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  “Something’s bothering me,” Cali said, taking a seat at the bar. “Actually everything’s bothering me but what I don’t understand is how can there be naturally occurring plutonium. That’s physically impossible.”

  “Not at all. Traces of it are found all over the planet. What’s more difficult to explain is a large concentration of it and I think I know the answer. Ever heard of Oklo, Gabon, in West Africa?” Cali shook her head. “In the early seventies a French team discovered unusual ratios of isotopes in a bunch of uranium deposits. The discrepancy was tiny but important. Something had happened to the uranium.

  “At first they thought the sample had been contaminated in the lab or at the site, but they ruled it out. The only logical conclusion was that at some time-and they later figured out it was about two and a half billion years ago-the natural uranium deposit had gone critical.”

  “And started a chain reaction,” Cali finished. “I have read about it. A natural nuclear reactor that operated just like one in a power plant. It had all the elements, fuel in the form of concentrated uranium-235. There was plenty of water to act as a moderator so the chain reaction didn’t turn into a runaway explosion, and there weren’t any neutron absorbers in the rock to prevent the mass going critical in the first place.”

  “That’s exactly right. The water that seeped down to the uranium deposits was high in calcium, which acted just like the control rods of a nuclear power plant. The water also kept the reactor cool enough to allow for a sustained chain reaction.”

  “How long did it burn, do you know?”

  “Estimates range between five hundred thousand and a million years.”

  “Wow.”

  “And just think-no one around to protest it,” Mercer joked.

  “Do you think the ore Chester Bowie discovered came from another natural reactor like Oklo?”

  “With one critical difference. Bowie’s didn’t go critical until much more recently; otherwise the plutonium would have decayed. It has a half-life around twenty-four thousand years, so the size of the reactor and the ratio of remaining plutonium-239 would determine its age. But if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say it couldn’t be more than a couple million years old, which in geological terms is yesterday.”

  Cali was impressed. “I hadn’t thought about that. Is it possible there are other natural reactors, young ones I mean?”

  Mercer shook his head. “I doubt it. And even if there were, chances are they’re buried deep in the crust.”

  Cali became thoughtful. “It’s weird to think my original hunch about elevated cancer rates in Africa led us to a natural source of plutonium.”

  “And something else tipped off someone else.”

  Cali cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

  “Poli. When we saw him in Africa I assumed he was a mercenary hired by Caribe Dayce to help in his revolution. Now it’s more likely that Dayce was the muscle hired to protect Poli and help him find the deposit.”

  “That’s right! Damn, I hadn’t seen the connection. Poli’s been on the trail of the plutonium all along. Which leaves us with tonight’s visitors. What did they call themselves?”

  “Janissaries,” Mercer answered. “You just knew this would end up involving Middle Eastern terrorists.”

  “Who or what are Janissaries?”

  “During the Ottoman Empire they were elite soldiers bound personally to the sultan. They were some of the fiercest fighters in history. Totally ruthless. If I remember correctly they grew so powerful that some sultan in the 1800s organized another army and massacred the Janissaries to a man.”

  “And now they’re back.”

  “I doubt these guys have any legitimate claim. They’re just using the name.”

  “You know, though, they didn’t act like any terrorist I’ve dealt with over the course of my career. They aren’t wild-eyed jihadists ready to blow themselves up at the drop of the Koran. Think about it. They saved our lives in Africa and again in Atlantic City. And tonight, other than scaring me to death, they didn’t hurt me. They were actually kind of respectful. I sleep in the nude and when I got out of bed they averted their eyes.”

  “Cali, devout Muslims wouldn’t want to look at your naked body.” Mercer couldn’t stop such an image of her flooding his mind. He was sure she knew exactly what he was picturing and turned away. He added hastily, “Besides, they had guns.”

  “First of all, a year in Iraq taught me that men are men all over the world. They’ll cop a feel or sneak a peek any chance they get. Muslim, Jew, Christian-it’s all the same. But these guys didn’t and why try to warn us off? Why not just kill us and be done with it? If I was a terrorist that’s what I would do.”

  Mercer considered her point and admitted it had merit. Poli Feines and company obviously didn’t care about human life. From what he’d seen they looked like they enjoyed taking it, but the two Janissaries hadn’t hurt Cali tonight and hadn’t even threatened them. The leader just warned them that if they kept investigating they might get caught in the cross fire. What was it they thought he and Cali were looking for? The Alembic of Skenderbeg. Mercer still didn’t know what that meant.

  “Any idea what they thought we were after?” he asked her. “The Alembic of Skenderbeg?”

  “No clue,” Cali admitted. “Do you have a dictionary?”

  From down the bar Harry said, “An alembic is a device once used in distilleries to purify booze.”

  “Figures you’d know that,” Mercer remarked sarcastically. “What about Skenderbeg?”

  Harry returned to his notes. “Couldn’t tell you.”

  Cali followed Mercer down to his home office. He brushed his hand against a bluish rock on a credenza near the office door. It was a personal talisman, a piece of kimberlite, the lodestone of every diamond mine in the world. This particular piece had an exquisite diamond embedded on its underside and had been the gift of a grateful mine owner from South Africa.

  “I haven’t had the chance to tell you,” Cali said as Mercer fired up his computer. “Your home is beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” Mercer replied. “I travel so much that I needed to make my home more of a retreat.” He accessed the Internet, found a search engine, and typed in “Skenderbeg.” He read silently for a few moments, then said, “Looks like Skenderbeg was an Albanian general who revolted against the Ottoman Empire.”

  Cali interrupted. “Ottoman connection again.” She’d retreated to the leather sofa against the wall, throwing the steamer robe that was folded on the arm over her lower body.

  “U’huh. He died in 1468. Seems he held off a Turkish army five times the size of his and managed to keep Albania independent for twenty-five years. He’s considered one of their national heroes. Sort of a medieval George Washington.”

  “What about an alembic?” Her eyes were closed and Mercer could tell she was moments from falling asleep.

  Mercer’s fingers blurred across the keyboard as he tried several variations on his search but came up empty. “Nada.”

  When Cali didn’t respond, he looked up. Her breathing was shallow and even, her lips slightly parted. She was out. He came around from behind his desk to stand over her. Despite her considerable height she’d managed to turn herself into a tight ball with one hand under her cheek.

  He couldn’t help but think of Tisa again, although there was no similarity between her and Cali. Tisa had dark sloe eyes and delicate Asian features and the small body of a gymnast. Cali was all-American with her red hair and freckles, which Mercer could see covered her upper chest, and he suspected the rest of her as well. She was tall and lanky, more angles than curves, but she moved with an athletic grace that softened her hard edges. And, Mercer admitted, she was the first woman he had been attracted to since Tisa’s death.

  In truth they had spent very little time together, but under the intensity of the circumstances he had come to understand her-the way she thought, the way she reacted, and most importantly, what she thought of herself. S
he was confident and self-assured, characteristics that Mercer found appealing above everything else.

  But now wasn’t the time for any of these thoughts.

  He had to resist the urge to brush a wisp of hair from across her forehead. He straightened the blanket instead, pulling it up so it was just under her chin, and removed her shoes. Her feet were long and narrow, with delicate bones and skin so pale he could see where veins came close to the surface. She made a little sound, then sighed as she drifted deeper to sleep. He gave her one last look, smiled, then left the office, turning down the lights to a faint glow so if she woke during the night she’d be able to see a bit.

  Mercer made sure all the doors were locked before heading up to the master suite on the third floor. The Beretta 92 in his nightstand was probably the fifth or sixth one he’d owned. Some he’d lost in fights, while others were in evidence lockers. It was a reliable weapon and he knew its capabilities as well as he knew his own. He knew the nine-millimeter was loaded but checked it anyway. There was a round in the chamber and the safety was off. He safed the pistol and stuck it behind his back. He doubted Poli would come tonight, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. He’d make sure that starting tomorrow Harry stayed at his own place, while he would ensure that Ira Lasko got him and Cali into a safe house.

  Back in the bar Harry was snoring on the couch, a deep rumbling that sounded like the dying gasps of a bear. Drag was curled around Harry’s prosthetic leg, his nose near where the leg was strapped to the stump so he could spend the night smelling his beloved master.

  Mercer didn’t adjust Harry’s blanket.

  He took a seat at the bar and saw that Harry hadn’t finished his work yet, so he set aside Harry’s notes and instead read the lengthy letter to Einstein to keep himself awake through the long night.

  At noon the next day Ira Lasko’s secretary led Cali and Mercer through to Lasko’s office in the Old Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House. Ira came around his big desk to shake Cali’s hand as Mercer made the introduction.

  “So you’re the lady Mercer met in Africa a la Stanley and Livingstone?” The top of his bald head barely reached her chin. “When he called me from New Jersey night before last he mentioned you’re with DOE.”

  “I’m a field investigator with NEST.”

  “Nuclear response team. Your boss is Cliff Roberts, then?”

  “That’s right.”

  “He’s an ass.”

  Cali grinned, warming to Lasko’s directness immediately. “That he is.”

  “He’s ex-navy like me. I spent a year with him at the Pentagon. He has the imagination of a kumquat and half the brains. He only got his gig at NEST when Homeland Security was created after 9/11.” He indicated they should take the chairs in front of his desk, while he slid around to his seat.

  The office was large and comfortable, with wainscoting and a plush green carpet. There were only a few framed pictures and papers on the walls, as well as an American flag. Ira also wore a flag lapel pin. There was a model of a submarine on a credenza, an old Sturgeon class that Lasko had served on as executive officer before moving over to naval intelligence.

  He turned to Mercer. “So what’s so hellfire important that I have to give up a golf game with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs?”

  “A couple hundred pounds of plutonium that’s been missing for seventy plus years.” Mercer explained about the naturally occurring nuclear reactor at Oklo and his theory of how what they thought was an unusually concentrated uranium deposit was in fact the remnants of a much younger reactor that hadn’t fully decayed.

  “What are the chances there are other such reactors?” Ira asked when Mercer finished.

  “Cali asked the same thing last night. Remote. I think this is probably the only one like it in the world.”

  “So how did that guy find it? You told me at dinner the other night that he was either the best geologist in the world or the luckiest.”

  “Chester Bowie was his name,” Mercer said, “and he wasn’t a geologist at all. He taught classics at a small college in New Jersey. He wasn’t looking for uranium or plutonium. He was searching for a mine out of Greek mythology.”

  “Lost me.”

  “According to mythology Zeus chained Prometheus for defying him and giving fire to humanity. The chains were made from an unbreakable metal called adamantine. Bowie thought he knew where the adamantine had come from. He ran into a little problem of funding his expedition and talked it over with a colleague from Princeton, hoping the Ivy League school might see merit in his research.”

  “Not likely,” Ira growled.

  “On the contrary. Someone at Princeton was very interested. None other than Albert Einstein himself. From what I gather, Nikola Tesla, the Croatian-born genius who invented the alternating current electrical system we use today, had contacted Einstein in the mid-1930s with the theory that there were elements higher than uranium on the periodic table. Remember this was six or seven years before Enrico Fermi created the first sustained chain reaction at the University of Chicago and four or five before Einstein wrote his famous letter to Roosevelt indicating the theoretical possibility of an atomic bomb.

  “Bowie didn’t know how Einstein became aware of his grant request, but he did, and agreed to have Princeton fund his trip. Einstein warned Bowie that what he might find wasn’t adamantine from his mythology but a new and potentially dangerous element. Bowie was certain Einstein and Tesla had it wrong and was eager to prove himself to two of the greatest minds of his generation.”

  “Was Bowie well regarded in his field?” Ira asked.

  Mercer chuckled. “The guy was a total flake. A real zealot when it came to his theories. He refused to believe anyone but himself.”

  “He sounds deranged.”

  “He was. Obsessive-compulsive, arrogant, you name it.” Mercer picked up the story again. “So he went to Africa and using his research into Greek mythology, he found the mine. He mentions in his journal that there was an ancient stele there to mark the site.”

  “Wait. What’s a stele?”

  “A carved stone obelisk used by the Egyptians usually to mark a military victory or some important event.”

  “So this goes back to the Egyptians?”

  Mercer held up a hand. “That’s getting ahead of the story, but Cali and I both remember seeing it in the village square. It was about seven feet tall and very weathered. Anyway Bowie hired some locals to help him dig out samples of the ore. And as you know, ever since then the natives have been suffering from long-term radiation exposure. He crated up about a thousand pounds’ worth of dirt and made his way to the port city of Brazzaville. That’s where he realized that he wasn’t the only person looking for the ore. In fact it seemed there were a couple of groups interested in what he was doing in the interior. He was pretty sure his guide had betrayed him to some German agents.

  “I’m sure you’re aware that the Nazis had a thing for the occult and had sent out teams of agents to find certain ancient relics. Hitler needed them to legitimize his claim about pure Aryan stock and all that crap. That’s how they came into possession of the Spear of Longinus, the weapon purportedly used to pierce Christ’s side.”

  “I’ve seen the movie,” Ira said. “Lost ark and all that. Besides that fits with what you told me about others showing up at that village a few years after Bowie to mine the rest of the ore.”

  “And gunning down most of the villagers,” Mercer added. “Anyway Bowie managed to get the crates of ore samples onto a tramp steamer called the Wetherby, with orders that it go to Chicago, where Einstein believed Fermi should study it to see if they really were transuranic elements.”

  “Why didn’t Bowie stay with the ship?”

  “Paranoia, plus he had just spent several weeks around plutonium without any kind of protection. He realized he was suffering from radiation poisoning and was also wracked with malaria and a few other fun tropical bugs. There’s a line in his diary that
goes something like ‘For three days my bowels ran like the River Styx.’”

  “Lovely.”

  “The day after the ship sailed he was almost killed by a pair of men he believed were Germans. They tried to muscle him into a car but two other men dressed in dark suits came out of nowhere, shot the Germans, and vanished.”

  “Who were they? Did he know?”

  “He didn’t but we do.” Mercer’s statement invited an explanation.

  Cali said, “Last night two men in dark suits showed up at my condo and forced me to go with them. They took me to Mercer’s, where they warned us to stop searching for something called the Alembic of Skenderbeg.”

  “They were the same guys who wiped out Caribe Dayce and his army in Africa and took on Poli Feines at the Deco Palace,” Mercer added. “They called themselves Janissaries and said we were caught up in an ancient conflict we couldn’t possibly understand.”

  Ira held up a hand. “Hold on. Are you saying that the men who saved Bowie in Brazzaville are the same two who took out Dayce?”

  “No, but I think they belong to the same organization, a secret group that’s been around for at least seventy years and may have roots going back to the 1400s. Skenderbeg, whose real name was Gjergi Kastrioti, was an Albanian-born general in the Ottoman Army, a Janissary who eventually revolted against Sultan Murad II. He captured a key town in Albania and, with a force never exceeding twenty thousand, managed to keep the Ottomans’ quarter million men at bay for twenty-five years. He had close diplomatic ties and financial support from the Vatican because he was defending Christendom from Islamic invaders.

  “What’s interesting, and why I mention all this, is that the name Skenderbeg is a local translation of the Ottoman, Iskender Bey or Iskender the Great. We know him as Alexander the Great. This morning I got in touch with an Ottoman history teacher at George Washington University to get some more background on Skenderbeg. It’s accepted conjecture that Skenderbeg was given this title because his military skill matched that of Alexander’s, but there’s another story, one that can’t be verified. It was rumored that he possessed a talisman of some sort that Alexander carried into battle against his greatest foe, Darius, at the Battle of Arbela in 331 B. C., and it was this talisman that allowed both men to defeat armies ten times the size of their own.”