Vulcan's Forge

Arlington, Virginia

Mercer sat at the back corner booth of Tiny’s and slowly swirled his vodka gimlet so the cubes of ice clicked discreetly. He took a swallow and placed the glass back on the scarred tabletop. His movements were slow, deliberate. It had been three weeks since Eddie Rice had ditched his Sea King into the Pacific nearly a hundred miles from Hawaii and his body was still stiff and battered. Mercer fractured a leg during the impact and Eddie had given himself a severe concussion and turned his face into a vermillion patchwork of bruises and lacerations. The chopper pilot was still bedridden at the Pearl Harbor Naval Hospital. Valery Borodin wasn’t so much as scratched during the crash.

He swiveled his head and surveyed the room. Tiny was out of sight behind the bar, searching for something or other. There were four or five other patrons, workers from the local trucking firm. Looking at them, Mercer felt vaguely conspicuous not sporting a baseball cap or at least a cigarette. Umber light slashed through the windows as the sun dropped beneath the smoggy horizon.

Mercer had been back in Washington just long enough to jam a clear pin into Hawaii on the map at home, call Dick Henna to set up this meeting at Tiny’s, and give himself a decent buzz.

He drained the last of his drink and called to Tiny for another. The three gimlets already wending their way through his body were dulling the pain in his bruised joints.

Richard Henna came through the front door just as Tiny set the new drink in front of Mercer. Henna wore a dark suit and tie, his eyes hidden by the dark glasses seen on all FBI agents in the movies. Mercer stood slowly, supporting himself with one hand on the table, as Henna crossed the room to his booth.

“I see you’re alive if not well.” Henna shook his hand and the two men sat.

Henna removed his glasses and glanced around the dingy room. His expression matched one Mercer had made once in a public toilet in Istanbul.

“Lovely place you have here,” Henna said sarcastically.

“It has its charms.” Mercer grinned. “They water down the beer with bourbon.”

“I’ll stick to Scotch.”

“Tiny, Scotch and. .” He looked at Henna, cocking an eyebrow.

“Neat.”

“Scotch and Scotch.”

“So where have you been since the navy fished you out?”

The explosions that sunk the John Dory had been heard by the sonar aboard the USS Jacksonville, the Los Angeles-class attack submarine attached to the Kitty Hawk battle group. She was the vessel poised to launch a nuclear-tipped Tomahawk cruise missile at the rising volcano. The sub raced to investigate the blasts and in the process found the sinking Sea King and three passengers. After an hour of argument with the captain, radio communication with the commander of the Pacific fleet, and finally intervention by Admiral Morrison, the Jacksonville abandoned her mission and headed for Hawaii.

“I stayed in Hawaii until just this afternoon.”

“A little rest and relaxation?”

“More like recovery and research.”

Henna thought better than to press for Mercer’s meaning. “How are you feeling?”

“Not bad. The cast on my leg came off yesterday and my ribs are okay as long as I don’t try to sing opera.”

Henna smiled, then thanked Tiny as his drink came. “I see how this place gets its name.”

“He used to be a jockey,” Mercer pointed out. “So what’s been happening in Hawaii?”

“You were there, you should know better than me.”

“No, I was up north on Kauai near a town called Hanalei, cut off from just about everybody and everything. The only news I heard was on the flight from L.A. to Washington, and even then I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“Well, let me fill you in a little bit.” Henna shrugged out of his jacket and laid it next to him on the booth. “The state, hell the whole nation, was stunned when we told them exactly what had happened. The President decided to come clean on the whole affair from Ohnishi to Kerikov to the bikinium. Valery Borodin was at the press conference at Pearl Harbor to back him up. The CIA found some old photographs of Evad Lurbud to match his corpse found at Kenji’s estate. Of course we needed two undertakers to make his body look human again after what he’d been through.

“The Russians deny all knowledge of the operation code-named Vulcan’s Forge, but admitted that Ivan Kerikov was known for operating outside government sanction.”

“You said ‘was known.’ Is he dead?”

“No, he’s vanished. He was in Thailand, then went to Switzerland, but from there, no one knows. He simply disappeared. The Russians are looking for him now, as well as the CIA and Interpol. He’ll turn up.”

“Don’t count on it. If he’s cagey enough to nearly succeed with an operation like this, he can easily stay lost too.”

“Maybe you’re right, I don’t know.” Henna nodded slowly. “Remember, though, there’s also a group of very pissed-off Koreans after him.”

“Have you been able to find out who was behind the Korean angle?”

“We got nothing from the bodies at Ohnishi’s house, but the guy found near the gardener’s shed at Kenji’s was the grandson of Way Hue Dong, one of the seven richest men in the world. To further link him to what happened, the day after you were rescued, a small flotilla of ships, one of them specially designed for high-temperature dredging and all owned by one of Way’s companies, arrived at the volcano site. You better believe they were surprised to see the U.S. Navy already there with a carrier and a half-dozen support ships. Way’s already lodged a formal complaint with the World Court at The Hague, but he doesn’t stand a chance of taking the bikinium from us.

“As for Hawaii itself — there was one more night of rioting after your raid, but that was it. Without the Koreans or Ohnishi to act as agitators, the mobs lost their will to fight and pretty much just went home. Hawaii’s senators have both resigned, claiming health problems, but it was either that or face prosecution for treason. The President has pardoned all others involved, and a special task force has been set up to deal with any legitimate claims by the Hawaiians. He felt it best to sweep the violence under the rug rather than make the nation relive it for months in the courts. In all, about three hundred people died during the riots.

“The President’s going to ramrod some funding through Congress to try to end a lot of the racial tension in this country — education programs, urban aid, that sort of thing. The Los Angeles riots and now this recent crisis have finally brought people to their senses. The old adage, ‘United we stand, divided we fall,’ almost came true, and it’s scared enough people who want to really do something about it. With the current conciliatory mood in Congress, he’ll get all the funding he needs.”

Mercer interrupted. “You can’t change people’s opinions with new laws and federal spending.”

“Thirty years ago doctors were advertising the health benefits of cigarettes,” Henna countered.

“Touché.”

“It will take some time but at least we are finally on the right track. No one wants the type of ethnic strife that’s tearing apart central Europe and the old Soviet republics. We’ve maintained racial diversity for two hundred years and we’re not going to let it slip away now. America is famous for pulling through a crisis just as things reach bottom, and we’ll do it again.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Henna took a swig of his drink. “Valery Borodin is with our own people at the volcano, assaying the parts of it now above the surface to see where to begin mining the bikinium. I believe Dr. Talbot is with him.”

“She is. As a favor to me, the President had her flown out there two weeks ago. I spoke to her on the phone yesterday, just before my flight back to Washington. She and Valery have rekindled the passion they once felt. Already they’re talking marriage.”

Henna smirked. “Kind of funny, you were the hero in all of this. I thought it was customary for the hero to get the girl at the end.”

“When they make the television mini-series, I’ll make sure they change the ending,” Mercer replied offhandedly.

“Well, don’t think you’re going to come out of this completely empty-handed.” Henna fished a set of keys from his pocket and tossed them to Mercer.

“What are these?”

“The keys to a new, black SJX Jaguar convertible with tan interior, cellular phone, CD player, and an aftermarket turbo charger. It was the least we could do.”

Mercer looked at the keys and gave Henna a sardonic smile. “After getting me shot at a few dozen times, nearly smeared against a train, almost drowned, beaten up more than once, crashed into the ocean, and within a few minutes of being nuked, you’re right, buying me a new car is the very least you could do.”

Henna knew by Mercer’s tone that he wasn’t really angry and gave a low chuckle. “The car’s parked in front of your house. There are two things I want to know: how did you know to go to Kenji’s house rather than Ohnishi’s? And how in the hell did you pinpoint the John Dory when the experts at NSA couldn’t find a damn thing?”

Mercer smiled slyly. “Finding the John Dory was easy. Those infrared photos showed a classic shield volcano, a number of small vents surrounding a central magma outlet. Normally those smaller vents are located on the side of the volcano and therefore under deeper water. Well, on all of the photos, there was a white hot signature nearly a mile from the central vent. At that distance, the thermal image would be yellow or orange, cooler because of the water depth. That white dot couldn’t have been a natural vent; it had to be something man-made, like the nuclear reactor aboard the John Dory as she rode near the surface.”

Henna was impressed. “And what about Kenji?”

“That was a hunch really, but I felt confident. I worked for Ohnishi as a consultant a few years ago in Tennessee. Ohnishi Minerals was interested in buying the second mining rights to some disused property owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Second mining is when the coal pillars that support the mine tunnels are ripped down to their very weakest tolerances. It’s dangerous work and cave-ins occur frequently, but the profit margin is astronomical if the mines can be bought cheap enough.

“The TVA didn’t want the old mines stripped the usual way, citing all sorts of possible insurance liabilities. I was brought in at the TVA’s request because there had never been a cave-in on any of the second mining operations I’d worked on. TVA was still reluctant to sell after they read my geomechanic report, but Ohnishi Minerals managed to end run them. Ohnishi bought off officials, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to some high-power lawyers, and in the end opened his own bogus insurance company to underwrite TVA’s liability.

“What he did was illegal to a degree, but American mining laws are gray enough that he got away with it. At the time the vice president in charge of Ohnishi Minerals was a guy I’d gone through the doctoral program at Penn State with, Daniel Tanaka. When his crew was reopening the mine, I met with him and explained that I had faked some of the figures, underestimating the strength of the coal pillars. I had rightly guessed that Ohnishi would order him to pull out more coal than I said could be safely removed. We both knew that I’d saved the lives of his men, so he owed me a favor. I called him just before I went to Hawaii and he told me confidentially that Ohnishi himself had no knowledge of the details of the transaction when they had acquired the mining rights. Anything that could be construed as illegal or corrupt was handled by his aide, Kenji.

“I assumed that when Ohnishi was approached by Ivan Kerikov concerning the bikinium, he’d ordered Kenji to handle any of the details. Therefore Kenji was the real linchpin, not his boss. It wasn’t until I reached Kenji’s estate that I found out the Koreans had gotten to Kenji too. He was the perfect agent-provocateur, working all sides. Koreans and Ohnishi against the middle, Ivan Kerikov.

“As near as I can figure the cycle of double-cross, Kenji screwed Ohnishi with the help of the Koreans while Ohnishi screwed Kerikov, who’d already sold him out to the same Koreans. Meanwhile those Koreans are screwing Kerikov right back by forming a partnership with Kenji. I think I have that right, but I’m not sure. The only thing that matters is that Ohnishi and Kenji are dead, Kerikov’s in hiding, and the wily Koreans have nothing to show for their effort.”

“That sounds about the same way we figured it, too,” Henna agreed.

Harry White staggered into the bar, a nearly spent cigarette clinging to his lower lip. He sat at the bar, hunching over in what he and Mercer referred to as “the bar slouch,” and took a swig of the Jack and Ginger Tiny had already poured for him.

“It’s hard to believe this all started over forty years ago with something as insignificant as the sinking of an ore carrier.”

“Not so insignificant if you were on that ship,” Mercer replied, still staring at Harry.

“You know what I mean. The crew of the Grandam Phoenix died without ever knowing that they were the beginning of a conspiracy that nearly tore this nation apart.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Mercer said quietly, then called to Harry, “What, I come back from a trip and no sarcasm from you?”

Harry heaved himself from his stool and started toward the booth. “I see you talking to a guy in a suit, I figure the IRS has finally nailed you for tax fraud. I thought it best to stay away.”

Mercer laughed as Harry slid into the booth next to Henna.

“Richard Henna, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Mercer said, drawing out each syllable, “I would like you to meet Ralph Michael Linc, former captain of the ore carrier Grandam Phoenix.”

For the rest of his life, Mercer would never again see such a look of incredulity as those on the faces of Henna and Harry. Their jaws had both dropped noticeably and they regarded Mercer with blank, expressionless eyes. Had he said he was the second coming of Jesus Christ, the reaction would have been more mundane.

Before either man could speak, Mercer explained. “After I got out of the hospital at Pearl Harbor, I went to Kauai because it’s the closest big island to the new volcano. I went there hoping to find out if there had been any survivors from that night in 1954. I found a spry old lady, Mae Turner, who remembered a sea captain named Ralph Linc who washed up on shore four days after the Phoenix went down. He had lost a leg to a shark.” Unconsciously Harry rubbed his good foot against the prosthesis strapped below his knee. “She nursed him back to health, but never heard from him again.”

“How did you guess it was me?” Harry asked calmly.

“It was the telegram that started this whole mess for me, the telegram from Tish’s dead father. At first I had no idea who sent it, but when I learned that Valery Borodin had been involved with Tish, I figured it must have been him, but he denied having sent it. I wondered who else would want me involved and knew that Jack Talbot was a friend of mine.

“Then I remembered talking to you the night before the telegram arrived from Jakarta. I remembered telling you that I thought he was working in Indonesia and wondered if he knew his daughter had been hurt. You were the only person who could have known I thought he was there. I started thinking about motive, about why you would want to get me involved and I came up with revenge so I figured you had to be a member of the Grandam Phoenix’s crew. Mae Turner confirmed my suspicion. I never did figure out how you got the telegram sent from Jakarta.”

“Easy, really. I haven’t been to sea since ’54, but I still know mariners all over the globe. I just phoned a friend who knew someone in Indonesia and had him send the wire.”

“Why?” Henna asked softly.

“We had a deal with those bastards to scuttle the Phoenix for the insurance money. They were supposed to pick us up. Instead, they gunned us down in the lifeboats. They killed my entire crew. I caught two slugs myself.

“I blacked out after I got hit, and when I came to I was holding onto an overturned lifeboat, with a Great White using me as an after-dinner mint.

“I pulled myself up onto the boat, hatred keeping me alive, and eventually landed on Hawaii. After Mae nursed me, I went looking for those responsible. That’s when I changed my name to Harry White, so they wouldn’t ever know that one man managed to slip away. I searched for twenty goddamn years and didn’t get anywhere.

“Every time a ship vanished near Hawaii, I checked it out. Some were legitimate, sailboats found capsized, storms, that sort of thing, but I knew some were caused by the same people who killed my boys. But I never could find a connection between those ships and mine.

“After twenty years, I finally gave up hope and moved here to Washington. I felt like a failure. Then they hit that NOAA ship, and I thought maybe after all these years I’d have a chance at revenge. Surely the government would investigate and find some pattern to the disappearances. I even thought I might be able to help in some way, but, Christ, I’m crowding eighty now; who the hell would listen to me anymore?”

He turned to Mercer. “When you told me that your friend’s daughter had been rescued from that ship, I understood how fate really works. I called my friend and had his buddy in Indonesia send that telegram to your office, hoping that I could avenge my crew through you.

Listen, Mercer, I was wrong to involve you, but I just couldn’t stop myself. I am sorry.”

Mercer looked at his old friend for a long moment, his face a mask, his eyes neutral. “Do I call you Harry or Ralph?”

“I’ve been Harry White longer than I was Ralph Linc,” he replied sullenly.

“Well, Harry, from now on if you want Jack Daniel’s at my house, you bring it yourself, because I never drink the stuff.” Mercer grinned and reached across the table to slap Harry on the shoulder.

Harry was nearly in tears. “Thanks, Mercer. Thanks for finally avenging the boys who died that night and thanks for understanding.”

“Next time I fight one of your battles,” Mercer admonished mockingly, “make sure it’s not the goddamn KGB I’m up against, all right?” Mercer slid out of the booth and stood. “Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I have to pick up my private nurse from the airport. She couldn’t get a seat on the same flight as me.”

“Private nurse?” Harry and Dick said in unison.

“Well, not nurse, really, more like physical therapist. Her producer gave her one more week off, and I plan to spend it at a little bed and breakfast I know near Annapolis. It seems you’re wrong, Dick. The hero does get the girl at the end.”

Mercer left the bar before either man could speak. He only had thirty minutes to get to the airport and pick up Jill Tzu. It would be another hour’s drive to the hotel, and a certain part of his anatomy was telling him he would need her type of therapy by then.