Jack Du Brul - Vulcan's forge

He swiveled his head and surveyed the room. Tiny was out of sight behind the bar, searching for something or other. There were four or five other patrons, workers from the local trucking firm. Looking at them, Mercer felt vaguely conspicuous not sporting a baseball cap or at least a cigarette. Umber light slashed through the windows as the sun dropped beneath the smoggy horizon.

Mercer had been back in Washington just long enough to jam a clear pin into Hawaii on the map at home, call Dick Henna to set up this meeting at Tiny’s, and give himself a decent buzz.

He drained the last of his drink and called to Tiny for another. The three gimlets already wending their way through his body were dulling the pain in his bruised joints.

Richard Henna came through the front door just as Tiny set the new drink in front of Mercer. Henna wore a dark suit and tie, his eyes hidden by the dark glasses seen on all FBI agents in the movies. Mercer stood slowly, supporting himself with one hand on the table, as Henna crossed the room to his booth.

“I see you’re alive if not well.” Henna shook his hand and the two men sat.

Henna removed his glasses and glanced around the dingy room. His expression matched one Mercer had made once in a public toilet in Istanbul.

“Lovely place you have here,” Henna said sarcastically.

“It has its charms.” Mercer grinned. “They water down the beer with bourbon.”

“I’ll stick to Scotch.”

“Tiny, Scotch and…” He looked at Henna, cocking an eyebrow.

“Neat.”

“Scotch and Scotch.”

“So where have you been since the navy fished you out?”

The explosions that sunk the John Dory had been heard by the sonar aboard the USS Jacksonville , the Los Angeles -class attack submarine attached to the Kitty Hawk battle group. She was the vessel poised to launch a nuclear-tipped Tomahawk cruise missile at the rising volcano. The sub raced to investigate the blasts and in the process found the sinking Sea King and three passengers. After an hour of argument with the captain, radio communication with the commander of the Pacific fleet, and finally intervention by Admiral Morrison, the Jacksonville abandoned her mission and headed for Hawaii.

“I stayed in Hawaii until just this afternoon.”

“A little rest and relaxation?”

“More like recovery and research.”

Henna thought better than to press for Mercer’s meaning. “How are you feeling?”

“Not bad. The cast on my leg came off yesterday and my ribs are okay as long as I don’t try to sing opera.”

Henna smiled, then thanked Tiny as his drink came. “I see how this place gets its name.”

“He used to be a jockey,” Mercer pointed out. “So what’s been happening in Hawaii?”

“You were there, you should know better than me.”

“No, I was up north on Kauai near a town called Hanalei, cut off from just about everybody and everything. The only news I heard was on the flight from L.A. to Washington, and even then I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“Well, let me fill you in a little bit.” Henna shrugged out of his jacket and laid it next to him on the booth. “The state, hell the whole nation, was stunned when we told them exactly what had happened. The President decided to come clean on the whole affair from Ohnishi to Kerikov to the bikinium. Valery Borodin was at the press conference at Pearl Harbor to back him up. The CIA found some old photographs of Evad Lurbud to match his corpse found at Kenji’s estate. Of course we needed two undertakers to make his body look human again after what he’d been through.

“The Russians deny all knowledge of the operation code-named Vulcan’s Forge, but admitted that Ivan Kerikov was known for operating outside government sanction.”

“You said ‘was known.’ Is he dead?”

“No, he’s vanished. He was in Thailand, then went to Switzerland, but from there, no one knows. He simply disappeared. The Russians are looking for him now, as well as the CIA and Interpol. He’ll turn up.”

“Don’t count on it. If he’s cagey enough to nearly succeed with an operation like this, he can easily stay lost too.”

“Maybe you’re right, I don’t know.” Henna nodded slowly. “Remember, though, there’s also a group of very pissed-off Koreans after him.”

“Have you been able to find out who was behind the Korean angle?”

“We got nothing from the bodies at Ohnishi’s house, but the guy found near the gardener’s shed at Kenji’s was the grandson of Way Hue Dong, one of the seven richest men in the world. To further link him to what happened, the day after you were rescued, a small flotilla of ships, one of them specially designed for high-temperature dredging and all owned by one of Way’s companies, arrived at the volcano site. You better believe they were surprised to see the U.S. Navy already there with a carrier and a half-dozen support ships. Way’s already lodged a formal complaint with the World Court at The Hague, but he doesn’t stand a chance of taking the bikinium from us.

“As for Hawaii itself — there was one more night of rioting after your raid, but that was it. Without the Koreans or Ohnishi to act as agitators, the mobs lost their will to fight and pretty much just went home. Hawaii’s senators have both resigned, claiming health problems, but it was either that or face prosecution for treason. The President has pardoned all others involved, and a special task force has been set up to deal with any legitimate claims by the Hawaiians. He felt it best to sweep the violence under the rug rather than make the nation relive it for months in the courts. In all, about three hundred people died during the riots.

“The President’s going to ramrod some funding through Congress to try to end a lot of the racial tension in this country — education programs, urban aid, that sort of thing. The Los Angeles riots and now this recent crisis have finally brought people to their senses. The old adage, ‘United we stand, divided we fall,’ almost came true, and it’s scared enough people who want to really do something about it. With the current conciliatory mood in Congress, he’ll get all the funding he needs.”

Mercer interrupted. “You can’t change people’s opinions with new laws and federal spending.”

“Thirty years ago doctors were advertising the health benefits of cigarettes,” Henna countered.

“Touche.”

“It will take some time but at least we are finally on the right track. No one wants the type of ethnic strife that’s tearing apart central Europe and the old Soviet republics. We’ve maintained racial diversity for two hundred years and we’re not going to let it slip away now. America is famous for pulling through a crisis just as things reach bottom, and we’ll do it again.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Henna took a swig of his drink. “Valery Borodin is with our own people at the volcano, assaying the parts of it now above the surface to see where to begin mining the bikinium. I believe Dr. Talbot is with him.”

“She is. As a favor to me, the President had her flown out there two weeks ago. I spoke to her on the phone yesterday, just before my flight back to Washington. She and Valery have rekindled the passion they once felt. Already they’re talking marriage.”

Henna smirked. “Kind of funny, you were the hero in all of this. I thought it was customary for the hero to get the girl at the end.”

“When they make the television mini-series, I’ll make sure they change the ending,” Mercer replied offhandedly.

“Well, don’t think you’re going to come out of this completely empty-handed.” Henna fished a set of keys from his pocket and tossed them to Mercer.