.”

Henna took a few moments to think, then said, truthfully, “I don’t know.”

He let the statement hang in the air for several seconds.

“That note we received a couple days ago wasn’t any different from hundreds of crank letters sent to us every week. Until the
Ocean Seeker
went down, that is. Then we stood up and took notice. Two days later the only survivor was kidnapped by a man who I think is a patriot. He leaves a trail of bodies across the city, requests some type of maritime information from Miami, and requests the seismic records of Hawaii during May of 1954 from the USGS archives. Please don’t ask me why—my top people can’t even come close to figuring that one out. He’s on to something, I have no doubt.”

“Why, though? Why is he even involved?”

“His motivation may be revenge. He was asked to join the NOAA survey crew aboard the
Ocean Seeker
, but he was out of the country. I asked Paul Barnes for the background check the CIA did on him before the mission to Iraq. Maybe there’s something there that’ll help.”

“And what about the letter from Takahiro Ohnishi?”

“Look at any newspaper today and it seems that every small ethnic group in the world is declaring their independence, no matter how long they have coexisted with their neighbors. Africa, Europe, even Asia. Who’s to say we’re immune? The majority of the people of Hawaii are of Japanese ancestry, most of whom have never seen the continental states. Maybe we don’t have the right to govern them with our Western ideas. I don’t know.”

“Dick, do you know what you’re saying?”

“I do, Mr. President. I don’t like it, but I do know what I’m saying. You might be confronted with a situation only once before faced by a President.” Henna stood to go. “But, sir, that situation started a war that lasted five years and caused more deaths than all the wars in American history combined. Lincoln walked away a hero, but maybe only because he was martyred.”

T
akahiro Ohnishi scraped a Frank Lloyd Wright- designed stainless fork across the Limoges plate, piling rich Bernaise sauce around a cut of Kobe beef. He brought the food to his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. Honolulu’s mayor, David Takamora, watched the elderly industrialist with well-hidden distaste.

Ohnishi chewed for several more seconds, then leaned over and spit the thick mass of meat into a silver wine bucket, already a quarter filled with his chewed but indigestible meal. Ohnishi patted his lips delicately and waved a butler over to clear the plates.