Jack Du Brul - Charon's landing

It was apparent that only about thirty of the locals wanted to get involved; the rest made for the door as quickly as possible. Nearly all twenty-five members of PEAL were eager to brawl, including several women. At first, Mercer wanted to join the hurried exodus, but as he moved toward the exit, he realized that he couldn’t leave Aggie until he knew she was safe. He turned and struggled back into the bar, shoving and pushing through the panicked throng.

Forcing himself into the clear, he heard her scream over the shouts and yells, over the grunts and cries, over the breaking of glass and the crash of furniture. She was pinned near the far wall of the bar, bent backward over one of the band’s large speakers, red stage lights flashing against her pale, pained face. A swarthy man in a black leather jacket held her hands over her head, a sheen of eager sweat gleaming on his skin. To get there, Mercer fought his way in, out, and around a half dozen fights, punching and kicking with little regard for his target.

A blow landed solidly in his stomach and another caught him on his jaw. He rolled with the shots, giving himself a few moments to recover. A PEAL advocate came after him, hands held low and at the ready. Mercer let him come, gauging the man with an expert eye. As soon as his attacker had committed himself to a powerful roundhouse punch, Mercer eased back just enough so that the fist slid past his chin. He grabbed the man’s outstretched arm, steadied his target, and fired off a series of punches at the man’s exposed flank, fists sinking into the hard pad of muscle below the activist’s arm. A couple of ribs snapped with sickening pops.

Mercer sidestepped the falling environmentalist and targeted the man holding Aggie. Her attacker had freed one of his hands so he could grope between her legs. His shoulders were hunched to protect himself from her futile ripostes. Mercer shoved aside two struggling men who staggered into his path and reached Aggie only sixty seconds after the fight had broken out.

Had her assault not turned sexual, Mercer might have been willing to let her feel the consequences of her action. She was playing with other people’s lives as a pet project, disregarding what was at stake for the men and women who lived in Valdez. Protests like this were strictly geared for the media. PEAL wasn’t in Alaska to raise environmental awareness, just the world’s awareness of the group’s existence. Their interest in Valdez would last only as long as they could hold the media’s attention, then they would move on. But the man holding Aggie had made the mistake of trying to satisfy some perverse desire by fondling her.

Even as Mercer swept a half-filled beer bottle off one of the few unoverturned tables, he hoped that a less amorous man had pinned Aggie. She wanted to be part of the Green Revolution, and this was its reality. Tear down what exists and worry about the aftermath later. With a strong downward jerk, the bottle shattered over the man’s head and he hit the floor before the last of the disintegrated glass found its way to the carpet.

Aggie was pulled off balance by his fall, sliding off the speaker and onto her feet. Her eyes widened to almost impossible proportions when she recognized Mercer standing before her.

“Now, what’s a nice girl like you… Oh, never mind, let’s get the hell out of here.” Mercer grabbed her wrist and led her out a back door just as the police stormed into the bar. As they fled, Mercer took an instant to notice that nearly all the PEAL activists were still fighting while the floor was littered with the dazed forms of Valdez’s toughest citizenry.

The alley behind the bar was dimly lit and the Dumpster next to the back exit was filled to near overflowing. Aggie tried to stop, but Mercer wanted to be as far away from the bar as possible. He didn’t want to spend the night in the town’s drunk tank with a group of hungover antagonists whose fight was far from over. He dragged her to a lit street, one block inland from the bar.

Once under the protective pool of a streetlight, she stopped and jerked her arm out of Mercer’s grip. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“You’re welcome.”

“Answer me, goddamn it.”

“Hey, I was in the right place at the right time. If you want to go back, be my guest. I’m sure that guy would love to have another go at you,” Mercer said with more anger than he felt.

“Fuck you.”

“Good-bye, Aggie.” He started to walk away and was relieved when she ran up and grabbed his sleeve.

“I’m sorry. I don’t care why you were there tonight, but I’m certainly grateful.” She looked up at him, her eyes like gems.

He wanted, more than anything else, to kiss her, to capture that mouth with his. But he turned away instead and continued walking. He hated being this confused, and his natural reaction was to leave, as if getting away from her presence would ease the hurt in his mind.

“Mercer, wait!” She caught up to him again, and they began walking in stride, her long legs matching his angry pace. Without a word, he shed his leather jacket and draped it over her shoulders. She snuggled into it like a favorite blanket. After a moment she said, “We need to talk.”

“I really don’t think we do.”

“The man who broke into your house, I knew him.”

“Yes, I know,” Mercer replied evenly, thankful she hadn’t dodged the other issue that had been plaguing him since that night. “I’ve never seen anyone face death the way you did. Your expression wasn’t fear or disgust, it was recognition.”

He might have expected her first revelation, but he wasn’t prepared for her second. “He worked for my father.”

“What?” Mercer stopped, whirling her around so that she faced him.

“Well, he used to. I confronted my father about it yesterday. He told me Burt Manning hadn’t worked for him for a couple of months.”

“And you believed him?”

“Yes. No. Well, maybe. I don’t know.”

“Aggie, we’re talking about lives here, mine in particular.”

“When I talked to my father, he knew what time I was at your house and the only way he could have known that is if Manning had told him before breaking in to kill you. Manning must have been working for him.” Aggie went quiet for a second, on the verge of tears. “I just can’t believe it. My father is a monster, but he would never have someone killed, especially you. You two are friends. After I talked to him, I was so scared, I didn’t know what to think, so I came here a couple of days before planned.”

“Aggie, do yourself a favor and get the hell out of Alaska. You’re not safe here.”

“I’m safer here than I was in Washington.” They started walking again.

“Manning wasn’t after you. He was after me, and his reasons have nothing to do with your father. Go home.”

“What does being in Alaska have to do with anything?”

“More than you think, but I don’t have time to explain.” Mercer had shut down the emotional side of his brain so when he spoke again it was without the trace of bitterness he expected. “You and your PEAL friends should just pack up and go somewhere else.”

“None of us are leaving until our work is done.” Her tone was absolute.

“Hey, you guys want to go chain yourselves to trees and stage marches, that’s fine, but people are dying here and I’m afraid it’s not over yet. Don’t you understand? You are about to get caught up in something more dangerous than that barroom brawl. Is your life worth more than making a little noise about the environment? Listen, Aggie, your father didn’t have anything to do with that attack on my house. It was coordinated by a former KGB operative named Ivan Kerikov, and he’s in Alaska now and has already killed four people including three of my friends.”