Jack Du Brul - Charon's landing

“I don’t know,” Collins admitted. He switched his chew from one distended cheek to the other, a small jet of yellow juice shooting from his pursed lips. “You’d have to talk to Ed, the chopper pilot, about that.”

“Well, let’s go talk to Ed, then.” If Mercer felt any hesitancy, it didn’t show. He was moving on a deeply intuitive level that he’d learned to never question.

By the time they got to the airport, night had settled with deceptive ease, darkening the sky completely. The rain, which had been constant all through the afternoon, had finally stopped, leaving the trees heavy with water. Even the slightest breeze brought another shower falling to the earth. But slight breezes were not in order for this night. A stiff wind scoured the open field, with gusts strong enough to alter Mercer’s stride.

The lone Bell JetRanger among the Cessna 182s, Twin Otters, and a single private jet looked like an overgrown insect bathed in artificial light as it sat forty yards from the terminal. A dark figure leaned nonchalantly against the sharply angled Plexiglas windscreen, hands crossed over his broad chest.

Lit as they were, the pilot could see his passengers before they could get a clear image of him. He peered into the light beaming from the terminal and laughed roughly when he recognized one of his passengers.

“Don’t even think of coming one step closer, Mercer,” the pilot warned in a deep baritone. He was African-American. “The Judge Advocate General said I’ve got the legal right to kick your ass if you come within fifty feet of me.”

“Eddie?” Mercer called. “Eddie Rice?”

“None other, white boy, and I ain’t kidding — you stay away from me, man. You carry some seriously bad juju and I don’t want you around me again. My flying record was perfect before your sorry ass entered my life, and I plan to keep it to just that one crash until the man gives me my gold watch.”

“They give you a gold watch, Eddie, you’ll hawk it for a couple of forty-ounce malt liquors. You still drink when you fly?” Mercer called back, pacing a little ahead of Collins.

He and Eddie Rice came together, hugging as friends who thought they’d never see each other again. Even in a padded flight suit, Eddie was a solid person, his body dense and roped with muscle. He was not as tall as Mercer, but his shoulders were wider and his neck was as thick as a tree stump. Rice was handsome, the way a sports figure or music idol was handsome. His skin was glossy smooth and his deep-set eyes were wide and bright, only a single dark vein in his right eye marring their bluish whiteness. His only unattractive feature were small, misshapen teeth, two jagged rows of yellowed tablets that were either too crowded or too gappy.

A year ago, Eddie Rice had been a lieutenant in the navy, a chopper pilot commanding a Sikorsky Sea King off the amphibious assault ship Inchon . He’d had the bad luck of ferrying Mercer from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk to the Inchon during the crisis in Hawaii. Mercer had hijacked Rice’s helicopter, ordering him to fly to Hawaii so he could prevent a catastrophic invasion that would have forever crippled the United States. While making their escape after preventing a nuclear missile launch, Mercer, Eddie, and a Russian scientist named Valery Borodin had been forced to ditch their helicopter in the North Pacific. Eddie had been the most severely injured in the crash, spending three months in the naval hospital at Pearl Harbor. The last Mercer knew, the navy had given Rice an honorable discharge and set him up on a disability plan that would make him comfortable for the rest of his life. Mercer more expected to see Nanook of the North in Alaska than Eddie Rice, USN (Ret.).

“I’ll have you know, I have maintained twelve hours’ bottle-to-throttle since about twenty minutes ago,” Rice teased back.

On their desperate flight from Hawaii trying to track down a rogue Soviet sub, Mercer had offered Eddie a beer, which the pilot had gratefully accepted considering his chances of surviving to face a review board were about zero. It was one of the many things the two men had laughed about during their time in the hospital. The previous Christmas, Eddie had sent Mercer a single Sapporo beer, the brand that the two had shared on that fateful flight.

“What are you doing here?” Mercer questioned.

“Shit, I should ask you the same question. I get a call on my day off for some emergency flight, and who shows up but the most dangerous man I’ve ever met. What’s your story?”

“You remember the Russian behind the Hawaii affair? He’s back, and right now may be just a few hours north of us.”

“Who, that Ivan Kerisomething? You shitting me?”

“I wish I was.”

“Shit, that guy is the Tonton Macoutes and Baron D’Mort all rolled into one,” Rice said, blending his Haitian grandmother’s two greatest fears, the former Haitian Secret Police and one of the dark figures of traditional voodoo.

“Throw in Jack the Ripper and you’ve got it half right.”

Moments later, the stress on the JetRanger’s landing skids eased, the struts flexing so they seemed to help launch the chopper into the air. The Tiekel River Valley was soon a narrow ax stroke in the ground beneath the rapidly climbing craft. Mercer sat in the copilot seat while Collins occupied the back cabin, his feet stretched almost into the cockpit. All three wore radio earphones, which gave their conversation a muted, distracted sound. The light from the cockpit gauges was an eerie green.

The JetRanger’s nose-mounted strobe flashed a lonely signal into the night.

“So what’s this all about?” Eddie asked after he got the helicopter settled into their designated flight path.

“A couple of hours ago I sent some men down to Fairbanks from Pump Stations 5 and 6,” Mike Collins answered, the throat microphone too close to his mouth so that his voice was garbled. “They were all killed in an accident, two vans full of guys that I’ve known for years. Then, just about forty minutes ago, we lost communication with the rest of the men I left at Numbers 5 and 6.”

“This have anything to do with the trouble at the equipment depot I heard about on the news?”

“Yes,” Mercer answered. “But that’s just a distraction. I think the real trouble is at one of the pump stations.”

“All right, Mercer.” Collins sat forward, thrusting his head between the two cockpit seats. “You seem to have some special knowledge about what’s going on here, and I think it’s time you told me. I’ve lost some men tonight, and something tells me the killing isn’t done. You know something you’re not telling me and goddamn it, I have a right to know.”

“What happened to the captain of the Petromax Arctica ?” Mercer replied.

“What?”

“The original captain of the Petromax Arctica was taken off the ship, choppered to Anchorage, and then taken to Seattle aboard a private medical flight paid for by Max Johnston himself. Do you have any idea why the ship was several hours late berthing at the terminal? If they went through the expense of pulling Harris Albrecht from the tanker, don’t you think it was to make sure the Arctica docked on time? So why was the tanker late? What the hell was an empty VLCC doing running around the Gulf of Alaska without a captain while a berthing space was being held for her?”

“What are you talking about? That doesn’t have anything to do with this situation. The Petromax Arctica docked long before-”

Mercer cut him off before Collins could finish. “Answer the question and I think you’ll know.”

“Harris Albrecht was taken to a trauma specialist in Seattle, a doctor specializing in limb reattachment and stump repair for prostheses.”