Vulcan's forge m-1

by Jack Du Brul

  “Changed?” There was no panic in Kerikov’s voice, but its pitch had raised slightly. “How?”

  “I thought you’d ask, so I brought that section of the accords with me.” Perchenko pulled a sheet of paper from within his jacket and read aloud:

  No sovereign nation has the right to claim additional land created through volcanism or coral buildup or any other natural process, i.e., not created by man, not within a two-hundred-mile line radiating from that sovereign nation’s territory. Any land created in this fashion is open to exploration and exploitation by any nation or other party which lays upon it first rights as laid down in Article 231 of this treaty. All contentions for said lands are to be settled by the World Court in The Hague.

  “Donnelly wanted that last bit about the World Court in Holland.” Gennady took another swallow of vodka, waiting for a reaction from Kerikov.

  Kerikov thought for a few seconds, letting Perchenko’s words soak in, then decided that the diplomat had followed close enough to the original wording. Thanks to that single amendment, Kerikov could turn over the volcano to the Korean consortium without any fear of international recriminations. The United States and Russia had just signed away any title to the volcano and its unimaginable wealth.

  Kerikov did not betray his emotions to Perchenko when he spoke. “This is acceptable. Come, I have a boat waiting in the river; we will celebrate your success.”

  Kerikov hurried Gennady away from the towering temple. They nearly sprinted through the driving rain toward the stone wall and the river beyond. Despite the water streaming into Gennady’s eyes, he could see enough to realize that there was no boat waiting at the quay. He had just turned to question the KGB man when Kerikov struck.

  Kerikov moved with the speed of a mamba, smashing a short truncheon over Gennady’s head. Blood sprang from the wound over his left eye, mingled with the falling rain, and ran down Perchenko’s face in a pink sheet.

  The diplomat crumpled to the ground in an untidy heap. Kerikov easily dragged Gennady to the low stone wall; the river beyond was as black as an oil slick. Hidden in some shrubs near the wall was a large plastic ice chest. Beside it were two large cement blocks connected by a chain. The chain was wrapped in soft cloth and its two ends were joined not by a padlock, but rather by the thick chunk of ice that nestled in the cooler.

  Kerikov rubbed the falling water from his eyes. On a night like this he didn’t have to fear discovery by a casual stroller, but there was always a chance that a monk might come to the river to make an offering. He hoisted Gennady’s still-unconscious body onto the low wall; the diplomat’s breathing was shallow but even. Good.

  After lifting the two cement blocks and the ice chest onto the wall, Kerikov slung the chain around Perchenko’s neck. He had to hurry — the ice was melting faster than he’d anticipated. Kerikov heaved the loyal ambassador into the turgid water. The dark river swallowed Perchenko with a minimal splash, the cement blocks dragging him quickly toward the bottom.

  Kerikov threw the cooler in also and watched as it was washed away by the river’s subtle current, then started back to his hotel, shoulders hunched against the biting rain. He could imagine the police report when the body was finally discovered. Perchenko had been out celebrating the conclusion of his meetings; the alcohol in his system would show he wasn’t drunk but certainly tipsy. He had slipped in the rain near the river, smashed his head against the stone wall, and fallen in.

  There would be no indication of foul play because the padding around the chain would leave no marks around his throat and the chain that anchored him to the muddy bottom while he drowned would have vanished. The ice that held it together would melt in about ten minutes and then Perchenko’s lifeless body would simply float free.

  An hour later, Kerikov was seated in the living room of his hotel suite, showered and dressed in a conservative suit with a Scotch in his hand. He could hear the rain pelting the patio just outside the curtained French doors. The lighting in the elegant room was muted except for the lamp over the couch, which shone brightly on the papers spread across the coffee table. Kerikov had gone over them a dozen times in the past few days and felt he could recite them by heart. They were his ticket to a future outside Russia, a future that he had barely dreamed of.

  The ice in the glass tinkled delicately as he took a sip. He placed the glass exactly onto its condensation ring on the glass-topped table and picked up a sheet of paper at random. It was the assay values of the mineral compiled by Dr. Borodin in his survey runs over the past few months. The figures were staggering. In one ton of mined volcanic material, eight pounds of usable ore were present. Processed, those eight pounds would produce about one pound of high-grade metal with all its extraordinary properties. By comparison, Borodin had explained that in open-pit diamond mining, 250 tons of overburden had to be removed per carat of diamond recovered, a ratio of one billion to one.

  Kerikov selected another sheet of paper. This one was Borodin’s plan for the actual mining of the mineral. A ship fitted with a huge cycloidal pump would be stationed near a less active vent of the volcano. A tungsten steel tube would be lowered into the vent and the pump turned on. Lava would be drawn directly from the volcano into the ship, where it would be cooled and systematically broken up into workable chunks, which would be off-loaded onto waiting ore carriers for refinement at a land-based smelter. The only real cost in the mining operation was the pump ship and since selling the idea to the Koreans, they had already had the ship built in Pusan.

  There was a knock at the door. Kerikov stacked the papers neatly, took another sip of Scotch, and went to answer it. Two young Orientals stood there, each holding a bulky suitcase. He let them in without a word.

  The Koreans opened the suitcases, revealing a daunting mass of electronics. They hurriedly set up the equipment: camera, monitor, and computerized transceiver. One man placed a small collapsible dish antenna on the teak railing of the patio. From the street seventy feet below, the steel mesh dish was invisible.

  Once the equipment was set up, one of the young men began typing commands. The machines beeped and whirred and a test pattern appeared on the color monitor. The other man held a cardboard card in front of the camera. In Pusan, the image of that second test pattern filled the screen of a huge wall-mounted high-definition television. The two technicians nodded to each other and retreated from the room. An instant later the test pattern vanished from the monitor and was replaced by a view of a beautiful room.

  Kerikov sat on the couch in front of the cyclops eye of the minicam. On the monitor, nine aged gentlemen were seated around a black lacquer table. None of them was under seventy years of age, yet their dark eyes were all alert and steady. Each man’s face was deeply lined and there was not a single dark hair to be seen. Behind the men hung a red tapestry chronicling Genghis Khan’s conquest of Asia, flanked by two huge terra-cotta vases.

  Kerikov nodded slightly to show respect to the nine heads of Hydra Consolidated. In turn, the men merely dipped their eyes for a moment. That piece of Eastern nonsense complete, Kerikov spoke. “Good evening, gentlemen.”

  “Good evening to you, Mr. Kerikov.” The satellite feed scrambled their voices and automatically translated from Korean into Russian and vice versa. The system worked well enough, as long as their sentences were not filled with enigmatic phrases. Way Hue Dong spoke for the syndicate, as he had during all their earlier negotiations. “I trust that this method of meeting is agreeable.”

  “I am ready now to commit to our agreed-upon proposal.”

  “We would like to know why the delay was necessary?” The electronics masked the annoyance in Way’s voice, but the question made his emotions clear.

  “It was needed, I assure you, gentlemen.” Kerikov knew that a placating smile would be lost on these men, so he refrained. “When you see the location of the mineral deposit, you will understand that significant steps were needed to ensure its safety.”

  “I trust that our future activitie
s will not be disturbed?”

  “No, they will not,” Kerikov responded hurriedly. With the Americans’ and Russians’ hands tied by the Bangkok Accords, only Takahiro Ohnishi presented any obstacle, and by the time the Koreans reached the volcano, Ohnishi would be eliminated.

  Dealing with the race-crazed billionaire was a necessary hazard during the final play of Vulcan’s Forge. Ohnishi had been programmed to attempt his break away from the United States, and up until the last possible moment, Kerikov had needed him. But now the mineral wealth lay beyond America’s control — and beyond Ohnishi’s, if he ever succeeded in his bid for independence.

  “Then all is in order?” Way asked, snapping Kerikov’s attention back to the present.

  “Yes, I am ready to transmit the final data to you now.” Kerikov hid the tension that tightened his stomach.

  “And we are ready to give you the account number.” Kerikov could see Way’s lips moving long before the computer’s sterilized voice could be heard. “As a sign of good faith we will transmit first.”

  Way nodded to an off-camera assistant. An instant later the teletype attached to the transceiver began to pound away. Kerikov made it a point to keep his eyes glued to the camera. To look toward the teletype would be a major loss of face.

  When it stopped, Kerikov fed several sheets of paper into a portable fax machine attached to the satellite uplink. These pages included the latest assay and elevation reports and gave the exact location of Dr. Borodin’s island.

  Kerikov saw that Way’s eyes were locked on someone outside the camera’s field of vision, so he took a moment to scan the teletype. One hundred million American dollars had just been transferred to the National Cayman Bank in the Caribbean. The transfer number and the account number were at the bottom of the page.

  Way Hue Dong received an acknowledgment from some technician out of view and turned back to the camera. “The information seems legitimate, Mr. Kerikov. I believe now I know why there was a delay and I applaud your audacity.

  “You must forgive me, sir,” Way continued, “but there is a restraint order on the money. You cannot touch it until I send the bank another set of code numbers.”

  Way displayed no emotion as he revealed his double-cross. “Once my engineers are on-station and prove what you have told us, the money will be released into your care.”

  Kerikov listened and could barely contain his rage.

  Way added, “I’m sure you understand that we must protect this large amount of money from fraud. Not that you are suspect. Once the value of this new mineral is established I will send the new code and the money will be yours. Good evening, Mr. Kerikov.”

  The monitor went blank. In Kerikov’s hotel suite, the camera continued to record and transmit, so the nine Koreans saw Kerikov pound his foot through the monitor screen and then begin attacking the video transceiver. The image faded when Kerikov fired a roundhouse kick at the camera and sent it slamming into a wall.

  “Those motherfucking bastards,” Kerikov ranted once he could control himself enough to speak. “Those pissdrinking shit eaters.”

  Kerikov fumed for about ten minutes, dredging up curses he hadn’t used since Afghanistan. When he finally calmed, he finished the diluted Scotch in his glass and then drank right from the bottle, the raw spirit singeing his stomach when it hit.

  Somehow the Koreans had figured out that he was acting outside his own government’s authority, that the hundred million dollars was destined for Kerikov himself and not the Russian State Treasury. Knowing that they wouldn’t garner any government wrath, they could delay the transfer of money indefinitely while they reaped the benefits of Borodin’s volcano. Without an armed force to back him, Kerikov would be powerless to stop them.

  He laughed to himself amid the wreckage of the computer equipment. He admitted that he had been outsmarted. Once his laughter subsided, Kerikov’s eyes gleamed with an unholy fire. There was no way that he would allow those Korean bastards to double-cross him when he still had an ace up his sleeve.

  The White House

  Paul Barnes nearly cowered in his chair in front of the President, as if the supple leather would shield him from the chief executive’s scathing censure. The President, usually a level-headed man, was furious. The CIA director had failed to find Dr. Jacobs.

  “Sir, that report came across my desk years ago,” Barnes said lamely.

  “You are the head of the most powerful spy network in the world and you can’t find a man who is no more than two hundred miles from Washington.”

  The President’s intercom chimed. “Yes?” he responded.

  “Sir, the others are back.”

  “Thanks, Joy. Send them in.” The President turned back to Barnes. “We’ll continue this conversation later.”

  Dick Henna and Admiral Morrison filed into the Oval Office. They were subdued, their faces drawn and ashen. Henna helped himself to a slug of Scotch.

  “Where’s Dr. Mercer?” the President asked.

  “He’ll probably be along in a few minutes,” Henna said. “Should we wait for him?”

  “No, we can’t afford the time,” the President replied slowly. “Dick, what’s the latest from Hawaii?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have much to report, sir. There’s been no further communication from Ohnishi. I’ve got some agents keeping his estate under long-range surveillance, but they haven’t reported anything suspicious. Our phone taps have turned up nothing, but I doubt that any sensitive conversations would go over unscrambled land lines.”

  “Have you found a tie-in between Ohnishi and Mayor Takamora?”

  “Takamora went to Ohnishi’s mansion last night, but has not left as of an hour ago. We assume that they are working together on this coup attempt. As near as we can figure, Takamora will be the front man, given his popularity in the islands, while Ohnishi plays the role of king-maker.”

  “What have you got, Tom?”

  Morrison cleared his throat. “Well, sir, I’ve been in contact with the base commander at Pearl. He reports that there’s a fairly good-sized mob, maybe three hundred or so, on MacArthur Boulevard, just outside the base’s main entrance. They don’t appear to be armed, but he also reports that the National Guard, which was called out a few hours ago, seems to be part of the mob.

  “I had some records pulled from the Pentagon files on Hawaiian National Guard enlistments. In the past couple of years a disproportionate number of applications have been rejected, nearly all white, black, and hispanic. In the past three years, eighty-six percent of the new members of the National Guard are of Japanese ancestry. Given the situation, I’d say Takamora has built himself a private army right under our noses.”

  “Have you been working on some options in case they do try to pull this off?” The President’s cool blue eyes scanned the room, waiting for responses.

  “Well,” Admiral Morrison started after a pause, “we have the carrier Kitty Hawk and the amphibious assault ship Inchon on station, well within striking distance of Hawaii. Pearl Harbor is on full alert, although they’re bottled up per your order. If Ohnishi tries to take the islands by force, we can just as easily take them back again. His mobs and guard troops can’t stand up to what we can throw at them.”

  “Ordering our troops to fire on American citizens is not an option.” Anguish etched the President’s handsome features. “Goddamn it. I control the best trained and best equipped fighting machine ever built and it’s fucking useless to me.”

  The men seated around the office watched the President’s pain stoically, each man thankful that they did not sit behind that desk.

  Admiral Morrison cleared his throat again. “A precise surgical air strike against Ohnishi’s house would neutralize the problem. Cut off the head and the snake dies, so to speak.”

  “How do I explain that to the people of Hawaii? They revere him. Christ, he donates something like twenty million dollars a year to Hawaiian charities. If we killed him, we’d touch off a grassroots revolut
ion.”

  “What about a commando raid of some sort?” Paul Barnes suggested. “And then tell the people about the Russian involvement. Make a clean breast of it and put Ohnishi on trial.”

  Henna gave the answer to that. “Our intelligence reports Ohnishi’s house is heavily guarded. A raid would turn into a pitched battle. The furor over something like that would be ten times worse than the Waco fiasco back in 1993. I doubt the administration could survive, given the current polls. No offense, sir.”

  “None taken,” the President said gloomily.

  For the next hour, the men in the Oval Office batted around ideas, but each option they debated was rejected. All of them ended with the same result, the end of the administration.

  “Maybe that is the only way,” the President mused.

  The intercom buzzed and Joy Craig announced that Mercer had finally arrived, with a guest.

  When Mercer introduced the stooped Dr. Abraham Jacobs, the President shot a brutal glare at Barnes, and Henna laughed delightedly.

  “Dr. Mercer, when your contract’s up at the USGS, the FBI would love to have you.”

  “I just can’t see myself as one of your fair-haired boys, Mr. Henna. I don’t take orders very well.”

  “Dr. Jacobs, have you been told anything?” the President interrupted.

  Jacobs, still a little stunned by the men in the room, merely nodded.

  Seeing his old teacher’s discomfort, Mercer came to the rescue. “I told him that he was needed here because of the paper he presented to the CIA a few years ago.”

  “Yes, that is correct.” Jacobs had found his voice, but sweat still gleamed on his wide bald head.

  “Would you care to elaborate on that paper?” the President prompted.

  After a preamble of coughs, throat clearing, and mumbles, Jacobs began. “Eight years ago, I was invited by the White Sands Testing Center to do some analysis on mineral samples from their 1946 Bikini tests. The samples had lain neglected in an old storage shed that was being demolished, so the White Sands people contacted a number of independent researchers across the country. They had something like eighteen thousand mineral samples in that shed, dating back to the early 1940s.” Jacobs’s voice was now sure and firm, confident of his subject.