by Jack Du Brul
He noted that she hadn’t given the assassins’ identity.
Tisa guided the car onto a cross street and then rocketed up a ramp onto I-15 heading north. Commuter traffic was thick but she seemed immune to it, exploiting the tiniest opening and using deft touches on the accelerator and brake to keep them rolling at a steady eighty miles per hour. She handled the car like a professional race driver.
“I can’t tell you who the gunmen were. I’m sorry. But please know that my saving you tonight is an indication of my sincerity.” She paused. “I didn’t think it right that you should suffer for something out of your control.”
“Lady,” Mercer flared, “the past twenty minutes has been about as out of control as things can get. Since you knew where I was staying and what was about to happen, don’t you think you could have just called to warn me?” She tried to interrupt, but Mercer overrode her protests. “Thanks for your help, but why don’t you just pull off at the next exit and let me out?”
“I tried calling,” Tisa snapped. She spoke English with an accent, French and something else. “Several times. You never picked up and then just before they were to hit your room, the line was busy.”
Mercer opened his mouth and let it close. What she said was plausible. He’d been in the shower for a half hour and then dialed Harry almost immediately after he toweled off. Maybe she had tried to warn him. That still didn’t negate the fact that she knew exactly what time the gunmen were making the hit. Meaning? Meaning either she’d been tracking them or she was part of their team. He chose his next words carefully. “You know they killed at least one woman that I saw.” He kept his voice mild to heighten the barbarism. “Probably got two or three security guards too.”
His hoped-for reaction of guilt never came. Tisa barely blinked at the news. “It could have been worse,” she finally said.
“Worse? I just told you innocent people are dead and you say it could have been worse. I think you could have saved them. I think you could have stopped them by warning the hotel or something. Don’t you realize their blood is on your hands?”
“Theirs isn’t the first, Dr. Mercer,” she said matter-of-factly. “And it certainly won’t be the last.”
A tense minute went by. Mercer studied her profile, conflicted by her beauty and seeming indifference.
“I was too late to stop them from attacking your room,” she said at last. “But I could try to save you if they failed. I’ve put my life at risk just by helping you, though it doesn’t really matter.”
“What doesn’t matter? That innocent people are dead or that you may be next?”
“Actually, none of it.” They sped up to ninety miles per hour as traffic thinned.
Mercer had heard enough. He hadn’t needed Tisa to figure out that the attack concerned Area 51. He was thankful for his rescue, but he wasn’t going to put up with her nonanswers. He would know the truth after he and Ira grilled Donny Randall, who no doubt had some connection to the gunmen. And the truth, he knew, had nothing to do with Ira’s bogus cover about a nuclear repository. Terrorists didn’t assassinate miners for digging a waste dump. They’d attack the nuclear materials en route or hit the site after it was full.
He put his hand on the gear shift lever. “In ten seconds I am going to jam the transmission into neutral.”
Tisa glanced at him, then returned her eyes to the road.
“Unless you’re armed you can’t stop me, so why don’t you just pull over.”
“I’m not armed,” she admitted.
“Then stop the goddamned car.”
Tisa ignored his demand. She spoke confidently. “Four months ago there was a seismic disturbance that was triangulated to a remote spot at Area 51.”
“One.”
“The epicenter was eight hundred feet below the surface.”
The exact depth Mercer and his men had tunneled off the main shaft. “Two.”
“Looking through U.S. Geologic Survey records, there’s no evidence of a fault in this location, certainly not that shallow. It is the first such earthquake there.”
This part of Nevada was riddled with microfaults; many of which hadn’t been discovered. Mercer was unimpressed. “Three.”
“The problem is that it wasn’t an earthquake at all.”
Tisa paused and Mercer had to remind himself of his countdown. “Four.”
“The closest analogy is that a bubble erupted inside solid rock. One second everything was normal and the next, seismographs showed a tremendous displacement of simultaneous P and S waves. As quickly as it happened, everything went back to normal. Almost like a contained nuclear explosion that only lasted for a moment.”
“How big?” Mercer asked, despite himself.
“Five.”
“On the Richter scale?”
“No. Your ultimatum. You’re up to number five. On the Richter it registered a single spike of three-point-one.”
“Duration?”
“Like I said, one second.”
“That’s not possible,” Mercer stated. “What about foreshocks or aftershocks?”
“Just the one spike.”
While Mercer had never heard of anything like this, an unusual earthquake was no reason to have him assassinated. He asked her why.
“What about your countdown?” Tisa asked with a little lift to her lip. Despite his palpable anger, she was teasing him.
“I’m keeping it going in my head,” he growled, although a smile was trying to tug at the corners of his mouth. “Why would someone want me dead for working near an undiscovered fault?”
“Because it wasn’t a fault. They believe it was a weapon test of some kind. I don’t know the details. I… I’m not part of the group that ordered your murder. When I learned what was going to happen, I flew to Las Vegas to save you. You’re a pawn in this. Innocent. I didn’t want to see you hurt.”
“Why?”
She looked at him for the first time in several miles. Her eyes went soft while her mouth remained defiant. The shock of the attack had worn to the point Mercer could admit to himself that she was achingly beautiful. “The reasons are my own. That’s all I’ll tell you.”
“Can you at least tell me how you knew I was involved with Area 51?” He himself hadn’t known about the job until being stuffed into a government SUV.
She laughed. “I never expected modesty from you, Doctor. It’s charming.”
“I’m not being modest,” Mercer said.
“In some circles, you are one of the most famous people in the world. You are perhaps the greatest prospecting geologist working today. You’ve found or been instrumental in the development of dozens of successful mines. Opals in Australia. Diamonds in Canada and Africa. The Ghuatra ruby mine in India. It’s been estimated that you alone are responsible for having one hundred million cubic yards of earth shifted in just the past eight years.”
Mercer understood then. The way she’d been talking, with a kind of reverent fatalism, it should have been obvious. She belonged to an environmental group, one with a radical arm that decided to forgo passive protesting and turn to violence. Like some fringe right-to-life groups whose members began to gun down abortion doctors, it was inevitable that extremist environmentalists would eventually target those they considered the ecosystem’s worst enemies. He still carried the scars from dealing with a similar group in Alaska a few years earlier.
“So your people think I’m Earth’s enemy number one and that by killing me a few acres of desert will remain unspoiled for future generations to ignore?”
She considered his accusation for a second. “Quite the opposite, actually. I do belong to a group, called the Order, and we do strive to protect the planet, but not in the way you think. We don’t chain ourselves to trees or chase whaling ships in rubber boats. Our work is more” — she searched for the right word — “consequential.”
Mercer scoffed. “And you consider me consequential enough to kill?”
“I never wanted you killed,” Tisa
said fiercely. “But others do.”
“Because I’m a successful mining engineer,” Mercer interrupted. “And you think my work damages the environment?”
Tisa eyed him again. “With the exception of a few extreme cases, Doctor, one person cannot affect the environment in any appreciable way. You should stick to being modest. It suits you better. Very little of what you’ve accomplished has required any kind of adjustments on our part.”
Mercer had no idea what she meant by adjustments. He was about to ask when she continued.
“I’m afraid you were targeted because you stand in the way of certain people learning what happened four months ago deep under Area 51. Until they, no, I should say we — in a way I am part of this — until we learn the nature of what happened, people within the Order feel there is a tremendous risk.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She nodded. “You don’t have any idea how much you don’t know. And I’m afraid I don’t have time to explain it to you. Well, I have the time, but you would never believe me.”
He was beginning to think his rescuer was more than a little insane. Nothing she said made sense.
“And I do want you to believe me.” Her eyes caught his, held them in the dim glow from the dashboard. The anguish had faded, but there remained a gentle sadness, a sort of pervading melancholy that softened her features. He saw that her words were an intimate confession. “By saving you I hope I’ve demonstrated that you can trust me, at least a little bit. Had I known their plans earlier, I would have gotten a warning to you, I swear. I am sorry about that hotel guest you mentioned. What time is it?”
“I’m sorry?”
“The time?”
“Oh.” Mercer glanced at his watch, noting that the dash contained a digital clock. “Eight thirty. Why? Is something going to happen?”
“No,” she said absently. “I just don’t wear a watch. I saved you because I thought it was time for someone to take a stand. Our group never started out this way. Using violence, I mean. This has only come about recently and I’m afraid it’s going to get worse.”
“Why haven’t you gone to the authorities?”
“That’s just what I’m doing. I’ve come to you. You have the experience and understanding to grasp what I will show you and hopefully the influence to prevent it.”
Mercer’s senses went on alert. “Prevent what? A terrorist attack?”
“Nothing so simple, I’m afraid. I’m going to rely on a little of that trust I hope you feel and say that I can’t tell you yet, but I can give you a demonstration.” She looked at him sideways. “You must understand that what I’m about to tell you breaks a code of secrecy dating back more than a hundred fifty years.”
She took a breath. Mercer was at a loss to explain who she was or what her group wanted, but it was clear she was fighting a battle of conscience. She seemed more reluctant to break her vow than she did to endanger her life by rescuing him.
“Can you meet me on the Greek island of Santorini on the twenty-seventh?”
“I suppose,” he said cautiously.
“There’s a tramway that carries people from the harbor up to the town. I will meet you at the upper terminal at five in the evening.”
“Tisa, I’m sorry, but you haven’t given me any reason not to think that this is all an elaborate setup of some kind.”
“And there’s nothing I can say or do until the twenty-seventh,” she countered, then reversed herself with a yelp. “Wait! Yes, I can.”
Such was the transformation that to Mercer it seemed like another person was driving the car. Her eyes, far from being dim and haunted, came alive.
“Something is going to happen in the Pacific Ocean in a couple of days. I’m sorry I don’t know what, only that it’s some kind of natural phenomenon that’s never happened before. Whatever it is, I’m sure you will recognize it. If it happens, will you meet me?” She was almost pleading.
“This something, it has to do with your group, what did you call them, the Order?”
“Yes.”
“But not a part you’re involved with?”
“No. It’s… it’s the same faction that attacked you tonight.”
“If I meet you, will you finally explain who you really are?”
“Once you see the demonstration, you’ll understand.” She paused again, as enigmatic as ever, but beguiling in way that Mercer knew he shouldn’t trust. “People call you Mercer right, not Phil or Philip?”
“Yes.”
“May I call you Mercer, too.”
“If we’re to meet again on one of the most romantic islands in the world, I think it’s the least you could do.”
Her facial muscles contorted as she fought to contain a smile. “Mercer,” she said softly, as if trying out the name for the first time.
Tisa suddenly brought the car to a stop. “Here we are,” she announced.
They’d left the highway at least an hour ago. A milky moon silhouetted the barren mountains to the east while overhead the stars burned cold and indifferent. Nearby, tall utility poles marched to the horizon like stick-figure soldiers. For as far as they could see there wasn’t any other evidence of human habitation, no lights, no buildings, nothing.
“You call this place a ‘here’?”
“Not exactly the Gare du Nord at rush hour, but this is your stop.” Tisa noticed Mercer tense and reached over to place a hand on his arm. Her fingers were long and slim. She said nothing for a second, just studied the pale outline of her skin against the dark material of Mercer’s sports coat. “Relax. We’re on an access road that leads into Area 51. About a hundred yards farther up is the perimeter. Once you pass the marker, security cameras and heat-tracking devices will detect you. It should take base security only a couple of minutes to find you. It may take a bit longer for you to establish your identity, but I think you’ll be all right.”
“What about you?” Mercer asked, more concerned than he thought he’d be. “Are you going to be all right?”
“So long as you meet me in a couple of weeks in Santorini, everything will be fine.”
“What about…?”
“The — what should I call them, the rogue faction? They won’t dare touch me. Don’t worry.”
He stepped from the car and closed the door, finding no context in what had just transpired. If asked to explain the past hours, he couldn’t. As the taillights disappeared around a bend, he realized there were two ideas he could cling to. One was that Ira Lasko had better have some answers for him when they met. And the second was that despite the skepticism he’d shown Tisa, he didn’t doubt her sanity. Too much had happened for him to think there wasn’t something much larger going on. The explosion in the mine, Donny Randall’s disappearance, the attack at the Luxor. There was a connection, but he had no idea what and wouldn’t allow himself to speculate. That would come later. For now he drew his damp jacket tighter across his shoulders and began his trudge up the chilly road. A third idea came to him and he glanced over his shoulder to where the wind had swallowed the sound of Tisa’s car. He felt certain that whatever she knew, or thought she knew, it was worth pursuing.
AREA 51, NEVADA
Mercer spent twenty tense minutes convincing two camouflaged security guards who’d materialized out of the desert that he shouldn’t be run immediately to the local sheriff as a trespasser. What followed was a two-hour ride in the back of a Jeep Cherokee, a further hours-long wait in an isolated building while his identity was checked and rechecked, and then a quick hop in a windowless Blackhawk helicopter to the main complex.
He was escorted to the same spartan room he’d been given his first night at Area 51. Five minutes after stepping from the shower and into some dry clothes left by the soldier at the reception desk there was a knock on the door.
“Omega ninety-nine temple.” Even muffled by the door, Mercer had no problem recognizing the deep voice.
He returned the countersign. “Caravan eleven
solstice.”
The door swung open to reveal Captain Booker T. Sykes, his escort from the flight from Washington. The big African American held a six-pack of beer in one hand and a deck of playing cards in the other. He was dressed in desert fatigue pants with a black T-shirt stretched across his chest. An unlit cigar jutted from between his even teeth. “Heard you blew back into town.”
Mercer grinned. “This place has better shampoo samples than the hotel in Vegas.”
Sykes stripped two beers from the six-pack and handed one over. “Cheaper room service, too.” He took a seat at the small table under the window and began shuffling the cards. “Rumor has it base security picked you up wandering in from Highway 375 near the town of Rachel.”
“I got lost looking for a hot craps table.”
Sykes shook his head. “Didn’t figure you’d tell me what was up. Admiral Lasko’s due to arrive in a couple hours for your debrief. I figured you could use a few beers more than the sleep.”
“You could say that.” Mercer took a long pull from his beer and checked the cards Sykes had dealt him. “Did your rumor source say if they caught Donny Randall, the miner that skipped out from my project?”
“The guy vanished into thin air. Knowing me and my Delta team were here, security even called us in to help on the search. We had his tracks running south from DS-Two for eleven miles and then they vanished. No sign a chopper landed to pick him up, no sign of anything.”
“Thermal scans?”
“Lots of jackrabbits, a few coyotes but no missing miner. Even if he’d died out there, his corpse would stay warm enough for us to detect. My men are still searching. I came back when I heard you’re here to see if you have any explanations.”
“I have no idea how he disappeared. I don’t even know why except someone must have gotten to him, bought him off or something. That explosion was deliberate. He tried to kill me and a couple others. I believe he also caused a cave-in before I came here that killed a dozen men.”
“I bet you don’t believe the admiral’s story anymore, huh?”
