Pandora's Curse - v4

by Jack Du Brul

  Glancing outside, Mercer saw no movement. The administration building’s front doors didn’t look damaged. He doubted that Rath had gotten that far yet.

  “Klaus, keep that building covered. I’m going to check the next one.” Mercer dashed from the doorway, using pipes as cover until he crashed against the base of the three towering smoke stacks, the metal still hot to the touch even after the steam venting up them had passed through numerous turbines and exchangers.

  The walls of the building behind him were made of steel plate, like it had been armored. As Mercer reached a door he recalled why. This was Building #4 and it contained the secondary turbine loops that used waste steam to boil a petroleum derivative called isopentane. This liquid had been specially formulated to boil at a mere two hundred degrees Fahrenheit in order to extract the last bit of energy from the natural steam. He remembered the plant manager who’d given him the tour years ago also telling him that isopentane was highly explosive. Behind this building would be the outlets where the saline water driven from the earth’s bowels was finally released back into nature after producing all the electricity and hot water needs of the citizens of the Reykjanes Peninsula. NO SMOKING signs were posted along Building #4’s walls.

  The knob had already been shot off a door, allowing Mercer to slip inside. Building #4 had a less modern, more industrial look than the others, with rows of long cylinders like rural propane tanks, but these held the isopentane in a closed-loop system of liquid and gas. Beside each set of tanks was a small steam-driven turbine. The floor was polished concrete.

  Mercer was having difficulty keeping the MP-5 steady from the pain in his wrist. He had some motion in the joint and felt that some tendons had been torn. His left hand felt like a dead weight, and he steadied the machine pistol’s foregrip on the crook of his elbow. With so much ambient noise in the power-house, he had to rely on his vision to scout the building.

  Around one of the tanks he spotted a darkly dressed figure hunkered next to a turbine. Mercer recognized the gunman as a Geo-Research “technician.” By his expression it was evident he recognized Mercer too. They fired at the same instant, both bursts going wild from the shock of discovery. Ducking around a turbine, Mercer was chased by more rounds, the sharp rip of a machine pistol tearing the air. An ember of steel burned his hand before he could brush it away.

  He fired back. His adversary had moved, so the shots hit nothing but metal. Okay, where the hell did he go? Mercer moved to his left, sighted along an access walkway but saw nothing. He then went right. A burst of autofire raked the concrete at his heels as he dove under an isopentane cylinder. Oh, that’s where he went.

  He tried to get a bead on the assassin but there was too much machinery for a clean shot. He studied the tank above him. Ten different pipes, including a huge trunk line that brought steam from outside, linked the stacked vessels. Mercer had no idea which carried gas and which carried liquid but he could tell which were the most vulnerable. The trick would be to get the gunman into position. He switched to his pistol to conserve ammunition and began maneuvering around the plant, working the gunman like they were chess pieces, giving ground when he had to, but inexorably moving the man to where he wanted him.

  Dashing across an open space, Mercer slid behind a support column. Shots ripped furrows from the floor behind him. Secure once again, his wounded leg all but dead now, Mercer felt he had the gunman. He steadied his grip on the pistol and cycled through the clip as fast as he could pull the trigger. The ricochets whined away as ten rounds slammed into the point where a pipe joined with the isopentane tank that shielded the assassin.

  Even before he knew if he’d succeeded, Mercer began to run. Behind him, the German had flinched at the onslaught of bullets hitting steel so close to his head. He had a second to register the high-pitched hiss before the leaking isopentane ignited. Like a flamethrower, escaping gas blew out in a fifty-foot tongue of fire that mushroomed into an overwhelming inferno, eating everything it touched. Amid the blistering paint and melting wires, the assassin’s body cooked like a joint of meat.

  Blasted by the overpressure wave, Mercer was thrown into the side of the building hard enough to momentarily knock him out. When he came to, an alarm sensed the fire and shut down this portion of the facility. A Klaxon wailed and sprinklers began a rain that quickly turned into a torrent. He hauled himself from the floor, fingering the knot growing on his forehead. If none of the other tanks ruptured from the searing heat, the building wouldn’t go up. If one did, they all would in a chain reaction that would likely wreck several square acres.

  He fitted the last magazines into each of his weapons and ran for the next building. This structure was nearly identical to where he’d left Cardinal Peretti. Differently painted pipes and valves added the only color to the monochromatic steel interior. Doubled over and limping, his vision beginning to blur from a concussion, Mercer began a systematic sweep of the building. There were hundreds of crannies a person could hide in, miles of heavy pipes that could shield even the largest man and he wouldn’t know they were there until he walked into their sights.

  He jumped over a handrail to get off the exposed catwalk dividing the long room. At the end of the row of identical machines he thought he’d seen a shadow move. He hunkered down to look under the pipes blocking his view. There! Hiding behind the last turbine was a pair of legs. But as he watched, they vanished. The person was crawling on top of the boxy exchanger, getting the best location to cover the entire room.

  Mercer stood, holding himself just out of the gunman’s view. He had one chance to get this right. Not quite pistols at ten paces, this was more like automatic rifles at thirty. The assassin knew he was in here, had a good idea where he was hiding and would have the advantage of a secure firing platform. Mercer moved laterally, singeing his hands on a pipe but not making a sound as he crawled to a different position.

  He brought the H&K to his shoulder and leapt up. Through the sights he saw Greta Schmidt’s head behind a small yellow-handled relief valve atop a thick pipe, her flaxen hair framing her beautiful/ugly face. Her expression approached sexual euphoria, eyes wide and dilated, her skin flushed.

  She had her own machine pistol clamped at her side, but her aim was off by a few degrees of arc. She saw Mercer pop up from behind a piece of equipment and tried to adjust. A streaming hail of rounds followed her swing. Mercer fired once before the slide on his MP-5 racked back and jammed. The single bullet struck the valve and vectored harmlessly away.

  After a second of silence that seemed to unroll in slow motion, the tremendous pressure of steam driven by the planet’s molten center exploded through the damaged valve in a screaming eruption. In the fleeting moment before the jet of vapor obscured his view, Mercer saw Greta’s face begin to dissolve. Her hair vanished first, burned away by the five-hundred-degree steam. Then the flesh began to melt away until patches of bone showed through. The steam turned red as it boiled the blood and tissue from her skull.

  She vanished and Mercer choked on the acid that scoured the back of his throat. Hyperventilating, he cleared the jam, knowing that blind luck had saved him. He remained where he was while the mental image of Greta liquefying lost some of its vividness. His head pounded.

  A scream galvanized him, a hoarse animal sound of primeval fury. Gunther Rath had entered the building from the opposite end and spotted what remained of his lover. “Mercer!” he roared. “I am going to kill you!”

  “Better men than you have made that threat,” Mercer shouted back.

  Rath fired off a wild burst that rattled around the room, sparking off countless metal surfaces. “I still have the Dalai Lama.”

  Mercer almost made the mistake of telling him about Klaus Raeder in the next building. He was tired, hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours, and his brain wasn’t functioning anywhere near where it should. If it weren’t for the adrenaline he would have collapsed hours ago. “Give it up, Rath. Even if you make it out of this plant alive, you’ll never leave
Iceland. You saw the helicopter. You know we’ve alerted the military. They’ll quarantine this entire island if they have to.”

  “You think that matters now?” Rath challenged back. “Even if I do escape, the Libyans would have me killed for not delivering the Pandora boxes.”

  Shit! He’s ready to die right here and he wants to take me with him. Mercer went from hunter to hunted in that one statement. He could leave now, slink away and wait for troops from Keflavik base to end this. Suddenly an image flashed into his brain of Elisebet Rosmunder feeding the ducks in Reykjavik.

  “The Libyans won’t get the chance,” he yelled. He fired a quick burst and raced for one of the building’s back doors. Bullets chased him, but none hit before he rolled onto the asphalt outside. He knew Rath would never let him escape. The man had nothing left to lose and only revenge to keep him going.

  Mercer gave Building #4 a wide berth as he circled around it, limping across open pavement until he reached a rocky area along the shores of the man-made wastewater lagoon. The water shimmered with sunlight that had burst from over the horizon. As he stopped at another tangle of pipes, he saw Rath at the door he’d just passed through. He was holding the Lama by his collar.

  The Dalai Lama had lost one of his sandals during his ordeal. One foot was a bloody mess from running across the lava rocks. He couldn’t put any weight on it and his normally dusky complexion had paled from the pain. Yet his expression remained neutral, as if the agony wasn’t his own. The strength he used to defy a nation as large and powerful as China extended to a will over his own body.

  The burst of gunfire came from the far side of the complex. It hadn’t been intentionally aimed to kill Rath, but passed far over his head. Klaus Raeder walked down the road like a Western gunslinger, changing clips as he approached, his squint never leaving the man who had once been his most loyal assistant.

  The Dalai Lama seemed to come alive when he interpreted Raeder’s actions as a rescue attempt. He shifted his weight when Rath tried to return fire. The shots flew far wide as the Buddhist moved to smother his kidnapper in a bear hug. Mercer got ready for the moment the neo-Nazi let the Lama go. His machine pistol had become too heavy to hold, so he switched to the Beretta handgun. His grip was loose and shaky, his eyes barely able to focus. He squeezed his eyes shut to clear them and actually made his vision worse.

  Fifty yards separated Rath and Raeder, hatred sparking between them like an electric arc. Frustrated that he couldn’t hit his former boss because of the Lama’s untutored struggles, Rath rammed the muzzle of his pistol to the Tibetan leader’s head, drawing blood. Having drawn the danger back to himself, the Lama went still, more concerned with Raeder’s safety than his own.

  “No closer, Klaus,” Rath said in German, in a voice that was unnaturally calm. He’d already made whatever mental adjustments were necessary to die.

  Either Raeder didn’t hear him or didn’t care. He kept coming. Mercer wished he could understand what they were saying to each other.

  “Kill him, Gunther. It doesn’t matter,” Raeder said calmly. “You will still die.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “I know you will.” He’d closed to within thirty yards. “What’s one more death to you, eh? I’d say it was one more soul on your conscience, but you don’t have one. I thought I had been your teacher all these years. Now I see it is you who taught me. Your life and mine are meaningless.”

  “And his?” Rath forced the gun harder against the Lama’s skull.

  “He believes he’ll be reincarnated on a higher plane. I’m sure he fears death even less than we do. Let him go and the two of us will end this together. Let’s see how much you have taught me.” Raeder dropped his MP-5 and threw aside the pistol in his belt. “One on one.”

  “I let him go and Mercer drops me where I stand.”

  Raeder flicked his eyes in Mercer’s direction and switched to English. “Don’t shoot. I am going to handle this.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Dr. Mercer, this is between Gunther and me. He is going to release the Lama if you don’t interfere.”

  “Screw that.”

  “Please,” Raeder begged. “I told you before that this is my mistake to fix. Allow me that. Afterward you can arrest me and throw me in jail. Let me end this my way.”

  Mercer blinked, seeing two of everybody now. “You know what you’re doing?” he asked doubtfully. Raeder had boasted he was a martial arts expert, but Rath had forty pounds and four inches on him.

  “Even if he wins, I guarantee he’ll be in no condition to leave this place.”

  The inside of Mercer’s sneaker was spongy with blood from the sniper ricochet. “You’d better be sure about that. I’m in rough shape.” A wave of blackness swept across his vision, and he stumbled back, falling against an insulated outlet pipe that pulsed with the force of near-boiling water. He couldn’t prevent his aim from dropping.

  Rath tossed his automatic and gave the Dalai Lama a shove that sent him sprawling. His glasses shattered when he hit the pavement. Though he struggled to get between the two antagonists, his injured foot refused to support him. The Lama called out for them to stop, but neither German listened.

  Rath and Raeder moved closer, circling warily. Raeder threw the first punch, a lightning strike that would have crushed the throat of a normal man. Rath easily caught his fist, twisted Raeder over and kicked him three times in the stomach before releasing the arm and letting Raeder fall to the ground.

  “Klaus,” he laughed. “Do you really think I taught you everything I know?”

  Raeder lurched to his feet, clutching broken ribs. Mercer raised his pistol, but the two began circling again and he wasn’t sure which of the figures he saw were real and which were chimeras. He threw up. His concussion from the explosion in Building #4 was far worse than he’d thought.

  The two men exchanged flurries of blows, deflecting most, landing occasionally. Both knew this match would have only one outcome. Rath was stronger, fitter, and more skilled. He’d trained Raeder and for years had allowed his pupil to win bouts to keep him interested. At any time Rath could have killed him in the dojos where they sparred — one more of Rath’s many deceptions that was turning out to be as deadly as the rest.

  Soon Raeder’s mouth bled from broken teeth and one eye was nearly closed. He limped from a kick aimed at his crotch he’d deflected into his thigh. And yet he fought on, giving ground whenever Rath came in on him, sacrificing his body as if the pain would somehow expunge his sins. Mercer had to drag himself to keep the combatants in view, crawling across the rocks at the edge of the lagoon as they battled. Heat radiating from the pool drew more sweat to his already soaked face.

  He was too dulled to understand what Raeder was doing, and Rath was too intent on the kill. The water feeding the nearby spa was regulated to a constant temperature of 158 degrees, hot enough to scald but cooling when it mixed in the 45,000-square-foot pool. Here, there was no need to artificially cool the effluent, and it erupted from the outlet pipes at near-boiling temperatures. Steam rose as from a volcano’s caldera.

  Raeder absorbed a roundhouse kick to the head that dropped him near the outlet, and when Rath allowed him to get to his feet, he swayed drunkenly, almost toppling. As Rath came in again, the industrialist showed that last bit of reserve he’d clutched, a flicker of hatred that drilled diamond hard through the pain. Clutching Rath’s jacket, Raeder threw himself into the pool.

  Mercer drew back as scorching water splashed his legs. The two men remained submerged for no more than a few seconds, and when they surfaced, Klaus Raeder had yet to relinquish his grip. Their faces and hands had turned bright red, and the water sluicing off them carried their topmost layers of skin. They were boiling alive. Writhing to break free, Rath lost his footing and sank under again, coming up when his boss no longer had the strength to hold him. It was far too late to save himself. The Nazi’s eyelids were gone. Rath’s scream was something Mercer wou
ld carry for the rest of his life. So too would he forever remember the look of triumph on Klaus Raeder’s face as he collapsed back into the water, pressing his apprentice’s body under the seething waves. Tendrils of flesh formed a sickening broth around the corpses.

  A minute might have passed, maybe an hour. Mercer became aware of time again only when he felt a touch on his shoulder. He opened his eyes. It was the Dalai Lama. He had dragged himself over. Without his glasses, his eyes were squinted and watery.

  “Where are you hurt?” he asked.

  “Everywhere but my conscience.” Mercer managed a tired smile. “Are you all right?”

  “I believe so, yes,” the Buddhist replied. “I wish I could have stopped them.”

  Mercer rolled his head to stare into the boiling pool. “The man who saved you had a karmic debt that only his death could pay. I think it’s better you didn’t.”

  Either the Lama agreed or was too played out to respond. Mercer wasn’t sure. The silence between them, punctuated by the muffled alarms still sounding from the isopentane explosion, continued until battle-dressed soldiers appeared from the mist like wraiths. They swarmed over the facility in squads of four, barrels of their M-16A1s in constant sweeping motion. A trio of medics approached Mercer and the Lama. However, another figure beat them to the wounded pair. Anika Klein’s expression showed a mix of concern and clinical professionalism. The soldiers must have already known her medical background because they deferred to her as she checked her patients.

  “I thought you didn’t make house calls,” Mercer croaked.

  “And I was going to give up flying too,” she agreed, rolling him to examine the bloody wound in his leg, “but the Italian Navy got their helicopter running again and I knew you’d need a doctor.”

  “What about Ira and the hostages?”