Vulcan's Forge

Bangkok, Thailand

The Scotch in Ivan Kerikov’s glass was quickly diluting as the ice melted under the onslaught of the Asian heat. The tumbler was jeweled with condensation and the small napkin on the Royal River Hotel’s table was sodden. Kerikov took another heavy swallow of the questionable Scotch, mindful of water dripping from the napkin that clung to the glass.

He had been in Bangkok now for two uneventful days, basking in the delights of his hotel, the venerable Oriental, where he had taken a suite in the original Author’s Wing, and indulging in carnal vices on Pat Pong Road, Bangkok’s famous red light district. He had also spent some of that time contemplating his hurried escape from Moscow, wondering if he had been too rash in executing the KGB auditor in his office. Hindsight said that he should have suffered through the little man’s investigation and left afterward, but killing him had given Kerikov the sense of completion that he needed before he fled his homeland.

His leaving Russia was never in doubt, but the abruptness of his departure left a few loose ends that he now could never tie up. “So be it,” he mused lightly, and ordered another Scotch from the attractive waitress. He had reason to be in a good spirit and regrets for the past would not be allowed to dampen it.

Last night he had been contacted by Dr. Borodin from aboard the August Rose. Borodin reported that he had a definite location for the volcano’s summit and it was nearly a thousand meters beyond Hawaii’s two-hundred-mile limit. The news was like a yoke removed from Kerikov’s shoulders.

When Dr. Borodin had first proposed Vulcan’s Forge forty years before, his selection for the most optimal geologic site did not take into account any political considerations. The area he chose had the right combination of natural volcanism, ocean depth, temperature, salinity, and currents as well as some native minerals that were necessary. Unfortunately this spot was forty miles from Oahu. Because this site was obviously unusable, Borodin had cut his margin as fine as possible, detonating his device as far from the Hawaiian Islands as he could without jeopardizing the results of his work.

At the time, Hawaii’s entrance into the United States was a forgone conclusion, giving her the territorial rights afforded a sovereign nation rather than those of a colony or protectorate. Yet Borodin’s calculations demanded that the explosion had to take place within that two-hundred-mile demarcation if Vulcan’s Forge was to succeed. Boris Ulinev trusted Borodin’s assertion that oceanic currents would skew the volcano enough so that it would surface outside the limit, yet the wily head of Scientific Operations hedged his bet by initiating an audacious contingency plan.

He selected a young Japanese-born American, an adolescent with a tortured background but an incredible mind. He surreptitiously groomed him, guiding him from afar through university and into business. Using the massive support of the KGB, Ulinev shepherded wealth and power to this young man for many years, all the while introducing him to people who shaped his personality and goals. This shaping was done subtly over many years and continued even after Ulinev had died and left Department 7 in the care of others.

The end result was the fanatical racist and megalomaniac, Takahiro Ohnishi. He had become a global industrialist with a far-flung empire and had unwittingly been programmed his entire life to attempt to break Hawaii away from the United States if Scientific Operations ever decided that was necessary for the success of Vulcan’s Forge.

Kerikov, when he took over Department 7, had read about Ulinev’s original contingency plan and inwardly cringed. He knew from experience that humans were easy to program, especially considering the extraordinary depth given in Ohnishi’s case. Yet experience also showed that controlling those who had been so programmed was difficult at best. They often became active without authority, or did not activate at all when called upon. The idea of a “Manchurian Candidate” worked well for fiction writers but not for true spy masters.

Kerikov was relieved now that this phase of Ulinev’s original plan was no longer needed. Borodin’s call confirmed that a revolution in Hawaii was no longer necessary to ensure they would be able to control the volcano. And although the KGB had spent millions of dollars creating Ohnishi, Kerikov really didn’t care about the write-off. The volcano was outside American influence and within his personal grasp.

Eight months earlier, Borodin, on a regular pass-by of the burgeoning volcano aboard the August Rose, had reported that it would most likely crest outside the two-hundred-mile line yet he would not have conclusive proof for some time. Kerikov seized that moment to enact a contingency plan of his own.

With one million dollars in cash and a promissory note of an additional five million dollars, Kerikov bought someone high up in Ohnishi’s personal staff to report on all of the eccentric billionaire’s activities. If the coup in Hawaii was unnecessary, Kerikov wanted to ensure that Ohnishi would not continue his end of the plan. The mole was his insurance that Ohnishi could be controlled. Permanently, if necessary.

At the same time, Kerikov set into motion a plot to steal the wealth of the volcano for himself. Had the Soviet Union remained the world power that it had been when Dr. Borodin launched Vulcan’s Forge, Kerikov would have been proud to turn over the marvelous achievement to his superiors. But the decades since then had seen Russia degenerate into a Third World country, a nation whose very survival depended on loan guarantees from America and Western Europe.

After quietly capitulating the Cold War in 1989, Russia had suffered a cruel peace. She was turning into a market for goods and a source of raw materials, much the way Europe had once treated the backwaters of Asia and Africa. In just a few years, the Soviet Union had toppled from superpower to colony, and the decline was far from over.

Watching dispassionately as his nation rotted, Kerikov decided that if he could not save the Rodina, then perhaps the Motherland could save him. Since Russia no longer possessed either the political clout or the financial resources to develop Vulcan’s Forge, Kerikov opened negotiations with a group of men who could.

The nine members of Hydra Consolidated, a Korean-based holding company representing billions of dollars of real estate, manufacturing, and electronics, recognized the value of Vulcan’s Forge when Kerikov approached them. They did not balk at the one-hundred-million-dollar price tag that he attached to the volcano and its unusual riches, for the strategic element being produced in the charnel guts of the volcano would make its possessor the most powerful force on earth, in both the literal and figurative sense.

Just a week after initiating talks with the Koreans, Kerikov learned of the proposed meetings in Thailand to discuss the Spratly Island situation. Sensing that the Bangkok Accords could aid his plan, Kerikov pulled in some favors and employed a little bribery and blackmail to get Gennady Perchenko assigned as the Russian delegate to the meeting. He also managed to get the Taiwanese ambassador to act on his behalf in return for some information that would ensure Minister Tren the prime minister’s office whenever he wanted it.

Even before the accord meetings began, Kerikov knew how he would use his two agents-in-place to solidify possession of the volcano when it crested through the Pacific swells.

When his second Scotch arrived, he glanced at the Piaget watch on his wrist. Perchenko would arrive at any moment. Kerikov looked at the maître d’. It was his first night here at the Royal River, yet he seemed comfortable in his job.

The regular man hadn’t arrived for work this afternoon. His body was secured to several cement blocks in a canal about ten miles from the city.

An hour after receiving the confirmation from Borodin, Kerikov had killed the maître d’ as the ultimate insurance that he would never discuss his dealings with the Russian delegate to the Bangkok Accords. After dispatching the young Thai, Kerikov phoned his sociopathic assistant, Evad Lurbud, in Cairo and ordered him to commence his housekeeping. This would mean killing an Egyptian arms merchant and then flying to Hawaii to take care of Takahiro Ohnishi and Kerikov’s mole.

Kerikov might have left behind some loose ends when he fled Russia, but he’d be damned if there would be any from the final gambit of Vulcan’s Forge. In just a few days, he’d be spending the one hundred million dollars from the Koreans and there wouldn’t be a soul left alive who would know how he got it.

Kerikov spotted Gennady Perchenko leaping from a Riva River taxi onto the quay of the Royal River. In a moment, the new maître d’ would guide the diplomat to his final briefing.