by Jack Du Brul
Mercer abandoned Amsterdam, crossed Columbus, and began walking northward along the much better smelling Central Park West. The morning sun beat against the sidewalks and he shed his suit jacket, tucking it into the crook of his elbow. Doormen in uniforms paid him little heed as he passed their buildings, monoliths of granite and limestone containing some of the most expensive apartments in the world. Brass handrails and awning supports gleamed like gold.
Between 79th Street and 81st stood the massive American Museum of Natural History, his favorite spot in the city. If he had time later, he would come back to see the new Rose Center for Earth and Space. He paused, as he always did, to study the statue of Theodore Roosevelt at the museum’s Central Park West entrance. Flanking the statue were two walls chiseled with one-word descriptions of arguably America’s most dynamic president.
Making comparisons between T.R. and himself was humbling. Statesman. For a year, Mercer had had a pair of diplomatic plates for his Jaguar as a gift from the United Arab Emirates, but that didn’t count. Author. Mercer’s doctoral thesis from Penn State on mining and quarrying techniques had been used as a textbook for a short while. Soldier. Not with any army, but Mercer had seen more combat than even old T.R. Governor. Ah, no. President. Not on a million-dollar bet. Explorer. Mercer was on his way to a meeting at the Surveyor’s Society, an exploration club of which even Roosevelt hadn’t been a member. For the rest, he didn’t come close. But then again, who could?
Along 81st Street were more Art Deco apartment buildings, fifteen stories tall, solid and opulent. A professional dog walker hurried by with a brace of stately Afghan hounds in a well-pampered pack. A block to the west, the neighborhood changed to nineteenth-century brownstones with facades much more ornate than the town house Mercer lived in just outside of Washington, D.C. He found the one he wanted: the Surveyor’s Society standard of a compass face overlaid with a theodolite and a sextant had been carved into the wall next to the door. The three-story town house was built of reddish stone, with fluted railings flanking the wide steps leading to the front door. From the street, he couldn’t see inside, but he felt a prick of excitement as he checked his watch. A mere invitation for lunch at the exclusive club was something to brag about and here Mercer was being made a formal proposal to join.
To his dismay, Mercer saw that he was half an hour early for his meeting with Charles Bryce, an old friend who had put Mercer’s name up for consideration. Unconsciously, he’d pushed his pace to get here. Just as he turned to go, the wooden door swung open and an elderly steward in a black suit called to him. “Dr. Mercer?”
“Yes, that’s right. I’m afraid I’m a bit early. I was just going to wait at the coffee shop down the street.”
“That won’t be necessary, sir. Mr. Bryce expected that you would arrive before your appointed time, and he asked me to keep a lookout for you.” The servant opened the door wider. “Won’t you please come inside?”
Mercer slipped on his jacket and mounted the stairs. “Thank you.”
Passing the steward, Mercer stepped from the early twenty-first century to the late nineteenth. He had never seen so much woodwork in one place. The walls of the foyer were paneled mahogany, the stairs to the second level were of oak, age darkened to a smokey black. The parquet floors showed only around the perimeter of a stunning Oriental rug so tightly knotted that it shimmered. Adorning the walls were hunting trophies, antelope heads, a pair of boar tusks that looked like they came off a small elephant, and a rhinoceros that appeared as if it had just smashed its way through the paneling. Judging by the sizes, he was sure all would be listed in the Rholand’s Guide. There were also dozens of old framed photographs of various expeditions carried out under the Society’s banner. Mercer also recognized a couple of paintings by Joy Adamson, the celebrated author of Born Free. The furniture in the reception area just off the lobby was all heavy, leather covered, and well worn. On the floor under one window was a misshapen lump of iron about the size of a steamer trunk that could only be a meteorite. It sat next to a gold-leafed wooden mummy case leaning into one corner.
The steward cleared his throat delicately and Mercer saw that he was waiting with an arabesque silver plate in his hand. Realizing his gaffe, Mercer pulled a business card from his breast pocket and placed it on the plate. The servant returned the tarnished antique to a small entry table next to a golden figurine of the Hindu god Shiva. “Mr. Bryce will be right down. Won’t you please be seated?”
Mercer chose instead to wander around the room. In glass-fronted display cases were exquisite collections of cultural and natural artifacts. One contained scrimshaw carved on whale’s teeth; another held ivory Japanese Netsuke figurines. Above a shelf of delicate butterflies lay cleaved geodes, their interior crystals shimmering in rainbow hues. The display tags next to them listed where each artifact had been collected, by whom, and when. Without doubt this was the finest private collection he’d ever seen, and this was only the first room. Rumors surrounding the Surveyor’s Society claimed that they maintained a special vault in a downtown bank containing items so precious, and some too controversial, that they would never be put on display. He was studying a flawless yellow diamond still in its kimberlite matrix stone when the floor creaked behind him.
“A gift to the Society from Barney Barnarto,” Charles Bryce said, entering the reception room. “It was his half of the New Rush claims that Cecil Rhodes needed to cement his monopoly on the diamond trade, one that exists to this day as the DeBeers Company. Look at you, Mercer. Full head of hair, no gray I can see, and in the same shape as when we first met.”
Bryce was shorter than Mercer by several inches, with a comfortable paunch pressing against his clothes. His brown hair had retreated up his forehead and looked like it wasn’t going to stop until only a fringe remained. His once strong jaw was starting to show a little fleshiness underneath. He wore tortoiseshell glasses that were too small for his face and made his dark eyes appear narrower then they were. A banker by profession, Bryce wore a discreetly striped blue suit with a white shirt and club tie.
“Great to see you, Charlie,” Mercer said, shaking hands. “For a nine-to-fiver, you don’t look too bad.”
“That’s the problem,” Bryce said with a chuckle. “Somewhere along the line, nine to five turned into twenty-four/seven. I can’t complain. Another ten years I’ll have a massive heart attack and leave Susan with a couple million dollars.”
Mercer laughed. “Always the optimist. How is Susan?”
“Good, thanks for asking. With the kids at prep school, she’s had a lot of time to raise money for the city’s animal shelters.”
“What’s the count these days?”
“We now have three dogs and six cats and every month she brings home a couple more for foster care. I feel like Noah,” Bryce said as they began climbing the stairs. “Congratulations, by the way. I read the Time magazine article about you finding that diamond mine in Eritrea. I can’t tell you how glad I was when you called back. This has all been rather short notice, and I didn’t know if you were even in the country.”
“I’ve been back from Africa for a while,” Mercer explained. “After taking some time off to recover from that one, I had a contract to teach mine rescue in western Pennsylvania. That’s where I was when I got your message.”
“Who answered your home phone? He sounds like a real character.”
“That’s Harry White. He’s a cantankerous old bastard who watches my place when I’m away. He tends to move in and make himself right at home.” Mercer didn’t need to add how much Harry meant to him. The affection was in his voice. “He and I have been friends since I moved to Arlington. He just turned eighty, and while he smokes and drinks like tomorrow’s doomsday, he’ll probably outlive us all.”
On the second floor, Mercer glimpsed a large dining room with eight tables set for lunch. There was a fire-place at the far end of the room faced by an arc of overstuffed chairs. A couple of old men sat there either dozing or read
ing the paper. Bryce continued down a narrow hallway adorned with an assortment of weapons, big Holland and Holland nitro express rifles, swords from medieval Europe and Asia, spears from Africa and the South Sea islands, and blowguns from South America and Australia. They came to a closed office door that belonged to an assistant administrative director.
“Here we go,” Bryce said.
The office was small, crammed with books and yet more artifacts. The single window behind the desk overlooked an airshaft between the club and the neighboring brownstone. Mercer noted the window was wired for a security system and he’d already spotted five roving cameras.
“I thought we would chat in private first,” Bryce said, “though I’m not too sure of the protocol. You are the first invitee the Society’s had since the Titanic was discovered.”
Bryce took one of the seats in front of the desk and invited Mercer to sit in the other. From a pile of papers on the tooled desktop, Charles grabbed an issue of the Society’s quarterly magazine, Surveyor. “This comes out next week. Thought you might want one early.”
Called one of the finest magazines in the world, Surveyor had won every award it could. Its photographers were all the tops in their profession, and most of the articles were written by authors and journalists who’d at least been nominated for a Pulitzer. Its readership wasn’t as large as the better-known National Geographic, but its followers were more fiercely devoted to collecting each one. Since the Society pre-dated Geographic by fifteen years, some of the early editions went for tens of thousands of dollars at auction.
“I don’t know much about publishing, but I can’t imagine you make any money with this,” Mercer said, holding up the two-hundred-page glossy magazine.
“Oh God, we lose thousands on each issue, I suspect. Subscription and circulation barely cover the printing costs. But the money’s not important. I should explain a little about how the Society works. There are three types of people who belong: real explorers, like yourself, who are invited to join; those of us who wish we were real explorers, which is my category, I’m afraid; and those who are rich enough to pay others to explore for them. They pick up the tab for the expeditions we sponsor and the publishing of our magazine and video documentaries. Did you notice the gentleman in the dining room wearing the tan suit?”
Mercer nodded.
“His name is Jon Herriman. Back in the early 1970s he invented some little gadget that goes into automobiles, something about pollution control. That device was only recently replaced with something newer and better. He earned royalties for every car sold in this country until about five years ago.” Charles noted Mercer’s awed expression. “He’s only one of eight billionaires on our board. That’s why I say money isn’t important. A few years ago, one member paid five million dollars to the Russian government so he could use their submersible Mir to visit his old ship, the USS Yorktown, which was sunk during the Battle of Midway.
“The Surveyor’s Society is a labor of love to most of us. Of course we have paid staff to maintain our collections, produce the magazine, and all that, but the actual members are here because we have an interest in exploration and have the money or influence to buy our way in.”
“No offense, Charlie, but I didn’t think you fit into the billionaire category.”
Bryce laughed. “Too true. Actually, Susan’s grandfather spent his family’s fortune tramping around South America looking for the El Dorado treasure before World War Two. He didn’t find anything, of course, but his work garnered him an invitation to join. He brought me on board mostly because I’d begged him for years and also because of my banking connections.” He leaned back in his chair. “I’ve recommended you because you actually are an explorer, something the club is sorely lacking.”
“I want you to understand what this means to me. I know the caliber of people who’ve been members, and I never thought I would be considered. But I’m not an explorer. I’m a mining engineer.”
“You’re being modest, Mercer. That mine you discovered in Eritrea would be reason enough to bring you in, but your reputation has more than qualified you. I read in the Time profile on you that accompanied the story that the value of the minerals you’ve found since you became a prospector-for-hire is around four billion dollars and your fees total three percent of that number.”
“Consulting geologist, please,” Mercer laughed. Secretly, he admitted Charlie’s description better defined what he did. “And both figures were grossly inflated.”
“No matter. Your work has helped our understanding of the planet and our ability to use its resources more than any geologist since Alfred Wegener first proposed the continental drift theory.”
“Does all this flattery mean I don’t have to pony up membership dues?”
“Afraid not. However, your dues entitle you to a room here at the club five nights a year, use of our dining room for private functions, and of course a seat for our weekly lunches, provided you tell the staff a week before you come. Our new chef was stolen from the hotel Georges V in Paris and makes the best chateaubriand you will ever taste. I think, though, just being a member is what most interests you.”
Mercer didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. The golden age of exploration and discovery was long gone. It was part of a bygone era, much like the Society itself. And yet to be invited to join, to be a part of the organization that had helped open up so many frontiers, was an honor that Mercer couldn’t refuse. His education and work entitled him to a string of initials after his name if he so chose, but the prestigious MSS — Member Surveyor’s Society — was a title he’d coveted since first reading their magazine as a boy. Much to his irritation, a great deal of his work now took place in front of a computer rather than in the field. The invitation was a way for him to reconnect with the pioneers of his profession. He broke himself from his silent musings. “There’s that, and I want to find out if some of the rumors are true about parts of your collection.”
“Ah, the rumors.”
Speculation about the Society’s secrets had run rampant for generations. Because of its private status and the powerful people who’d always run it, many believed it had become a repository for a great many unsettling discoveries. Some said they had a portion of Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra and others believed the Great Mogul Throne from India was here. He’d heard of a group who believed the Society’s vault contained definitive proof of pre-Columbian exploration by Phoenician explorers. And another who said they owned a portion of the True Cross.
The Internet had served to accelerate the pace of conjecture. A year ago, a group on the Net learned that a farm in Roswell, New Mexico, near where a UFO had supposedly crashed in the 1940s had been owned by a member of the Surveyor’s Society. The inference that the Society possessed hidden evidence of alien contact came immediately afterward and the furor had yet to die down.
“Even I don’t know half of it,” Bryce admitted. “Our ten-person executive council are the only people who know what’s in the secret part of our vault.”
There was a knock at the door, and the elderly steward entered holding a tray with two glasses on it. “It is noon, gentlemen. Lunch will be in thirty minutes in the dining room. May I offer you a cocktail?”
Bryce turned to Mercer. “It’s still gimlets, isn’t it?”
“Good memory.” Mercer accepted the vodka and sweetened lime juice concoction from the butler. He’d recently switched to Gray Goose, a French vodka, and noted this drink was made with his old standard, Absolut.
Bryce took a tumbler of iced Macallan Scotch. “I seem to recall a night a few years back where you and I went through quite a few of these in very short order. The only thing I remember from then is the weeklong hangover afterward.”
The air-conditioning kicked in. Mercer could feel cool air blowing from the brass grill recessed into the wall behind his back. It was as though the chill had changed the mood of the meeting. Bryce went silent for a moment, his eyes focusing on a middle distance only h
e could see. He almost appeared upset by something they had said or something he was about to say. Mercer braced himself.
“Our review committee,” Bryce opened, “has already approved you for membership. That was taken care of a couple of weeks ago. As I understand it, this usually takes upward of a year. However, you are a special case.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, people who are invited to join by virtue of their earlier exploits must participate in a Society-sponsored expedition before they can become members. It’s an old bylaw of the club. About three months ago we were approached by the Danish government to see if we were interested in joining an expedition being planned by a German nonprofit group called Geo-Research.”
“What’s this have to do with Denmark?”
“The expedition is going to Greenland, which is still a Danish protectorate. I don’t know if you’re aware that Denmark has recently gotten very selective about who receives permits for scientific research on the Greenland ice sheet. During a Japanese expedition last year, a mishap killed eight people and left eleven thousand gallons of spilled fuel on the ice. The bodies were recovered, but no steps were taken to clean up the diesel. Just a month later, four American mountain climbers died in a plane crash. A search-and-rescue helicopter looking for the wreck also crashed, killing three more.
“Since then the Danes are demanding better oversight of what takes place on Greenland. They’ve closed several foreign-run meteorological stations they feel are unsafe and limited climbing parties to just a small region in the south, well away from the higher mountains as a way to discourage treks. They’ve even started rattling their sabers about closing Thule Air Force Base.