Jack Du Brul - Pandora's curse

Erwin was not alone when he came in to the marina a moment later. Marty, Anika, and Klaus Raeder were with him. Mercer allowed himself a second of relief that she was all right and turned his concentration back to what he was about to attempt.

“Give the weapons to Hilda to check over.” She had proved her weapons training equaled her cooking skills. “What’s the status on that fuel?”

“Almost there.”

“Anika, go open the outer doors,” Mercer said, paying no attention to her expression.

She ignored his order and crossed to him. Mercer was bent over, tying his shoe, and didn’t know she was there until he straightened. She slapped him across the face harder than any woman had ever struck him. He reeled against the rack of wet suits, his cheek numbed.

“That was for sticking a gun to my head.” Fury thickened her accent and made her eyes burn. “And I’d hit you again for jumping off the bridge. You didn’t need to do that. You could have given up right then. We had already won. It was a stupid stunt. You just wanted to see if you could do it, didn’t you? Goddamned men and their egos. You remind me of a climber I knew who attempted an impossible ascent but was willing to die trying. Which he did.”

She turned away, but Mercer placed a hand on her shoulder. She shook herself free. “Don’t touch me.”

Behind her anger, Mercer saw fear. For herself mostly, but a little for him too. “If you want to pigeonhole me with suicidal rock climbers I can’t stop you.” He showed no anger because he couldn’t blame her. “But I think you’re wrong. Am I reckless? When I have to be. Do I take chances no sane person would? Yes, but not because I want to. I do it because I have to.”

“And you have to chase Rath in a boat that will sink after the first mile?” Concern dampened her rage and her true feelings welled into her voice.

“Yes. Because he has to be stopped. I didn’t choose to be here, Anika. Nor did I choose to be on that walkway with a dozen guns pointed at me. In case you hadn’t noticed, I react to situations. I don’t go looking for them. If you think of me as some cliched macho guy driven to danger that’s fine. But I don’t think you know me well enough for that kind of judgment.” Mercer became more conciliatory. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

He broke eye contact. Then noticed that Klaus Raeder was pulling on a wet suit. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Coming with you,” the industrialist said. “None of this would have happened if I’d faced my accountability rather than trying to buy it off. I’m not going to let you clean up my mistake.”

Mercer considered denying Raeder his opportunity for repentance, but he sensed the German’s sincerity. Raeder wanted Rath dead more than he did. Mercer understood why. “Know how to handle a weapon?”

Raeder nodded, then boasted, “I’m also a black belt in judo.”

“Good for you.” Mercer was unimpressed. “I intend to shoot Rath from as far away as I can. If you want to go beat up his corpse afterward, be my guest.”

Erwin Puhl had opened the outer doors, and frigid sea air swept the gasoline fumes from the garage. While Ira Lasko slid his thin frame into a wet suit, Marty attached the lifting lines from the overhead crane to hard points on the speedboat. Retractable rails would move the Riva out of the garage and lower it to the ocean between the Empress ’s twin hulls.

“Let’s saddle up,” Ira said when he was dressed.

Just before Mercer fired the Mercruisers, a ship’s officer burst into the marina. Erwin and Raeder recognized him. Captain Nehring. No one paid attention to the elderly figure behind him wearing black slacks and a gray sweatshirt.

Nehring was white haired and commanding as Mercer had imagined, but also physically and emotionally exhausted. “I’ve had stewards going over the ship to take a count of our passengers.” He panted from the run from the bridge. “We just discovered that Gunther Rath has taken hostages.”

“Damn it!” Mercer hadn’t anticipated this possibility. “Who?”

The gentleman behind him stepped forward. Not until Mercer looked closely, seeing past the casual clothes, did he recognize Pope Leo XIV. In the hallway he caught the shadows of several Swiss Guards. Stunned, Mercer spoke before thinking. “Holy shit.”

“The pope informed me that his secretary of state, Cardinal Peretti, is missing, and we’ve been unable to locate an American televangelist and his wife.”

“Tommy Joe and Lorna Farquar?” Ira recalled the flashy minister and his ditzy wife.

“Possibly a target of opportunity he grabbed in a hallway,” Captain Nehring said, then added somberly, “Rath also kidnapped the Dalai Lama.”

Everyone exchanged frightened looks.

Rath couldn’t have chosen a more emotionally evocative hostage if he’d tried. The Dalai Lama’s influence beyond his six million Tibetan followers was incalculable. After the pope, the Nobel Peace Prize winner was the most recognized religious figure in the world, seen as a sage statesman and the voice of the oppressed all over the globe.

“The captain has told me you are going after the kidnappers.” The pope’s English was accented yet musical. “I understand why you want to do this thing, but I can’t allow you to sacrifice your lives for the hostages. I have known the Dalai Lama for several years. He would not wish you to trade your life for his. Neither would Dominic Peretti. And in his own way Minister Farquar worships the same God as I do, and my heart tells me that he too would not want you to die to save him.”

Who had been taken hostage meant nothing to Mercer. To him, it didn’t matter if one of them was the Dalai Lama or the guy that fetched the Lama’s morning tea. This wasn’t about hostages or even revenge. It was about preventing the Pandora box from spreading death.

“I understand what you’re saying, Your” — Worship? Holiness? Grace? Mercer didn’t know what title was appropriate — “sir. And I appreciate your concern. But we’re not going to rescue the four hostages. We’re going because Gunther Rath possesses something that threatens every living thing on the planet.” Not knowing if he’d offended the pontiff, Mercer pointed to Anatoly Vatutin. “Father Vatutin can tell you what I’m talking about.”

The pope looked like he was going to ask another question but stopped himself. The determination in Mercer’s eyes and voice was enough to convince him that the men on the speedboat had no intention of martyring themselves. “Go with God and my blessing.”

Mercer felt the power of a billion Catholics behind that simple sentence. “Thank you.” He refocused on Captain Nehring. “Keep trying those radios. Alert the American base at Keflavik as soon as you can. If the Italians get their chopper in the air, send it after us.”

He keyed the Riva’s ignition, and the roar of the engines drowned out any other attempt at conversation. Raeder and Ira hung on tightly as Marty used the crane to lift the boat off its cradle and maneuver it to the launching rails. Mercer took a second to look at Anika. She was at the door of the marina, her arms crossed over her chest, her expression unreadable. Against his better judgment, he gave her a wink and thought he detected a small crack in her resolve, a tiny lifting at the corners of her mouth. It could have been his imagination.

The canal between the hulls streamed like a swift-flowing river. Marty’s hands were unsure on the crane controls, so when he lowered the Riva, it hit with a powerful splash and immediately bucked against the ropes. Mercer advanced the throttles to the same speed as the Sea Empress and their ride stabilized enough for Ira to cast off the lines.