Vulcan's Forge

Arlington, Virginia

As soon as Tish entered the rec room of Mercer’s house, she threw herself onto the leather couch with an exhausted sigh.

“You didn’t talk much on the way back from the White House,” she said, not looking at Mercer. “You must be exhausted. I’ve been asleep for most of the day, but you haven’t slept in thirty-six hours.”

“Closer to forty,” replied Mercer from behind the bar. He was making a pot of his barely potable coffee. “Want some coffee?”

“Are you crazy?” Tish sat up and looked at him. “Go to bed; you’re dead on your feet.”

Mercer let the coffeemaker drip directly into a mug before sliding the glass pot under the nozzle. He was about to take a sip, thought for a moment, then poured a dram of Scotch into the cup. The first taste was sublime.

“I’m afraid it’ll be a while before I sleep. We have to talk.”

The tone of Mercer’s voice made Tish swing her long legs from the couch and stand up. She crossed to the bar and took one of the six dark cane stools. “Is something wrong?”

“Tell me about Valery Borodin,” Mercer invited nonchalantly.

“I don’t know any. .” He saw that Tish was flustered by the question.

“Tish, right now I could have you detained by the FBI for your involvement in this plot. I haven’t because you’re Jack Talbot’s daughter, but I’m not taking bets on how long I remain silent.”

“Tell me first how you know about Valery?”

“I spoke with Dr. Baker at Woods Hole.”

“I remember that old busybody from Mozambique. She wanted to be everyone’s den mother. Figures she would talk.” Tish settled down and turned her deep blue eyes to Mercer. “What do you want to know?”

“Let me make some assumptions first. You know he was a geologist, not a marine biologist, and that he was in Mozambique for a vacation, right?”

“Yes. He swore me to secrecy about that, though. He told me he would be starting a new project soon and that his superiors had allowed him some time off before his reassignment.”

“Did he tell you who his father is?”

Tish was startled by Mercer’s unsettling question. “Not at first.”

“Did he mention that his father had faked his own death when Valery was a boy?”

“How do you know about that?”

Mercer wasn’t about to admit that he’d been guessing about Valery’s candor with Tish so he covered his relief with a gruff reply. “I can’t tell you that, just answer my questions.”

“Valery told me that his father had supposedly died in a lab explosion when he was still a baby. Then, about a month before we met, Valery’s father reentered his life, acting as if all those years had never passed.

“His father was also a brilliant geologist, like Val, and needed his son’s help on some secret government project. Valery both hated his father for vanishing and loved him for returning; he was hurting bad. He would cry some nights until I thought his heart would break. He was so alone and vulnerable.”

“What else did he tell you about his father or his upcoming project?”

“Not much, really. He said they would be working together, he and his father, and that he was excited and frightened.”

“Did he tell you he planned to leave Russia?”

Mercer’s question made Tish blanch. “How did you. .”

“Did he tell you?”

“Yes, but he couldn’t do it until the project with his father was completed.”

Mercer rubbed his knuckles into his eyes, trying to push away the sleep which threatened to overwhelm him. He poured another cup of strong coffee, this time omitting the Scotch.

“Tell me what really happened the night the Ocean Seeker exploded.”

Tish said, acting confused, “I already told you about it.”

Fury edged Mercer’s voice. “Let me put some things into perspective here, Tish, so you know where I’m coming from, okay?”

She had never experienced such naked anger in her life. Mercer’s voice, though not raised, drilled into her, forcing her back in her bar stool.

“Your boyfriend and his father are the architects of a plot that could tear apart the very fabric of our country. It started in May of 1954 when Pytor Borodin detonated a nuclear device, triggering a volcanic chain reaction that created a new metal whose value is incalculable. Since that time, he’s ruthlessly murdered everyone who came close to discovering his secret.

“Do you remember the list of ships that Dave Saulman sent me from Miami?” Tish looked like she was going to be ill as she nodded. “That is actually a list of Pytor Borodin’s victims. I hope you take note that the Ocean Seeker, the ship that blew up around you, headed that list. Borodin is also connected with a possible coup in Hawaii that could lead to race riots in every city in America.

“Valery Borodin and his father have masterminded a plot that could leave this country wallowing in economic and social chaos while the rest of the world prospers.” Mercer’s mouth was twisted into a disgusted rictus, but his eyes were slate hard. “I’m not some ultra-patriot who salutes every time I see a flag, but I don’t want to see our government brought to its knees either. You have a choice. Tell me what I need to know, or I call the FBI and you spend the next century or two in a penitentiary with a cellmate named Leather.”

Tish was sobbing now. Mercer wanted to take her into his arms, brush the tears away, and say he was sorry, but he couldn’t. He had to be cruel.

“This is fucking useless,” he said disgustedly, and reached for the portable phone lying on the bar.

“Wait,” Tish said meekly. “Please wait.”

Mercer poured a shot of brandy into a balloon snifter and placed it in front of Tish. She sniffed back her tears and sipped the amber liquor.

“What happened the night the Ocean Seeker was destroyed?” he repeated harshly.

“Around midnight a man came to my cabin. I’d never seen him before. He wasn’t part of the scientific team or a member of the crew.”

“A stowaway?”

“He must have been. He told me that Valery had sent him.”

Mercer interrupted again. “What was he — white, Oriental, black?”

“He was Oriental. Maybe thirty-five or forty years old, about your size but amazingly strong. He told me that I was in danger and had to go with him. I tried to question him, but he said there was no time, just tossed me over his shoulder and carried me up to the deck. There was an inflatable raft tied to the stern of the Seeker. He threw me in and jumped after me.

“About five minutes after he started rowing us away, the Seeker exploded. I swear I don’t remember anything after that. I think he knocked me out.”

“Then you never heard Russian or saw the design on the stack of the ship that rescued you?”

“That part I do remember. I must have come to as we were pulled aboard that freighter.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”

“I didn’t want anything to spoil Valery’s chances of escape, so I stayed quiet. You see, the group he was going to work for, the one headed by his father, was incredibly ruthless. He told me that everyone involved with the project was sworn to lifelong secrecy and anyone who tried to leave the group before Val’s father said they could would be hunted down and killed. He told me he knew his father would never let him leave. He was bound to the old man forever, he said. But he was still determined to get away. He said his father was completely insane and what they were working on could upset the balance of power all over the world. Valery told me before he left Mozambique that he would contact me just before he escaped. I assumed that this rescue was that contact.”

“That may be, but he’s made contact since then too.”

“When, how?” Tish asked, a trace of excitement creeping into her trembling voice.

“The telegram I received, the one I thought was from your father, must have been sent from him. Christ knows how he made the connection between us.” Mercer spoke slowly at first, but as ideas correlated in his brain, he talked faster. “I was suspicious about your rescue from the Ocean Seeker, it seemed too pat, but now it makes sense. Valery must have ordered an agent to board the ship and save your life when he learned that the Seeker was headed toward the volcano with you as a member of the research staff.”

Mercer stood silently behind the bar, both hands cupped around his coffee mug. His eyes had lost their focus as he stared beyond Tish at a Ken Marschall lithograph of the Hindenburg, just before she exploded over Lakehurst, New Jersey. It was one of the only pictures that Mercer had gotten around to hanging apart from those in his study.

“He plans to steal his father’s work when he leaves, doesn’t he? That’s why he just didn’t run away with you in Mozambique.”

“How did you figure that out?”

“It fits with his actions so far and with the brief description you gave of his psychological state. He would want to bring something of value with him so that he could provide for the two of you. At the same time, stealing his father’s work would fulfill his need for revenge against his father for abandoning him.”

“You can’t know that.” Tish was uncomfortable by Mercer’s accuracy and covered it with an accusation.

“The first reason is obvious. He’s going to want to be a provider for you and a possible family, unlike his father had been to him, and that data could make the two of you quite comfortable for the rest of your lives. I’m even more familiar with the second reason.

“Remember I said that I used to live in Africa when I was younger, that I was actually born in the Congo? Well, I left there as an orphan. My parents moved to Rwanda so my father could work on opening a copper mine. They were killed during an insurrection in 1964, ambushed going to a party on the first night of the fighting. Both of them were burned alive. My nanny, a Tutsi woman, took me back to her village the next day. I lived there for a couple of months until the fighting died down, then she turned me over to a World Health Organization team, who eventually contacted my father’s parents in Vermont.

“Even though my grandparents were kind and loving people, I hated being with them and I hated my real parents even more for abandoning me. I felt utterly betrayed. I remember winter nights when I’d go cross-country skiing. I’d stop in some meadow, miles away from the nearest house, and scream at them, cursing them, accusing them of leaving me on purpose. It was the loneliest time in my life.

“If I could foster that much hate against my parents who actually died, I can only imagine the hate Valery must feel toward his father for leaving him for some government project and then just as casually returning.”

“How did you ever get over your parents’ death?” Tish asked quietly. Mercer’s story had touched her deeply.

“An old farmer overheard me one night when I was about sixteen and we talked. He was the only person I ever opened up to. When I’d finished my story, he told me I was acting stupid and if I kept it up he’d slap me around because I was upsetting his dairy cows. I guess I’d received so much sympathy before that, I saw myself as a perpetual victim. By callously saying I was stupid, he made me realize that, in fact, I was. My parents’ deaths were beyond their control — it was never their choice to abandon me. Finally I could accept that.” Mercer poured a shot of Scotch into his coffee, then drained the cup in three deep swallows.

Tish didn’t say anything, but the tension had eased from her neck and shoulders and her blue eyes were misted and soft.

“I owe you an apology,” Mercer said softly. “I thought you were part of this operation. I thought you knew all about it.”

“No,” Tish said quietly, “I didn’t.”

“Do you still love him?”

“I don’t know,” Tish replied haltingly. “The time Valery and I had together was the most precious in my life, but it was so long ago. Is that shallow of me?”

“That’s not for me to decide,” he dodged the question adroitly. He took the bar stool next to her and held her slim hands in his.

“I was in love once.” Mercer spoke slowly, deliberately. “I was twenty-five years old, taking summer classes at a mining school in England. She was four years older than me, a police psychologist just getting her start in the London constabulary. We spent every moment together that we could. I would commute a hundred miles to see her in the city, and she took the maximum number of sick days she could without being kicked off the force.

“One weekend toward the end of the summer, she was seeing me off at Paddington Station. We had just talked about marriage for the first time.” Mercer’s voice was barely a whisper, but the force of his words carried to the far corners of the room. “My train was just pulling out from the station. Suddenly there was gunfire. A man had burst into the station and opened up with a machine pistol. I watched from the window of the accelerating train as he emptied the clip, then dropped the weapon and pulled a revolver. By then the police had begun to swarm into the station. The gunman grabbed a woman and used her as a shield, the revolver screwed into her ear. It was a standoff.

“Then the woman, my possible fiancée, started talking to the gunman, trying to calm him down, get him to surrender. It was her job. Later they found that the man, an IRA terrorist, had taken so much heroin that he probably never heard a word she said. She spoke for only a few seconds before the gunman simply pulled the trigger and then turned the gun on himself.

“I saw their bodies fall across each other just as my car pulled out of the station. I was too numb to try to get off the train. I just sat there as we sped north. I never returned to London. I didn’t even go to her funeral. . ” Mercer’s voice trailed off.

“What was her name?”

“Tory Wilks,” Mercer replied evenly. “You’re the first person who’s ever heard that story. I finished my classes in England and came home as if nothing ever happened.”

“I’m sorry.”

Mercer looked at her squarely. “We never had a chance to start a life together. I told you about Tory and what I lost because you at least deserve a chance. You once loved Valery Borodin and lost him because of circumstances out of your control.” Mercer’s voice firmed. “I’m going to make sure you have a fair shot at making it work.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s simple.” Mercer smiled warmly, the wrenching emotions of a few moments earlier safely tucked back where they belonged. Again he was his normal sardonic self. “I’m going to help him escape.”

“How? You don’t know where he is.”

“Don’t I, though?” Mercer raised a mocking eyebrow. “I happen to know down to the inch where he is at this very moment.”

“Where?” Excitement raised Tish’s voice an octave.

“All in good time,” Mercer replied vaguely. “I’ve got some things to figure out first. Why don’t you take that nap you wanted?”

Tish saw that she could get nothing further out of him, so she went to the couch. She looked over at Mercer and saw he was already scratching away at a note pad with a fountain pen. She tucked the Normandie lap robe up around her chin, and for the first time in a long time, started considering a real life with Valery.

Ten minutes later, Tish sat up suddenly. “Mercer?”

He looked up from the pad. His normally dark complexion was drained and his wide set eyes were narrowed by exhaustion.

“I was thinking — Valery took a risk to have me rescued from the Ocean Seeker and put you in contact with me, right? Well, who tried to kill me in the hospital?”

Mercer stared at her for a moment, his weary mind grinding away at her question. He tore the top sheet of paper from the pad, crumpled it up, and tossed it into the plastic trash can behind the bar. “Back to the drawing board.”

Several hours later, as the sun ambered the room with its dying rays, Mercer finally put down his pen, drank the last sip of his second pot of coffee and stood for a stretch. He had written twelve pages of notes and made eighteen phone calls. Tish was still asleep on the couch.

Mercer knuckled the kinks out of his lower back and squeezed his eyes tight, trying to clear his sleep-deprived brain. The caffeine he had drunk left him feeling weak and with a pounding headache. He pulled Dick Henna’s card from his wallet and dialed his office number. Henna himself answered the phone.

“Mr. Henna, it’s Philip Mercer.”

“Do you have anything new?” Mercer liked the squat director for his bluntness.

“I need to get to Hawaii,” Mercer stated flatly.

“I’m afraid that’s impossible. Two hours ago all communications from the islands stopped, no telephones, radio, or television. All aircraft that could be routed to other destinations were turned back. Our reports from Pearl Harbor say the mob has started taking potshots at soldiers. I’ve gotten unconfirmed reports from ham radio operators that Honolulu is under martial law by authority of Mayor Takamora and that National Guard troops are shooting any white face they see.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Mercer breathed. “The fucking lunatic has started it.”

“It appears so. There’s no way to get you out there even if I wanted to.”

“Listen, I have some theories that, if true, can clear this up in twenty-four hours, but I have to get to Hawaii.” Mercer wouldn’t allow his horror at Henna’s news to dissuade him.

“Dr. Mercer—”

“I prefer Mister, or just plain Mercer.”

“Really, most Ph.Ds I know flaunt their titles.”

“I only use mine when I’m trying to get dinner reservations.”

Henna chuckled. “I can respect that. Anyway, the President has authorized a covert action against Ohnishi in light of his involvement with this coup.”

“Jesus.” Mercer was shocked. “That’s a stupid mistake. Ohnishi’s just a pawn in this whole thing. Taking him out won’t accomplish anything.”

“You know something we don’t?” Henna asked tiredly.

“Yes, I do, but it’s going to cost you at least a ticket to that amphibious assault ship stationed near Hawaii.”

“That’s extortion.”

“Extortion is such a genteel word, Mr. Henna. I prefer blackmail. What if I said I can hand over the mastermind of the entire operation?”

“I’m listening.”

“I won’t talk until you guarantee transport to that ship.”

“Christ.” Mercer could almost see Henna throw his hands up in exasperation. “All right, I’ll get you out there. Now, what have you got?”

For the next twenty minutes Mercer spoke without pause and Henna listened. Hard.

“You got proof for any of this?” Henna asked when Mercer finished.

“Not one single shred. But it all fits together.”

“I said it before, Mercer, if you ever want another job, the bureau would love to have you.”

“Do you think the American Civil Liberties Union would stand to have an FBI agent making accusations like I just made? Shit, they’d skin us both alive.”

Henna chuckled again. “You’re right. I’ve got a meeting with the President in an hour. I’ll take your proposal to him. The only way I can get you out there is as an observer, nothing more.”

“That’ll be fine,” lied Mercer smoothly. “I really can’t ask for more. Call me back when you’re finished with the President.”

A minute after hanging up the phone, Mercer was between the sheets of his bed. Despite his battered body’s need for sleep, he tossed and turned for twenty minutes before drifting into unconsciousness.