Jack Du Brul - Vulcan's forge

“That’s extortion.”

“Extortion is such a genteel word, Mr. Henna. I prefer blackmail. What if I said I can hand over the mastermind of the entire operation?”

“I’m listening.”

“I won’t talk until you guarantee transport to that ship.”

“Christ.” Mercer could almost see Henna throw his hands up in exasperation. “All right, I’ll get you out there. Now, what have you got?”

For the next twenty minutes Mercer spoke without pause and Henna listened. Hard.

“You got proof for any of this?” Henna asked when Mercer finished.

“Not one single shred. But it all fits together.”

“I said it before, Mercer, if you ever want another job, the bureau would love to have you.”

“Do you think the American Civil Liberties Union would stand to have an FBI agent making accusations like I just made? Shit, they’d skin us both alive.”

Henna chuckled again. “You’re right. I’ve got a meeting with the President in an hour. I’ll take your proposal to him. The only way I can get you out there is as an observer, nothing more.”

“That’ll be fine,” lied Mercer smoothly. “I really can’t ask for more. Call me back when you’re finished with the President.”

A minute after hanging up the phone, Mercer was between the sheets of his bed. Despite his battered body’s need for sleep, he tossed and turned for twenty minutes before drifting into unconsciousness.

Unlike most conventional helicopters, the Kamov Ka- 26 lacked a stabilizing rotor in the stern; rather, it had two main rotors stacked on top of each other. Their counter-rotating blades kept the tiny copter from gyrating through the skies. The craft was much noisier than normal helicopters because of this arrangement, though the rotor noise couldn’t drown out her two radial engines mounted in pods outside the cramped cabin.

The Ka-26, code-named “Hoodlum” by NATO, pounded through the clear skies at one hundred knots, near her maximum cruising speed. The sea below was an azure plane which rolled into infinity. The August Rose , mother ship to the small chopper, was nearly two hundred miles astern and steaming hard for Taipei, a gift to the Taiwanese ambassador. Dr. Borodin had ascertained the precise location of his island’s birth, so the sophisticated gear on board the freighter was no longer needed.

The Hoodlum had been stored inside a huge packing crate on the deck of the refrigerator ship, her double set of rotor blades folded back along the twin booms of her tail. The chopper had remained hidden long after the freighter had started her long journey westward, away from the volcano, which was now no more than a few days from broaching the surface. Already dense, sulfur-laden steam clouds clung to the surface of the sea, marking the eruption.

With an operational range of 380 miles in her unitarian configuration, the Hoodlum remained on the August Rose until she was nearly two-thirds that distance away from the rising volcano. Only then had the pilot lifted from the deck with his two passengers.

Now, three hours after takeoff, the pilot was beginning to sweat, not from the humid air that whipped through the tiny cabin, but from fear. The antiquated radar on the twenty-five-year-old craft could no longer detect the August Rose , not that they had fuel to reach her in any case. They were alone, five thousand feet above an empty sea. The pilot looked back at his two passengers. The older one apparently slept while the younger one watched the ocean far below. The earphones over his head kept his fine hair from blowing about, but the wind worried at his olive drab flight suit. The pilot turned back to his instruments, scanning fuel, altitude, speed, and course in a quick glance before he gazed again at the endless horizon.

Valery Borodin turned away from the open door. He touched his father on the shoulder and Pytor’s eyes cleared instantly. “We should be only about ten kilometers away.”

The pilot overheard the comment through the intercom and replied, “Ten kilos away from what? We’re at least three hundred kilometers away from Hawaii and running out of fuel. Do you mind telling me what this is all about?”

“Of course. Take us down to about two hundred meters first.”

The pilot shrugged and complied. He doubted these two men were planning their suicides, so they must have a plan. Relieved, the pilot put the Ka-26 in a gut-wrenching dive. The rotors clawed at the air as they drove the chopper toward the surface of the sea. In an expert maneuver, the pilot pulled back on the collective pitch and leveled the craft at exactly two hundred meters. He looked back and was disappointed to see that his passengers appeared bored at his antics and expertise.

“Two hundred meters, sir.”

The elder Borodin pulled a cylinder from the pocket of his flight suit. The yellow plastic case was no more than three inches in diameter and about a foot long. He pressed a red button at the top of the cylinder and casually threw it out the open door of the helicopter.

“What was that?” the pilot asked.

“A high-frequency transponder,” Valery answered for his father. “Fly a one-kilometer box pattern and in a moment you’ll see what we’re up to.”

The chopper banked sharply to starboard as the pilot began running his boxes. He had completed two kilometer-long legs when he saw a disturbance in the sea. The limpid blue water was frothing as if Leviathan itself was surfacing. The pilot brought the chopper to a hover near the boiling water.

The maddened sea grew more turgid until the bow of a ship burst from the waves, water streaming off her black hull. She rose swiftly, revealing her forward deck, studded with cranes; a boxy superstructure crowned with a single funnel; her aft deck; and finally her jack staff, sporting a limp Panamanian flag. It was like watching the death throes of a sinking ship, only in reverse. Water poured through her scuppers with the force of fire hoses as the ship wallowed in the frenzied swells of her own creation. After a minute the ship settled to an even keel, the waves dispersing quickly.

“Jesus,” the pilot muttered.

“That,” Borodin said with triumph, “is the watchdog of Ocean Freight and Cargo and our destination, the steamer John Dory .”

If the pilot had had time to notice the decoration on the ship’s funnel as he brought the Hoodlum toward the landing pad aft deck of this extraordinary vessel, he would have seen a black circle surrounding a yellow dot.

The Hoodlum settled on the rolling deck with deceptive ease. The pilot was truly a professional. The deck-hands tossed chains around the four wheels of the copter and signaled him to cut power. An instant later the blades slowed to a stop, sagging like palm fronds.

Valery Borodin jumped from the craft, followed a moment later by his wheezing father. The elder scientist’s skin had gone a chalky gray and his breath was short. Both men paused, waiting for the pilot to join them.

“What in the hell is this?” the pilot nearly shouted, his ears still ringing from the long flight.

“One moment and I’ll let the captain explain.” Borodin turned to the crew chief and made a cutting motion across his throat.

The chief waved his acknowledgment and signaled his crew. They quickly unshackled the landing gear and unceremoniously pushed the Hoodlum into the sea. The chopper bobbed in the water for a few minutes, her rotor blades scratching at the paintwork of the John Dory before she filled with water and vanished. The pilot gave the tired little craft an ironic salute as he watched her go under. If he was bothered by the intentional destruction of his helicopter, it didn’t show.