Charon's Landing - v4 Read online

  It took more than an hour to reach the quiet development north of Los Angeles where Howard owned a modest bungalow. Between the drone of the limo’s tires, the mesmerizing lights of other vehicles, and the occasional mutterings of the driver to his dispatcher, Howard was lulled to sleep, waking only as the car pulled into his development.

  Howard’s home was third from the end of a cul-de-sac butting against one of Los Angeles’ increasingly rare patches of woodland. It was a little past ten, yet the street was quiet and dark, the only light coming from street lamps and the occasional porch fixture. The limo pulled unerringly up to Howard Small’s yellow and red one-story house. The driver’s familiarity with the neighborhood should have alerted Howard, but he failed to notice it.

  He stepped out of the car and looked up the street, hoping a neighbor would see him with the stretch limo, but even Mrs. Potter, who seemed to always be walking her dachshund, was tucked in for the night. The driver too scanned the street, his eyes sweeping the area with military efficiency. He recovered the bags from the trunk and followed Howard up the driveway, past the scientist’s decade-old Honda. At the door, Howard fumbled with his keys while pulling a ten-dollar bill from his pants as a tip. He turned the key in the lock and was just about to relieve the driver of the bags, when the man powered a shoulder into him, shoving him bodily into the house.

  Howard fell to the carpeted floor, the wind knocked out of him. He lay wheezing as the driver dumped the suitcases in the entrance and banged the door closed with his hip. A silenced automatic was already in his hand, the weapon nearly lost in the man’s large fist. Before Howard could react, a living room light snapped on, revealing three other men, two more Arabs and a Caucasian with a silver crew cut and washed-out blue eyes. The two Arabs were standing, while the other man lolled in a soft overstuffed chair, a nearly empty glass in his hand. Even in this frozen tableau, Howard knew that the seated man was in charge and the most dangerous person he had ever seen.

  On both counts, he was correct.

  Ivan Kerikov set his drink on a coffee table, carefully placing the glass onto the ring of condensation that marred the otherwise clean surface. “No one was outside when you drove up?” His voice was low and menacing, with the thick guttural accent of his native Russia.

  “No one saw us enter,” the driver said, crossing the room to stand at the side of one of the Arabs. The two were of a type, large and dangerous with the flat expressionless faces of bodyguards.

  The third Arab was younger by a few years, early thirties, and handsome in a cruel way with thick hair and a body that was as lean and rippled as a scorpion’s. His most noticeable feature was his eyes. They were small and dark, with an inner fire that threatened to burn free at any moment.

  “I told you it would be simple to capture him, Kerikov,” the young Arab said, glancing at his two henchmen for confirmation.

  “Shut your mouth,” Kerikov snapped.

  It was a risk interrogating Small in his own home but one Kerikov couldn’t avoid. He had heard of Howard Small only the day before and hadn’t had time to snatch him in Alaska. Nor did he have the time to establish a more private base in Los Angeles. However, there were psychological benefits to torturing a person where he felt the safest, especially in his home. Small lay on the floor, trembling like a child, his lower lip quivering so much that he had to bite down to still it. His eyes had grown huge with fear.

  “Whatever it is you want,” he finally managed to stammer, “please, just don’t hurt me.”

  Kerikov’s gaze didn’t soften. How many people had begged for their lives before him, he wondered. A hundred, certainly. Two hundred, quite possibly. It never got easier for him, nor did it ever get harder. In the life he’d led, torture and interrogation were simply parts of his job, as necessary and familiar as a lawyer preparing a brief.

  Several long seconds passed. Howard’s eyes locked on the Russian as he levered himself out of the chair.

  “I don’t wish to make this any more unpleasant than it must be, Professor Small.” There was no sympathy in Kerikov’s voice. “But you must realize the seriousness of my intent.”

  On cue, the younger Arab, whose nom de guerre, Abu Alam, meant literally “Father of Pain,” left the room for a moment, returning with a large cloth bag that writhed with anguished movement. Howard clearly heard his cat, Sneaker, screaming from inside the sack. The two bodyguards lifted Howard off the floor, carrying him to the kitchen where Abu Alam stood poised over the sink with the bag. His hand flicked out and switched on the garbage disposal.

  “Oh God, no, please. I’ll do anything you say. Please don’t do it,” Howard cried.

  Alam ignored him, plunging his hand into the bag and removing a multihued calico male with four white paws. Tape bound each pair of legs so tightly that the cat could not defend itself, only squirm.

  Still in the living room, Ivan Kerikov listened dispassionately as the disposal’s mechanical teeth stripped the flesh from the cat’s forepaws and then ground the bones to splinters. Long after the pet had died from shock, Abu Alam continued to feed the carcass into the unit, its motor loading down as it chewed through heavier concentrations of bone and gristle, until the whole animal had been reduced to a pulpy mush. Howard Small struggled against his two captors and would have screamed forever had they not tied a gag over his mouth.

  Listening to the grisly sounds emanating from the kitchen, Kerikov reflected that he was too old to still be doing these sorts of interrogations. He should be retired right now, living in a beautiful birch forest dacha on the Moscow River with a study full of citations and a chestful of medals. At this moment he should be half drunk on Scotch, fucking some eager blonde the State had given him in gratitude for a lifetime of service in the KGB. Had Russia not sold out, and allowed herself to be swept aside in a sea of greed, corruption, and the slick packaging of the Western lifestyle, Kerikov wouldn’t be sitting in a shabby house in Los Angeles, trying to extract information from a man who was not even important enough to waste spit upon.

  Kerikov had spent thirty years in the KGB, ruthlessly working his way through the hierarchy. When the Soviet Union disintegrated around him, as he had known all along it would, he headed one of its most shadowy organizations and was in possession of a great deal of information that would make him wealthy in the New World Order to follow. Unlike many others in the higher echelons of the KGB, Kerikov wasn’t going to allow himself to be caught in the rubble of the collapsing Russian empire.

  When the Soviet Union inevitably fractured, Kerikov was the head of Department 7, Scientific Operations, the arm of State Security involved in planning and executing Russia’s most audacious operations. At the height of the Cold War, Dept.

  7 had a budget that rivaled the space program’s and boasted a much higher caliber of scientists. Its operations, launched during the 1960s and 70s, were not designed to come to fruition until decades later. Yet when Kerikov took it over in the late 1980s, much of Dept. 7 had been dismantled due to financial constraints. Russia could no longer plan operations decades in advance when the government didn’t know if it would exist the following month.

  Knowing that the end was coming, Kerikov managed to keep active a few operations that had a certain portability. When it came time for him to escape Russia and start a new life, he smuggled out some of these plans and prepared to turn them over to an outside power. For a price.

  Just after his departure from Russia, he almost succeeded in selling a Dept. 7 operation code named Vulcan’s Forge to a group of Koreans for $100 million. Had it not been for the interference of an American mining engineer and a double cross by a trusted agent, Kerikov wouldn’t now be struggling to bring another KGB operation out of the Cold War.

  Charon’s Landing. It had been conceived in the mid-1970s, when détente was at its lowest ebb and the Soviet government believed they could win a limited nuclear war with the United States. The operation was meant to be the war’s opening gambit, designed to cripple Amer
ica’s short-term economic capabilities. Ten years would pass before Dept. 7 was ready to install the hardware necessary for its success. But the world had changed by then, and relations between the two superpowers had warmed. Yet Kerikov had gone ahead anyway and laid the foundation for Charon’s Landing, contrary to Mikhail Gorbachev’s direct orders. No one in the Soviet government knew of the work, so when Kerikov fled, his theft of the project went undetected.

  After the failure of Vulcan’s Forge, Kerikov had to wait a year for the right set of circumstances before trying to sell this other operation. The U.S. President’s ill-advised Energy Direction Policy made his search for a buyer so easy that, after its announcement, he could actually choose among the bidders.

  Now, hearing Abu Alam gleefully liquefying Howard Small’s cat, Kerikov wondered if he had made the right selection. He had worked with many psychotics during his life. After the war in Afghanistan, most of his squad of KGB interrogators could not function normally in a civilized society and had had to be killed rather than demobilized. Yet none of them compared to Abu Alam. The man truly lived up to his name, and Kerikov had known him only a short time. Alam was the right-hand man to Hasaan bin-Rufti, the Petroleum Minister of Ajman, and the man who had raised the money to implement Charon’s Landing. Rufti was paying Kerikov $50 million for its successful completion. Part of Rufti’s bargain with Kerikov was Alam’s assistance during the final phases of the operation, as a way of guaranteeing the Minister’s tremendous financial investment.

  Kerikov had sold Charon’s Landing to Rufti almost a year earlier, though Alam had not joined the Russian until just a month ago. Already the man’s insanity was getting to the Russian. It was often necessary to soften a subject for an interrogation, but it had been Alam’s idea to use the cat. And now, as the disposal finally wound down to silence, Kerikov knew that Alam had truly enjoyed himself. A moment later, a broken Howard Small was led back to the living room and dumped on the floor at Kerikov’s feet. Abu Alam was drying his crimson-stained hands on a dish towel. Dark spots of blood smeared the black leather of his jacket.

  “I have only one question for you, Professor Small, one question whose answer will save you a great deal of pain. To tell us what we want to know will cost you nothing but will spare you from unbelievable agony.” Kerikov spoke slowly and clearly, knowing his subject was already in a mild state of shock. “I wish to know who was aboard the Wave Dancer with you and your cousins earlier this week when you discovered the derelict hull of the Jenny IV.”

  Since that first shove into the house, Howard had assumed that these men were industrial spies after the secret of the mini-mole. Never would he have imagined they wanted such an innocuous piece of information. In the few seconds it took him to get over his confusion, Abu Alam strode across the room and kicked Howard full strength in the stomach. Howard wailed into his gag as agony rippled through his body, curling him tightly on the floor.

  “Answer him.” Alam ripped off the gag, pushing the scientist onto his back with another derisive kick.

  “Enough, Alam,” Kerikov snapped. It wasn’t that he felt mercy for Small, but to kick a man who was already defeated served only to prolong the interrogation. Also, Kerikov was still bothered by the botched interrogation of Howard’s two cousins in Alaska.

  He’d chanced upon a newspaper article in Anchorage detailing the discovery of the Jenny IV, which had been under his charter. The piece was only two paragraphs long, but it mentioned the name of the boat that discovered the hulk. Kerikov tracked down the owner of the Wave Dancer, and dispatched his two personal bodyguards, former members of East Germany’s secret police. Both Jerry Small and his teenage son had died during their interrogation after revealing Howard’s name but before divulging the name of the fourth member of their fishing excursion. The Germans had made the deaths appear accidental, but their mistakes forced Kerikov to California. He had to ensure that this final lead did not end up as a literal dead end as well. Too much was at stake. Knowing that someone had boarded the Jenny IV and possibly saw its last cargo was too great a risk to leave unaddressed. The discovery of the commercial boat could spell the end of the entire operation.

  Damage control had always been one of Kerikov’s best abilities because it necessitated a decisive ruthlessness and an expertise in projecting consequences far into the future. He was here now, personally tying up a loose end and making certain that there would be no further repercussions from the loss of the Jenny IV. Kerikov slid a silenced pistol from under his suit coat and aimed the barrel to Howard’s right knee.

  “The first shot will sever your leg at the knee, Professor. If you do not tell me then, I will turn you over to my more creative associates.”

  “Philip Mercer,” Howard sobbed. “He was on the boat with us. He’s a mining engineer.”

  The name staggered Kerikov. He thought back to Greece where he’d been hiding since the failure of Vulcan’s Forge. He saw himself sitting in a favorite café reading the morning paper over a cup of strong coffee, wiping flakes of a croissant from the pages. AMERICANS FIND NEW VOLCANIC ISLAND IN PACIFIC. The words had nearly pulled him from his seat. The volcano that they had discovered was the one Dept. 7 had created with a nuclear detonation in 1954. It was his volcano, the one that was going to make him rich.

  He read the article quickly, looking for the names he knew would be there. Valery Borodin, the son of the man who had initiated the project. Borodin was one of many who sold out Kerikov in those final weeks before everything fell apart. Tish Talbot, Borodin’s American lover, was the sole survivor of a ship that strayed too close to the volcano before it was ready to be discovered by Kerikov’s partners. The article stated that she was to work with her husband-to-be developing the mineral bikinium that the volcano brought from deep within the earth.

  And then there was a name mentioned so casually that Kerikov almost missed it. The wire-service article said that the volcano had actually been discovered by an American mining engineer named Philip Mercer. Kerikov had never heard of Mercer, but he knew with certainty that this was the man who had foiled his plans. It was Mercer who had destroyed Kerikov’s chances of selling the volcano and its unimaginable wealth and retiring to anonymity.

  Kerikov had considered having Philip Mercer killed. He still had enough contacts to get such a simple assassination done without any difficulty. However, prudence made him stay Mercer’s execution. The death of the American would certainly reopen international interest in the artificial nature of the volcano’s origin and put Kerikov at risk.

  Without consciously being aware of it, Kerikov fired his pistol. The bullet punched a neat hole between Howard’s frightened eyes, expanded in the pan of his skull, but left no exit wound.

  “Sanitize the house,” he ordered. “Dispose of the body so that it’s never found.”

  “Do you know this man he spoke of?” Alam asked as his men bundled Howard’s corpse into a body bag they had brought with them.

  “Oh, yes, I know him.” Philip Mercer had seen the Jenny IV, possibly boarded her. Maybe even now he was unraveling the mystery of her destruction. Kerikov had decided to spare Mercer’s life once before, but he would not do so again. He glanced at his watch, calculated time differences, and dialed a cellular phone he always carried.

  Despite Kerikov’s earlier leniency, he knew exactly where Mercer lived, where he spent his time, even his favorite restaurants and bars. He had taken the precaution of having a private detective agency prepare monthly updates on Mercer’s movements in preparation for the time when he would exact his revenge for Vulcan’s Forge. Kerikov had been a shadow warrior his entire life, and it was time to once again strike from the shadows.

  On the fourth ring, the phone was answered with a cultured “Hello.”

  “We have a problem.”

  Arlington, Virginia

  At a little past seven the next morning, Mercer threw on a pair of khaki shorts and grabbed the Washington Post from his doorstep. His street was quiet this
early on a Saturday. Washington’s famous Indian summer was in full force, and the humidity was on the rise. Sweat tickled the hair on Mercer’s chest as he turned back into his brownstone.

  Unlike the other row houses on the street, which held anywhere from three to six families in spacious apartments, Mercer was the sole occupant of his, and he’d done more than a little remodeling to make the house into his home. The front third of the brownstone was a three-story atrium overlooked by an oak-shelved library on the second floor and his master bedroom on the third. An antique spiral staircase corkscrewed up to the other levels. The stairs had been salvaged from a rectory just prior to its demolition and cost almost as much as a luxury automobile.

  Mercer scanned the headlines as he climbed up to the second floor. He smiled to himself as he passed through the library. Though he’d lived here for more than five years, he’d just recently unpacked his large collection of books; their dust jackets looked like bunting draped across the wood shelves. The leather reading chair looked inviting for a moment, but Mercer walked on, into the room that he called The Bar.

  Most houses have a family room. Mercer’s had a bar, six stools lining an mahogany-topped counter with a brass footrail. Stemware hung from racks, and the ornately carved backbar was stocked better than most downtown establishments. The room felt like an English gentlemen’s club; dark green carpet, rich leather couches, and walnut wainscoting below the plaster walls. Because the only windows faced a narrow alley between his house and the neighboring brownstone, the bar always retained a dusky, intimate feel.

  Mercer slid the newspaper onto the bar and walked around it to turn up the rheostat lights. The automatic coffeemaker had brewed a scalding potion so bitterly strong that the first sip made him wince. Perfect.