Charon's Landing

MV Hope

The heat coming from the central system had a dry, ozone tang that made the cabin smell like an electrical appliance that had just shorted. The antique system rattled every time it cycled water through the creaking pipes, popping so loudly that Aggie, already edgy, jumped when a pipe sounded off like a pistol shot. Outside the porthole, the late afternoon sun was hidden by layers of clouds and a wispy fog. Icy rain pelted the glass, driven by a stiff wind blasting down from the barren reaches of the Arctic Circle. According to the digital thermometer hanging near the cabin door, the outside temperature was twenty-eight degrees, but with the windchill it hovered in the midteens.

It was only the middle of October, and winter had already begun to grip the Land of the Midnight Sun.

The interior of the cabin was a comfortable seventy, but to Aggie it seemed much, much hotter. She’d just finished fifty sit-ups and was now lying on her back, her long legs held at a thirty-degree angle above the floor so that the rippled muscles of her stomach quivered. She’d been working out for two hours doing isometrics, aerobics, and step exercises, using a metal footlocker. She’d done two hundred advance lunges from her fencing lessons, each attack so focused she could almost feel an imaginary blade striking an opponent. Perspiration glossed her body and held her hair plastered to her head. Her sweat shorts and T-shirt clung like a second skin.

Getting up to begin her warm down, Aggie caught her reflection in a wall-mounted mirror. Used to seeing herself after exercising, she wasn’t much concerned with her hair or her clothes or the sweat that dripped from her chin. But her eyes… they still burned with a cold emerald fury. The hours of exercise hadn’t dimmed any of the anger that burned within her.

“Men,” she spat at her reflection.

She’d spent her entire life proving her independence, taking on challenges, facing them and more often than not vanquishing them with relative ease. Her master’s degree was her own, her sleek body, once gawky and angular, was the result of her own effort, her personality validated years of fighting the influences of her parents and their warped lives. She had earned the respect that was her due, paid for it with time and dedicated work. But in the past twenty-four hours she’d been treated as if she were just a piece of furniture, or maybe a pet.

“Screw them both!”

Jan, with his mysterious errand and his ravings about making oil so repugnant no one would want to use it ever again. Mercer, with his patronizing order to leave Alaska for her own safety. This wasn’t the nineteenth century, and she wasn’t some simpering damsel needing to be rescued. They both acted as if they knew what was best, as if her wishes and her opinion meant nothing. Jesus Christ!

For all practical purposes, Jan had raped her last night. The man who wanted her hand in marriage had forced himself on her with little regard for her feelings at all. She could have been an inflatable doll for all he cared, a masturbatory toy. She’d thought she loved him — his mind and feelings were so similar to hers — but now she saw, for the first time, how different he was. She’d known all along about his ego and self-absorption, but now she saw how driven he was by them. Even thinking about him made her uncomfortable, as if some multilegged insect was crawling across her flesh.

And what of Mercer, with his testosterone-charged assault this morning, guns drawn and orders shouted, as if they were storming some highjacked airliner? And his threatening to arrest everyone on his authority? He should have done it; everyone on the Hope was willing to go to jail for their beliefs. This was just another way for him to patronize her. A little slap on the wrist for the trust-fund environmentalist. Be careful, Aggie, she could almost hear his voice. You’re playing with grown-ups now, and we don’t want you to get hurt.

Hey, I’m an adult too, she thought bitterly. I know what I’m doing. A month shy of her thirty-second birthday and he was treating her like a six-year-old. So many men in her life had taken that attitude with her, treated her like some precious object that must be protected at all cost. Her father, especially, had hidden his problems with her mother until it was too late, fearing that a divorce or even a separation would hurt Aggie too much. That was a laugh. Like her mother’s suicide wouldn’t bother her?

And what in the hell did Mercer mean by “I want to be able to say I hate you too, but I can’t”?

To her amazement, Aggie saw her eyes soften in the mirror, the tension in her face easing, and the scowl almost but not quite becoming a smile.

She knew what he meant.

“All right, Dr. Mercer, you’re going to get what you want.” Aggie spoke aloud, steel in her voice. “I’m going to leave. I’m going to leave Jan and Alaska and, most especially, I’m going to leave you. But not before I have my say and put a stop to this silly crush that should have ended years ago.”

When Jan and she had talked about marriage, he had not given her a diamond ring. He’d said that he could not condone the devastation caused by mining and thus would not help the industry by buying into their popularist notion that a diamond signifies a lasting love. The ring he had given her as an engaged-to-be-engaged present was fashioned from antler. It seemed quaint and appropriate for what they both believed. She dug it out of her luggage, its tiny velvet box too elaborate for the simple beige bauble.

“You’re a cheap bastard,” Aggie scoffed and left it on Jan’s desk, the lid open as if the little box was laughing.

She took a shower and dressed, hiding her wet hair under a baseball cap. She packed a few things into a knapsack, ignoring most of the clothing and “essentials” she’d brought with her to Alaska. She’d buy what she needed when she got to San Diego, the home of an old college friend. Aggie just wanted to leave everything behind: Jan, Mercer, PEAL, this whole wasted year of her life. She’d played close to the edge, and it was time to return to normalcy.

Aggie knew the name of Mercer’s hotel from the dinner receipt she’d found in his jacket pocket. She thought about calling him but decided surprise would be much more effective.

Mercer lay against the headboard of his hotel bed, the television bringing him a great college football game between Florida State and Georgia. It was the third quarter, the score only ten to fourteen, both defenses able to thwart numerous well-executed drives just short of field goal range. A beer rested within reach on the nightstand, a thick ring of condensation surrounding the smoky bottle of ale like a medieval moat.

Taking a sip, he flashed a look at his watch and hoped that the rest of the waning afternoon would pass quietly. Since the raid, Mercer hadn’t strayed more than a few feet from his phone, fervently wishing it wouldn’t ring but knowing it would.

He was having that feeling again. Something was very wrong. Jan Voerhoven not being aboard the Hope was just the most obvious sign, but there were others, things he couldn’t explain, even to himself. Mercer ran through the connections again, the little things that made him so certain. This kind of second-guessing was unnecessary and dangerous, but it was also his nature to keep working at a problem, no matter how easy the solution seemed to be.

It started with tons of liquid nitrogen being smuggled into the state. Why? Who would do it and for what purpose? Second, the most radical environmental group in the world is already in Alaska, its leader missing on some mysterious mission that his girlfriend didn’t know about. Then there was Ivan Kerikov, an international terrorist or, more accurately, a terror broker. A man with no loyalty except to himself but with seemingly unlimited resourcefulness. He was in Alaska, too, with a couple of Arabs. What was their role in all of this?

Now what would a former KGB agent, a couple of Arab henchmen, and an environmental group do with liquid nitrogen on the eve of the opening of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge? The presence of even one of these elements was enough to give pause. But there was more.

Aggie’s disclosure about her father, for one thing. She asserted that Max Johnston knew what time she’d been at his house, the exact moment of a devastating attack that only Harry White’s timely interruption had prevented from turning into a massacre. Was Max connected somehow? Wasn’t it one of his tankers that had been late arriving at the Alyeska Terminal to take on her cargo of Prudhoe Bay crude? Was that even significant?

Mercer shifted on the bed to reach for the phone. He wanted to call Dave Saulman in Miami. He wanted the marine lawyer to give him an update on that tanker. It was a long shot, a potential wild-goose chase, but sometimes wild geese lay golden eggs. His hand was only an inch from the phone when there was a loud knock on his door. He got up, and when he opened the door, he took a quick pace backward. Aggie Johnston wore jeans, a sweater, and her olive anorak. A baseball cap covered her head, tendrils of hair as delicate as silk threads falling down past her ears. She carried his leather jacket under one arm. Behind her angry expression, he saw a deeper emotion, a secret place that she didn’t know existed, for surely she’d have tried to hide it from him. She was hurting, he knew, and scared. Mercer’s heart slammed in his chest.

Her voice was brittle. “I need to say a few things to you.”

“Do you really?” He had to force his voice to remain neutral.

Aggie pushed her way into the room, closing the door behind her. “I just want you to know that I’m leaving Alaska and I’m leaving Jan.”

“Why?” There was an intrigued smile on Mercer’s face.

“Why what? Why am I leaving?”

“No, why are you telling me?” Mercer’s smile deepened as he saw the uncomfortable play of emotions on Aggie’s face. It was clear she hadn’t expected that question.

“I just want to,” Aggie replied, flustered. “I’ve had enough. Enough of Jan with his ego and his condescension and you with your overblown hero act.”

“It’s not an act,” Mercer teased.

“Goddamn it, Philip, is everything a joke to you?” Aggie’s use of his first name surprised him as much as it did her. Suddenly the room was an intimate place charged with something palpable.

“No, Aggie.” His voice took on a tenderness he’d never shown her before. “I don’t think Kerikov is a joke, or your ex-boyfriend. I don’t think the attacks on my house were a joke, or the deaths of Howard Small and his cousins. None of this is a joke. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“And what about us?” Aggie asked so quietly he hardly heard her.

It was his turn to be startled by a question he’d not expected. Before he could respond she turned back to the door, dragging her eyes away from his.

“Never mind,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. It’s all over for me — PEAL, Jan, and even my crush on you.”

She was reaching for the door when Mercer called out her name. He couldn’t let her go and his desire thickened his voice. It was the first time that neither of them was on the defensive. They faced each other not as adversaries but as a man and a woman who were ready to admit a strong attraction, two minds coming together as surely as their two bodies wanted.

Aggie came across the room, stripping off her jacket. She crashed into him with enough force to push him back against the bed, her hands clutching at the sides of his head, pulling his mouth to hers, crushing his lips savagely.

Mercer’s arms circled her body, one hand pulling her T-shirt out from her jeans, the other tracing up the smooth skin of her back to rest against her slim neck. She pulled him tighter to her body as if trying to burrow into his embrace like a frightened animal, yet there was nothing timid about her tongue, which roamed his mouth with slick, velvety strokes.

Their movements were feverish, hands never resting, urged onward by the desire to explore, caress, possess. Without conscious thought, they fell onto the bed, the comforter adding to the sliding movement of their bodies as they pressed against each other, their lips parting only enough to emit low moans and gasps.

“Why?” asked Mercer with reverent curiosity.

“Shut up, this is what we both want.” She grasped his buttocks, pulling him to her.

Aggie’s shirt was tangled up around her throat. She wriggled free for the instant it took to shed the cotton garment. She wore no bra, and Mercer’s glimpse of her breasts brought him to the height of sexual tension. As if willed on their own, his hands could not be denied. One palm found her left breast, cupping it fully, the tips of his fingers extending along the cage of her ribs. Her breasts were small, almost girlish, peaked with tiny flushed nipples no larger than nickels.

He had always been self-conscious about his hands when it came to touching a woman’s body. They were callused and scarred by a lifetime of physical labor, his palms like the horned skin of some desert reptile. His fingers were so hardened that the joints resembled chinks in medieval armor. When his skin raked against Aggie’s breast, she broke the kiss and cried out. Mercer pulled his hand back immediately, fearing that he’d hurt her, but just as quickly Aggie pressed it back with her own, scraping the rough palm against her most sensitive flesh, increasing the tempo in time with her labored breathing.

“Oh, my God,” she managed to squeak into Mercer’s mouth.

Aggie pulled his hand from her chest and guided it to the juncture of her thighs. Even through the layer of denim, Mercer could feel the wet. He tore at the button fly of her jeans with mindless abandon, all thoughts blocked except for his desire. As his fingers worked the fastening, his mouth came in contact with her breast, his tongue washing over it, stiffening its tip until it looked like an overripe raspberry, sweet and alluring. The final button came undone. Her panties were just a soaked wisp of silk, deeply clefted by her arousal.

The phone rang, its chime as intrusive as a church bell.

Never in his life did Mercer want to ignore a call so much, but he knew he couldn’t. He pulled himself off Aggie angrily, looking down at her as the phone purred again. The confusion on her face was the most painful thing Mercer had ever seen. Forcing himself to ignore it, he picked up the receiver. “Hello.”

“Mercer, Mike Collins at the terminal.” Mercer pictured Alyeska’s Chief of Security, the calm watchful eyes of a former cop, the long jagged scar of a former soldier.

“I’ve been expecting your call,” he said bitterly, watching Aggie dressing again, her back to him.

“Andy Lindstrom thought you might. All hell has broken loose. We got some sort of riot at our principal depot in Fairbanks, and all the computers at the terminal are locked out. Andy asked me to give you a call. Since you knew something was going to happen, you got any ideas?”

“I’m on my way over. Have you called the authorities yet?” Mercer watched Aggie struggle into her jacket. She looked at him for a moment and then she was gone, closing the door quietly behind her. Mercer couldn’t stop her, and he realized that she hadn’t wanted him to. Aggie had made her choice, while Mercer had none. He sadly turned his full concentration back to Collins.

“Not yet, at least not about our computer thing. It was the cops who called us about the trouble up in Fairbanks. Seems some sort of protest at the depot’s main gates has gotten out of hand. According to the Fairbanks police, it’s not PEAL but some natives’ rights group, jawing about us swiping sacred land.”

“Don’t worry about the riot. It’s not important.” Mercer had the phone clamped between his shoulder and his head, freeing his hands to lace up his boots. He gave Dick Henna’s personal cellular phone number to Collins. “Call him, tell him who you are, and tell him I want Elmendorf Air Force Base put on alert.”

“Why? You just said the riot in Fairbanks is nothing. Just a bunch of ’skimo lovers getting a little rowdy, is all. I’ve already got some of my security people from farther up the TAPline en route. It’ll be dispersed within a couple of hours.”

“Yeah, but when your men are chasing at shadows, Kerikov is going to make his real attack somewhere else and your security people won’t be near enough to deal with it,” Mercer said sharply. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

There was no sign of Aggie in the parking lot as he fired up his Blazer. And unless he went looking for her later on, he knew he would never see her again. An emptiness formed in the pit of his stomach, though he felt this was probably for the best.

Aggie had waited in the vending machine alcove a few doors down from Mercer’s room. She watched him leave through tear-blurred eyes. Giving back Jan’s ring had been a definitive act of closure, ending their relationship and her affiliation with PEAL. She’d wanted the same from Mercer, a final moment together to satisfy all the questions she had about him and about them. But it hadn’t happened. Once again, they hung in some sort of limbo, neither enemies nor lovers. She knew now that she’d come here to sleep with him and purge herself of her feelings. Because that hadn’t happened, her feelings were even stronger than before. Somehow, by not making love, she’d managed to prolong the possibility of a relationship. But watching him walk down the hall, his purposeful strides carrying him farther and farther away, she felt her chest ache. Tears finally spilled from her eyes.

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.”

Mercer looked through the open miniblinds covering the window behind Lindstrom’s desk. Twilight was just a few minutes away. It would be totally dark soon after. Rain fell in silvery channels down the glass. “We need to get up there.”

“That’s five hundred miles north of us.”

“Then let’s not sit here and discuss mileage,” Mercer snapped. “You must have a chopper with that kind of range?”

“Yeah, but…” Lindstrom was obviously out of his element. He had a crisis on his hands and didn’t realize it. Mercer moved easily into the vacuum created by his hesitancy.

“Mike, call up those Pump Stations. Make sure everything is okay.”

“They can be accessed through the computer,” Collins pointed out.

“The computer’s down, or had you forgotten? And the majority of the men working those stations have been called away to Fairbanks and are now dead. I need you to make sure that the men they left behind are still alive.”

Collins immediately recognized the possibility that the three apparently separate situations were linked. He raced from the room to make those calls from his own office.

“Andy, contact your pilot and have him file an emergency flight plan to get us to the Dalton Highway. I’m going out to your receptionist’s desk to call Elmendorf. We’re going to need them.” Mercer was already headed for the door.

“What’s happening?” Lindstrom was visibly shaken now.

“World War Three.”