Pandora's Curse

by Du Brul, Jack

  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 would 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?”

  “They’re fine. Ira has already been airlifted to Reykjavik along with Mr. and Mrs. Farquar. Cardinal Peretti was unharmed. Stop worrying about the others.” She used scissors from one of the medics’ bags to cut away his pants while they concentrated on the Dalai Lama. Her fingers were sure and quick. “This isn’t too bad. We found what’s left of Greta and the other two Geo-Research guys. Where are Rath and Raeder?”

  “Still fighting in hell, I would think,” he slurred.

  Anika flashed a penlight in his eyes. “Looks like you’ve got a slight concussion. I’m surprised, thick skull like yours.” Her tone was teasing.

  “You’re losing points for bedside manner.”

  “How’s this then?” And she leaned over to kiss him lightly.

  “Does that mean I’m forgiven?”

  “No, it means that I understand you a little better.” Her eyes softened. As two stretcher bearers approached she whispered, “And I still like what I see.”

  EPILOGUE

  The Secret Service agent examined Mercer’s passport and the videocassette in the large envelope he carried before waving him toward the town house. The summer sun beat on the narrow Vienna street, gilding many of the architectural details of the Baroque and Rococo buildings. To Mercer the temperature felt like a sweet caress after so many freezing days. He climbed the couple of steps to the Institute of Applied Research, moving slowly because he’d abandoned his cane in Iceland. An elderly housekeeper opened the door before he knocked. She stepped aside wordlessly but her expression was one of displeasure. Knowing who was already here, Mercer couldn’t blame her.

  He paused in the entryway. The tumult of books hanging from every wall and teetering on every surface overloaded him like a child at Christmas. He loved books, collected them and treasured them the way others accumulated fine wine, or stamps, or antiques. His collection ran toward old texts on geology and the earth sciences and first editions written by the pioneers in those fields, but any old book gave him a sense of excitement. It was the thrill of knowing that within their covers was information he didn’t have, a detail or an observation he’d never made. He loved their unique power to humble and enlighten at the same time.

  Seeing the material Anika’s grandfather had accumulated reminded him that in a few months he’d be in Paris for an auction of journals written by the French engineers who’d failed in their nineteenth-century attempt to cut a sea-level canal across Panama. He wanted the diary of Baron Godin de Lepinay, the first man to propose the lake-and-lock solution that was eventually built. Mercer had an eccentric friend who was convinced the journal contained the last clue to the whereabouts of a treasure stolen from the Spanish Main and was willing to pay for half the book just to make a copy.

  Frau Goetz indicated that everyone was in a dining room at the back of the town house. He heard a pendulum clock chopping at time. Like the rest of the building, the dining room was lined with shelves, and the books once covering the wooden table had been stacked around the room’s perimeter. With the door to the garden closed, everything smelled musty and accented with pipe tobacco. On the floor in front of the glass door was an apparatus for creating random sound vibrations to defeat laser microphones. And since the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency had brought a security contingent to this meeting, Mercer assumed the house had already been swept for other types of listening devices.

  The DCI, Paul Barnes, was in his late fifties, with gray-streaked hair and a constant expression of irritation. His intense eyes weren’t enough to draw attention from the bulbous mole that sat in the crease where his nose joined his face. The mole appeared raw from constant rubbing. Mercer knew Barnes to be a political infighter who spent a great deal of time on damage control in front of the congressional intelligence committees. Uniformly agreed to be the worst of the president’s appointments, he didn’t have the proper background to effectively head America’s premier spy agency and fought tenaciously to maintain his position. Seeing Mercer, his eyes went tight. The animosity between them stemmed from Mercer’s successful involvement with several recent crises that Barnes should have handled.

  Anika Klein was sitting between two elderly gentlemen in somber ties and worn shirts. One he assumed was her grandfather, Jacob Eisenstadt, and the other his research partner, Theodor Weitzmann. Mercer grinned when he saw her. She leapt to her feet quicker than she’d intended, paused to smooth her black skirt, and crossed to plant a chaste kiss o
n his cheek. She wore no makeup and was dressed modestly out of respect for her grandfather, yet her attempt to stifle her sexuality only made Mercer more aware of it.

  “I can’t believe the doctors in Reykjavik released you.” She regarded the bruising on Mercer’s face and the sunken hollows that hid his eyes.

  Only four days had passed since Gunther Rath’s defeat. Mercer’s left arm was in a sling for a sprained wrist, and he walked with a noticeable limp. “They didn’t. I checked myself out as soon as you left Iceland.”

  “If I’d known you lacked the good sense to stay in the hospital, I wouldn’t have come here.” She introduced him to Eisenstadt and Weitzmann, who shook his hand in turn.

  “It is good to meet you,” Eisenstadt rumbled in his accented English. Mercer and he had spoken on the phone a few times when the details of this meeting had been hammered out.

  “My pleasure, sir.” The elderly researcher matched Mercer’s impression. Solid and apparently humorless, he had a formal grace lost to younger generations and a sagacity that commanded instant respect.

  Frau Goetz put coffee and a glass of water at a place open for Mercer. He caught her scrutiny and her approving nod to Anika. Anika shook her head slightly, then smiled before making a slight gesture with her hand as if to say maybe. She blushed when she noted that Mercer had seen the exchange.

  Barnes sighed. “Since we’re all here, we can get this over with.” He’d made no gesture to greet Mercer properly.

  Thanks to Ira Lasko’s efforts from his hospital room in Reykjavik, Mercer had learned that Barnes had spent a very long afternoon in the White House. The chief executive was furious with Barnes for how he’d handled this affair, and Mercer understood that Barnes was under orders to make any concession necessary to set things right. He’d even been forced to Vienna to accommodate Eisenstadt and Weitzmann rather than hold this meeting in Washington.

  Essentially, Barnes was here to agree to whatever Mercer asked for. Mercer would have flaunted his control over the DCI had he not gained some perspective in the past few days. Instead, he savored knowing he held all the cards and allowed Barnes a measure of dignity.

  “Mr. Barnes, I want to thank you for agreeing to come here today,” Mercer began, perpetuating the illusion that the DCI still had a choice, “and I especially want to acknowledge your efforts camouflaging what happened aboard the Sea Empress. I sense your hand in the cover story about a terrorist attack in which all the hijackers were killed by the ship’s security personnel.”

  “It fit close enough to the facts to convince the media,” Barnes acknowledged. If he was relieved that Mercer wasn’t rubbing in his errand-boy status, he didn’t show it. “We effectively blacked out information about the fighting at the Blue Lagoon and the Svartsengi power plant, saying it was a pressure explosion that rained debris on the adjoining spa.”

  “Your government will pay to repair the facilities?” Anika asked.

  “Plus a little extra for the families of the fishermen murdered in Grindavik.” Barnes nodded. “That’s how we got the cooperation of the local authorities.”

  “That takes care of those on the periphery,” Mercer said. “But there are a number of people more directly involved who can’t be silenced so easily.”

  “That’s why I’m here.” Barnes folded his hands on the table, preparing himself for the negotiations. “To discuss the terms for your cooperation.”

  “This won’t be a discussion, Mr. Barnes.” Mercer’s tone sharpened, reminding Barnes of his role. “A dozen innocent people are dead because of this, and you have an obligation to them and their survivors. I’ve compiled a list.” He still suffered from the emotional hangover of writing the names, especially scarred by Elisebet Rosmunder’s, who would have been alive if he hadn’t spoken with her. “Before we get to specifics there are a few things I want to know first. Beginning with Charlie Bryce and the Surveyor’s Society and their relationship to the CIA.”

  Barnes’s eyes swept the others around the table. “This isn’t the time or the place to talk about that. If there is a relationship, which I’m not saying there is, it would be classified.”

  Mercer ignored Barnes’s security concerns. “Until we’re all satisfied, there aren’t going to be any secrets. Anika knows how I got involved in this expedition, so she’s already drawn some inferences. I’ve also made Mr. Eisenstadt and Mr. Weitzmann aware that I was approached by the Society to help Ira Lasko, one of your agents. Do you want to leave us believing that the Surveyor’s Society is a CIA front?”

  Although this was a minor point, Barnes still resented sharing anything. “They aren’t a front. The Surveyor’s Society does”—he searched for the right word—“favors for us. You may recall Bryce’s speech about the three kinds of explorers—real ones, armchair ones, and those who pay others to explore for them. Let’s just say that the CIA falls into the latter category when we need certain deniable operations carried out.”

  “And you pay them?”

  “Why do you think every school in the nation pays twice the normal subscription price for their magazine?”

  “A black budget subsidy?”

  “Exactly. By the way Ira doesn’t work directly for the CIA. He was seconded to us for this mission from the White House.”

  “He already told me. In fact, he’s trying to talk me into accepting a job there. Special science advisor to the president or something.” Mercer wasn’t sure if he’d accept, but he was honored.

  “If it’s any consolation,” Barnes added, “Bryce wasn’t too pleased when I had him recruit you.”

  “I’ll deal with Charlie at another time,” Mercer said. “We’re here to discuss what to do about each other.”

  “And to handle the final disposition of the remaining Pandora box and an icon belonging to a Russian priest. They represent the last link to an unprecedented discovery. As a scientist, you must know the Pandora fragments could contain untold knowledge about our universe and its creation.”

  Barnes tried to press his point with a hard stare, but Mercer remained unfazed. “I doubt you believe in science for science’s sake, Mr. Barnes.”

  “Where are the fragments?” Barnes leaned across the table in another effort to gain some psychological leverage. “When Ira Lasko was debriefed in the hospital he said he didn’t know.”

  “He lied.” Because of the prior arrangements, the old Nazi hunters had brought their small television and VCR into the dining room. Mercer slid the cassette into the tape slot and waited while Frau Goetz pressed the correct buttons to bring up the picture. “This footage was taken yesterday.”

  The image on the screen was bouncy and the audio was filled with a deep thrumming rattle. The watchers quickly realized that the video had been taken aboard a speeding helicopter. The chopper’s side door was closed so the camera panned down through the scratchy window. A thousand feet below, the cold north Atlantic surged with its unending rhythm. They were high enough that the whitecaps looked like bits of string. The frame jumped and suddenly Mercer was shown sitting on the bench seat in the rear of the cargo chopper.

  “Who took this?” Barnes asked sharply.

  “Ira wanted to be with us but couldn’t get out of the hospital. Father Anatoly Vatutin ran the camera,” Mercer answered before the video image of himself bent forward to strip a tarp off a box sitting next to the door. A golden reflection filled the dim interior of the chopper. Resting on the only remaining Pandora box was another glittering relic, the last of Rasputin’s icons.

  Jacob Eisenstadt grunted when he saw the box. Although he’d already been warned what was on the tape, his eyes were wet, doubtlessly thinking about what the box represented—the origin of that gold and all those who’d died filling it.

  Barnes sucked in a quick breath. He glanced at Mercer, trying to understand what was happening behind his gray eyes. Mercer gave a triumphant smile that told Barnes everything. “You didn’t.”

  The tape made Mercer’s answer unnecessary. Fathe
r Vatutin set aside the camera to open the cargo door and then refocused on Mercer as he kicked the heavy icon out the door. The camera image followed the antique as it pinwheeled toward the sea, swallowed by distance before it was swallowed by the water. Barnes went pale with impotant rage. Next, the tape showed Mercer bracing his legs against the seat supports and levering his back against the two-hundred-pound Pandora box.

  Vatutin had tightened his focus on the swastika adorning the side of the Pandora box, tracking it as Mercer pushed it to the door. Pausing with the box on the edge of oblivion, Mercer addressed the camera, shouting over the wind and the rotor’s steady beat.

  “The problem with any scientific discovery is that, once something is known, it can’t be unlearned. We can’t forget how to make a nuclear bomb or poison gas, nor can we prevent the propagation of that knowledge. To use a cliché, once the genie’s out of the bottle, it can’t be put back. Well, this is one genie that I’m not going to let escape. The military applications of Pandora radiation far outweigh any potential scientific use. A Russian madman realized that a hundred years ago and hid the truth until a German madman nearly succeeded in unleashing Pandora’s destructive potential one again. Now it’s my turn to end this once and for all.”

  “What gives you the right?” Barnes shouted at Mercer.

  “No one gave it to me.” Mercer’s voice was steel. “Thanks to what you’ve put me through in the past weeks, I’ve earned it.”

  Everyone’s focus returned to the television as the chopper banked over, aiding Mercer’s final effort to heave the Pandora box into the rolling swells far from where anyone would find it. Again Father Vatutin, one of the two remaining members of the Brotherhood of Satan’s Fist, videotaped the object of his lifelong quest until it was gone. From the helicopter’s altitude, the splash appeared puny, an anticlimactic end to such a malignant artifact. The screen turned to electronic snow as the drama came to an end.