Pandora's curse m-4

by Jack Du Brul

  Instinct told Mercer to ignore the motionless body that bobbed in the launch’s wake and concentrate on Gunther Rath and the last Pandora box. That was what was important. Yet his humanity was a much stronger drive than any personal desire for justice.

  There was no hesitation.

  He chopped the throttles, holding fast against the steering wheel as the Riva dropped from plane like a head-on collision. Rath’s boat thundered away while Mercer swept the Riva in a tight circle to recover the evangelist’s wife. She lay facedown, her skimpy dress peeled from her body by the impact with the water. Her flesh was white against her translucent panties, already looking lifeless. With the Riva’s Mercruisers burbling, Mercer drew up next to her, edging wheel and throttle so the speedboat pirouetted and Klaus Raeder could grab her. He heaved her across the gunwale.

  As soon as her feet cleared the frigid water, Mercer opened the throttles again. He looked over his shoulder in time to see clear water erupt from Lorna’s mouth and her body convulse in a coughing fit that sounded over the throb of the engines. She curled into a ball and retched again. She’d be shivering for the next couple of hours and her head would ache, but she’d be all right.

  Rath was a quarter mile ahead, angling in toward the wooden jetties fronting Grindavik. His launch didn’t slow until the last second, its wake slamming fishing boats into each other and the floating docks. The one permanent pier thrusting out in the water was a concrete structure with a high-bowed purse seiner snugged against one side. A battered van was parked on the dock, and five early-morning fishermen talked amiably as they prepared the boat’s lines. Rath ordered Dieter to the other side of the pier, and the driver deftly coasted the last few yards. One of the security men leapt from the launch to secure a rope to the rusted cleats. Another man followed him, his attention on the fishermen, theirs on his gun.

  As Mercer brought the Riva in toward the town, two other gunmen appeared at the big launch’s transom and unleashed matching sprays of automatic fire. The range was extreme, and yet Mercer had to sheer away from the stream of bullets, cutting a deep crescent in the sea. Like a shark kept at bay, he cruised just beyond the limit of the weapons, patrolling back and forth restlessly, seeking an opening that would never come. Rath held the superior position, and until he’d loaded his hostages and the Pandora box into the truck, Mercer, Ira, and Raeder could do nothing but wait.

  “Get Mrs. Farquar below and wrap her in as many blankets as you can find,” Mercer ordered. “There should be heating vents mounted on the ceiling of the cuddy cabin. Open them wide.”

  As Raeder maneuvered the woman into the cabin and Mercer watched the frenzied activity on the dock, Ira Lasko got an inspiration. He flicked on the sat-phone he’d carried and tried to get a signal through. “Damn it! Nothing.”

  “What about the cell phone? It doesn’t rely on a satellite. Its signal only has to reach the closest tower, and I think I can see one just inland of the town.”

  “Good idea.” He tossed the sat-phone aside and snapped open another telephone no bigger than a wallet. “I’ve got a signal!”

  “Call Paul Barnes and get us some help.” Mercer could see that three of the fishermen were being pressed into service to carry the golden box from the launch to the rear of their van. As Rath directed the transfer, Greta Schmidt covered a rubbery Tommy Joe Farquar, the squat Dalai Lama, and Cardinal Peretti. Farquar still had on his shiny suit while Peretti wore black pants and shirt. The Lama suffered in the cold, wearing nothing more than a red robe and sandals. His eyebrows looked like dark smudges on his nearly bald head.

  Ira worked the phone for a minute, speaking in non-sequitur codes until he finally reached his case officer. “Rudy, Ira Lasko… shut up and listen. It’s all true… yes, the meteorite fragments and Kohl industries and every other damned thing. Klaus Raeder isn’t the man we want. It’s his special-projects director, Gunther Rath. Now listen to me. Rath has a box loaded with an unknown amount of the meteor as well as three hostages, including the Dalai Lama and the number two man at the Vatican. We’re off the coast of Iceland near a town called Grindavik… It doesn’t matter how we got here. We’re here and we need some serious fucking help. Get on the horn and get us a chopper from the Keflavik airbase. Rath’s in a white stretch van and will probably be heading across the peninsula toward the Reykjavik road. I think it’s Route 41.”

  Mercer interrupted. “Have him tell the pilot they’ll be on the access road to the Blue Lagoon thermal spa.”

  Ira passed on the information, adding, “We’re going to try to get ground transportation and maintain pursuit. Rath has four or five men armed with pistols and subguns. He will not hesitate to fire… No! Don’t take the van from the air unless absolutely necessary. He’s got hostages, for Christ’s sake. You’ve got a trace on this line, so call me back at this number when you have Air Force cooperation.” He snapped off the cell phone. “He had a million questions that don’t need to be answered until this shit’s over.”

  “How long to get a chopper?” They couldn’t afford a delay. Rath would be miles ahead by the time they stole a vehicle of their own and took up the chase again.

  “Only fifteen minutes. Military’s been on alert since I stopped checking in.”

  Klaus Raeder clambered up the steep steps from the Riva’s cabin. “She should be fine. The knot on her head is bleeding a bit, but I don’t think her skull is cracked.”

  Every time the speedboat drifted toward shore with the rising tide, a burst of machine gun fire erupted from the dock and Mercer jammed the boat into reverse and hauled them out of range again. They used the time to strip out of the restricting wet suits. Wind cut through the clothing but adrenaline insulated them from the chilling effects. Had Grindavik been more than a clutch of white clapboard structures, he would have beached the Riva farther away and tried to flank the fugitives. But there was nothing on either side of the village except miles of barren desolation.

  On the dock, Gunther Rath raged at his men. He’d been ensured that there was no way anyone could follow them from the Sea Empress and yet evidence to the contrary lurked a few hundred yards off shore. Granted, even he couldn’t have predicted Mercer would attempt the dangerous open-ocean crossing in such a small boat, but if he’d known about the Riva speedboats in the Jet Ski garage he would have ordered their hulls smashed too.

  The petrified fishermen had almost maneuvered the two-hundred-pound golden box into the back of the van. Once it was secure, Rath planned to leave one gunman on the dock to hold Mercer at bay while they made their escape. He needed a half hour to reach Keflavik Airport, where they could trade the hostages for a jet to get away from Iceland.

  “Come on!” he shouted and cuffed one of the fishermen. The man staggered and the box fell heavily into the cargo area of the van, rocking its suspension.

  Without thought or mercy, Rath pulled his automatic pistol from where it was jammed into his belt and shot two of the fishermen. Two others leapt onto their boat and hid from view and the fifth jumped into the water. “Load up,” he snarled, gesturing at the three hostages with the smoking gun. Mutely, they climbed into the van, the Dalai Lama giving him a look as if he understood what demons drove Rath to murder so callously. Tommy Joe Farquar, while sobered by the long boat ride, simply allowed himself to be maneuvered, too stunned by what happened to his wife to offer any kind of resistance. Cardinal Peretti did nothing to hide his contempt.

  “Willie, I want you to stay on the dock,” Rath ordered the youngest of his men. “Keep that boat from landing as long as you can. Buy us thirty minutes and get yourself out of here. Stay away from the Geo-Research office in Reykjavik and get word to the Party’s office in Hamburg. They’ll know how to contact me and we’ll extract you in a couple of days.”

  “Ja wohl!” the young neo-Nazi replied, proud to be able to serve his cause.

  Greta kept her pistol on the hostages as she entered the van through the side door, reveling in the smell of testosterone and fear fill
ing the cab. She was near a sexual peak and the pressure of her clothing against her breasts sent ripples of energy through her body. Her faith in Gunther was so absolute that she knew they would make it away.

  With Dieter behind the wheel and Rath in the passenger seat, the van started rolling down the dock. Once it was on the road, they accelerated quickly. The airport was just thirty miles away.

  Frustration filled Mercer as the hostages boarded the van for a ride he doubted any would survive. As soon as the vehicle disappeared into the quiet town, he started for the dock and only realized Rath had left behind a picket when the water around the Riva exploded and bits of her forward deck blew away in bright slivers of precious wood. He cranked the wheel while Ira and Raeder returned fire. The gunman on the dock had cover behind a stack of heavy steel fish traps, and nothing short of a missile would dislodge him.

  “I’m going to beach down the coast and we’ll run back to town to find a car,” he shouted over the engines.

  Before he could execute his plan, the gunman suddenly staggered out from his hide, his hands smeared red where they clutched his stomach. The sound of a rifle reached the men on the water a second later, and they all saw a puff of smoke blow from the bridge of the fishing boat tied to the dock. The neo-Nazi looked up to where the shot had come from, and the back of his head erupted as the rifle the fishermen used for sharks blew his brains all over the dock.

  Mercer didn’t waste a second. He took them in under nearly full power, not caring that he scrubbed off speed using the side of the $300,000 Riva against the dock. Ira vaulted up to the concrete quay with a line and cinched it tight. Raeder came next and then Mercer, now holding a submachine gun and a Beretta pistol. Two Icelanders stood on the bridge of the boat, their deeply weathered faces and suspicious eyes never leaving the three men. The third survivor of the group had just reached the rocky beach and began walking back to the dock.

  “There’s a woman in the cabin.” Mercer pointed at the Riva, hoping that these men spoke English like most Icelanders. “She’s near hypothermic and needs a doctor for a concussion.” The fishermen said nothing. The old bolt-action rifle was leveled at Mercer’s head. “The men who killed your friends dumped her in the sea. We need a car to go after them.”

  The wind whistled through the fishing boat’s rigging.

  “If you won’t help us, at least don’t stop us,” Mercer pleaded.

  The man holding the shark rifle let the barrel fall until it was pointed at the deck of his boat. “How long the woman in the water?”

  “Five minutes, maybe eight.”

  Gunfights and cold murder were beyond what these men knew. A person sacrificed to the sea was a danger they could understand. “The two men they kill. My cousins,” the captain of the boat said and reached into his pocket. He tossed a wad of keys onto the dock at Mercer’s feet. “You know killing. You kill them. I know sea. I will help woman.” He raised his hand toward the town. “Blue Volvo in front of Vsjomannastofan Restaurant.”

  Mercer didn’t thank them. They wouldn’t expect it and he didn’t have the time. He scooped up the keys and raced off the dock, confident that Ira and Klaus would keep up. He was stopping for nothing until Rath was dead.

  The Volvo was a beaten four door, rust smeared and so often repaired that little of its original paint remained. The interior reeked of pipe smoke and the seat covers were so shredded they showed more foam padding than black vinyl. The engine belched and snorted and barely settled down when he forced the transmission into first gear with a painful grind. Mercer’s Heckler amp; Koch was across his lap. Ira’s window refused to roll down, so he smashed it out with his machine pistol.

  The road twisted out of town, following the vagaries of the volcanic terrain. As their speed approached sixty, the bald tires and mist-slick macadam tried to throw them in the ditches bordering each curve. Mercer wished he had his Jag right now. They’d be doing a hundred without a chirp from the wheels. Still, he pushed the old Volvo harder, drifting through corners with quick touches of brake and gas, his hand working the stick without regard to the gears’ worthless synchronizers.

  In the distance, he could see steam plumes from the Svartsengi power plant rising into the gray dawn like clouds struggling from the black landscape. What he couldn’t see was a white van driving as recklessly as he was. At the end of this road was a branch east to Reykjavik or west to the international airport and Keflavik. Each route held promise for fugitives, and Mercer needed to be close enough to see where Rath was heading.

  “Any sign of that chopper?” he asked. The Volvo briefly lifted on two wheels as its tires screamed through a tight bend.

  “Ceiling’s only about five hundred feet,” Ira said, referring to the low cloud cover that hung from the tallest peaks like muslin. “We won’t see it until we pass under it.”

  The road leveled out and straightened as they neared the geothermal generating station and the adjacent Blue Lagoon spa. A trio of hundred-foot cooling towers rose from the lava field like slender rockets on a moonscape, their tops wreathed in steam. The rest of the sprawling facility was hidden in a dip in the topography. A half mile ahead was the turn for the plant and spa — and just beyond that was the van. Mercer’s jaw tightened. Then he realized something was wrong. The van wasn’t in his lane, it was in the opposite. It wasn’t heading away from them. It was coming closer!

  Like an enraged insect, a Hughs 500 helicopter painted olive drab hovered above the hurtling van, its skids no more than fifty feet from the vehicle’s roof. A sniper with a Barrett.50 caliber rifle sat in the open door, his clothes rippled by the wind, his eye screwed to the weapon’s enormous scope.

  Mercer slammed on the Volvo’s emergency brake and slipped the car into a skid that completely blocked the two-lane road. Even the sturdiest four-wheel-drive SUV couldn’t penetrate more than five feet into the moss-covered lava fields. Rath was caught between the helo and the car. Throwing open his door, Mercer pulled the H amp;K and watched the van approach over the sights. He pulled the trigger, intentionally aiming low. He couldn’t risk the driver or a stray shot ricocheting in the cab.

  It was one thing for Dieter to risk his life on a race track, another thing entirely facing the winking eye of an automatic 9mm. It was a game of chicken that he wouldn’t play. Braking so the van’s back end broke loose, he spun into the driveway of the generating plant and accelerated away.

  Mercer knew from his tour of the facility a couple years ago that this was the only way in or out of the complex. As long as he could disable the van, the Pandora box was trapped. He dove back into the Volvo, willed the transmission into gear and tore after the fleeing vehicle. Ira jammed a fresh magazine into Mercer’s MP-5. The van continued past the turnoff for the power station and drove toward the newly constructed Blue Lagoon spa. The Hughs 500 flashed over the car, nose down and menacing.

  The spa’s modern glass-and-steel building was set back from the empty parking lot. It was reached by a meandering foot path cut into the lava, a narrow trail flanked by ten-foot walls of tortured stone. Dieter careened through the lot and shot down the footpath, sparks flying whenever the fenders scraped rock. With Mercer still several hundred yards behind them and unable to communicate with the chopper, the maneuver bought them a few minutes to hustle their hostages from the van. They had no choice but to leave the golden box in the rear.

  One of Rath’s gunmen waited in the van, his machine pistol able to cover the entire trail. When they followed, Mercer and his men would run headlong into a scathing ambush.

  Rath blew apart one of the spa’s glass doors with his pistol and rushed in, confident that his men had Peretti, Farquar, and the Dalai Lama well covered. Ahead was a cavernous room bisected by a reception counter. Beyond was a waiting area with a twenty-foot glass wall overlooking the steaming waters of the artificial lagoon. In the weak light of the encroaching dawn, the water had a peculiar shade of milky blue, a combination of silica and bacteria that gave it curative powers and th
e unholy stench of sulfur.

  With an eye for urban street fighting, Rath positioned his men to best cover the entrance in case Mercer’s team made it past the gunner in the van. He also scouted out his escape route for when Mercer was dead. The building echoed with the reverberations of chopper blades just a few feet above the roof.

  When he reached the parking lot and saw the spa’s canyon-like entry path, Mercer instinctively knew where Rath had gone. He braked hard at the beginning of the trail, blocking it with the body of the Volvo to trap the van. Hyped on adrenaline until his veins burned, he never considered waiting for reinforcements from the military base at Keflavik.

  “They’ll be waiting for us to follow,” Ira said.

  “We’ll flank ’em,” Mercer grunted. “You two climb up the left side of the path, and I’ll go right. We’ll stop when we’re above the van.”

  The lava on this part of the Reykjanes Peninsula had been laid down in A.D. 1226, and despite Iceland’s scouring winds it had not yet succumbed to the polishing effects of erosion. Clambering up the wall on one side of the path was like climbing a mound of broken glass. A mistimed lunge for a knuckle of stone resulted in a bleeding gash on Mercer’s knee and what felt like four fingerprints being abraded off his left hand. Slowed by his injuries, he made his ascent and started off for the building he could see nestled in an excavated bowl of rock. The lagoon behind it simmered like an aquamarine cauldron. Watching for a guard atop the lava and keeping one eye out for anyone lurking in the shadowy trail below, Mercer scrambled along the rim of the path until the van was directly below him. He looked through the multiple windows fronting the spa but saw nothing in the darkness within. The helicopter’s downblast blew a freezing gale across his naked scalp.

  Once Ira and Raeder were across from him and had the building covered, Mercer raised himself slightly to zero in on the rear of the white van and gave the H amp;K’s trigger a long squeeze. He emptied a clip, careful to direct his fire away from where he thought the van’s fuel tank would be. The crashing shots deafened him, so he didn’t hear the rear door unlatch, but he saw it swing outward. A man in a black Geo-Research jumpsuit oozed slowly to the ground, small eruptions in his uniform leaking blood.