Charon's landing m-2

by Jack Du Brul

  Anticipating, Collins spoke first. “Yeah, I called. I can’t believe you have the FBI director’s personal cell phone number. Jesus, that was really something, talking to Dick Henna, I mean.”

  “Deep down, Mike, he’s a cop, just like you. He has a bigger office and a longer title, that’s all. Did he say that he would contact Elmendorf?”

  “Yes, he said Admiral Morrison contacted General Kelly, the Air Force’s man on the Joint Chiefs. We’ve got full cooperation.”

  “Mercer, the Air Force? What are you expecting, World War Three?” Lindstrom remarked jokingly.

  “Boy Scout training, Andy. Be prepared.”

  “Guys,” Mossey spun himself from the computer, his face pinched. “I’m having a hard enough time with this without you talking, okay? I could use a little quiet while I work. And I certainly don’t need that cigarette smoke.”

  “Yeah, sure, Ted,” Lindstrom said, taken aback by Mossey’s harsh tone. The computer operator had been nothing but docile since starting work at Alyeska. Lindstrom assumed that Mossey was more confused by the system’s problem than he was letting on. “We’ll head back to my office. Call if you find anything.”

  “Fine,” Mossey breathed and turned back to the scrolling screen, his bony fingers poised over the keyboard like a musician waiting for his cue.

  Back in Lindstrom’s office, the wait began.

  “Jesus H. Christ, relax,” Lindstrom said, seeing how anxious Mercer appeared. “We talked about this yesterday. We all agreed that if someone wanted to use liquid nitrogen to disrupt the oil flow, the only logical place would be the equipment depot in Fairbanks, and we caught the bastards at it last night.”

  “Did they have any nitrogen tanks with them? Any stainless steel cylinders?” Mercer shot back moodily.

  “Well, no. They were probably there to scout around for the best places to use their stuff. Shit, that depot is something like forty acres, with buildings and piles of equipment scattered all over the grounds. It takes a couple of hours just to find the bathrooms.”

  Mercer’s silent glance quieted Lindstrom immediately. Mike Collins nodded his approval at Mercer, the assuring compliment of one professional to another.

  A few quiet minutes went by.

  “The computer system,” Mercer asked, “how much of your operation does it control?”

  “Well, hell, everything. You know the way the world works nowadays. Nothing happens unless the computer gives you permission first.”

  “Could it shut down the entire pipeline?”

  “Sure. We can remotely operate the whole system from here, but we don’t. All of the pump stations are autonomous, monitored twenty-four hours a day, and they have ultimate say as to what happens at any location. If they have a problem, they can shut down the line too.”

  “Is there any sort of automatic override? Any way the system can take over from the pump stations, cut them out of the loop and run independently?”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  Mercer spoke slowly and clearly so there could be no question as to his meaning. “Can your computer take over the pipeline?”

  It took Lindstrom a few seconds to respond and when he did, he didn’t like his answer. “I don’t know.”

  The phone rang, and Collins and Lindstrom both gave a startled jump. Lindstrom answered, listened for a few seconds, then handed the phone to his Security Chief. He turned to Mercer, nervous fingers fumbling to light a cigarette. His eyes had gone wide and his face was dewed with sweat despite the chill seeping into the building. Collins spoke little, just grunting a few times and once muttering a quiet obscenity. When he hung up, he had visibly whitened and his hands were trembling.

  “That was Ken Bassett with the State Police. There’s been an accident. Both vans carrying men from Pump Stations 5 and 6 to augment security at the depot went off the Dalton Highway. There are two cruisers there now, but it appears no one survived.”

  “When?” Mercer’s voice was like a whip crack.

  “The police just got there, but the vans may have gone off the road awhile ago. Guessing from where they crashed and what time they left the pump stations, I’d say at least six hours.”

  Mercer looked through the open miniblinds covering the window behind Lindstrom’s desk. Twilight was just a few minutes away. It would be totally dark soon after. Rain fell in silvery channels down the glass. “We need to get up there.”

  “That’s five hundred miles north of us.”

  “Then let’s not sit here and discuss mileage,” Mercer snapped. “You must have a chopper with that kind of range?”

  “Yeah, but…” Lindstrom was obviously out of his element. He had a crisis on his hands and didn’t realize it. Mercer moved easily into the vacuum created by his hesitancy.

  “Mike, call up those Pump Stations. Make sure everything is okay.”

  “They can be accessed through the computer,” Collins pointed out.

  “The computer’s down, or had you forgotten? And the majority of the men working those stations have been called away to Fairbanks and are now dead. I need you to make sure that the men they left behind are still alive.”

  Collins immediately recognized the possibility that the three apparently separate situations were linked. He raced from the room to make those calls from his own office.

  “Andy, contact your pilot and have him file an emergency flight plan to get us to the Dalton Highway. I’m going out to your receptionist’s desk to call Elmendorf. We’re going to need them.” Mercer was already headed for the door.

  “What’s happening?” Lindstrom was visibly shaken now.

  “World War Three.”

  Alyeska Marine Terminal

  Twenty agonizing minutes dragged by, the ticking of a wall clock sounding like the heartbeat of a dying man. Mercer’s call to Elmendorf had secured two Hueys with eight fully equipped Air Force commandos in each of the helicopters. True to his word, Dick Henna had galvanized the powers that be in Washington. Andy Lindstrom had phoned one of Alyeska’s on-call chopper pilots, a cowboy he thought would jump at the chance of the flight to the northern pump stations. The pilot would meet them at the Valdez Municipal Airport in thirty minutes. Mercer and Lindstrom were waiting for Mike Collins to get off the phone. Then they’d get a final word from Ted Mossey on his progress reactivating the pipeline’s computer operating system.

  With ten minutes to go before they were to rendezvous with the helicopter pilot, Collins finally emerged from his office, his weathered face wearing a dark expression. His eyes had gone glassy and lifeless. The plug of tobacco jammed in his left cheek looked to be the size of a softball.

  “I can’t reach Pump Stations 5 or 6. I’ve tried the phone, the two-way radio, and the shortwave. Even the fax machine. There’s no response.”

  “What do you mean, no response? You didn’t send everyone down to Fairbanks, did you?” Lindstrom asked, panicked.

  “Of course not. Do you think I’m that stupid?”

  “Knock it off.” Mercer recognized the beginning of an ass-covering session and stopped it as quickly as he could. He had neither the patience nor the time for such bureaucratic idiocy. “We’ve got a major situation on our hands and don’t have the time to sit here and point fingers.”

  Once again, Mercer found himself making decisions for Lindstrom and Collins, and again the two men obeyed without question. “Andy, I want you to stay here and coordinate our communications. Also, work on your computer guy. It’s imperative that you regain control of the system. Mike, you and I are heading up to Pump Station 5. On-site intel is crucial. Does your helicopter have the right gear for me to contact Elmendorf?”

  “I don’t know,” Collins admitted. He switched his chew from one distended cheek to the other, a small jet of yellow juice shooting from his pursed lips. “You’d have to talk to Ed, the chopper pilot, about that.”

  “Well, let’s go talk to Ed, then.” If Mercer felt any hesitancy, it didn’t show. He was moving on a dee
ply intuitive level that he’d learned to never question.

  By the time they got to the airport, night had settled with deceptive ease, darkening the sky completely. The rain, which had been constant all through the afternoon, had finally stopped, leaving the trees heavy with water. Even the slightest breeze brought another shower falling to the earth. But slight breezes were not in order for this night. A stiff wind scoured the open field, with gusts strong enough to alter Mercer’s stride.

  The lone Bell JetRanger among the Cessna 182s, Twin Otters, and a single private jet looked like an overgrown insect bathed in artificial light as it sat forty yards from the terminal. A dark figure leaned nonchalantly against the sharply angled Plexiglas windscreen, hands crossed over his broad chest.

  Lit as they were, the pilot could see his passengers before they could get a clear image of him. He peered into the light beaming from the terminal and laughed roughly when he recognized one of his passengers.

  “Don’t even think of coming one step closer, Mercer,” the pilot warned in a deep baritone. He was African-American. “The Judge Advocate General said I’ve got the legal right to kick your ass if you come within fifty feet of me.”

  “Eddie?” Mercer called. “Eddie Rice?”

  “None other, white boy, and I ain’t kidding — you stay away from me, man. You carry some seriously bad juju and I don’t want you around me again. My flying record was perfect before your sorry ass entered my life, and I plan to keep it to just that one crash until the man gives me my gold watch.”

  “They give you a gold watch, Eddie, you’ll hawk it for a couple of forty-ounce malt liquors. You still drink when you fly?” Mercer called back, pacing a little ahead of Collins.

  He and Eddie Rice came together, hugging as friends who thought they’d never see each other again. Even in a padded flight suit, Eddie was a solid person, his body dense and roped with muscle. He was not as tall as Mercer, but his shoulders were wider and his neck was as thick as a tree stump. Rice was handsome, the way a sports figure or music idol was handsome. His skin was glossy smooth and his deep-set eyes were wide and bright, only a single dark vein in his right eye marring their bluish whiteness. His only unattractive feature were small, misshapen teeth, two jagged rows of yellowed tablets that were either too crowded or too gappy.

  A year ago, Eddie Rice had been a lieutenant in the navy, a chopper pilot commanding a Sikorsky Sea King off the amphibious assault ship Inchon. He’d had the bad luck of ferrying Mercer from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk to the Inchon during the crisis in Hawaii. Mercer had hijacked Rice’s helicopter, ordering him to fly to Hawaii so he could prevent a catastrophic invasion that would have forever crippled the United States. While making their escape after preventing a nuclear missile launch, Mercer, Eddie, and a Russian scientist named Valery Borodin had been forced to ditch their helicopter in the North Pacific. Eddie had been the most severely injured in the crash, spending three months in the naval hospital at Pearl Harbor. The last Mercer knew, the navy had given Rice an honorable discharge and set him up on a disability plan that would make him comfortable for the rest of his life. Mercer more expected to see Nanook of the North in Alaska than Eddie Rice, USN (Ret.).

  “I’ll have you know, I have maintained twelve hours’ bottle-to-throttle since about twenty minutes ago,” Rice teased back.

  On their desperate flight from Hawaii trying to track down a rogue Soviet sub, Mercer had offered Eddie a beer, which the pilot had gratefully accepted considering his chances of surviving to face a review board were about zero. It was one of the many things the two men had laughed about during their time in the hospital. The previous Christmas, Eddie had sent Mercer a single Sapporo beer, the brand that the two had shared on that fateful flight.

  “What are you doing here?” Mercer questioned.

  “Shit, I should ask you the same question. I get a call on my day off for some emergency flight, and who shows up but the most dangerous man I’ve ever met. What’s your story?”

  “You remember the Russian behind the Hawaii affair? He’s back, and right now may be just a few hours north of us.”

  “Who, that Ivan Kerisomething? You shitting me?”

  “I wish I was.”

  “Shit, that guy is the Tonton Macoutes and Baron D’Mort all rolled into one,” Rice said, blending his Haitian grandmother’s two greatest fears, the former Haitian Secret Police and one of the dark figures of traditional voodoo.

  “Throw in Jack the Ripper and you’ve got it half right.”

  Moments later, the stress on the JetRanger’s landing skids eased, the struts flexing so they seemed to help launch the chopper into the air. The Tiekel River Valley was soon a narrow ax stroke in the ground beneath the rapidly climbing craft. Mercer sat in the copilot seat while Collins occupied the back cabin, his feet stretched almost into the cockpit. All three wore radio earphones, which gave their conversation a muted, distracted sound. The light from the cockpit gauges was an eerie green.

  The JetRanger’s nose-mounted strobe flashed a lonely signal into the night.

  “So what’s this all about?” Eddie asked after he got the helicopter settled into their designated flight path.

  “A couple of hours ago I sent some men down to Fairbanks from Pump Stations 5 and 6,” Mike Collins answered, the throat microphone too close to his mouth so that his voice was garbled. “They were all killed in an accident, two vans full of guys that I’ve known for years. Then, just about forty minutes ago, we lost communication with the rest of the men I left at Numbers 5 and 6.”

  “This have anything to do with the trouble at the equipment depot I heard about on the news?”

  “Yes,” Mercer answered. “But that’s just a distraction. I think the real trouble is at one of the pump stations.”

  “All right, Mercer.” Collins sat forward, thrusting his head between the two cockpit seats. “You seem to have some special knowledge about what’s going on here, and I think it’s time you told me. I’ve lost some men tonight, and something tells me the killing isn’t done. You know something you’re not telling me and goddamn it, I have a right to know.”

  “What happened to the captain of the Petromax Arctica?” Mercer replied.

  “What?”

  “The original captain of the Petromax Arctica was taken off the ship, choppered to Anchorage, and then taken to Seattle aboard a private medical flight paid for by Max Johnston himself. Do you have any idea why the ship was several hours late berthing at the terminal? If they went through the expense of pulling Harris Albrecht from the tanker, don’t you think it was to make sure the Arctica docked on time? So why was the tanker late? What the hell was an empty VLCC doing running around the Gulf of Alaska without a captain while a berthing space was being held for her?”

  “What are you talking about? That doesn’t have anything to do with this situation. The Petromax Arctica docked long before-”

  Mercer cut him off before Collins could finish. “Answer the question and I think you’ll know.”

  “Harris Albrecht was taken to a trauma specialist in Seattle, a doctor specializing in limb reattachment and stump repair for prostheses.”

  “Did you check him out, this doctor?” Mercer torqued himself around so that his eyes bored into Collins.

  “I made a couple of calls when it happened.”

  “And?” He cocked one dark eyebrow.

  “Tissue repair following frostbite was his true speciality. He’s one of the foremost…” Collins went silent.

  The rotors were thumping over their heads so loudly they drowned out the sound of the JetRanger’s turbine. Eddie kept the craft straight and level, ignoring his desire to dip into the valleys and fly nape of the earth as the military had trained him to do. In the Gulf War, he’d flown Recon Marines into the hottest landing zones, and that wild flying style had never left him.

  Mercer spoke. “How many times has the Arctica docked at Alyeska without incident in the past year? How many times has Harris Albr
echt snugged his tanker into your docks without so much as a bump? Tell me how he could lose an arm and need the attention of a frostbite specialist on a normal run from Long Beach, California, to Valdez, Alaska. He’s been smuggling frozen nitrogen into Alaska right under your nose. But on his last trip, something went wrong.”

  “You don’t think this is all related?”

  Mercer shot him a scathing look. “For Christ’s sake, of course it’s all related. Why do you think I’m in this helicopter with a madman at the controls while I could be back home having drinks at my neighborhood bar? Mike, Howard Small is dead, his cousin is dead, and so is his cousin’s son. People have taken potshots at me all because we found the boat ferrying the canisters of liquid nitrogen from the Petromax Arctica to shore. Kerikov and PEAL are trying to cover themselves by eliminating anyone who stumbled onto their operation. Your computer problem? It isn’t a coincidence, despite what your computer guy says. The riot at the depot, the accident with your vans? Whatever Kerikov has planned is happening right now!”

  He hadn’t intended to go off like that; it wasn’t his style, but tension was starting to eat at him. There was a nagging feeling telling him he was already too late. He wasn’t angry at Mike Collins for not recognizing the dangers; he was mad at himself for not recognizing them fast enough. When Aggie Johnston had told him her boyfriend was gone on some mysterious mission, he should have acted then, called in the cavalry so to speak, and ordered a statewide search for PEAL’s leader. He was certain that Kerikov would have turned up in the same dragnet and this desperate flight wouldn’t have been necessary.

  “Eddie, what’s our ETA to Elmendorf AFB?”

  “I don’t know, I filed a flight plan to Fairbanks. What’s at Elly?”

  “A couple of helicopter gunships and some gung-ho soldiers.” Mercer grinned at Rice. “There’s no way I’m going to get shot at again.”

  “Amen to that, brother.” Rice smiled back, his teeth looking iridescent in the glow of the cockpit. “I’d say about another hour and ten minutes in these conditions.”