Jack Du Brul - Pandora's curse

“Your government will pay to repair the facilities?” Anika asked.

“Plus a little extra for the families of the fishermen murdered in Grindavik.” Barnes nodded. “That’s how we got the cooperation of the local authorities.”

“That takes care of those on the periphery,” Mercer said. “But there are a number of people more directly involved who can’t be silenced so easily.”

“That’s why I’m here.” Barnes folded his hands on the table, preparing himself for the negotiations. “To discuss the terms for your cooperation.”

“This won’t be a discussion, Mr. Barnes.” Mercer’s tone sharpened, reminding Barnes of his role. “A dozen innocent people are dead because of this, and you have an obligation to them and their survivors. I’ve compiled a list.” He still suffered from the emotional hangover of writing the names, especially scarred by Elisebet Rosmunder’s, who would have been alive if he hadn’t spoken with her. “Before we get to specifics there are a few things I want to know first. Beginning with Charlie Bryce and the Surveyor’s Society and their relationship to the CIA.”

Barnes’s eyes swept the others around the table. “This isn’t the time or the place to talk about that. If there is a relationship, which I’m not saying there is, it would be classified.”

Mercer ignored Barnes’s security concerns. “Until we’re all satisfied, there aren’t going to be any secrets. Anika knows how I got involved in this expedition, so she’s already drawn some inferences. I’ve also made Mr. Eisenstadt and Mr. Weitzmann aware that I was approached by the Society to help Ira Lasko, one of your agents. Do you want to leave us believing that the Surveyor’s Society is a CIA front?”

Although this was a minor point, Barnes still resented sharing anything. “They aren’t a front. The Surveyor’s Society does” — he searched for the right word — “favors for us. You may recall Bryce’s speech about the three kinds of explorers — real ones, armchair ones, and those who pay others to explore for them. Let’s just say that the CIA falls into the latter category when we need certain deniable operations carried out.”

“And you pay them?”

“Why do you think every school in the nation pays twice the normal subscription price for their magazine?”

“A black budget subsidy?”

“Exactly. By the way Ira doesn’t work directly for the CIA. He was seconded to us for this mission from the White House.”

“He already told me. In fact, he’s trying to talk me into accepting a job there. Special science advisor to the president or something.” Mercer wasn’t sure if he’d accept, but he was honored.

“If it’s any consolation,” Barnes added, “Bryce wasn’t too pleased when I had him recruit you.”

“I’ll deal with Charlie at another time,” Mercer said. “We’re here to discuss what to do about each other.”

“And to handle the final disposition of the remaining Pandora box and an icon belonging to a Russian priest. They represent the last link to an unprecedented discovery. As a scientist, you must know the Pandora fragments could contain untold knowledge about our universe and its creation.”

Barnes tried to press his point with a hard stare, but Mercer remained unfazed. “I doubt you believe in science for science’s sake, Mr. Barnes.”

“Where are the fragments?” Barnes leaned across the table in another effort to gain some psychological leverage. “When Ira Lasko was debriefed in the hospital he said he didn’t know.”

“He lied.” Because of the prior arrangements, the old Nazi hunters had brought their small television and VCR into the dining room. Mercer slid the cassette into the tape slot and waited while Frau Goetz pressed the correct buttons to bring up the picture. “This footage was taken yesterday.”

The image on the screen was bouncy and the audio was filled with a deep thrumming rattle. The watchers quickly realized that the video had been taken aboard a speeding helicopter. The chopper’s side door was closed so the camera panned down through the scratchy window. A thousand feet below, the cold north Atlantic surged with its unending rhythm. They were high enough that the whitecaps looked like bits of string. The frame jumped and suddenly Mercer was shown sitting on the bench seat in the rear of the cargo chopper.

“Who took this?” Barnes asked sharply.

“Ira wanted to be with us but couldn’t get out of the hospital. Father Anatoly Vatutin ran the camera,” Mercer answered before the video image of himself bent forward to strip a tarp off a box sitting next to the door. A golden reflection filled the dim interior of the chopper. Resting on the only remaining Pandora box was another glittering relic, the last of Rasputin’s icons.

Jacob Eisenstadt grunted when he saw the box. Although he’d already been warned what was on the tape, his eyes were wet, doubtlessly thinking about what the box represented — the origin of that gold and all those who’d died filling it.

Barnes sucked in a quick breath. He glanced at Mercer, trying to understand what was happening behind his gray eyes. Mercer gave a triumphant smile that told Barnes everything. “You didn’t.”

The tape made Mercer’s answer unnecessary. Father Vatutin set aside the camera to open the cargo door and then refocused on Mercer as he kicked the heavy icon out the door. The camera image followed the antique as it pinwheeled toward the sea, swallowed by distance before it was swallowed by the water. Barnes went pale with impotant rage. Next, the tape showed Mercer bracing his legs against the seat supports and levering his back against the two-hundred-pound Pandora box.

Vatutin had tightened his focus on the swastika adorning the side of the Pandora box, tracking it as Mercer pushed it to the door. Pausing with the box on the edge of oblivion, Mercer addressed the camera, shouting over the wind and the rotor’s steady beat.

“The problem with any scientific discovery is that, once something is known, it can’t be unlearned. We can’t forget how to make a nuclear bomb or poison gas, nor can we prevent the propagation of that knowledge. To use a cliche, once the genie’s out of the bottle, it can’t be put back. Well, this is one genie that I’m not going to let escape. The military applications of Pandora radiation far outweigh any potential scientific use. A Russian madman realized that a hundred years ago and hid the truth until a German madman nearly succeeded in unleashing Pandora’s destructive potential one again. Now it’s my turn to end this once and for all.”

“What gives you the right?” Barnes shouted at Mercer.

“No one gave it to me.” Mercer’s voice was steel. “Thanks to what you’ve put me through in the past weeks, I’ve earned it.”

Everyone’s focus returned to the television as the chopper banked over, aiding Mercer’s final effort to heave the Pandora box into the rolling swells far from where anyone would find it. Again Father Vatutin, one of the two remaining members of the Brotherhood of Satan’s Fist, videotaped the object of his lifelong quest until it was gone. From the helicopter’s altitude, the splash appeared puny, an anticlimactic end to such a malignant artifact. The screen turned to electronic snow as the drama came to an end.

Eisenstadt reached over to shut off the television. “Thank you, Dr. Mercer, for showing me that. And thank you for including me in your decision to destroy the last of the gold I had been searching for. Once Anatoly Vatutin explained that it was his group in Russia feeding Theodor and me information about the shipment and told me what the Nazis had used it for, there was no other alternative. The financial loss to living Jews is painful but unavoidable.”