Vulcan's Forge

by Du Brul, Jack

  She’d entertained the thought of marking the floor by scratching the concrete with a sharp pebble to track the passage of time, but decided that it wouldn’t do her any good. She knew she’d be dead before there were even a few gouges. She’d asked herself over and over why she was willing to be killed rather than report the propaganda Kenji had presented her with. Was her journalistic integrity worth more than her life? Were her priorities that messed up?

  No, she decided. She could have done it, spouted off whatever he told her. She could have guaranteed her survival, but afterward, her life wouldn’t really be worth living. Not because she would have helped that monster Kenji and not because she would have deceived the public. She would have disappointed herself and that was something she just couldn’t do.

  All her life she had faced the world according to her personal set of standards and not once had she ever broken her own rules. If she had, she would have been lying to herself. Jill remembered doing a report once on heroin use among teens in Honolulu. One junkie, a sixteen-year-old girl who supported her habit by hooking, refused to admit she was addicted to drugs. She accused Jill of faking a photograph of her shooting up behind a sleazy hotel. The girl had lied to herself so much that she couldn’t even acknowledge the physical evidence of her problem. She’d told Jill that the needle tracks on her arms were tattoos.

  Jill was afraid that if she broke her personal code, she would end up as self-delusioned as that junkie. Helping Kenji, even in an oblique way, would be a violation of that code. She couldn’t do it, wouldn’t do it, and would die for it.

  Her mind had sharpened during the solitude of the past few days, driven by the same instincts which had kept man’s ancient ancestors alive on the plains of prehistoric Africa. Like any animal, the human being can sense danger long before the threat is seen or heard. Jill knew that there was a new danger around her; she could feel a malignancy in the air as surely as if it were a physical sensation.

  She had first noticed it about an hour earlier, primarily as a tightening of the atmosphere, an almost electric sensation. Soon she noted more tangible evidence of a change.

  There was an audible increase in the numbers of guards pacing around Kenji’s estate, more pairs of footfalls on the raked gravel walk next to the shed that was her prison. These new guards walked with a tighter cadence, more vigilant than Kenji’s usual security. But in the past half hour or so, she had heard fewer and fewer people walking around, as if the new guards were vanishing into the night. She heard them walk past the building as if headed for the jungle’s edge, but they never returned.

  Now she heard new footsteps; there was an urgency in the strides. Jill knew instinctively where this man was headed.

  The footsteps stopped outside the door and she heard keys jingling as merrily as a Christmas chime. The man thrust a key into the lock, turned it violently, and threw open the door. Jill had gotten to her feet and backed as far away from the door as possible.

  The intruder was young, no more than a boy, but he carried himself with the negligent attitude of a world weary soldier, cocky eyes and a leering slit of a mouth. There was a pistol in a holster hanging from one bony hip.

  He will rape me and then kill me, she thought as if reporting an incident that happened to someone else. I will be dead soon.

  Chin-Huy approached, his small hands flexing in nervous anticipation. His eyes were dark spots on his face, like those drawn by a cartoonist. In them, she saw no depth. He drew closer, massaging his crotch languidly, his leer deepening by the moment.

  Jill’s attacker was small, no more than fifteen or twenty pounds heavier than she. She might have a chance fighting him off, if only he left his pistol in its holster. Incredulous, she watched as he undid the web belt and let it fall to the floor, the pistol landing heavily against the concrete.

  The door was open behind him, beckoning her into the warm embrace of the night. Maybe she could duck past him before he could retrieve his weapon. Jill’s eyes shifted past his shoulder to look at the rectangle of open country beyond her prison, and in that split second, Chin-Huy covered the last few feet between them. He struck her with a vicious roadhouse punch that drove her to the floor as if she’d been hit by a baseball bat.

  Her connection to consciousness was just a thin strand. A quick hand darted out and kneaded one of her breasts painfully.

  This is not happening to me, Jill thought. This is not me that’s being touched.

  Chin-Huy twisted her nipple viciously and she gasped, the pain bringing her back from the dark realm that draped her mind. She looked up into his face. His teeth were crooked and stained, his breath on her skin was hot and fast. His eyes had narrowed to pinpoints and lust had suffused his face with dark blood.

  In the millisecond it took her to blink away some of the tears flooding her eyes, an arm had whipped around his neck and yanked him up, off his feet.

  By the time Chin sensed something was wrong, his windpipe had nearly been crushed. He tried to whirl around and break the grip, but the arm clung as tenaciously as a remora. His body began to jerk and twitch as if controlled by a manic puppeteer. He slammed back with one elbow, but the blow lacked power and the man killing him didn’t so much as grunt. The arm tightened even more, completely cutting off his air. Chin-Huy’s tongue snaked from between his lips, tearing against his teeth so that his saliva was stained pink. With one final tug, Chin’s neck snapped with a nauseating crackle.

  Jill watched the man fall. Then her eyes scanned upward along the legs that stood behind the body of her would-be rapist. When she reached the face of the man who saved her life, she was greeted by a lazy smile and a pair of the most charming gray eyes she had ever seen.

  “If he’s my only competition for your affection, I bet you’re free for dinner tomorrow night.” Mercer grinned, then bent down and checked the livid bruise spreading across Jill’s cheek. It was ugly and would last for a couple of weeks, but wasn’t serious. Her eyes were brightening, so he wasn’t too concerned about a concussion. They were stunning, deep and black with such a trusting expression that Mercer looked into them much longer than absolutely necessary. The emotions she’d bottled up for five days poured out as Jill ducked her head against his shoulder and cried. He murmured to her reassuringly, stroking her thick black hair.

  “You’re safe now, Jill.”

  “How do you know my name?” she asked meekly, her cheeks slick with tears.

  “You’re an unwitting victim in something much larger that I’m here to stop.”

  “You know about Takahiro Ohnishi and his coup?” she said urgently. Her resiliency marveled him.

  “I know all about it.” Mercer untangled her long arms from around his neck. “Jill, I have to leave you here for a while, but I’m sure that nobody will bother you again.” He pointed to the dead soldier. “He was probably going to kill you, so now everybody thinks you’re dead. When Kenji’s eliminated, I’ll come back for you and we’ll all get out of here together. I have a helicopter waiting about two miles away.”

  “I understand,” she said calmly. “What’s your name?”

  “Most damsels call me Lance A. Lot but you can call me Mercer.” He smiled and was rewarded with one of Jill’s. Christ, even in her condition, she was beautiful.

  The corpse of the soldier was dragged out of the maintenance shed by one of the SEALs. Mercer closed the door but didn’t relock it, then regarded the body.

  “He’s Korean,” Mercer exclaimed, studying the mottled face. “I wonder who the hell he was.”

  The SEALs simply stared flatly, not commenting.

  On their approach to the shed, Mercer and his team had taken out eight Asian guards, some wearing fatigues like the figure at his feet and some wearing street clothing. In the jungle they had not taken the time to closely examine their victims, assuming that they were Kenji’s personal guards. The discovery that the dead men were Korean put a new twist on the situation.

  “I don’t know who these guys belong to
, but we’ll assume they’re not allies. That means we still have Kenji’s guards plus these Koreans.” Mercer spoke more for his benefit than the SEALs. “I doubt they know we’re coming, so we have the element of surprise, but how effective is that against an unknown force?”

  Mercer led them closer to Kenji’s compound using whatever natural cover they could find until they were tucked safely behind the guest house. Near them, the azure pool shimmered with muted underwater lights. Kenji’s house waited quietly twenty yards beyond the pool. Mercer surveyed the back of the two-story sprawling home through the night-vision goggles lent to him by one of the SEALs. Only a few rooms were illuminated, but the glasses easily probed the darkened rooms as well. Through the greenish hue, he saw at least fifteen armed men in the house, slowly pacing through the rooms, scanning the extensive grounds.

  After about five minutes of studying the mansion, he gave the commandos their orders. They obeyed without question and left, blending into the night.

  Waiting while the SEALs got into position was agonizing. Thoughts of fear and failure tried to weaken Mercer’s resolve, but he crushed them down mercilessly. He had come too far to be afraid now, he told himself. Yet even as he mentally prepared himself for the assault, his mind drifted to a vision of Jill Tzu. He chuckled at himself. Of all the times to be thinking about sex. When the first crackling report of automatic fire rippled the silent sky, he shook his head quickly and moved.

  As ordered, the SEAL team had crept around to the front of the house and opened fire, raking the edifice with a scathing barrage. Mercer ran across the open back lawn, praying that human nature would cause the men inside to turn toward the sounds, leaving him undetected. As his booted feet pounded across the grass, he crouched in anticipation of a killing shot from the second-story guards.

  He covered the twenty yards to the house in record time.

  Mercer leapt onto an immature palm and shimmied up like a monkey, feet and hands working in perfect harmony. Near its top, his weight bowed the tree inward and he dropped easily onto an unguarded second-floor balcony. The sound of gunfire intensified at the front of the house as the SEALs and the guards traded ammunition at a staggering pace.

  Mercer kicked in one of the French doors and rolled across the room’s carpet in case there was an unseen guard stationed inside. He came up onto his knees, the MP-5 tucked hard against his shoulder, and scanned the room quickly. Empty.

  He stripped off his goggles and took a few calming breaths. The sounds of the fight below were barely muted by the thick walls of the plantation house. He had just turned to reach for the door when he noticed a shadow bisect the sliver of light at the floor. Mercer rested his hand lightly on the polished brass knob and felt it twist beneath his fingers. As the latch fully retracted, he yanked on the handle and brought up his machine pistol. The guard was caught unaware; Mercer pulled him into the room and jammed the barrel of the MP-5 into his belly. Just as Mercer felt himself being pushed backward by the man’s weight, he pulled the trigger. The 9mm rounds tunneled through the guard, boring a cone-shaped wedge of flesh from his body that smeared against the wall behind him.

  Mercer yanked his bloodied weapon from the falling corpse and turned down the wide hall. A fatigue-dressed Korean ducked out of one of the other rooms and Mercer managed to snap off a burst that caught the man high in the back. A quick check showed that one of the rounds had been fatal, while the rest had just mangled the ornate millwork of the door frame.

  He did a sweep of the rest of the upstairs. The remainder of the elegant guest rooms in both wings of the mansion were deserted. One floor below, machine guns and grenades pummeled the masonry and shook the walls of the old plantation house. Mercer paused at the head of the stairs, the acrid tang of cordite smoke searing his nostrils.

  A stab of fear lanced through his body. The battle below was like nothing he’d ever heard before, the ugly sounds of death echoing up the stairs. His experiences in Iraq and Washington were nothing like this. Those times, he’d been ambushed and hadn’t had time to think. In the OF&C offices in New York, he had felt more in control. But this—this hell—was something different. He was about to voluntarily walk into carnage, and that terrified him. Grimly, he descended the ornate mahogany stairs, one finger squeezed firmly around the trigger of his MP-5. Just an ounce more pressure would unleash a hail of bullets.

  In the mezzanine, two bodies lay sprawled in the rubble of the blown-out windows, one dressed in fatigues, the other, one of Kenji’s men, in a dark suit. Cloying smoke layered the air, burning Mercer’s eyes as he crouched just above the bottom of the staircase; bullets and shrapnel whizzed by like angered wasps. Obviously the SEALs’ assault had lost none of its fervor. In an adjoining room, someone screamed in pain. Mercer knew, thanks to the plans provided by Dick Henna, that the wailing originated in a formal reception area.

  Mercer didn’t realize someone had spotted him until a stream of bullets tore into the railing and banister near him, shredding the wood like a chain saw. He tumbled down the remaining steps, ducking his head and hunching his shoulders. As he landed on the marble floor, he glimpsed the assassin silhouetted in the doorway to the dining room. Mercer fired, but only one round went off before his clip emptied. The shot caught the Korean in the shoulder and spun him nearly completely around, but left him very much alive.

  He started to turn back toward Mercer, Uzi clutched in his hands. Mercer launched himself from the floor, diving across a rich Turkish carpet while reaching for his holstered Beretta as he flew. The move threw off the guard’s aim, giving Mercer time to torque himself as he landed and pump four or five rounds into him.

  Mercer reholstered the Beretta and jammed a fresh clip into his machine pistol. He ducked around the doorway leading to the reception area, taking out three guards who were crouched under the shattered windows.

  From the plans, he knew Kenji’s study was on the other side of the entrance foyer, several rooms past the dining room.

  Another guard spotted him as he raced back across the foyer and bullets tore up the marble at his heels. Mercer jinked once, then dove into the dining room, landing on a table large enough to seat twenty. The table had been beautifully set—Mercer’s momentum shattered the ornate Royal Doulton china, turning it into a very expensive pile of trash on the polished wood floor. He tumbled over the far side of the table, knocking three chairs onto their backs.

  He knelt up, steadying his H&K on the table. Shards of china dug deeply into the toughened skin of his knees through his black pants.

  An explosion ripped through the foyer as the SEALs blew out the solid front door. A pall of smoke roiled into the dining room, and the Korean who had just fired at Mercer staggered into the room. Obviously he’d been standing near the door when it shattered and the wood splinters had torn through his body. Mercer’s dispatching shot was a relief to the pitiable figure.

  Mercer smashed through the door to the kitchen. There was more blood on the floor than in an abattoir; crimson smears streaked the walls and pooled under the two bodies crumpled below a blown-out window. The SEALs certainly knew their business. Mercer returned to the dining room and cautiously nudged open the other exit door. The room beyond reeked of smoke. Flames licked at the ceiling from a destroyed television set a few yards beyond a large leather sectional couch.

  One of Kenji’s guards feebly tried to lift his weapon from where he lay, but he was missing a massive chunk of his left shoulder. Blood streamed from the wound.

  Dispassionately, Mercer fired a short burst between the man’s hate-filled eyes. The other guard in the informal living room, a uniformed Korean, was already dead.

  Mercer took a few deep breaths as he changed clips. Glancing at his watch, he noted with surprise that only six minutes had elapsed since he had started running for the palm tree in the backyard. The adrenaline fizzing in his veins had made it seem more like six hours, yet each moment was etched into his brain like frames of film. Outside, the battle was dying down. Either
the ranks of SEALs or guards had dwindled to nothing. He had no way of knowing.

  Beyond the living room, a wide, window-lined gallery stretched the length of the northern wing of the house. The SEALs had shot out the tall transomed windows to his right, so the air was free of smoke. Opposite the windows, French doors opened into other rooms—a book-lined library, a silk-draped billiards room, a small cinema that had probably been the music room when the house was built at the turn of the century. The last door of the gallery led to Kenji’s study.

  Mercer stealthily made his way along the promenade, quickly checking each room he passed. The door just before the study was open, and as Mercer approached, a foot kicked out with incredible strength. The MP-5 flew from his grip, tearing some meat off his right index finger where it had caught on the trigger guard. Before he had time to react, a fist pounded into him, catching him just below the heart. Mercer’s breath exploded in a wheezing gasp.

  He staggered back a few paces, massaging his ribs. Kenji stepped into the corridor, wearing a black gi and no shoes. His dark eyes blazed with pure hatred as he gazed at the Occidental interloper.

  “I do not know who you are, but I will take great pleasure in killing you for what you’ve done.” His voice echoed from someplace deep within, an empty chasm which contains normal men’s souls. Kenji had none.

  Mercer struggled to draw his pistol, but Kenji paced forward cutting the distance between them in the blink of an eye. His foot flicked out with the speed of a viper’s tongue and the Beretta spun away as Mercer’s right hand went numb. Though Kenji was nearly twenty years his senior, Mercer had no hope of defeating him. Even if Mercer hadn’t been battered so much in the past week, Kenji would still be able to take him apart at a leisurely pace.

  “Are you another of Kerikov’s errand boys?” Kenji asked mildly, cracking a hardened foot against Mercer’s ribs.