Vulcan's Forge

by Du Brul, Jack

  Of course, he chuckled as he worked on the rail, a near photographic memory didn’t hurt. Since school, Mercer estimated that he’d polished nearly sixty yards of track.

  He was still polishing when Tish entered the rec room a little past nine.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  Mercer laid his polish-soaked rag in the shoe box, feeling no need to explain his actions. “Good morning to you. I see they fit.”

  Tish pirouetted in front of him, the thin black skirt twirling around her beautiful calves. Her top was a simple white T-shirt from Armani. Mercer had bought the clothes for her at a local mall while she had slept through the previous afternoon.

  “I assumed that you’re not a transvestite and these were for me.” Tish grinned, smoothing the skirt against her thighs.

  “No, I gave up drag years ago. Are the sizes all right?”

  “Right down to the 34C cup, thank you for noticing.” She threw him another saucy grin. “Is that coffee I smell?”

  “Yes, but let me make a new pot, this is my own blend, brewed especially to wake the dead.”

  “Sounds fine to me.” She took a tentative sip and winced. Mercer started a fresh pot. “Why didn’t you wake me last night for dinner?”

  “I figured you needed sleep more than you needed my cooking.”

  “I’ve found that most bachelors are excellent chefs.”

  “Not this one, I’m afraid. I travel so much that I never took the time to learn how to cook. I live by the principle that if it can’t be nuked, it can’t be edible.”

  Mercer saw Tish’s eyes dart to the map behind the bar. “I’ve only been on a few field trips. Most of my time is spent in a lab in San Diego. It must be exciting, all that travel, I mean.”

  “At first it was, now it’s cramped airline seats, cardboard food, and dull meetings.”

  Tish scoffed but didn’t press. “Do you have any new clues as to what’s going on?”

  Before answering, Mercer glanced at his watch. It was well past his personal cutoff limit of 9:30. He strode around the bar and pulled a beer from the fridge. “I placed some calls yesterday, after you went to bed. We should be hearing something soon. Until then, I think it best that you stay here. Is there anyone you need to contact? Boyfriend, anything like that?”

  “No.”

  “Good. I hope by this afternoon we’ll know something that will lead us in a direction. But right now, all we can do is wait.”

  “Don’t you have to go to work?”

  Mercer laughed. “I’m consulting for the USGS. They expect me to be irresponsible.”

  They talked for the next hour or so, Mercer deftly turning the conversation away from himself so that Tish spoke most of the time. She had an infectious laugh and, Mercer noticed, several charming freckles high on her cheeks. She had never been married, just engaged once, when she was younger. She was a Democrat and a conservationist, but she didn’t trust her party’s candidates or the mainstream environmental groups. She never knew her mother, which Mercer already knew, and idolized her late father, which he’d guessed. She enjoyed her work for NOAA and wasn’t ready to settle down into a teaching job just yet. Her last serious relationship had ended seven months before so right now the only thing she needed to worry about were several house plants that her neighbor promised to look after when she had gone away to Hawaii.

  Around eleven, a phone rang in Mercer’s office. He made no move to answer it. A few seconds later, the fax machine attached to that phone line began to whirr. When it finally stopped, Mercer excused himself and retrieved the dozen sheets from the tray.

  He walked slowly back to the bar, eyes glued to the first page. As he finished each page, he handed it to Tish. They read for twenty minutes; occasionally Mercer would grunt at some piece of information, or Tish would gasp.

  “I don’t understand that question at the end of the report.”

  “It’s a trivia challenge between Dave and me. Goes back years. I have to admit he has me stumped.”

  Tish read the question aloud. “ ‘Who was the captain of the Amoco Cadizo?’ I’ve never even heard of that ship.”

  “She was a fully loaded supertanker that ran aground in the English Channel in March of ’78. I’ll be damned if I can remember her captain’s name.”

  Tish regarded him strangely, but changed the subject. “What do you make of this information?”

  “I’m not too sure yet.” Mercer opened another beer.

  Ocean Freight and Cargo, the company whose ship rescued Tish, was headquartered in New York City but the corporate money came from a Finnish consortium headed by a company once suspected of being a KGB front. “Slicker than Air America,” was David Saulman’s assessment. Their ships sailed mostly in the Pacific, running fairly standard cargos to established ports of call. Saulman did find that OF&C had a “Weasel Clause”—his words—written into all of their contracts concerning the August Rose. The clause allowed the five-hundred-foot refrigerator ship to break contract with only twelve hours’ notice, provided that cargo had not already been onloaded. In all of Saulman’s years of maritime law, he had never seen such a stipulation and couldn’t even guess its purpose. Since 1989, OF&C had evoked this clause several times, refusing to load cargo onto the August Rose in the States. The clause was odd, Saulman concluded, but certainly not nefarious.

  Her present position was north of Hawaii, hove-to because of engine difficulties. Saulman’s sources said that she would be under way within fifteen hours and that the company had not requested outside help for their idle ship. Her cargo of beef, scheduled to be picked up in Seattle, was currently being loaded onto a Lykes Brothers’ vessel.

  Mercer’s request for information about vessels sunk in the same waters as the NOAA ship Ocean Seeker had opened quite a Pandora’s box. No less than forty ships had sunk in that area in the past fifty years, although sinkings had been less frequent since the 1970s. Mercer assumed this was because of new weather-tracking technology. He noted that most of the vessels lost were charter fishing boats, pleasure craft, or day sailors. He checked off the notable exceptions with a black Waterman fountain pen.

  Ocean Seeker, NOAA research vessel, June this year.

  One survivor.

  Oshabi Maru, Japanese long-line trawler, December 1990. No survivors.

  Philipe Santos, Chilean weather ship, April 1982. No survivors.

  Western Passage, American freighter converted to cable layer, May 1977. No survivors.

  Curie, French oceanography research ship, October 1975. No survivors.

  Colombo Princess, Sri Lankan container ship, March 1972. Thirty-one survivors.

  Baltimore, American tanker, February 1968. Twenty-four survivors.

  Between the loss of the Baltimore in 1968 and the sinking of an ore carrier named Grandam Phoenix in 1954, no large ships had sunk north of Hawaii. Any large vessel lost before 1954 could be attributed to World War II.

  “I don’t know what to make of it either,” Tish added.

  “Well, if the ship that rescued you is somehow connected to the KGB, that would explain why you heard Russian as you were being rescued.”

  Mercer scanned the pages again, but kept returning to the list of sunken ships, noting that the Grandam Phoenix had been lost with all hands. There was something . . .

  “Jesus.”

  “What?” Tish said.

  He hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud. “I have to go to my office.”

  “What for?”

  “I have a hunch.” Mercer reached for the phone. A second after dialing, Harry White’s bleary voice rasped,

  “Hello.”

  “Harry, Mercer. I need you over here to keep an eye on a friend of mine. . . . No, don’t bring a guest and yes, I do still have some Jack Daniel’s. . . . Right, see you in a few.”

  Mercer hung up and turned to Tish. “A friend of mine will be here in a few minutes. I want you to stay here with him; I can’t trust you out on the streets just yet. Not until I
know more.”

  There was a pleading look in Tish’s eyes. Mercer couldn’t tell if she wanted reassurance or more information. “I’ll be back in a few hours. If what I suspect is true, we’ll have this cleared up by tonight and you’ll be on a plane home in the morning. Besides, Harry is better company than I am.”

  Ten minutes later the doorbell rang and Harry let himself in. When he entered the rec room, a few millimeters of unfiltered cigarette dangled from his lips.

  “Christ, Mercer, no wonder you called me over. This girl is too pretty to be here of her own free will. You must have kidnapped her.”

  “Actually, I did. Tish Talbot, this pathetic creature is Harry White. Harry, Tish.”

  Harry ran a hand through his hair. “If I were twenty years younger, I’d still be old enough to be your father, but it’s good to meet you anyway.”

  Mercer could see that Tish was immediately charmed. The old lecher still had it, he admitted. She would be in good hands while he was away.

  “I’ll be back in an hour or two.”

  “Take your time,” Harry responded. “I’m free all day and I’m sure that the lovely lady is eager for some good company.”

  “Harry, you’re a paragon. Tish, I won’t be too long. Try not to encourage him, bad heart, you know.”

  “Leave us,” Harry barked, and turned to stare into Tish’s eyes.

  Mercer heard Tish’s rich laughter before the front door had closed behind him.

  JENNIFER Woodridge looked up in shock as Mercer entered his outer office.

  “And where have you been since yesterday?”

  “I took a long lunch, Jen, and just lost track of the time.”

  “Right. Next time you do that, let me know first so I can cover for you. Richard has been frantic trying to reach you.”

  As if by mystic perception the phone rang. It was Richard Harris Howell, the corpulent, whiney deputy director of the USGS, Mercer’s immediate boss.

  “Dr. Mercer, I need to see you in my office right away. I have a list of travel vouchers in front of me that we need to discuss.” Howell was more accountant now than scientist. “It seems that you abused government money on that South Africa trip.”

  Mercer held the receiver away from his ear while Howell continued in this vein for another minute. “You’re right, Rich.” Mercer knew that Howell hated that nickname. “Listen, I’ve got some stuff to clear up here. I’ll be in your office in ten minutes.”

  Mercer hung up the phone, forestalling any complaint. “I’m sure he’ll waddle right over. Tell him I went to the bathroom.”

  “Where are you really going?”

  Mercer sat on the corner of her desk and affected a mock serious tone. “Jen, I can’t implicate you in this. What if Howell resorts to torture?” She giggled. “As soon as the little toad leaves, take the rest of the day off. Ah, hell, take the week off, I don’t think I’ll be around much.”

  “Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “Just keep Howell off my back.”

  He grabbed his briefcase from his inner office and descended to the basement of the USGS building, where the extensive data archives were stored.

  Although Mercer had not met the USGS chief archivist, Chuck Lowry, he had heard about him. Most people who fought in the Vietnam War agreed that their tour had changed them in some profound way. The staff at the USGS believed that two tours in ’Nam had perhaps made Chuck Lowry a little more sane, but by no stretch of the imagination was Lowry a normal man. He wore eight-hundred-dollar sports coats and tattered jeans. His face was hidden behind a beautifully manicured beard, but his hair was a gnarled mess. The black eyeglass frames perched on his squat nose had no lenses, and he swore like a truck driver but possessed an amazing vocabulary.

  When Mercer entered the computer room of the USGS archive, Lowry was seated behind his desk, a trashy romance novel in his hand. A brass plaque next to the telephone read, “Eschew Obfuscation.”

  “I purchased this yesterday,” Lowry said, holding up the garishly covered book, “along with a packet of condoms and an economy-size jar of Vaseline. Fucking cashier didn’t even bat an eye. The times are fecundating a truly preternatural disinterest between people. The book, though, is delightful. Except the authoress constantly describes the heroine’s breasts as supple and the hero’s torso as glistening under a sheen of manly sweat. If she does it once more, I will track her down and truncate her. Who are you?”

  “Philip Mercer. I’m a temporary consultant.”

  “Oh, Jen Woodridge works with you.”

  “You know her?”

  “Just as a potential stalking victim.” Mercer hoped Lowry was joking. “You’re the guy that’s busting Howell’s balls, right?”

  “Let’s just say he and I don’t get along.”

  “That’s been his problem since he first darkened our door. He doesn’t play well with others. He’s also a vexatious little dilettante with a permanent fecal ring environing his mouth from so much ass-kissing. What brings you to my Dante-esque nook?”

  Mercer ignored the fact that he understood only about a quarter of Lowry’s words. “I need to see the seismic records of Hawaii during May of 1954.”

  “Somewhat obtuse request, but I can oblige. Come back tomorrow, I’ll have everything you need.”

  “Sorry, Chuck, this can’t wait. I’ve got Howell breathing down my neck again, so I have to get out of here ASAP.”

  “In any way will this research piss off that cock-in-the-mouth?”

  “Only to the effect that it has absolutely nothing to do with my contract with him.”

  “Good enough, walk this way.” Lowry hopped off his chair and shuffled into a back room, doing a perfect impression of Lon Chaney’s “Igor.”

  Lowry seated himself in front of a computer terminal that was hooked into the data retrieval mainframe and lifted a heavy data reference book from the drawer beneath the keyboard. He thumbed through it slowly, whistling the theme from Gilligan’s Island. Several minutes passed before he put the book aside and began hammering at the keys.

  “I always type fortissimo rather than pianissimo—lets the fucking machine know who is Maestro around here.”

  Mercer could not suppress a grin at Lowry’s antics. After a few minutes at the keys, the computer chirping, whirring, and beeping, Lowry pushed himself away from the terminal. “There, seismic records of the Hawaiian Islands for May of 1954. Why the fuck you want it, I’ll never fathom. Now I’ll return to Bimbo St. Trollop and her hero, the redoubtable Major Tough Roughman.”

  Lowry left the room and Mercer took his seat at the computer. Because of the tremendous volcanic activity in and around Hawaii, the records, even for a single month, would take days to assimilate, but he had a specific date in mind.

  Twenty minutes later, Mercer shut off the computer and thanked Lowry for his help.

  Lowry’s response was a quote from the romance novel. “Tough tore the bodice from her young flesh, exposing her supple breasts to the pirate crew.” Lowry looked up. “This bitch writer is going to die.”

  Mercer chuckled and closed the door to the archive. He took the stairs directly to the street. Because the Jaguar, or what was left of it, was still impounded, he was forced to take a cab back to his house.

  Tish and Harry were not home, but a note taped to the television screen in the rec room stated they had gone to Tiny’s bar. Mercer was furious for a moment, but realized that Tish would be just about as safe there as at the house. Before he could join them at Tiny’s he had to place a call to New York City, to set up what he hoped was the beginning of a plan.

  Ocean Freight and Cargo, the KGB, or whoever was behind all of this had gotten Mercer into the fight. Now it was time to return the favor.

  The White House

  “Our man’s name is Mercer. Dr. Philip Mercer,” Dick Henna announced as he entered the Oval Office.

  “About fucking time,” Paul Barnes, the acting head of the CIA, said. There was no love lost
between the two men.

  Also in the office with the President was Admiral C. Thomas Morrison, the second African-American to be chairman of the joint chiefs in U.S. history and a man who didn’t play coy about possible political aspirations.

  “Who is he, Dick?” the President asked.

  “He’s a mining consultant, currently working for the USGS. The reason it took so long to ID Mercer was that a cop friend of his impounded his Jaguar at the Anacostia auxiliary lot. If I hadn’t put extra men on the case, we never would have found him.” Henna took a seat. “I can only assume the woman is with him.”

  “Why does that name sound familiar to me?” the President said more to himself than the men seated around him.

  “Sir,” Barnes spoke up, “he was involved in a CIA operation just prior to the Gulf War. I’m sure his name was mentioned during a briefing by my predecessor.”

  “That’s right. I was serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee then.”

  “Yes, sir. Dr. Mercer accompanied a small team of Delta Force soldiers into Iraq to investigate their capabilities of mining weapon’s-grade uranium. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that the Iraqis hadn’t obtained any from foreign sources, but we needed to know if the uranium ore mined near Mosul was pure enough to be enriched into plutonium 239. The data Mercer’s team brought back guaranteed that our troops would not face a nuclear threat. That was the last piece of intelligence President Bush needed before commencing Operation Desert Storm.”

  “As I recall, there were some losses during that mission,” the President commented.

  “Yes, there were. Four of the commandos were killed in an ambush at the mine site. In the debriefing afterward we learned that Dr. Mercer took charge of the remaining force and led them safely out of Iraq.”

  “He seems to be a capable man,” the President remarked.