Jack Du Brul - Charon's landing

“Me? I want to find out what your lab boys can dig up, then I’m getting the hell out of Dodge. I don’t want to be around when someone makes another attempt on my life.”

“Listen, Mercer, you and I both know that Alaska is the number-one topic around dinner tables in this country right now. That’s why I’m taking this so seriously. It’s possible your friend in California is fine, just taking a couple more days off after your trip, and your attack may be a coincidence, but until I can prove that, this has my full attention.

“I have strict orders from the President concerning Alaska,” Henna continued. “Anything — and I mean anything — deemed even remotely threatening is run to ground, no questions asked as to how many agents it takes or how much it costs. He wants weekly reports concerning the activities of the environmental groups that have set up shop in Valdez and Anchorage and copies of the threatening letters sent to oil companies starting to operate in the Refuge. We’re averaging eighty threats a week and I’ve got field agents taking them all seriously. Is it possible that one of these groups is after you? As I understand, the work you were doing dealt with the building of the second Trans-Alaska pipeline, right?”

“Yes, Howard Small collaborated with the construction firm building TAP Two. His final test hole, through a mountain about ten miles north of Valdez, runs parallel to the old pipe and will be used to run the new one. The mini-mole saved about ten weeks of heavy blasting and earth moving,” Mercer replied, knowing where Henna was heading. “But security was pretty tight; few people knew what we were doing up there. Besides, that wouldn’t explain why Howard’s cousins were killed. I admit that my evidence is circumstantial, but if it does add up, then there is definitely something going on that your agents haven’t picked up.”

“It’s my ass in the sling if something happens to the new pipeline or the teams working in the Refuge,” Henna said. Mercer knew his friend was hooked. “Circumstantial evidence is better than none at all. Listen, do you want some protection? It may take a few days to analyze that metal fragment.”

Mercer thought about it for a moment and then agreed. “I’m no hero. Send a whole platoon of soldiers if you want. The more the merrier.”

“I’ll assign an agent until you leave town. We should be able to get to the bottom of this, provided we get something from the sample. I’ll give you a call as soon as I hear from the field team in L.A. about Howard Small, and I’ll make sure we have some answers from the lab by Monday morning.”

Mercer gave Howard Small’s phone number and address to Henna before hanging up. He drained the last of his Heineken and thought about another to counter his hangover, but what he needed was a long shower and about eight hours of sleep.

Before padding to his bedroom, he went to the locked trunk at the bottom of his office closet. Opening it, he retrieved a Beretta nine-millimeter pistol and a black shoulder holster. The gun was U.S. military issue, a gift from Dick Henna to replace the one Mercer had lost in Hawaii last year. Henna had also given him a permit to carry the weapon anywhere in the United States except on commercial aircraft. He closed the trunk, tucking the loaded gun and a spare clip under his arm. This was the first time he’d felt he’d needed it since Henna had given it to him, and its presence was a powerful reassurance.

The courier came for the steel fragment ten minutes after he’d gotten out of the shower. The bruises on his body were mottled dark rose and purple. Ignoring his bed, Mercer had been sitting at the bar, staring at the cryptic remnant when the courier arrived with the agent who was to take the first shift guarding his house. After handing over the steel plate and conferring with the guard for a few minutes, Mercer fell into a deathlike sleep.

Dick Henna called two hours later.

“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but it appears Howard Small is dead. A neighbor who’d been watching Small’s house said she hadn’t seen Howard since he left for Alaska. There was no luggage, and the answering machine had about two dozen messages on it. A closer examination turned up a bullet hole in the floor and traces of blood on a carpet that matches Small’s, and what appears to be the body of a cat lodged in the drain under the kitchen sink. The house had been professionally sanitized, no prints, no tire treads, nothing but the blood, the bullet hole, and the cat.”

“Then it’s no coincidence. We’re being hunted.” Mercer’s voice was thick with unfocused anger.

“Looks that way. The piece of steel was just delivered to Quantico and Dr. Goetchell said she would have a preliminary report by late tomorrow morning. As soon as I get it, I’ll let you know, and then I want you to vanish.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be the invisible man.”

Mercer was woken again, just past six o’clock. This time it was a pounding at the door that dragged him from the blissful embrace of oblivion. The skylight over his bed was a darkening square, the sky above swollen with rainclouds. He threw on a pair of jeans and a shirt and spun down the stairs. His injuries had stiffened, so he moved like an old man, shuffling and slow.

He looked through the peephole and saw Special Agent Mike Peters standing next to someone he thought he’d never see again. He swung open the door with a tired smile.

“I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but this woman insisted that I tell you she was here.”

If Aggie Johnston was beautiful in a designer dress, she was absolutely enchanting in jeans and a plain white T-shirt, her hair tucked under a baseball cap. Her face had the clean scrubbed look of a college coed, except for the enticing pout of her lipsticked lips that drew attention to her understated sensuality.

“You’re quite a surprise,” Mercer said, catching her green eyes.

“I came over with some dinner.” She held up a plastic bag emblazoned with Chinese dragons and characters. “The next thing I know I’m being felt up by this guy. What’s going on here?” She paused when she noticed the bandage on Mercer’s cheek. Her voice softened. “Oh, my God, what happened to you?”

Mercer turned to Agent Peters. “You frisked her?”

The big FBI agent looked sheepish. “I had to make sure she wasn’t armed.”

“Lucky boy. I think if I’d tried that, she would’ve torn me limb from limb.”

“Mercer, what happened to you?” Aggie cut in impatiently.

“You might as well come in. I’ll tell you all about it.”

He moved aside to let Aggie enter, tossing a wink at Peters as she crossed the threshold.

“I didn’t expect this.” Aggie eyed the tall atrium. “It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you. Come on upstairs. I’ll fix you a drink.” He followed her up the staircase, his eyes luckily at the level of her tight backside as she took the steps with long-legged grace.

She paused in the library, scanning the titles, her fingers running along the spine of one of the twenty-eight volumes of Denis Diderot’s eighteenth-century Encyclopedie Methodique. She looked at the shelves with the rapt attention of a true bibliophile. Many of the books in Mercer’s collection were early editions of some of the great works on geology and mineral sciences. She went to one shelf and withdrew Earth in the Balance by Al Gore. “This is one book I would never have suspected of you,” she teased.

“It was a gift,” Mercer defended himself quickly. “I swear to God I never read it.”

In the bar, Aggie ran her hand along the massive mahogany bar top, surveying the delicate woodwork that made up much of the room. “This is more what I expected from you. Masculine, overbearing, and dedicated to alcohol.”