Charon's landing m-2

by Jack Du Brul

  He dialed and was surprised that four rings went by before the other end of the line was picked up by a gruff, “What?”

  “Evening, Dick, Mercer here.”

  “Jesus Christ, Mercer, where in the hell are you?” Henna exploded. “I’ve got an entire task force searching for you right now.”

  “Come on, Dick. I’m at the Willard Hotel, where you left me,” Mercer replied innocently.

  “Laugh it up, funny guy,” Henna snorted. “You’re going to get the bill for all the booze Harry smuggled from the hotel. Now, where are you?”

  “Valdez, Alaska.”

  “I told you to stay away from Alaska. Are you deaf or something?”

  “Come on, Dick. The coelacanths are on their spawning runs. The fishing’s supposed to be great.”

  “For your information, coelacanths are found only in the Indian Ocean.”

  “That’s why I haven’t caught one yet,” Mercer laughed. “I thought I was using the wrong bait.”

  “Okay, so you’re in Alaska,” Henna said with resignation. “What have you found?”

  “Nothing concrete, yet, but I’ve got my suspicions,” Mercer replied. “By the way, Dick, where are you?”

  “I’m at the White House with the President and the Secretary of Energy. Care to talk to either of them?”

  “Tell Connie that she should ditch those sensible shoes she’s wearing.”

  Mercer heard Connie Van Buren’s distinct laughter and knew Henna had put his cellular on speaker mode.

  “How are you doing with Max Johnston’s daughter?” Van Buren called. “I saw you two leaving the reception together.”

  “You know me and women, Connie,” Mercer chuckled. “She hates my guts. Listen, Dick, I need a favor.”

  “What else is new?”

  “You know that group PEAL? The environmentalists? Well, I think they may be up to something here.”

  “That’s not the way we’re reading it on this end, Mercer. We’re tracking the Kerikov angle to what’s happening. PEAL doesn’t fit in.”

  “I just watched a few of them tear apart a barroom full of rednecks. These guys moved like a trained army. Not your typical style for a bunch of earth-loving druid wanna-bes.”

  “If you’d listen, I was about to say we’ve found Ivan Kerikov,” Henna exclaimed. “And he appears to be working with some Middle Eastern types, not a group of trust-fund radicals.”

  “What do you have?” The last traces of humor vanished from Mercer’s voice.

  “We tracked his false passport to the Holiday Inn Tower Hotel in Anchorage. He took three different rooms. A suite for himself and two other rooms for what sound like bodyguards. The staff remembered that three of the guards, Arabs, and a man matching Kerikov’s description did leave the hotel for a couple of days. The time frame corresponds with when Howard Small vanished. Unfortunately, when we raided the hotel this morning, we missed them by a couple of hours. The whole party had already checked out.”

  “Shit,” Mercer said bitterly. “Wait, did he make any calls?”

  “Dead end there, too, I’m afraid. He did make a couple, but they turned out to be a private manual exchange in New York.”

  “A what?”

  “It’s like a dead letter drop only for telephone calls. You phone the place and they patch you through to another line using an old manual PBX, that way any traces end with the exchange, not with the person you’re trying to reach. KGB used them for years in this country.”

  “It still doesn’t add up. More than two hundred tons of liquid nitrogen have been smuggled into Alaska over the past couple of months. Kerikov is going to need more than a few Arabs and a couple of bodyguards to do anything with it.”

  “And you think PEAL is somehow involved?” It was the unmistakable voice of the President, who’d been listening to the conversation.

  “Yes, sir, I do. I don’t have any proof, but they make me suspicious as hell.”

  “What do you want done?” Henna asked.

  “Search their ship, find out if the liquid nitrogen is aboard or if they have any special type of refrigeration units, something they could have used to store the stuff. Arrest them all if you find even a goddamn ice cream machine. I know they’re involved.”

  “Mercer, I can’t just go around seizing ships flying foreign flags.”

  “Come on, Dick, you control the goddamn FBI. Surely you can think of something to get men aboard the Hope. Use the cover of health inspectors checking for Brazilian crotch lice, I don’t know. Anything.”

  “If you’re wrong about this, your ass is going to be in a sling,” Henna threatened.

  “I thought it already was for coming to Alaska in the first place,” Mercer quipped.

  “All right, what else do you have?”

  “Nothing. Or maybe everything. I found out that Burt Manning used to work for Max Johnston. And Johnston knew exactly what time the attack on my house took place.”

  “What are you saying?” The President sensed a scandal immediately. He’d just played a round of golf with Johnston.

  “I don’t know, sir, but I just spoke with his daughter and he’s got her pretty spooked.”

  “Mercer,” Connie Van Buren chimed over the speaker phone, “you don’t think Johnston’s involved? He’s got more at stake in Alaska than almost anyone.”

  “I agree with you, Connie. That’s why I’m not sure yet if he’s in any way connected. It’s just a piece of information I picked up and wanted to pass along.”

  “We’ll check out the Hope for you, but I want you back in Washington ASAP,” Henna interrupted.

  “I will, Dick,” Mercer said seriously. “But I want to be part of the team that boards the Hope.”

  “This is a federal matter. You’re just a civilian.”

  “Come on, give this civilian some credit. I may have given you a lead, while the couple hundred agents you’ve got bumbling around the state haven’t turned up anything.”

  “Dr. Mercer, I’ll make sure you are part of the assault, but only as an observer.” The President’s tone was cool and neutral. “However, I want your personal guarantee that you will be on the next plane back to Washington afterward.”

  “Trust me,” Mercer said.

  Richard Henna shut off his cellular when he realized that Mercer was gone and leaned back heavily into his chair. He and Connie Van Buren were seated before the President in the Oval Office. While they were dressed casually, there was a stiff formality in the air.

  They had been here for almost two hours, discussing the implementation of the President’s energy policy and Henna’s involvement to ensure that it went through smoothly. None of the more powerful Washington insiders were naive enough to believe that there wouldn’t be serious recriminations, both nationally and internationally, for what the President had proposed. Oil companies and environmental groups weren’t the only players who saw themselves threatened by the proposed isolationist move.

  A large number of the oil-producing nations saw this as one more step in the American plan to destroy their way of life, and they were currently meeting in London. Militant factions within OPEC could threaten and browbeat the United States because they still held a powerful economic weapon. The three people seated around the large desk had to make sure that possible reprisals never touched America’s shores.

  “That son of a bitch,” Henna said fondly as he strode to a sideboard near one wall that acted as a small bar. He poured a heavy dose of Scotch into a glass and downed it in one easy swallow.

  “Why do you say that?” Connie asked.

  “Because he knows more than we do. Again. I swear to God, he creates these crises just to make me look bad,” Henna said tiredly. “But I don’t think you handled that very well, Mr. President.”

  “Why not?” The chief executive bristled.

  “Because he might actually follow your order and come home, and we’d lose the best man we have in Alaska.”

  “What about the rest of yo
ur agents, two or three hundred of them, I believe?” Connie asked.

  “I’ve got two hundred agents who’ve turned up nothing. I’ve had men following FedEx delivery people if a package looks suspicious. That’s how desperate I am. In just a couple of days, Mercer has given us more leads than my entire staff combined. None of my men have his scientific qualifications or the savvy to make the connections he does. Mercer knows what liquid nitrogen can do and what it could be used for while I’ve got a lot of eager men with short haircuts and linebacker attitudes waiting to kick down doors and crack skulls. None of them are piecing this thing together the way Mercer is. He’s our best asset in Alaska, and if he decides to head home, we may all pay the price for it.”

  “Dick, I’ve known Mercer even longer than you,” Connie Van Buren said. “Don’t you think you’re giving him just a little bit too much credit?”

  “Connie, you weren’t part of the Hawaii crisis,” the President replied sagely. “Nothing Mercer does could surprise me anymore.” He turned to Henna. “Do you think there is anything to his suspicions of PEAL and Max Johnston?”

  “PEAL, maybe. Their leader is one pathological bastard.” Henna fell back into his chair. “But Johnston, no way. The guy is true blue all the way.”

  “Dick.” The President’s voice was heavy with the gravity of the situation. “We both know Philip Mercer. He bailed my ass out of that Hawaiian incident. If he’s suspicious, well, so am I. Do a little digging on Johnston. Quietly.”

  Valdez, Alaska

  Dawn was hours away and the night sky was as black as pitch. Even the stars seemed especially remote and cold in the silence of space. The town, too, was quiet. Only the gentle lapping of waves and the occasional whistle of wind through loosely strung power lines disturbed the night. It was almost four in the morning, the time when humans and all other nonnocturnal creatures were at their lowest ebb. Even with electric lighting and sophisticated technology, man still feared this time of night and hid from it as surely as his primordial ancestors had eons ago. It was the time of witches and devils. It was the time of Ivan Kerikov.

  The still of the night was stirred by a persistent buzzing noise approaching the town from the north. The buzz built into a whine and then to the throaty roar of two fuel-injected six-cylinder engines of a Cessna 310 prop aircraft, its landing lights brilliant in the darkness. The pilot keyed on his mike and the automated runway lights of Valdez’s airport sparkled on, outlining the single 6,500-foot asphalt strip. He crabbed the aircraft, mindful of the crosswind coming from the Sound.

  With just the right touch of throttle and flap, the executive plane scuffed the runway, then settled on its tricycle landing gear, the pilot giving himself more than enough room for his rollout. A flashlight beckoned him to the hard stands where a small group of people waited at the otherwise deserted airport. Their breaths were like cigarette smoke in the predawn chill.

  The pilot cut the engines, and silence once again enveloped the field. A few moments later, the rear passenger door hissed open and Kerikov stepped down to the tarmac, unlimbering his bulky frame from the six-passenger aircraft. His face was drawn and deeply shadowed in the Cessna’s dim cabin lights, but his pale eyes retained their deadly stare.

  “Voerhoven?” he called evenly.

  Jan Voerhoven stepped away from his men and strode to the aircraft, keeping the beam of his flashlight on the silvery wet asphalt. He’d arrived at the airport just moments before Kerikov’s plane, leaving Aggie curled up and asleep aboard the Hope.

  “You are ready.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yes, everything’s set,” Voerhoven replied. “And I have good news. We found that our intelligence about the road to Pump Station number 5 was incorrect. Permits to travel on the Dalton Highway aren’t necessary unless one wishes to travel beyond Atigun Pass. After that, the road is secured for Alyeska vehicles only. Because we used a helicopter to transport the freezing packs to sites north of Pump Station number 5 last month, I assumed we would need them again. I was mistaken. We can move the last of the liquid nitrogen by trucks, which I have waiting for us in Fairbanks.”

  “What’s the distance to the pumping station?”

  “Just over two hundred miles from where we’ve stored the nitrogen. However, much of the road is unpaved. We’ll need at least four hours to get there.”

  Kerikov snapped back his cuff to look at his watch, a crisp, almost military gesture. “That will put us at the pumping station at around twenty-one-hundred hours. Traffic on the road will be negligible and patrols by Alyeska workmen shouldn’t be a factor. Excellent, Jan. I congratulate you on your thinking.”

  “Listen” — Jan hardened his voice — “I need to know what kind of exposure my people can expect.”

  “What do you mean, exposure?”

  “All of the other freezing packs we’ve attached to the pipeline were done at remote locations, with almost no risk of discovery. This time, we’re going to march right up to a pumping station staffed with workers.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re having doubts,” Kerikov mocked, his lazy half smile challenging Jan as surely as an insult.

  “No, but I want to know if my people are going to be in any danger.”

  “Our diversion in Fairbanks is all set. At most, we’ll be facing only half of Pump Station 5’s crew.” Kerikov then laughed, an unnaturally loud sound in the deserted airfield. “Besides, Alyeska’s crew are all unarmed. It’ll be as simple as killing an unarmed truck driver, Jan. If your people are as eager as you say about freezing the pipeline, I’m sure they’re looking forward to a little action. But if you wish, they can remain by the trucks while my men quell any resistance.”

  Voerhoven opened his mouth to protest. Then he remembered the humiliation he’d felt two days earlier when Kerikov had slapped him around, and he remained quiet. Kerikov saw Jan’s reaction and nodded, knowing full well he had the Dutchman under his control.

  “Get on the plane. We’ll take off in just a moment.”

  Kerikov moved farther away from the Cessna, deeper into the night. He slipped a thin cellular phone from his jacket pocket, punching in one of the many numbers the device kept stored. He had to call twice because an answering machine picked up the extension before waking the person he wanted to reach.

  “Hello,” a voice muttered thickly.

  “Mossey, this is Kerikov. It’s time.”

  “Christ,” Ted Mossey complained. “It’s four o’clock in the morning.”

  “Yes, I know it is,” Kerikov agreed with the young computer expert. “Voerhoven and I are about to head north to place the final shipment. I need you at the terminal facility. I’m about twenty-four hours away from initializing the original computer override virus. You have to begin installing it immediately.”

  Mossey came a little more awake at this revelation, his weak voice firming slightly as he realized what was happening. When he spoke, there was a breathless anticipation behind his words. “So soon? Oh, my God, this is fantastic! I’ll have their systems down in just a couple of hours. They’ll call me right away. Oh, man, this is great!”

  “Calm down,” Kerikov snapped. “Once you freeze their computer and they call you back to the terminal, you said it would take about ten hours to get our old program up and running, correct?”

  “Yes, ten, maybe twelve. Looking over the documentation of your program, I saw that your guy buried it pretty deep in the mainframe. It’s not something I can get to very easily.”

  Kerikov cut him off quickly before he started another of his intolerable lectures about computers and their abilities. “And once it’s in, I can activate the program remotely, correct?”

  “All you need is a telephone, even that cell phone you carry can do it. Oh, man, this is going to be fucking great. The ultimate hack. And I’m getting paid for it too. No one is ever going to believe this one.”

  With those last words, Kerikov knew that the computer expert had to die. Voerhoven and his people wil
lingly took risks because they believed they were right, that their cause came before all other considerations, but Mossey was different. Kerikov knew it wasn’t only his environmental activism that drove him to assist in Charon’s Landing; it was also his ego and the desire to pull off the impossible. The PEAL activists would never reveal their involvement because it would cause just too much damage to their organization. Especially when Kerikov tied the two disparate sides of this operation together. But after a while, Mossey’s ego would force him to talk to someone, some other computer freak, and all too soon, the whole world would know. A swift bullet would ensure his perpetual silence.

  “Calm down,” Kerikov admonished the younger man. “We’re not there yet. Remember, no one at the terminal can suspect that anything of consequence is wrong.”

  “Don’t worry. It’ll be a snap. To them I’m just another digit head. Good old Ted, you know. By the time you make the call to trigger the program, I’ll be halfway to Japan and a much better life. You have any idea what they pay good programmers there?”

  Kerikov paused for a second. He could delay Mossey from leaving Valdez long enough to get Abu Alam in position to kill him, maybe when Mossey was driving up to the airport in Anchorage. That was the beauty of Valdez — there was only one road in and out, a dangerous road that had claimed a life only a few days before. Mossey’s death wouldn’t be that suspicious, thanks to Voerhoven’s unauthorized activities.

  “Ted, after you initiate the control program, go back to your apartment and wait for a call from me,” Kerikov improvised.

  “What in the hell for?”

  “Because I order it,” Kerikov bellowed, then lowered his voice when he saw Jan look over. Kerikov had never revealed the hacker’s presence to Voerhoven or the effects of the computer virus he was going to unleash. “I’ll make sure you have enough time to get out of Alaska before I set off the virus.”

  “Hey, that wasn’t part of our bargain,” Ted Mossey whined.