Jack Du Brul - Charon's landing

“Why?” asked Mercer with reverent curiosity.

“Shut up, this is what we both want.” She grasped his buttocks, pulling him to her.

Aggie’s shirt was tangled up around her throat. She wriggled free for the instant it took to shed the cotton garment. She wore no bra, and Mercer’s glimpse of her breasts brought him to the height of sexual tension. As if willed on their own, his hands could not be denied. One palm found her left breast, cupping it fully, the tips of his fingers extending along the cage of her ribs. Her breasts were small, almost girlish, peaked with tiny flushed nipples no larger than nickels.

He had always been self-conscious about his hands when it came to touching a woman’s body. They were callused and scarred by a lifetime of physical labor, his palms like the horned skin of some desert reptile. His fingers were so hardened that the joints resembled chinks in medieval armor. When his skin raked against Aggie’s breast, she broke the kiss and cried out. Mercer pulled his hand back immediately, fearing that he’d hurt her, but just as quickly Aggie pressed it back with her own, scraping the rough palm against her most sensitive flesh, increasing the tempo in time with her labored breathing.

“Oh, my God,” she managed to squeak into Mercer’s mouth.

Aggie pulled his hand from her chest and guided it to the juncture of her thighs. Even through the layer of denim, Mercer could feel the wet. He tore at the button fly of her jeans with mindless abandon, all thoughts blocked except for his desire. As his fingers worked the fastening, his mouth came in contact with her breast, his tongue washing over it, stiffening its tip until it looked like an overripe raspberry, sweet and alluring. The final button came undone. Her panties were just a soaked wisp of silk, deeply clefted by her arousal.

The phone rang, its chime as intrusive as a church bell.

Never in his life did Mercer want to ignore a call so much, but he knew he couldn’t. He pulled himself off Aggie angrily, looking down at her as the phone purred again. The confusion on her face was the most painful thing Mercer had ever seen. Forcing himself to ignore it, he picked up the receiver. “Hello.”

“Mercer, Mike Collins at the terminal.” Mercer pictured Alyeska’s Chief of Security, the calm watchful eyes of a former cop, the long jagged scar of a former soldier.

“I’ve been expecting your call,” he said bitterly, watching Aggie dressing again, her back to him.

“Andy Lindstrom thought you might. All hell has broken loose. We got some sort of riot at our principal depot in Fairbanks, and all the computers at the terminal are locked out. Andy asked me to give you a call. Since you knew something was going to happen, you got any ideas?”

“I’m on my way over. Have you called the authorities yet?” Mercer watched Aggie struggle into her jacket. She looked at him for a moment and then she was gone, closing the door quietly behind her. Mercer couldn’t stop her, and he realized that she hadn’t wanted him to. Aggie had made her choice, while Mercer had none. He sadly turned his full concentration back to Collins.

“Not yet, at least not about our computer thing. It was the cops who called us about the trouble up in Fairbanks. Seems some sort of protest at the depot’s main gates has gotten out of hand. According to the Fairbanks police, it’s not PEAL but some natives’ rights group, jawing about us swiping sacred land.”

“Don’t worry about the riot. It’s not important.” Mercer had the phone clamped between his shoulder and his head, freeing his hands to lace up his boots. He gave Dick Henna’s personal cellular phone number to Collins. “Call him, tell him who you are, and tell him I want Elmendorf Air Force Base put on alert.”

“Why? You just said the riot in Fairbanks is nothing. Just a bunch of ’skimo lovers getting a little rowdy, is all. I’ve already got some of my security people from farther up the TAPline en route. It’ll be dispersed within a couple of hours.”

“Yeah, but when your men are chasing at shadows, Kerikov is going to make his real attack somewhere else and your security people won’t be near enough to deal with it,” Mercer said sharply. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

There was no sign of Aggie in the parking lot as he fired up his Blazer. And unless he went looking for her later on, he knew he would never see her again. An emptiness formed in the pit of his stomach, though he felt this was probably for the best.

Aggie had waited in the vending machine alcove a few doors down from Mercer’s room. She watched him leave through tear-blurred eyes. Giving back Jan’s ring had been a definitive act of closure, ending their relationship and her affiliation with PEAL. She’d wanted the same from Mercer, a final moment together to satisfy all the questions she had about him and about them. But it hadn’t happened. Once again, they hung in some sort of limbo, neither enemies nor lovers. She knew now that she’d come here to sleep with him and purge herself of her feelings. Because that hadn’t happened, her feelings were even stronger than before. Somehow, by not making love, she’d managed to prolong the possibility of a relationship. But watching him walk down the hall, his purposeful strides carrying him farther and farther away, she felt her chest ache. Tears finally spilled from her eyes.

Aggie waited for a few more minutes before leaving the hotel, making certain that Mercer had gone. The parking lot was nearly deserted; a dark van was parked near the exit doors and a dilapidated pickup occupied the closest space to the hotel’s lounge. Aggie’s rented car was next to the van, nosed in close to the building.

She fished her keys from her pocket, the large key ring snagging until she dug it out with considerable effort. Her concentration was centered on the silver circle of the key latch on the door of her car, and she didn’t notice that the van’s engine was running. When the side door of the van crashed back against its roller stops, Aggie snapped around, shifting the key in her fist so that it stuck from between her fingers like a metal claw. It was a purely reflexive action, practiced many nights walking to her car in Washington.

Two figures leaped from the side door of the van. They moved in concert, trapping Aggie between them, penning her between the two vehicles. She whirled, facing both men in a fraction of a second, growing frantic as she realized how well set up this had been. One of the men held a white rag in his hand, carefully keeping it away from his body as if the scrap of cloth contained something unspeakable. Aggie recognized him as the man who’d tried to molest her at the bar the night before. She turned her back on the unfamiliar assailant to concentrate on the threat she recognized. When she did this, the other man rushed up from behind, grasping her arms and locking them behind her back, holding her immobile.

She snapped a foot against the instep of the man holding her. As his grip relaxed for a fraction of a second, Aggie twisted from him, whipping around and raising her arm to smash her elbow into the man’s jaw. The attacker staggered against the van, not quite knocked unconscious, but dazed. There was a small gap between him and her car and Aggie shot for it, jinking herself to break free.

The attacker holding the rag jumped for her. A strong hand grasped her shoulder, steel fingers digging into the flesh below her neck. Aggie was nearly paralyzed by the pain. She tried to shake herself free, but the remorseless pressure increased until she cried out, falling to her knees.

A hotel window in front of the two vehicles opened and a bare-chested man thrust his head out of the opening normally reserved for a screen. His face, ruddy but kind, was stubbled with gray beard. The thick hair on his chest and belly was as black and tight as the pelt of a mink.