Charon's landing m-2

by Jack Du Brul

  His strides felt lighter, more sure as he began running again, his focus sharper. The rain intensified, turning the hardened gravel road into a thick morass, clay lodging into the heavy tread of his boots. Mercer edged closer to the verge where the road had a rougher aggregate and he could gain a stronger purchase. Clearing a blind corner around a jagged tor of rock that cut off his view northward, Mercer dove off the road, rolling down the low shoulder and landing in a small stream of rain runoff. Ahead of him was the pump station, lit by powerful truck-mounted halogen lamps, the squat building and its immediate surroundings bathed in a pool of white light. And suddenly Mercer understood why Kerikov had taken the risk of attacking the pipeline directly.

  Six flatbed trucks were pulled up against the pipe, cranes mounted on two of them swinging long cylindrical collars into place over the oil conduit. Men and women scurried around the site, and even at this extreme range, Mercer could hear their cries and oaths and shouts. This was what Kerikov was doing with the liquid nitrogen. He was placing it around the pipeline, encapsulating strategic parts of its eight-hundred-mile length in supercooled gas in an attempt to stop the flow of oil. This must be the last of it, he surmised, the replacement for the cylinders that he’d discovered aboard the Jenny IV.

  Watching closely as the protective sleeve surrounding the pipeline was cut loose with a torch and its virtual twin was set in place, Mercer realized how cleverly they had carried out the operation. Had he not seen it actually happen, he never would have believed that there was anything out of the ordinary to the doctored section of pipe. Who knew how much of the line they had laced with liquid nitrogen?

  He moved forward, wriggling through the water and mud in the drainage ditch, shutting his mind off from the rain and the cold and his own pain. Even with their yellow rain jackets and water-darkened hats, Mercer was able to recognize a couple of the PEAL activists he had seen at the bar in Valdez. They moved with the competence of an experienced construction crew, hoisting the original sections of pipe sleeve onto a truck. When they released the nitrogen within their fake lining, it would take weeks or even months to discover the sabotage, and even then, who would believe such a bold and cunning plan?

  Remembering what Andy Lindstrom said about freezing the oil in the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, he could believe that PEAL would be satisfied with shutting down the pipeline for the months it would take to clear the solidified oil from it and replace any damaged sections, but Mercer had a hard time accepting that Ivan Kerikov would work on such a symbolic but otherwise worthless act of eco-terrorism. There was something else to this, something that Mercer couldn’t quite grasp. The steady whine of the pump station’s main turbine sounded like a muffled dentist’s drill, droning on and on despite everything happening around it.

  The hard prod at the back of his neck was a concentric circle, its inner ring exactly nine millimeters in diameter. The barrel of an Uzi pressed into his flesh was held by one of Kerikov’s former East German assassins. Mercer hadn’t heard him approach — he’d been too rapt by the sight before him — and as he slowly locked his fingers behind his back, he cursed himself for his lack of caution.

  “Up,” he was ordered, and as he stood, he was warned to do so slowly, the gun pulling back so that he couldn’t twist around and grab its barrel. The man who captured him knew precisely how to handle a prisoner.

  Mercer dragged himself to his feet, turned, letting the H amp;K machine pistol dangle from its strap against his chest. Seeing the weapon for the first time, the German took an involuntary step back, tightening the grip on his own weapon. His left foot slid a fraction of an inch in the mud at the edge of the drainage ditch, his concentration switching from his prisoner to his own balance for just an instant. Mercer used it to his full advantage, predicting it so accurately he was already in motion when the man slipped.

  He dove forward, pounding into the man, throwing up his arm so that the Uzi rose harmlessly, its stubby barrel pointed into the trees. The bullet wound from Burt Manning’s attack on his house screamed with newfound pain as the lips of the long gash split open again, fresh blood welling through the opening. Mercer’s momentum took both men down into the ditch, the German pinned in the wet mud by Mercer’s body. Mercer cocked his right arm, punching as hard as he could, one, two, three powerful shots to the jaw. The German was still conscious, but just barely. Without a second thought, Mercer held the assassin’s head under the babbling stream flowing at the bottom of the ditch until his body went completely still.

  Only after the man was dead did Mercer become aware that his heart was racing with fear, his chest pumping as though he couldn’t get enough oxygen. His fingers twitched with adrenaline. Lying in the ditch, his back pressed into the greasy mud, he tilted his neck and opened his mouth, letting cold, sweet water seep to the back of his throat, easing the raging thirst the sudden adrenaline rush had given him. He rested a moment longer, then crawled out of the mire to see if the fight had caught the attention of the workers at the pump station.

  Peeking over the rise, he saw that no one had noticed; they were still working at securing the final nitro pack to the pipeline. The sound of the big turbine within the building and the rumbling diesel engines of their trucks must have masked the noise Mercer made killing the picket.

  Without warning, a fountain of dirt exploded in Mercer’s face, throwing wet grit into his eyes, clogging his nostrils, and filling his mouth. He ducked again, burrowing into the ground as the sound of machine gun fire reached him an instant later. Just to his left, another burst kicked mud from the embankment, so close he could feel the heat of the bullets as they hit the dirt. He was pinned down and very vulnerable. The next move belonged to whoever held the gun.

  “The man you just killed had been a member of the East German Secret Police and had received the finest training possible under Soviet sponsorship. I must congratulate the competence of America’s Special Forces. You did very well indeed.” The voice that called out into the darkness was thick, gutturally accented, the words clipped so tightly that all emotion had been trimmed from them. “However, I don’t believe that you are bulletproof. You will throw your weapon away from your position, hold your hands over your head, and step out of the ditch.”

  Twice caught in under two minutes, Mercer tossed the Heckler and Koch and stood. A flashlight snapped on from about forty feet up the road, just outside the perimeter of the pump station, rain slashing through the beam. The man who’d seen him had been able to watch the entire fight from his position though he had not interfered, even when he had a clear shot while Mercer was drowning the guard. Mercer had no explanation why his life was spared, but he knew that he wouldn’t like the reason.

  “So tell me” — the flashlight bobbed and weaved as the man approached Mercer — “are you an Army ranger or Marine force recon? I know that your government hasn’t had the time to activate a SEAL or Delta unit and get them to Alaska this quickly.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but no one thought your threat was worth sending in real troops. I’m a Boy Scout leader. Dan Gerous is the name. Heck, I’m not even a soldier. I’m a geologist.”

  Rounds of nine-millimeter ammunition chewed up the ground at Mercer’s feet, bullets zinging off stones and ricocheting back into the forest. He could do nothing but stand there as the earth around him was clawed with deadly ferocity.

  “I came out here to investigate when my picket radioed he had spotted an intruder. I never imagined it would be you, Dr. Mercer. I can’t tell you how pleased I am to hold your life in my hands. You are going to die a very horrible death, geologist. That I can assure you.” Mercer realized that he’d been captured by Ivan Kerikov himself.

  Seconds later, two men flanked him, yanking his hands from over his head and wrapping his wrists with tape so tightly that blood drained from his hands and wrists. He was shoved toward the backlit figure of Kerikov with a well-placed rifle butt to his kidney. From this distance, it appeared that the Russian’s shoulders spanned t
he entire width of the Dalton Highway.

  “I have been anticipating this day for a year now,” Kerikov said as the henchmen held Mercer before the former spymaster. “After I heard it was you who destroyed operation Vulcan’s Forge, I considered hiring an assassin to kill you in your Arlington town house, but I decided that I really wanted the opportunity personally.”

  There was a cruel twist to Kerikov’s mouth as he spoke, and his eyes, washed-out and pale blue, glittered like flat chips of glass. Even in his moment of triumph, he showed little emotion. The juxtaposition of his words and his expression was unnatural, far more frightening than had he raved and gloated.

  No matter how revolted Mercer was by Kerikov, by the malignant taint he possessed, he wasn’t about to show it. He would not give in to his own fear, not now, not in front of the Russian. “If you dedicated your life to getting revenge on a nobody like me, Kerikov, I really think you should reevaluate your career goals. You’re pathetic.”

  Kerikov dropped his assault rifle to the road and rushed forward, his right hand swinging. He caught Mercer on the point of the chin with so much force that Mercer’s eyes turned back into his skull before he hit the ground. He would be out for hours.

  “Take this sack of shit back to the helicopter,” Kerikov ordered his men. “And tell the pilot to get ready. We’re leaving.”

  Kerikov turned away, heading back toward the pump station compound, secretly massaging his right fist. He winced once as he popped a dislocated knuckle back into place, but the pain didn’t break his stride.

  The work on the pipeline was almost complete. The last sleeve of liquid nitrogen was slung under the line, its two halves hinged open so they could clamp it around the pipe. The leader of the work crew signaled the crane operator. He hoisted the cradle holding the false section of pipe sleeve, deftly following the quick hand signals of the PEAL activist standing on the pipe itself. Once the bottom of the nitrogen pack hit the underside of the pipeline, the crane operator heaved it up another couple of feet, and the two halves closed together naturally, encasing another twenty-foot section of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline with two more tons of supercooled nitrogen, held in stasis by a thin vacuum seal. Cleverly hidden bolts were shot home, tightening the sleeve to the pipe. Another section of the line was vulnerable to Kerikov’s attack.

  A female technician climbed up to the pipe as workers unhooked the crane. With a portable computer, she activated the electronic triggering device built into the nitrogen pack, setting it to the frequency Kerikov had chosen to detonate the device. She also checked to ensure that it was reading the tiny transmitters in the other packs PEAL had set in place, guaranteeing they would go off in predetermined series, a cascade that would cause the most damage. With fingers made stiff by the cold, she checked the primary and backup circuits, making certain there were no faults or shorts. She unplugged the computer from the jack built into the sleeve, then snapped off the jack so that only a microscopically thin filament remained as evidence. The released nitrogen and a small explosive charge would take care of the other electronics, leaving behind nothing but a few pieces of shattered plastic and wires when the device was set off. The pack was virtually undetectable. She gave a thumbs-up to the foreman.

  “That’s the last one, Jan,” the foreman yelled to Voerhoven, who stood a little way off.

  Kerikov came up to Voerhoven, wondering silently why the Dutchman wasn’t frozen to death wearing just a thin windbreaker over his T-shirt. “Tell your people to pack up. The trucks must be destroyed and everyone must get to the Hope as quickly as possible. When we release the nitrogen tomorrow, I want all of your people back in Valdez, looking as innocent as schoolchildren.”

  Having them aboard the Hope by morning would also make it that much easier for Abu Alam to kill them quickly. The Arab butcher wanted to do it singly or in small groups, but Kerikov decided that blowing up the research vessel made more sense.

  “They performed better than you expected, didn’t they?” Voerhoven said with obvious pride.

  “You’ve all done well,” Kerikov replied, knowing that Voerhoven needed another dose of ego building. “You have excellent people, and their loyalty to you is remarkable. In fact, as a reward, I want to give you this.” Kerikov handed over a black cellular phone. “This is the trigger for the devices. All you have to do is dial 555-2020, then hit SEND. The signal will reach the nitrogen detonators within a tenth of a second. You hold in your hands the future of this entire state, Jan — that is how much I trust and admire you. You will go down as the earth’s greatest protector.”

  “Sometimes I’ve wondered about you, Ivan, about your motivations, your convictions. But this,” Voerhoven held up the phone, “this shows me more than your words can ever tell. When the time comes, I won’t hesitate.”

  Kerikov wanted to laugh at the environmentalist, but he managed to keep his voice level and authoritative. “It’s time to go. I want you to come back with me on the helicopter. When he regains consciousness, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

  “Are we going back to the Hope?”

  “No. We’re taking a short detour to drop off my prisoner first, and then we’ll go to Valdez.”

  Walking back up the road to the waiting helicopter, Kerikov called Ted Mossey at the Alyeska Marine Terminal on another cell phone. The computer genius assured him that the original KGB program was now installed and just needed the activation code to cycle through the system. As soon as Kerikov sent the code into the computer, they would have complete control of the entire eight hundred miles of pipe and the ten pump stations. Once in their control, there would be no way to stop the preprogrammed series of events.

  Heathrow Airport, London

  There was no earthly reason for Khalid Al-Khuddari to come awake. His body was so battered and racked with pain that a normal person would have been in a coma for at least twenty-four hours. Yet something had brought him to consciousness, something that cut through the layers of pain and fatigue and drugs and dragged his mind back from the coveted bliss.

  He kept his eyes closed, but slowly, too slowly, his other senses began to feed him information. A minute passed before he realized he couldn’t hear the comforting whine of the jet’s engines, nor could he feel any sensation of movement, none of the tiny dips and corrections autopilots must make to keep their charges on an even keel.

  Startled, he looked out the window of the aircraft. Expecting to see open skies and the scrolling sand waves of the Sahara Desert, he saw instead terminals and huge maintenance hangars. Across the open vista of the taxi ramp, he saw a long line of gaily colored aircraft parked nose to tail, like elephants performing a circus trick. Dishwater gray clouds clung to the ground, allowing only a few rays of sunlight to strike the earth.

  Khalid turned to the passenger next to him, a heavily built woman working furiously at a laptop computer, her hundred-dollar manicured nails tapping a fast-paced tattoo. He could tell that she was trying desperately not to notice that he was awake. Considering the state he must look, he didn’t blame her.

  “I’m sorry, but I fell asleep just after boarding. Why are we still on the ground?” he asked solicitously, forcing out his best upper-class British accent.

  She turned to him with distaste and sighed heavily. When she spoke, she did so as if each word cost her personally, as if she’d been given only a finite amount of them and didn’t want to waste a single one on him. “As I understand it, we are being held hostage.”

  She affected the studied nonchalance of a woman who thought that to make it in a man’s world she must suppress herself to the point of becoming an automaton.

  “What?” Khalid’s heart flopped in his chest.

  The woman saved the file she was working on and turned to him, speaking slowly, as if to an idiot. “Terrorists have seized Heathrow and ordered that aircraft not be allowed to take off or land. Otherwise they will set off the bombs they have planted, supposedly on some of the aircraft as well as within the terminal.”
She spoke with an eerie, unnatural calm. Khalid found it hard to believe what he was hearing.

  “At first, the pilots tried to tell us that it was some mechanical problem with the radar,” she continued. “But after I noticed that planes were still landing for the next hour, I knew it wasn’t true. I pointed this out to the stewardess, and after a couple of exchanges between me and the pilot — a dreadful man, I must add — he told the passengers what had actually happened. A bomb had gone off in Terminal 4, killing two people. So far, security has yet to turn up any more explosives.

  “I believe that this is a hoax.” Once the woman decided to talk, there was no stopping her. “It’s surely some lunatic, a foreigner no doubt, trying to ride the coattails of the attack at the British Museum last night. As Melville said in Moby Dick, ‘Madmen beget madmen.’ One terrorist attacks and suddenly everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon. I suppose after Lockerbie, officials must take every precaution, no matter how inconvenient.”

  Khalid was appalled by the woman’s callousness. Two people were dead, and she was bothered by the inconvenience of the situation. He would never understand Westerners, and for that he was grateful. Looking at his watch and trying to remember what time his plane was supposed to take off, he realized that he didn’t know how long they had been stuck on the ground. He asked the woman.

  “Four hours now,” she complained after looking at the slim diamond-encrusted watch she wore.

  Khalid’s mind began to come around, letting him think clearly, at least for a little while. The pain in his back and shoulders was no more than a dull ache that he could almost ignore. He caught the attention of a nearby flight attendant. “Is there a reason why we haven’t been allowed to deplane?”