Jack Du Brul - Pandora's curse

“However, in today’s world, the Pandora fragments have a certain value as a terrorist weapon. It’s less random than a chemical weapon, easier to maintain than a biologic one and unlike other radiation sources, it is completely untraceable. Just a few grams placed in, say, a busy subway station would consign every person walking by to a lingering death. As it decays, it creates its own shielding and can be removed safely. I can’t think of a better weapon for terrorism, can you?”

“You’re going to sell them?”

Rath looked pleased with himself as he replied, “I had three different bids to choose from. North Korea offered the most money, but I can’t see exiling myself to Pyongyang. Ditto goes for Iraq. I ended up accepting the Libyan offer since it’s close enough to Europe to sneak over occasionally.”

“What about your precious Nazi Party now? Are you abandoning them?”

“Who do you think gets most of the hundred million dollars?”

Thirty minutes later, the cargo pallet laden with the boxes was secured to the airship’s lifting cables. Raeder, Rath, and Greta Schmidt were in the back of the stripped-down Bell helicopter. The workers were already aboard the two Sno-Cats and on their way back to the temporary northern camp, where they would disassemble everything for the return to Camp Decade. Because the weight of the cargo approached her maximum limit, the rotor-stat had to first fly out over the ice sheet to build up aerodynamic lift before turning back for the coast. It took the dirigible twenty minutes to gain the thousand feet of altitude she needed to clear the mountains. Only then did the Jetranger take off with the smallest Pandora box resting between Rath and Raeder. Greta sat next to her lover, the confiscated pistol clutched on her lap.

Klaus Raeder twisted in his window seat to get a glimpse of the rotor-stat trailing the helicopter. The airship was sailing a half mile behind them and yet seemed ready to swallow the chopper. After being airborne for ten minutes, they were still over Greenland’s jagged coast of bays, inlets, and fjords. That was when Raeder saw the research ship Njoerd in a narrow bay two thousand feet below them.

He realized that the cargo would be transferred to the ship but didn’t understand why. He asked Rath.

“For one, we need the rotor-stat to return the Sno-Cats to Camp Decade. Also the airship tends to advertise her presence wherever she is. My plan is for the Njoerd to take the boxes to Tripoli while the rotor-stat returns to Europe for the completion of her test flights.”

A large area of deck behind the Njoerd ’s superstructure had been cleared to receive the cargo of golden crates, and workers were preparing to guide the nets into position. The chopper swung wide to leave plenty of room for the ponderous dirigible as it descended toward the ship. Hovering a quarter mile astern and five hundred feet up, the pilot spun so that his passengers could watch the delicate placement of the cargo.

Suddenly, a portion of sea just fifty yards from the research ship came alive, as if the water was being boiled. Like Leviathan rising, a gray torpedo shape emerged from the swelling waves, rising into the air until a quarter of the vessel’s length was exposed. “Mein Gott!” Rath, Raeder, and Schmidt said at once. They recognized the antique U-boat at the same time and knew where it had come from.

Still bobbing on the swells of its own creation, the conning tower hatch crashed open and a figure emerged. Rath ordered the pilot in for a closer look, hoping it was Mercer who had exited the submarine first because some of his guards were already at the rail of the Njoerd armed with assault rifles.

Before Rath could discern the man’s features, winking lights shot from the weapons and the man vanished in a red mist. “Patch me through to the rotor-stat,” Rath ordered.

A moment later the airship’s pilot came over the radio. “What do you want me to do?”

“Abort the cargo transfer until we take care of the submarine.”

“I don’t know if I can. The engines are straining just to slow our vertical descent.”

The airship’s four rotors whipped the air so strongly, they rippled her Kevlar skin. The dirigible would need to build up forward speed so her airfoil shape gave her additional lift. The cargo nets dangled only fifty feet from the surface of the bay. Her heavy mooring lines already trailed in the water. Rath looked back to the sub just as another person gained access to her protected bridge. It was Mercer, and he remained huddled out of sight from the Njoerd . His attention was on the airship, so he didn’t notice the helicopter hovering behind him.

Making sure his seat belt was tight and Greta had Klaus covered, Gunther Rath opened the Jetranger’s side door. Arctic air blasted him like a hurricane and numbed his face and hands. He couldn’t wear his gloves and fire accurately, so he left them off when he drew his pistol. He activated the weapon’s specially mounted laser sight. With the sub rolling and the chopper bouncing, he doubted he could get off an accurate shot, but all he wanted was Mercer’s attention until the rotor-stat could bull its way out of the fjord. The red dot of light wavered all over the top of the conning tower until it streaked across Mercer’s stooped form. Rath began firing.

From his vantage, Mercer couldn’t see the rotor-stat. He could only hear it thundering above him. Its noise drowned out everything. Figuring they couldn’t see him, he chanced a look over the lip of the bridge’s coaming. That was when he spotted the Njoerd and the men lined at her side with weapons trained at him. He ducked again as fire raked the conning tower. When Erwin had fallen back into the sub and he’d heard the dirigible, Mercer had assumed the shots had come from above. Now he knew who had fired the scathing fusillade. They’d surfaced right in the middle of the cargo transfer.

“If it weren’t for bad luck…” he whispered. Ira’s head appeared through the hatch. “How’s Erwin?”

“Anika’s working on him now. I don’t think it’s too bad. What happened?”

“The Njoerd is about fifty yards off the port side, and the rotor-stat’s hovering just beyond her. She’s coming this way. Get back below and crank up the compressors. Fill the ballast tanks with air and prepare to dive. Leave your gun. I have an idea.”

“I don’t like it when you say that,” Ira remarked and disappeared below.

Mercer was preparing to take another look at the airship when a shard of white-hot steel ricocheted inside the bridge and buried itself in his thigh. He fell heavily, clamping a hand over the burning wound, and looked up. A big Bell helicopter hung in the sky behind him with its side door opened. He could clearly see the pistol in Gunther Rath’s hand and the sick smile on his face. Fluidly, Mercer pulled the MP-40 from under him and squeezed the trigger. The heavy machine pistol bucked like he was holding a live wire and jammed after half its thirty-two-round magazine emptied. As he recocked to clear the fouled breach, the chopper twisted out of range.

He next aimed blindly toward the Njoerd and pulled the trigger again, raising himself as the barrage scattered the gunmen at the vessel’s rail. In the moment’s reprieve before they regrouped, he slammed home a fresh magazine. He yelled down the hatch, “Marty, I need help!”

“Screw this. Let’s get out of here.”

Though angered, Mercer couldn’t bring himself to blame Martin Bishop. Sealing the hatch and motoring away would be the smart thing to do. But Mercer wouldn’t let that happen. Not when he had a chance to end this once and for all. The Pandora boxes were vulnerable, and judging by the width of the fjord and the height of the mountains, the bay was a thousand feet deep. More than enough.