Charon's Landing, page 31
“I’ve been bloody shot, you ass. I need you to get me out of here. It hasn’t ended. It won’t ever end.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Khalid. Let me speak to the doctor.”
“No,” Khalid said. Ragaswami had left the room with the promise of returning in just a few moments. “Not tonight. I won’t be able to make it. Tomorrow morning you’ve got to come here and bring Millicent Gray. She’s tall enough.”
“What are you talking about, Khalid? Jesus, you’ve got me spooked. Are you all right?”
“They have me on drugs. I can’t talk for much longer.”
Khalid’s speech slurred as he drifted back into oblivion. “Tomorrow morning, I need you here with Mrs. Gray. Dress her in a chador, full veils. She must be covered from head to toe like a devout Muslim woman. Tell them she’s my wife. You understand?”
Trevor heard the desperation in Khalid’s voice. “Trust me, my friend, we’ll be there as soon as they let us. Christ, for you, I’ll wear the fucking veil.”
Khalid had slipped into a drug- and pain-induced unconsciousness. Had he been awake he would have heard those last few words and saved his friend’s life. As it was, he was out, the phone dropping to the floor so hard that the battery pack snapped out from its concealed cradle, cutting the connection as if Khalid had hung up the phone.
Back at Les Ambassadeurs, Trevor handed the phone back to the hovering waiter and turned to his libidinous hostess. “Do you remember my friend at the Savoy? Well, it seems he needs our help.”
“Don’t tell me he knows my husband is a member of Parliament?”
“My dear,” Trevor took one of her slim hands in his, pushing aside a plate of fine Scotch beef to get to what he really wanted. “Nothing so pedestrian. Tomorrow morning, you are going to be a harem master. And I shall be your harem.”
“I thought all members of a harem were virgins?”
“True, but after tonight I fear that you’ll have corrupted me.”
MV Hope
The heat coming from the central system had a dry, ozone tang that made the cabin smell like an electrical appliance that had just shorted. The antique system rattled every time it cycled water through the creaking pipes, popping so loudly that Aggie, already edgy, jumped when a pipe sounded off like a pistol shot. Outside the porthole, the late afternoon sun was hidden by layers of clouds and a wispy fog. Icy rain pelted the glass, driven by a stiff wind blasting down from the barren reaches of the Arctic Circle. According to the digital thermometer hanging near the cabin door, the outside temperature was twenty-eight degrees, but with the windchill it hovered in the midteens.
It was only the middle of October, and winter had already begun to grip the Land of the Midnight Sun.
The interior of the cabin was a comfortable seventy, but to Aggie it seemed much, much hotter. She’d just finished fifty sit-ups and was now lying on her back, her long legs held at a thirty-degree angle above the floor so that the rippled muscles of her stomach quivered. She’d been working out for two hours doing isometrics, aerobics, and step exercises, using a metal footlocker. She’d done two hundred advance lunges from her fencing lessons, each attack so focused she could almost feel an imaginary blade striking an opponent. Perspiration glossed her body and held her hair plastered to her head. Her sweat shorts and T-shirt clung like a second skin.
Getting up to begin her warm down, Aggie caught her reflection in a wall-mounted mirror. Used to seeing herself after exercising, she wasn’t much concerned with her hair or her clothes or the sweat that dripped from her chin. But her eyes . . . they still burned with a cold emerald fury. The hours of exercise hadn’t dimmed any of the anger that burned within her.
“Men,” she spat at her reflection.
She’d spent her entire life proving her independence, taking on challenges, facing them and more often than not vanquishing them with relative ease. Her master’s degree was her own, her sleek body, once gawky and angular, was the result of her own effort, her personality validated years of fighting the influences of her parents and their warped lives. She had earned the respect that was her due, paid for it with time and dedicated work. But in the past twenty-four hours she’d been treated as if she were just a piece of furniture, or maybe a pet.
“Screw them both!”
Jan, with his mysterious errand and his ravings about making oil so repugnant no one would want to use it ever again. Mercer, with his patronizing order to leave Alaska for her own safety. This wasn’t the nineteenth century, and she wasn’t some simpering damsel needing to be rescued. They both acted as if they knew what was best, as if her wishes and her opinion meant nothing. Jesus Christ!
For all practical purposes, Jan had raped her last night. The man who wanted her hand in marriage had forced himself on her with little regard for her feelings at all. She could have been an inflatable doll for all he cared, a masturbatory toy. She’d thought she loved him — his mind and feelings were so similar to hers — but now she saw, for the first time, how different he was. She’d known all along about his ego and self-absorption, but now she saw how driven he was by them. Even thinking about him made her uncomfortable, as if some multilegged insect was crawling across her flesh.
And what of Mercer, with his testosterone-charged assault this morning, guns drawn and orders shouted, as if they were storming some highjacked airliner? And his threatening to arrest everyone on his authority? He should have done it; everyone on the Hope was willing to go to jail for their beliefs. This was just another way for him to patronize her. A little slap on the wrist for the trust-fund environmentalist. Be careful, Aggie, she could almost hear his voice. You’re playing with grown-ups now, and we don’t want you to get hurt.
Hey, I’m an adult too, she thought bitterly. I know what I’m doing. A month shy of her thirty-second birthday and he was treating her like a six-year-old. So many men in her life had taken that attitude with her, treated her like some precious object that must be protected at all cost. Her father, especially, had hidden his problems with her mother until it was too late, fearing that a divorce or even a separation would hurt Aggie too much. That was a laugh. Like her mother’s suicide wouldn’t bother her?
And what in the hell did Mercer mean by “I want to be able to say I hate you too, but I can’t”?
To her amazement, Aggie saw her eyes soften in the mirror, the tension in her face easing, and the scowl almost but not quite becoming a smile.
She knew what he meant.
“All right, Dr. Mercer, you’re going to get what you want.” Aggie spoke aloud, steel in her voice. “I’m going to leave. I’m going to leave Jan and Alaska and, most especially, I’m going to leave you. But not before I have my say and put a stop to this silly crush that should have ended years ago.”
When Jan and she had talked about marriage, he had not given her a diamond ring. He’d said that he could not condone the devastation caused by mining and thus would not help the industry by buying into their popularist notion that a diamond signifies a lasting love. The ring he had given her as an engaged-to-be-engaged present was fashioned from antler. It seemed quaint and appropriate for what they both believed. She dug it out of her luggage, its tiny velvet box too elaborate for the simple beige bauble.
“You’re a cheap bastard,” Aggie scoffed and left it on Jan’s desk, the lid open as if the little box was laughing.
She took a shower and dressed, hiding her wet hair under a baseball cap. She packed a few things into a knapsack, ignoring most of the clothing and “essentials” she’d brought with her to Alaska. She’d buy what she needed when she got to San Diego, the home of an old college friend. Aggie just wanted to leave everything behind: Jan, Mercer, PEAL, this whole wasted year of her life. She’d played close to the edge, and it was time to return to normalcy.
Aggie knew the name of Mercer’s hotel from the dinner receipt she’d found in his jacket pocket. She thought about calling him but decided surprise would be much more effective.
MERCER lay against the headboard of his hotel bed, the television bringing him a great college football game between Florida State and Georgia. It was the third quarter, the score only ten to fourteen, both defenses able to thwart numerous well-executed drives just short of field goal range. A beer rested within reach on the nightstand, a thick ring of condensation surrounding the smoky bottle of ale like a medieval moat.
Taking a sip, he flashed a look at his watch and hoped that the rest of the waning afternoon would pass quietly. Since the raid, Mercer hadn’t strayed more than a few feet from his phone, fervently wishing it wouldn’t ring but knowing it would.
He was having that feeling again. Something was very wrong. Jan Voerhoven not being aboard the Hope was just the most obvious sign, but there were others, things he couldn’t explain, even to himself. Mercer ran through the connections again, the little things that made him so certain. This kind of second-guessing was unnecessary and dangerous, but it was also his nature to keep working at a problem, no matter how easy the solution seemed to be.
It started with tons of liquid nitrogen being smuggled into the state. Why? Who would do it and for what purpose? Second, the most radical environmental group in the world is already in Alaska, its leader missing on some mysterious mission that his girlfriend didn’t know about. Then there was Ivan Kerikov, an international terrorist or, more accurately, a terror broker. A man with no loyalty except to himself but with seemingly unlimited resourcefulness. He was in Alaska, too, with a couple of Arabs. What was their role in all of this?
Now what would a former KGB agent, a couple of Arab henchmen, and an environmental group do with liquid nitrogen on the eve of the opening of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge? The presence of even one of these elements was enough to give pause. But there was more.
Aggie’s disclosure about her father, for one thing. She asserted that Max Johnston knew what time she’d been at his house, the exact moment of a devastating attack that only Harry White’s timely interruption had prevented from turning into a massacre. Was Max connected somehow? Wasn’t it one of his tankers that had been late arriving at the Alyeska Terminal to take on her cargo of Prudhoe Bay crude? Was that even significant?
Mercer shifted on the bed to reach for the phone. He wanted to call Dave Saulman in Miami. He wanted the marine lawyer to give him an update on that tanker. It was a long shot, a potential wild-goose chase, but sometimes wild geese lay golden eggs. His hand was only an inch from the phone when there was a loud knock on his door. He got up, and when he opened the door, he took a quick pace backward. Aggie Johnston wore jeans, a sweater, and her olive anorak. A baseball cap covered her head, tendrils of hair as delicate as silk threads falling down past her ears. She carried his leather jacket under one arm. Behind her angry expression, he saw a deeper emotion, a secret place that she didn’t know existed, for surely she’d have tried to hide it from him. She was hurting, he knew, and scared. Mercer’s heart slammed in his chest.
Her voice was brittle. “I need to say a few things to you.”
“Do you really?” He had to force his voice to remain neutral.
Aggie pushed her way into the room, closing the door behind her. “I just want you to know that I’m leaving Alaska and I’m leaving Jan.”
“Why?” There was an intrigued smile on Mercer’s face.
“Why what? Why am I leaving?”
“No, why are you telling me?” Mercer’s smile deepened as he saw the uncomfortable play of emotions on Aggie’s face. It was clear she hadn’t expected that question.
“I just want to,” Aggie replied, flustered. “I’ve had enough. Enough of Jan with his ego and his condescension and you with your overblown hero act.”
“It’s not an act,” Mercer teased.
“Goddamn it, Philip, is everything a joke to you?” Aggie’s use of his first name surprised him as much as it did her. Suddenly the room was an intimate place charged with something palpable.
“No, Aggie.” His voice took on a tenderness he’d never shown her before. “I don’t think Kerikov is a joke, or your ex-boyfriend. I don’t think the attacks on my house were a joke, or the deaths of Howard Small and his cousins. None of this is a joke. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“And what about us?” Aggie asked so quietly he hardly heard her.
It was his turn to be startled by a question he’d not expected. Before he could respond she turned back to the door, dragging her eyes away from his.
“Never mind,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. It’s all over for me — PEAL, Jan, and even my crush on you.”
She was reaching for the door when Mercer called out her name. He couldn’t let her go and his desire thickened his voice. It was the first time that neither of them was on the defensive. They faced each other not as adversaries but as a man and a woman who were ready to admit a strong attraction, two minds coming together as surely as their two bodies wanted.
Aggie came across the room, stripping off her jacket. She crashed into him with enough force to push him back against the bed, her hands clutching at the sides of his head, pulling his mouth to hers, crushing his lips savagely.
Mercer’s arms circled her body, one hand pulling her T-shirt out from her jeans, the other tracing up the smooth skin of her back to rest against her slim neck. She pulled him tighter to her body as if trying to burrow into his embrace like a frightened animal, yet there was nothing timid about her tongue, which roamed his mouth with slick, velvety strokes.
Their movements were feverish, hands never resting, urged onward by the desire to explore, caress, possess. Without conscious thought, they fell onto the bed, the comforter adding to the sliding movement of their bodies as they pressed against each other, their lips parting only enough to emit low moans and gasps.
“Why?” asked Mercer with reverent curiosity.
“Shut up, this is what we both want.” She grasped his buttocks, pulling him to her.
Aggie’s shirt was tangled up around her throat. She wriggled free for the instant it took to shed the cotton garment. She wore no bra, and Mercer’s glimpse of her breasts brought him to the height of sexual tension. As if willed on their own, his hands could not be denied. One palm found her left breast, cupping it fully, the tips of his fingers extending along the cage of her ribs. Her breasts were small, almost girlish, peaked with tiny flushed nipples no larger than nickels.
He had always been self-conscious about his hands when it came to touching a woman’s body. They were callused and scarred by a lifetime of physical labor, his palms like the horned skin of some desert reptile. His fingers were so hardened that the joints resembled chinks in medieval armor. When his skin raked against Aggie’s breast, she broke the kiss and cried out. Mercer pulled his hand back immediately, fearing that he’d hurt her, but just as quickly Aggie pressed it back with her own, scraping the rough palm against her most sensitive flesh, increasing the tempo in time with her labored breathing.
“Oh, my God,” she managed to squeak into Mercer’s mouth.
Aggie pulled his hand from her chest and guided it to the juncture of her thighs. Even through the layer of denim, Mercer could feel the wet. He tore at the button fly of her jeans with mindless abandon, all thoughts blocked except for his desire. As his fingers worked the fastening, his mouth came in contact with her breast, his tongue washing over it, stiffening its tip until it looked like an overripe raspberry, sweet and alluring. The final button came undone. Her panties were just a soaked wisp of silk, deeply clefted by her arousal.
The phone rang, its chime as intrusive as a church bell.
Never in his life did Mercer want to ignore a call so much, but he knew he couldn’t. He pulled himself off Aggie angrily, looking down at her as the phone purred again. The confusion on her face was the most painful thing Mercer had ever seen. Forcing himself to ignore it, he picked up the receiver. “Hello.”
“Mercer, Mike Collins at the terminal.” Mercer pictured Alyeska’s Chief of Security, the calm watchful eyes of a former cop, the long jagged scar of a former soldier.
“I’ve been expecting your call,” he said bitterly, watching Aggie dressing again, her back to him.
“Andy Lindstrom thought you might. All hell has broken loose. We got some sort of riot at our principal depot in Fairbanks, and all the computers at the terminal are locked out. Andy asked me to give you a call. Since you knew something was going to happen, you got any ideas?”
“I’m on my way over. Have you called the authorities yet?” Mercer watched Aggie struggle into her jacket. She looked at him for a moment and then she was gone, closing the door quietly behind her. Mercer couldn’t stop her, and he realized that she hadn’t wanted him to. Aggie had made her choice, while Mercer had none. He sadly turned his full concentration back to Collins.
“Not yet, at least not about our computer thing. It was the cops who called us about the trouble up in Fairbanks. Seems some sort of protest at the depot’s main gates has gotten out of hand. According to the Fairbanks police, it’s not PEAL but some natives’ rights group, jawing about us swiping sacred land.”
“Don’t worry about the riot. It’s not important.” Mercer had the phone clamped between his shoulder and his head, freeing his hands to lace up his boots. He gave Dick Henna’s personal cellular phone number to Collins. “Call him, tell him who you are, and tell him I want Elmendorf Air Force Base put on alert.”
“Why? You just said the riot in Fairbanks is nothing. Just a bunch of ’skimo lovers getting a little rowdy, is all. I’ve already got some of my security people from farther up the TAPline en route. It’ll be dispersed within a couple of hours.”
“Yeah, but when your men are chasing at shadows, Kerikov is going to make his real attack somewhere else and your security people won’t be near enough to deal with it,” Mercer said sharply. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
