Jack Du Brul - Charon's landing

And what in the hell did Mercer mean by “I want to be able to say I hate you too, but I can’t”?

To her amazement, Aggie saw her eyes soften in the mirror, the tension in her face easing, and the scowl almost but not quite becoming a smile.

She knew what he meant.

“All right, Dr. Mercer, you’re going to get what you want.” Aggie spoke aloud, steel in her voice. “I’m going to leave. I’m going to leave Jan and Alaska and, most especially, I’m going to leave you. But not before I have my say and put a stop to this silly crush that should have ended years ago.”

When Jan and she had talked about marriage, he had not given her a diamond ring. He’d said that he could not condone the devastation caused by mining and thus would not help the industry by buying into their popularist notion that a diamond signifies a lasting love. The ring he had given her as an engaged-to-be-engaged present was fashioned from antler. It seemed quaint and appropriate for what they both believed. She dug it out of her luggage, its tiny velvet box too elaborate for the simple beige bauble.

“You’re a cheap bastard,” Aggie scoffed and left it on Jan’s desk, the lid open as if the little box was laughing.

She took a shower and dressed, hiding her wet hair under a baseball cap. She packed a few things into a knapsack, ignoring most of the clothing and “essentials” she’d brought with her to Alaska. She’d buy what she needed when she got to San Diego, the home of an old college friend. Aggie just wanted to leave everything behind: Jan, Mercer, PEAL, this whole wasted year of her life. She’d played close to the edge, and it was time to return to normalcy.

Aggie knew the name of Mercer’s hotel from the dinner receipt she’d found in his jacket pocket. She thought about calling him but decided surprise would be much more effective.

Mercer lay against the headboard of his hotel bed, the television bringing him a great college football game between Florida State and Georgia. It was the third quarter, the score only ten to fourteen, both defenses able to thwart numerous well-executed drives just short of field goal range. A beer rested within reach on the nightstand, a thick ring of condensation surrounding the smoky bottle of ale like a medieval moat.

Taking a sip, he flashed a look at his watch and hoped that the rest of the waning afternoon would pass quietly. Since the raid, Mercer hadn’t strayed more than a few feet from his phone, fervently wishing it wouldn’t ring but knowing it would.

He was having that feeling again. Something was very wrong. Jan Voerhoven not being aboard the Hope was just the most obvious sign, but there were others, things he couldn’t explain, even to himself. Mercer ran through the connections again, the little things that made him so certain. This kind of second-guessing was unnecessary and dangerous, but it was also his nature to keep working at a problem, no matter how easy the solution seemed to be.

It started with tons of liquid nitrogen being smuggled into the state. Why? Who would do it and for what purpose? Second, the most radical environmental group in the world is already in Alaska, its leader missing on some mysterious mission that his girlfriend didn’t know about. Then there was Ivan Kerikov, an international terrorist or, more accurately, a terror broker. A man with no loyalty except to himself but with seemingly unlimited resourcefulness. He was in Alaska, too, with a couple of Arabs. What was their role in all of this?

Now what would a former KGB agent, a couple of Arab henchmen, and an environmental group do with liquid nitrogen on the eve of the opening of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge? The presence of even one of these elements was enough to give pause. But there was more.

Aggie’s disclosure about her father, for one thing. She asserted that Max Johnston knew what time she’d been at his house, the exact moment of a devastating attack that only Harry White’s timely interruption had prevented from turning into a massacre. Was Max connected somehow? Wasn’t it one of his tankers that had been late arriving at the Alyeska Terminal to take on her cargo of Prudhoe Bay crude? Was that even significant?

Mercer shifted on the bed to reach for the phone. He wanted to call Dave Saulman in Miami. He wanted the marine lawyer to give him an update on that tanker. It was a long shot, a potential wild-goose chase, but sometimes wild geese lay golden eggs. His hand was only an inch from the phone when there was a loud knock on his door. He got up, and when he opened the door, he took a quick pace backward. Aggie Johnston wore jeans, a sweater, and her olive anorak. A baseball cap covered her head, tendrils of hair as delicate as silk threads falling down past her ears. She carried his leather jacket under one arm. Behind her angry expression, he saw a deeper emotion, a secret place that she didn’t know existed, for surely she’d have tried to hide it from him. She was hurting, he knew, and scared. Mercer’s heart slammed in his chest.

Her voice was brittle. “I need to say a few things to you.”

“Do you really?” He had to force his voice to remain neutral.

Aggie pushed her way into the room, closing the door behind her. “I just want you to know that I’m leaving Alaska and I’m leaving Jan.”

“Why?” There was an intrigued smile on Mercer’s face.

“Why what? Why am I leaving?”

“No, why are you telling me?” Mercer’s smile deepened as he saw the uncomfortable play of emotions on Aggie’s face. It was clear she hadn’t expected that question.

“I just want to,” Aggie replied, flustered. “I’ve had enough. Enough of Jan with his ego and his condescension and you with your overblown hero act.”

“It’s not an act,” Mercer teased.

“Goddamn it, Philip, is everything a joke to you?” Aggie’s use of his first name surprised him as much as it did her. Suddenly the room was an intimate place charged with something palpable.

“No, Aggie.” His voice took on a tenderness he’d never shown her before. “I don’t think Kerikov is a joke, or your ex-boyfriend. I don’t think the attacks on my house were a joke, or the deaths of Howard Small and his cousins. None of this is a joke. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“And what about us?” Aggie asked so quietly he hardly heard her.

It was his turn to be startled by a question he’d not expected. Before he could respond she turned back to the door, dragging her eyes away from his.

“Never mind,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. It’s all over for me — PEAL, Jan, and even my crush on you.”

She was reaching for the door when Mercer called out her name. He couldn’t let her go and his desire thickened his voice. It was the first time that neither of them was on the defensive. They faced each other not as adversaries but as a man and a woman who were ready to admit a strong attraction, two minds coming together as surely as their two bodies wanted.

Aggie came across the room, stripping off her jacket. She crashed into him with enough force to push him back against the bed, her hands clutching at the sides of his head, pulling his mouth to hers, crushing his lips savagely.

Mercer’s arms circled her body, one hand pulling her T-shirt out from her jeans, the other tracing up the smooth skin of her back to rest against her slim neck. She pulled him tighter to her body as if trying to burrow into his embrace like a frightened animal, yet there was nothing timid about her tongue, which roamed his mouth with slick, velvety strokes.

Their movements were feverish, hands never resting, urged onward by the desire to explore, caress, possess. Without conscious thought, they fell onto the bed, the comforter adding to the sliding movement of their bodies as they pressed against each other, their lips parting only enough to emit low moans and gasps.