by Jack Du Brul
“Father, have you been taking your medication?”
“No,” the elder scientist fired back irritably. “That Coumadin is nothing more than rat poison and Vasotec, the beta blocker, affects my breathing because of the air-conditioning. Now don’t bother me again about my heart. Have a look at this; we’ve gotten the cameras back on line.”
Valery glanced at the monitor and saw a close approximation of hell on earth. Dangling from a Kevlar cable and encased in carbon fiber with a thick artificial sapphire lens cover, the camera hung directly above the central vent of the fastest growing volcano in the world. Molten rock, forced upward by the tremendous heat engine of the earth’s core, poured through the narrow rent in the crust in a never-ending stream, amid billowing clouds of noxious gas and dissolved minerals. There was no microphone attached to the camera, but Valery could almost hear the protesting moans as the earth vomited up her guts.
“The rate has increased again,” Valery remarked.
“And?”
“The flow is forming more westerly now.”
“Right, it’s caught in the North Equatorial Gyre, just as I’d predicted.”
“But that current only moves maybe three miles per day. Surely that can’t cause a shift in the formation of the cone.”
“It wouldn’t normally, no, but the rate of ejection from the volcano is so great that the two forces create a skew in the lava flow. It’s a simple matter of vectors. I’m glad you’re here, Valery, the computer is about finished with the past day’s data and is ready for a growth projection.”
Because of the massive amount of raw data gathered by the sensors and the inherently chaotic movement of anything within nature’s realm, the August Rose needed huge computers in order to create a reasonable prediction of the volcano’s future growth. Even with the gigabytes of power, the computers needed a full twenty-four hours to remap, down to the millimeter, the thrusting cone below the ship and then to predict where the cone would broach the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
The countdown clock on one computer screen indicated that the holographic projection would be complete in one minute and twenty seconds. Valery and his father waited in silence, both preferring to stare at the camera images than fake inane conversation. Pytor Borodin didn’t seem to notice the tension between them, but Valery was well aware.
Finally the counter ran down to zero, and Pytor Borodin activated the holographic imager. The model projected against the plotting table began as just a hazy conical outline, but quickly sharpened. Crags, radiating dikes, and smaller vents were easily distinguished. The projection looked as solid as a plaster cast but was composed entirely of laser beams.
“Activating the extrapolation logarithms.”
The computer had already done the tens of billions of calculations necessary to predict the growth of the volcano, so the image began to change immediately. A shimmering blue plane representing the ocean’s surface appeared and the volcano quickly rose through it, tiny simulated waves pounding against the bleak basalt shores.
Borodin pressed several more buttons on his console and longitude and latitude lines were added to the projection, accurate to the second of a degree.
With a note of satisfaction, Pytor Borodin remarked, “This is the third straight test where the summit has broached more than a thousand meters outside of Hawaii’s two-hundred-mile exclusionary limit. I think it is now time to inform Kerikov.” He turned to a female assistant. “Tell the captain that I wish us to remain on the site for an additional twenty-four hours.”
She nearly bowed as she left the lab. Borodin strode back to his console and called to the room at large, “Reset the sensors and the computers. I want to run another simulation immediately.”
Just as Valery turned to go, his father grabbed him lightly by the arm. “You have yet to see the latest from the gas spectrometry lab.”
The two left the lab together, Borodin’s hand still on his son’s arm, as if he expected him to bolt at any moment.
The spectrometry lab was crammed with gleaming stainless steel equipment and several computer monitors slaved to the mainframe. The gas spectrometer itself was as large as an automobile, but infinitely more complex. It used the spectrum of light given off by vaporized material to decode its chemical composition. The system was also paired with a seismic wave echo sounder as a backup.
“Vassily, show our second-in-command what you showed me earlier this evening.” Borodin never called Valery his son.
The sheets of paper the scientist thrust into Valery’s hands were covered in bands of rainbow hues broken up by black lines of varying thicknesses. The lines corresponded to the wavelengths of light absorbed by the vaporized materials.
As easily as a geographer deciphering the myriad lines on a topographical map, Valery leafed through pages, noting no deviations from the normal composition of asthenospheric magma, until he came to the last set of spectrographic images.
He recognized the lines denoting basalt, silica, and ferro-magnesium, but there was also a series of conspicuous lines indicating the presence of vanadium, and next to that, a jumble of alternating thick and thin lines that he had never seen before.
“The earliest writings on alchemy date from the mid-fifth century and have been found in Arab and Chinese codices as well as European,” Pytor Borodin said softly, looking over his son’s shoulder at the printout. “For the following twelve centuries, alchemists represented the best scientific minds of their time and gave rise to modern chemistry and pharmacology, yet they all failed at their self-appointed task. Not one was ever able to transmute lead into gold.
“Now, in the age of supercomputers, satellites, and atom smashers, we have returned to the very roots of science. We have done what thousands of people have wasted generations trying to accomplish. At the time of the great alchemists, gold represented the true power of the world. Today, power in the literal sense is what drives the planet. We have done something that mankind had given up as hopeless — we have turned base earth into the most precious substance in the universe. Not some gaudy metal with only limited use, but a power source that can recreate itself even as we use it up. With that kind of strength, Valery, no one will ever have the strength to challenge us.”
Uncomfortable with his father’s words, Valery silently let the papers slide to the desk and walked out of the lab. He was reminded of a quote from Hindu mythology, in which Shiva announced, “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” They were the same words used by Robert Oppenheimer after his creation vaporized a portion of the New Mexico desert.
Arlington, Virginia
Mercer woke just before six in the morning, the jet lag he’d expected burned away by the previous day’s adrenaline overdose. He rose stiffly, gently fingering the livid bruises on both shoulders. He shaved and showered before descending to the rec room. With a cup of thick black coffee in hand, he tried unsuccessfully to concentrate on the morning papers. Throughout the night, his sleep had been interrupted with new questions about Tish’s story, but there were no answers. He resigned himself to waiting for the information from David Saulman in Miami.
By quarter of seven, his coffee cold in the cup, Mercer impatiently folded the newspapers and slid them down the length of the bar. Behind the bar, between a bottle of Remy Martin and one of Glenfiddich, lay a one-foot section of railroad track. Half of it was rust-colored and pitted, the other burnished to an almost mirror finish.
Mercer retrieved the heavy rail and set it on a towel on the bar. Beside it he placed a shoe box containing a metal polishing kit, usually stored next to the antique fridge. He began polishing the rail with a remarkable amount of concentration, as if when the steel was beneath his fingers, nothing else in the world mattered. As the rust and grime slowly dissolved under the chemical and physical onslaught, he silently thanked Winston Churchill for giving him the idea for such a meditative device. When the British prime minister found himself under even greater stress than his legendary constitution could
handle, he would build brick walls in the courtyard behind Number 10 Downing Street. The repetitive act of mortaring, setting, and pointing allowed his mind to disengage from the frantic pace of the Second World War and focus on one particular problem. When a solution was thrashed out in this fashion, an aide would tear down the wall, chip the mortar from the bricks, and stack them neatly for the next crisis.
Emulating this idea, but adapting it for apartment life, Mercer had begun polishing railroad track while attending the Colorado School of Mines. He would polish a section for an hour or so before a big exam, clearing his mind and focusing his energy on the upcoming challenge. He graduated eleventh in his class and swore that this ritual was the key.
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 amp;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 amp;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 a
gain, 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.”