Havoc

Arlington, Virginia

“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.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Cali said. They both downed their cocktails and as Cali went behind the bar to recharge their glasses she said, “There’s something I don’t understand.”

“What’s that?” Mercer asked.

“We’re pretty sure the Janissaries sank the Wetherby on the Niagara River but we discounted them being behind the destruction of the Hindenburg. Was it the Russians who blew it up or the Nazis themselves who sabotaged it?”

“I’m afraid that’s one more mystery piled up on all the rest. Hell, it really could have been an accident after all.”

“You don’t really believe that.”

“Not really. I’ve never liked coincidences. Someone wanted to stop Chester Bowie from telling the world about the plutonium. We’ll just never know who.”