Vulcan's Forge

by Jack Du Brul

  “Dr. Jacobs,” the President’s tone was respectful, “how would you go about creating bikinium in useful amounts?”

  “Well, to answer that, you have to know how bikinium was formed in the first place and even my findings are only theory. I researched all the mineral samples taken from nuclear detonations in New Mexico, going back to the original Los Alamos test, and found no trace of it, so the effect must have something to do with water, that much I am certain. I began to search for other dissimilarities between the land tests and the one conducted underwater.

  “I found no traces of vanadium ore at any test site other than the 1946 Bikini test. I could conclude that the vanadium must act as a catalyst or possibly a host in the formation of this new metal. Furthermore, it is known that the neutrons released after a nuclear blast can be absorbed by any sodium in the area. It is my belief that all of the neutrons from the Bikini test were absorbed by the sodium in the surrounding seawater.

  “Another dissimilarity between the two is the period of cooling. The seawater at Bikini cooled the test site much faster than those tests conducted on land. There is a strong possibility that rapid cooling also aids in the formation of bikinium. I also theorize that pressure may be a factor in its creation. Of course, there is no way to test any of my assumptions.

  “But to create it again, I would detonate an atomic bomb in the seas near a vanadium deposit.”

  “Abe,” Mercer turned to Jacobs, “is there anyone who might have stumbled onto this before you?”

  “No one at all,” Jacobs replied with confidence. “Though there were some ore samples missing from White Sands, I don’t think anyone in the world could have come up with this.”

  “Are you sure?” Mercer persisted.

  “Yes, quite. Only the Soviet Union and China have done the kind of test we conducted at Bikini. The Chinese don’t have scientists of high enough caliber to find bikinium, and the only one in the Soviet Union that I’ve heard about testing exotic metals like this died years ago.”

  “When?” Mercer snapped.

  “In the sixties, I believe. He had published some brilliant articles about the changes in metals after nuclear tests, but his work centered mostly on the effects on the armor of tanks and ships. His name was Borodin, Pytor Borodin.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Mercer moaned. “Do we have those photos yet from the spy plane?”

  Paul Barnes slid the 8 X 10s from a thin envelope and placed them on the President’s desk. Their colors were phantasmagorical: fuchsia, teal, blinding white, indigo blue, vibrant yellow. They created a concentric pattern on the photos, each color ringing another so that the image looked like a distorted bull’s-eye. At the bottom of each photograph was printed the time, location, and altitude of each shot. Mercer couldn’t help but notice the shots were taken above one hundred and fifty thousand feet, miles above the earth’s atmosphere. He was very impressed with the new SR-1 Wraith.

  He wondered idly, as he waited his turn to closely study the photos, why all the men crowded around the desk to see them. Apart from Barnes, he doubted any of them had ever seen an infrared photo of this type. He passed it off as the same kind of curiosity that caused people to stare into construction pits.

  Mercer looked at the near identical photos until his eyes found the one he wanted. Longitude and latitude lines had been etched onto the film by the computer that controlled the camera.

  Mercer muttered something under his breath.

  “What was that?”

  “The Bangkok Accords,” his voice barely a whisper in the quiet room. “I said, the Bangkok Accords.”

  “What is . . .”

  “Meetings taking place right now that may just give away the greatest discovery of this or any century,” Mercer said, anticipating the question. “Abe, did this Dr. Borodin have any children?”

  “I can’t see how that—”

  “Answer me, goddamn it.” The vehemence in Mercer’s voice made Jacobs pale.

  “Yes, one son.”

  “We’ve been had.” Mercer leaned away from the photographs, his eyes betraying respect for the master of the plan.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dr. Borodin is alive and well, gentlemen, and he beat us to the punch by forty years.” Mercer spoke slowly as his brain began unraveling the four-decade-old mystery. “Bear with me for a few minutes.

  “Let’s assume that this Borodin somehow discovers the existence of bikinium back in the early fifties and wants to create his own. He persuades the Russians to give him an atomic bomb. Remember, those things were in short supply back then, so his project must have gotten a high priority.

  “Then he fills an ore carrier with high-grade vanadium ore, sails her to a predetermined location near volcanic activity, and sinks her, along with the bomb. Once she settles on the ocean floor he touches off the nuke. Later, he fakes his own death, so there wouldn’t ever be any connection to him.”

  “Is there any record of a lost ore carrier?” Abe asked.

  “Grandam Phoenix, missing since May 23, 1954,” Mercer replied sharply. “She was listed as running bauxite ore from Malaysia, to the States, but Christ only knew what she carried.”

  Mercer’s voice trailed off, his eyes glazed for a second and then snapped back into focus. His voice was firm, commanding. “I need a phone, now.”

  In a moment that Mercer would remember for the rest of his life, the President of the United States obeyed and handed him the receiver to one of the telephones on his desk. Mercer gave the White House operator a number and waited patiently for the connection, oblivious of the stares.

  “Berkowitz, Saulman . . .”

  Mercer cut off the secretary. “Skip it. Give me Dave Saulman right away; this is an emergency.”

  The secretary was used to emergencies in the uncontrollable world of ocean commerce and cut in on Saulman while he was on another line.

  “Saulman here,” the old lawyer answered quickly.

  “Dave, it’s Mercer.”

  “Oh, you finally have an answer for me?”

  Mercer knew that Saulman was asking about the trivia question at the bottom of the faxes he had received two days earlier. Without thinking, Mercer replied, “The captain of the Amoco Cadio was Pasquale Bardari.”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  “Dave, I need to know who owned the Grandam Phoenix.”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “She was on the list you sent me of the vessels that disappeared north of Hawaii.”

  “Oh, right.” Recognition lightened Saulman’s voice. “Might take me a couple of days to find. I’m swamped in work right now on a towing contract for an Exxon tanker that’s drifting off Namibia. The fucking Dutch tugs are holding out for Lloyd’s Open and the value of that tanker and cargo is somewhere around one hundred and thirty million dollars.”

  “Not to name-drop,” Mercer said with a fiendish smile, “but I’m sitting with the President, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the heads of the FBI and CIA, and we’re all waiting for your answer.”

  There was a moment’s silence from the other end of the phone. Mercer marveled that there was no static on the President’s phone line. Must be nice, he thought.

  “You’re not kidding, are you?”

  “Want to talk to one of them?”

  “No. It’ll take a few minutes to get the info. Do you want me to call back?”

  “I don’t think AT&T cares how long the President is on the phone, I’ll hold.”

  “What’s this all about?” the President asked, not really caring that Mercer was now sitting on the corner of his desk.

  “Conclusive evidence,” replied Mercer enigmatically.

  The President exchanged glances with the men around the room, but none of them spoke. They waited five long minutes, clearing throats, shuffling feet, and rattling papers, but their gaze never left Mercer.

  “I’ve got it.” Saulman was breathless. “The Grandam Phoenix was owned by Ocean Freight and C
argo.” Saulman continued to speak, but Mercer was already hanging up the phone.

  “The ore carrier that sank in 1954 and the ship that rescued Tish Talbot have the same owners, Ocean Freight and Cargo, the same company I broke into last night.”

  “The ones suspected of being a front for the KGB?”

  “Right.”

  “You said something about the ore carrier being sunk over a volcanic area, why?” Henna asked.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, Abe, but the deeper the explosion and the more water pressure, the purer the bikinium.”

  Abe Jacobs nodded, then added, “That’s just my theory, though.”

  “Well, in 1954, there was no way to mine any minerals from even a few hundred feet underwater and we’re talking depths in the thousands. Even today, the Frasch process of using superheated water for mining can’t work any deeper than two hundred feet.

  “Dr. Borodin borrowed a line from the Koran and, like Muhammad, had the mountain come to him. By setting off the blast over a volcanic area, he would trigger an eruption, and the lava would transport the bikinium to the surface.”

  “Jesus, that would work,” Jacobs said, respect lowering his voice. “I never would have even considered it.”

  “But volcanoes take millions of years to grow,” the President pointed out.

  “Normal geologic processes are that slow,” Mercer agreed. “But volcanoes, like earthquakes, are very dynamic. A volcano in Paricutin, Mexico, grew out of a farmer’s field beginning in the summer of 1943. After the first week, the field was a five-hundred-foot-tall mountain and growing by the second. Borodin’s volcano has had more than enough time to reach the surface.”

  “What do we do now?” The President locked eyes with each man in the room.

  “The first step is to stop the Bangkok Accords,” Mercer replied.

  “What does that have—”

  “Mr. Henna, if you look at this photo, you’ll see that the center of Borodin’s volcano lies directly atop Hawaii’s two-hundred-mile limit. I’m willing to bet that Borodin’s there now, studying the epicenter of the volcano. As soon as he knows it’ll surface outside the limit, he’ll contact the Russian ambassador at the meeting in Thailand and have him sign the treaty.”

  “That would make the volcano anyone’s property, right?” Admiral Morrison asked.

  “The first one to spot it, gets it.”

  “What happens if the volcano is within that line?”

  No one had an answer for Dr. Jacobs. Actually they all knew the answer, but no one was brave enough to put it into words. Mercer looked at the doctor and saw that his old teacher had asked the question because he really didn’t know.

  “Then we go to war, Abe.”

  As soon as the word was said everyone in the room started speaking at once, clamoring to be heard. The President snapped them to silence by slapping his palm against his desk, though when he spoke, his voice was calm.

  “Dr. Mercer is right. We can’t allow such a priceless commodity to belong to anyone but the United States. Now that we know the stakes, Takahiro Ohnishi’s threats take on a much more ominous dimension. We now know why he’s doing it. If the volcano does crest within Hawaii’s two-hundred-mile limit, and his coup is successful, he can sell off possibly the most valuable commodity on earth. I just can’t believe that the Soviets are still mixed up in this. Our relations with them have never been better.”

  Mercer noted the President was now calling the old foe by their old name. No longer were they the Commonwealth of Independent States. Once again they were the Soviets.

  “Paul, use everything at your disposal to find out about Pytor Borodin—who he used to work for before he disappeared, and what happened to his old bosses. Dick, keep digging at Ohnishi. I want to know why he turned traitor.”

  “I’ve got something on that already.” Henna fumbled through his briefcase. “Ah, here it is. Both his parents were born in Japan and immigrated to the States in the 1930s. During the Second World War they were sent to one of the internment camps in California, and both died there, his mother on June 13, 1942, and his father just six months afterward. Ohnishi was raised by an aunt and uncle who also spent the war in the camps. His uncle was on file at the bureau for anti-American protests and petitions. He had two arrests: one for trying to break into Pearl Harbor and the other for assaulting a police officer at a pro-Japanese rally in Hawaii during the summer of 1958. Seems he didn’t like the idea of statehood.

  “I saw a copy of one of the pamphlets he printed. It’s full of anti-American propaganda and urged Hawaii’s Japanese residents, then and now the majority on the islands, to fight the statehood referendum and become an independent nation loyal to Japan.

  “Ohnishi’s uncle committed suicide right after Hawaii was admitted into the Union in March of 1959. There is no record that Ohnishi shared his uncle’s radical politics, but there’s no record that he didn’t, either.” Henna looked up from his notes.

  “Thanks, Dick. I think that’s our answer.” Knowing the answer did not alleviate the problem. The President straightened his shoulders and when he spoke his voice was like steel. “I don’t know what Ohnishi’s next move will be, but I want a detailed battle plan drawn up, not only for Hawaii but also for this new volcano. I don’t know what legal right, if any, we will have to this new island, but there’s no way we’re not going to win. If need be, I’ll have the goddamn thing nuked. Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I have to call our diplomats in Bangkok and stop them from signing that treaty.” The men got up to leave. “I want hourly reports from all of you. Dr. Mercer, please make yourself available in case you’re needed again. Dr. Jacobs, thank you. We’ll see that you have a safe trip home.”

  Mercer said farewell to Jacobs, gave his home number to Joy Craig, and collected Tish. On the cab ride home, she pumped him for information, but Mercer remained silent. He wondered, as the cityscape passed outside the cab’s filthy windows, how the President would react if he knew that his wife had just spent the afternoon with a Russian spy.

  Hawaii

  JAL Flight 217, a 747 jumbo jet from Tokyo, was the last plane given permission to land at Honolulu’s international airport. Employees loyal to Ohnishi and Takamora had followed their instructions and sabotaged the IFR equipment and the computers that controlled the other sophisticated systems. Only those planes without enough fuel to be rerouted were allowed to land. Hawaii was now completely isolated from the outside world.

  Flight 217 touched down with an acrid puff of smoke and a bark of tires. Because of the danger in landing without electronic assistance from the tower, the pilot gave himself plenty of room to make sure the craft returned to earth safely. The Pratt and Whitney turbo fans shrieked as the pilot applied reverse thrust, the tremendous airframe shuddering with their awesome power.

  The three hundred and sixty passengers had no idea of the danger they had just been through. Those controlling the airport had ordered the pilot to keep his charges ignorant of any problems during the landing, in direct violation of standard safety practices.

  “Welcome to Honolulu, ladies and gentlemen,” the flight attendant said in Japanese. “The temperature is seventy-eight degrees and the local time is one-thirty on a cloudless afternoon. Please remain seated until the aircraft has come to a complete stop and the pilot has turned off the seatbelt sign.”

  Evad Lurbud had absolutely no idea what the diminutive attendant said until she repeated her announcement in English.

  He was the only Westerner on the jumbo jet; the rest were Japanese tourists or businessmen, lured to the islands by the increased trade promoted by Ohnishi and Takamora during the past months.

  Though Lurbud had flown across eleven time zones since leaving Egypt and had endured hours-long layovers, one in Hong Kong and the other in Tokyo, he felt relaxed and refreshed. This last flight had lasted nearly seven hours and he had slept through six and a half of them. Before each leg of his trip, he had taken a timed sleeping pill develope
d by the KGB. By calibrating the doses, he could sleep a specific number of hours. The only drawback to the medication was a slight nausea, which lasted about an hour after waking.

  The 747, so graceful in the sky, lumbered to the terminal like a hippopotamus, her huge wings flexing with each bump in the tarmac. Lurbud remained seated and buckled as requested rather than draw attention to himself by standing as several hurried businessmen had done. The aircraft taxied to its hardstand, the huge engines spooling down to silence. The truck-mounted stairs eased to the exits and passengers began shuffling off the Boeing.

  Deplaning, Lurbud was staggered by the amount of security within the airport’s customs area. Armed National guard troops, all Orientals he noted, patrolled the area, their M-16 assault rifles slung low, their eyes never lingering on one person too long.

  At the customs counter, the bored agent gave Lurbud’s forged German passport a cursory glance and didn’t bother with his briefcase. Lurbud relaxed once he passed customs, but became wary when two suited Orientals strode toward him through the throng of passengers.

  “Passport, please,” one of the two men demanded, his hand thrust out waiting for the slim booklet.

  “I’m already cleared by customs,” Lurbud replied politely, staining his flawless English with a German accent.

  The other Oriental flashed a silver badge in a cheap vinyl covering. “Airport security. Your passport.”

  Lurbud fished it from inside his suit coat and handed it over. “What’s this all about?”

  “Routine, Mr. Schmidt,” one agent said, reading through the passport. “Would you come with us?”

  Lurbud followed the two security men through a set of double doors and down a well-lit flight of stairs. They passed a couple of airport employees plodding upward as Lurbud and his two minders made their way down. At the base of the stairs they turned down a long hallway to the last doorway on the left.

  As he stepped over the threshold, Lurbud’s instincts told him that this was an interrogation room and his being here was far from routine. In the stark room, two chairs stood behind a unitarian trestle table, with a third chair set in the center of the neutral beige carpet. The room smelled of stale cigarettes and fear.