Charon's Landing

MV Hope

The wooden steps slung from the side of the research ship could be lowered from the main deck to water level like a medieval drawbridge. The men and women waited in the Zodiacs with the anticipation of marauding Saxons eager to storm a Norman castle, ready for their party to continue aboard their ship. Aggie went up with them, mindful that the graphite strips on each tread were slicked by a chilly fog. She did not share the high spirits of the other activists.

She was carried up the last few steps by a big Norwegian student nearly ten years her junior who laughed as he set her on the deck with a gallant flourish. His hair was almost as white as his toothy grin. She tried to smile back, but everything suddenly began to feel unreal, as if she shouldn’t be here, as if this was no longer her world.

The feeling of disquiet clung to her as she entered the main salon, grateful for the heat blasting from the ventilators. It was only then that she realized she was still wearing Mercer’s bomber jacket. She brought the collar to her nose and inhaled the rich aroma of worn leather, a trace of his musky aftershave, and the unmistakable scent of the man himself. The smell was pleasing, comforting. She shed the jacket, tossing it over her chair in a quick guilty gesture as if those around her somehow knew what she’d just been feeling.

She felt disconnected from the party that was continuing around her, barely acknowledging the bottle of beer that was put in front of her or the animated chatter of the people. She wondered if she’d been away too long and just needed a little time to reacclimate herself to their boisterous lifestyle. Or had she changed in the month since she’d last been aboard the Hope, when she’d been part of this extended family?

Certainly things in her life had affected her — Burt Manning’s death, her father’s possible connection. And Mercer. She absently fingered the rough texture of his coat, finding the leather scarred and worn like its owner.

She’d felt absolutely powerless when the man in the bar had grabbed her and began to grope. He could have raped her right there and she doubted anyone would have noticed in the confusion. And then, suddenly, Mercer was there, like the hero of the trashy romance novels she’d read as a girl. How he had come to be there she still didn’t know, but she was grateful. Not that she’d shown it. The conflicting emotions he generated were almost too much to take. He attracted her with an irresistible magnetism, yet whenever they were together, he managed to infuriate her with just a few words or even a look.

She wondered if she lashed out at him because of her own insecurities, wanting to build a wall between them. Aggie knew she shouldn’t even be thinking about Mercer in this way. She loved Jan and hoped one day to be his wife. She had no answers, just a vague sense of falling into something much bigger than she could handle.

Aggie lit a cigarette and got up mechanically, ignoring the party and the beer that sat in a clear pool of condensation on the table’s Formica top. Jan hadn’t been aboard the Hope when she’d arrived in Valdez. She knew she should have waited for him to return instead of joining the party. She hadn’t seen him in a month, and should be looking forward to their rendezvous. But she felt hollow, like a fragile shell that would crack with only a slight touch.

She walked blankly down the corridor in the direction of Jan’s large stateroom, cursing herself for her lack of resolve. She’d always known what she’d wanted and always gotten it. But now? God, I hate this, she thought. She knocked timidly on his cabin door and entered without waiting.

Jan sat behind his desk, wearing a heavy sweater despite the warmth of the cabin. It was obvious that he hadn’t been aboard very long, otherwise he would have changed, for he had an aversion to heat. There were papers strewn across his desk, and his head was bowed in concentration over them, a pen poised to strike if needed. He scribbled a furious notation before finally looking up, smiling when he saw Aggie standing at the door, her body partly shielded behind it as if awaiting punishment. He was so beautiful to her.

“Aggie! Oh, my God, I’m so glad to see you.” He came from around the desk, his long arms opening wide, crushing her to him tightly. He tilted her face up to his, pressing his lips to hers. When she didn’t respond, he backed off slightly. “What’s wrong, my darling?”

“Oh, Jan.” Aggie paused, not sure herself what was wrong. “I was so scared tonight. You heard about the fight at the bar.”

“Yes, I was already told. Heinz and Pierre are both in jail until morning on a drunk and disorderly charge. Someone said you were almost molested but some local managed to sneak you out the back door. It must have been terrible.”

“Yes,” Aggie replied simply, relieved that Jan didn’t suspect that there was something else on her mind.

“I wish I’d known you were coming to Alaska early. I would have met you in Anchorage. Why didn’t you call me?” Voerhoven held her at arm’s length, looking deeply into her impossibly green eyes.

“I didn’t know myself. I kind of came here on the spur of the moment.” She didn’t mention the panic that had precipitated her flight from Washington.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. I’m just glad you’re here.” Jan smiled at her, his intentions evident in the huskiness of his voice.

“Please, Jan, not tonight. I know I haven’t seen you for so long, but I just don’t feel right. Clean, I mean. That man…” Her voice trailed off.

“Oh, darling, that’s not what I meant. Well, partially that’s what I meant. But listen, great things are about to happen here. Things that I want you to witness, to be a part of.”

Suddenly Mercer’s warning flashed in her head. “What things, Jan?”

“Aggie, we’re about to strike a real blow against the fascist corporations whose greed is destroying the planet.”

“My father’s included?” She didn’t mean to sound like she was defending her father, but her tone was harsh and accusatory.

“We’ve talked about that,” Voerhoven said, holding up his hands as if warding off a physical assault. “I thought you understood that he has always been one of our fiercest adversaries. Petromax is one of the most ruthless exploiters in the world. I thought you were okay with what we are doing. You’ve said countless times how you want to get back at him. Now is your chance! We’re on the verge of something great here, something that will save Alaska and maybe the rest of the world as well. In the next couple of days we are going to force the world to live without oil, Aggie. Don’t you know what that means?”

“No, Jan, what does it mean?” she replied sharply. The spell he could so easily weave around her seemed no longer to hold her enraptured. For the first time she was seeing him for what he was, not what she wanted to see. What has Mercer done to me? she thought.

“You’ll understand when we’re finished. You will see. We are about to save the planet from its greatest scourge, its thirst for oil.”

Again Aggie found herself thinking about Mercer’s words. “What will you replace it with?”

“What?” Jan asked tenderly.

“If you shut off the world’s oil, how will you supply energy for schools and hospitals, provide jobs for the millions of people who depend on oil for their livelihoods?” Aggie shook herself free from his embrace.

“Aggs, I’m not going to shut off the world’s supply of oil. I’m going to make it such a repugnant source of energy that no one will want to use it.”

“What are you talking about?”

He took her into his arms again, pressing his engorged groin against her body, his hands traveling the length of her back in fervent strokes. “Later, Aggie.” He kissed the hollow of her throat, his tongue deftly stroking one of her most sensitive areas.

“Jan, please. I told you.”

He ignored her pleas. “Aggie, I haven’t seen you in so long. God, I want you.”

She felt herself being maneuvered out of the office portion of his cabin and into his stateroom. Allowed herself to be maneuvered, she thought, for she could have resisted. If he felt the stiffness of her body, he ignored it.

At his bedside, he laid her gently on the eiderdown duvet. “You are so beautiful,” he breathed, his face flushed with desire.

“Jan, please don’t,” Aggie whispered. Why was this happening? Why was she allowing this to take place? As much as she wanted to stop him, part of her mind told her she owed him. And even as she thought it, she knew it was wrong. She owed him nothing.

He unsnapped the top button of her jeans and slowly pulled down the zipper. She made no move to help him, nor did she try to stop him either. His hands were so familiar on her body, caressing her narrow hips, tracking across her breasts. Didn’t she owe him? They’d been lovers for nearly a year. Surely this was right.

He undressed himself and a moment later entered her painfully, for her body had not responded to his advances. He seemed not to notice. He covered her completely, his nude form supported by his hands as he pistoned up and down, head arched back, eyes closed. He came, burying his head into her shoulder in a silent explosion.

Aggie felt like a whore.

Mercer made it back to his hotel room about midnight, his mind cleared, his raging emotions of an hour earlier kept firmly reined in. He was frozen to the core. Having surrendered his jacket to Aggie, he’d had to walk to his hotel in nothing more than a shirt, and this was not the weather for it. He thought of taking a shower, but a quick check of the time told him that he should make his call before turning to his body’s needs.

He dialed and was surprised that four rings went by before the other end of the line was picked up by a gruff, “What?”

“Evening, Dick, Mercer here.”

“Jesus Christ, Mercer, where in the hell are you?” Henna exploded. “I’ve got an entire task force searching for you right now.”

“Come on, Dick. I’m at the Willard Hotel, where you left me,” Mercer replied innocently.

“Laugh it up, funny guy,” Henna snorted. “You’re going to get the bill for all the booze Harry smuggled from the hotel. Now, where are you?”

“Valdez, Alaska.”

“I told you to stay away from Alaska. Are you deaf or something?”

“Come on, Dick. The coelacanths are on their spawning runs. The fishing’s supposed to be great.”

“For your information, coelacanths are found only in the Indian Ocean.”

“That’s why I haven’t caught one yet,” Mercer laughed. “I thought I was using the wrong bait.”

“Okay, so you’re in Alaska,” Henna said with resignation. “What have you found?”

“Nothing concrete, yet, but I’ve got my suspicions,” Mercer replied. “By the way, Dick, where are you?”

“I’m at the White House with the President and the Secretary of Energy. Care to talk to either of them?”

“Tell Connie that she should ditch those sensible shoes she’s wearing.”

Mercer heard Connie Van Buren’s distinct laughter and knew Henna had put his cellular on speaker mode.

“How are you doing with Max Johnston’s daughter?” Van Buren called. “I saw you two leaving the reception together.”

“You know me and women, Connie,” Mercer chuckled. “She hates my guts. Listen, Dick, I need a favor.”

“What else is new?”

“You know that group PEAL? The environmentalists? Well, I think they may be up to something here.”

“That’s not the way we’re reading it on this end, Mercer. We’re tracking the Kerikov angle to what’s happening. PEAL doesn’t fit in.”

“I just watched a few of them tear apart a barroom full of rednecks. These guys moved like a trained army. Not your typical style for a bunch of earth-loving druid wanna-bes.”

“If you’d listen, I was about to say we’ve found Ivan Kerikov,” Henna exclaimed. “And he appears to be working with some Middle Eastern types, not a group of trust-fund radicals.”

“What do you have?” The last traces of humor vanished from Mercer’s voice.

“We tracked his false passport to the Holiday Inn Tower Hotel in Anchorage. He took three different rooms. A suite for himself and two other rooms for what sound like bodyguards. The staff remembered that three of the guards, Arabs, and a man matching Kerikov’s description did leave the hotel for a couple of days. The time frame corresponds with when Howard Small vanished. Unfortunately, when we raided the hotel this morning, we missed them by a couple of hours. The whole party had already checked out.”

“Shit,” Mercer said bitterly. “Wait, did he make any calls?”

“Dead end there, too, I’m afraid. He did make a couple, but they turned out to be a private manual exchange in New York.”

“A what?”

“It’s like a dead letter drop only for telephone calls. You phone the place and they patch you through to another line using an old manual PBX, that way any traces end with the exchange, not with the person you’re trying to reach. KGB used them for years in this country.”

“It still doesn’t add up. More than two hundred tons of liquid nitrogen have been smuggled into Alaska over the past couple of months. Kerikov is going to need more than a few Arabs and a couple of bodyguards to do anything with it.”

“And you think PEAL is somehow involved?” It was the unmistakable voice of the President, who’d been listening to the conversation.

“Yes, sir, I do. I don’t have any proof, but they make me suspicious as hell.”

“What do you want done?” Henna asked.

“Search their ship, find out if the liquid nitrogen is aboard or if they have any special type of refrigeration units, something they could have used to store the stuff. Arrest them all if you find even a goddamn ice cream machine. I know they’re involved.”

“Mercer, I can’t just go around seizing ships flying foreign flags.”

“Come on, Dick, you control the goddamn FBI. Surely you can think of something to get men aboard the Hope. Use the cover of health inspectors checking for Brazilian crotch lice, I don’t know. Anything.”

“If you’re wrong about this, your ass is going to be in a sling,” Henna threatened.

“I thought it already was for coming to Alaska in the first place,” Mercer quipped.

“All right, what else do you have?”

“Nothing. Or maybe everything. I found out that Burt Manning used to work for Max Johnston. And Johnston knew exactly what time the attack on my house took place.”

“What are you saying?” The President sensed a scandal immediately. He’d just played a round of golf with Johnston.

“I don’t know, sir, but I just spoke with his daughter and he’s got her pretty spooked.”

“Mercer,” Connie Van Buren chimed over the speaker phone, “you don’t think Johnston’s involved? He’s got more at stake in Alaska than almost anyone.”

“I agree with you, Connie. That’s why I’m not sure yet if he’s in any way connected. It’s just a piece of information I picked up and wanted to pass along.”

“We’ll check out the Hope for you, but I want you back in Washington ASAP,” Henna interrupted.

“I will, Dick,” Mercer said seriously. “But I want to be part of the team that boards the Hope.”

“This is a federal matter. You’re just a civilian.”

“Come on, give this civilian some credit. I may have given you a lead, while the couple hundred agents you’ve got bumbling around the state haven’t turned up anything.”

“Dr. Mercer, I’ll make sure you are part of the assault, but only as an observer.” The President’s tone was cool and neutral. “However, I want your personal guarantee that you will be on the next plane back to Washington afterward.”

“Trust me,” Mercer said.

Richard Henna shut off his cellular when he realized that Mercer was gone and leaned back heavily into his chair. He and Connie Van Buren were seated before the President in the Oval Office. While they were dressed casually, there was a stiff formality in the air.

They had been here for almost two hours, discussing the implementation of the President’s energy policy and Henna’s involvement to ensure that it went through smoothly. None of the more powerful Washington insiders were naive enough to believe that there wouldn’t be serious recriminations, both nationally and internationally, for what the President had proposed. Oil companies and environmental groups weren’t the only players who saw themselves threatened by the proposed isolationist move.

A large number of the oil-producing nations saw this as one more step in the American plan to destroy their way of life, and they were currently meeting in London. Militant factions within OPEC could threaten and browbeat the United States because they still held a powerful economic weapon. The three people seated around the large desk had to make sure that possible reprisals never touched America’s shores.

“That son of a bitch,” Henna said fondly as he strode to a sideboard near one wall that acted as a small bar. He poured a heavy dose of Scotch into a glass and downed it in one easy swallow.

“Why do you say that?” Connie asked.

“Because he knows more than we do. Again. I swear to God, he creates these crises just to make me look bad,” Henna said tiredly. “But I don’t think you handled that very well, Mr. President.”

“Why not?” The chief executive bristled.

“Because he might actually follow your order and come home, and we’d lose the best man we have in Alaska.”

“What about the rest of your agents, two or three hundred of them, I believe?” Connie asked.

“I’ve got two hundred agents who’ve turned up nothing. I’ve had men following FedEx delivery people if a package looks suspicious. That’s how desperate I am. In just a couple of days, Mercer has given us more leads than my entire staff combined. None of my men have his scientific qualifications or the savvy to make the connections he does. Mercer knows what liquid nitrogen can do and what it could be used for while I’ve got a lot of eager men with short haircuts and linebacker attitudes waiting to kick down doors and crack skulls. None of them are piecing this thing together the way Mercer is. He’s our best asset in Alaska, and if he decides to head home, we may all pay the price for it.”

“Dick, I’ve known Mercer even longer than you,” Connie Van Buren said. “Don’t you think you’re giving him just a little bit too much credit?”

“Connie, you weren’t part of the Hawaii crisis,” the President replied sagely. “Nothing Mercer does could surprise me anymore.” He turned to Henna. “Do you think there is anything to his suspicions of PEAL and Max Johnston?”

“PEAL, maybe. Their leader is one pathological bastard.” Henna fell back into his chair. “But Johnston, no way. The guy is true blue all the way.”

“Dick.” The President’s voice was heavy with the gravity of the situation. “We both know Philip Mercer. He bailed my ass out of that Hawaiian incident. If he’s suspicious, well, so am I. Do a little digging on Johnston. Quietly.”