The White House,
Washington, D.C.

“You have to believe me, Vladimir, it’s in both our countries’ best interest that this doesn’t appear to be a terrorist attack,” the President of the United States said, his smooth voice covering his irritation. He listened to the Russian president’s reply. “Would you rather call it a mishap and look incompetent or admit it was a terrorist act and embolden more fanatics?”

Ira Lasko and John Kleinschmidt, his immediate boss, listened to the President’s side of the conversation from the laager of sofas in the middle of the Oval Office. As national security advisor, Kleinschmidt had immediate access to the President day or night and had presented Mercer’s findings to the chief executive an hour before. The administration had been saved more than once by Philip Mercer, so when he asked for the President to intervene, the former senior Senator from Ohio generally listened.

“Apples and oranges,” the President said in response to the Russian. “One plane flying into a skyscraper can be an accident. Three on the same day while another goes down over Pennsylvania all on live television isn’t something you can pretend didn’t happen. You have a different opportunity with the situation in Novorossiysk.

“We’ve talked about this before. This is a war, Vlad, and every time they score a victory a couple more fighters join their ranks. A blow like this is going to incite hundreds, maybe thousands, to carry on the fight against us…. What? No, it doesn’t matter. If they feel that Caspian oil is a threat, they’re going to take it out. What better way than to exploit a bunch of brainwashed kids who think they’re buying their way into heaven, while sitting back and saying how awful it is that a tiny fraction of their population hates the West so much. Yeah, you’re the West now too whether you like it or not.”

The President made a rude masturbatory gesture with his hand as the Russian leader spoke for several minutes.

“That’s right, Grigori Popov.” The President chuckled for the first time since the conversation began. “I’ve got a couple hundred deputy this and assistant thats. I don’t know half of them and I don’t expect you to know all of yours either. But I have it from a good source that he was responsible for getting the plutonium into the hands of the bombers. I don’t know why it wasn’t released but we know Popov is there now when he should be meeting a member of my staff five hundred miles to the north.

“I’m asking that you send someone you trust to Novorossiysk to find out what this Popov is doing. If it’s a coincidence, fine, I owe you a personal apology, but if I’m right and he’s scouring the harbor for those missing barrels while everyone else is trying to coordinate relief efforts, then you’ll know I’m right.” The President’s voice deepened and took on a familiar companionate timbre that connected immediately with any listener. Pollsters had shown that this tone alone garnered him ten points in the election.

“Vladimir, you’re facing a national tragedy that could help fuel a global war if it isn’t handled properly. You’ve got the full resources of the United States behind you on this but you have to make the right call. Don’t give the bastards the satisfaction of claiming a victory here. Take it away and spare both our nations a much tougher fight in the future. This is about hearts and minds as much as it is about oil and power.” He paused again, his handsome face showing nothing. “Thank you, Mr. President. “

As soon as he hung up the phone John Kleinschmidt asked, “Well?”

“He said he’d think about it.”

“He doesn’t have the luxury,” Ira said. “It’s going to be all over the Internet in an hour or two that terrorists destroyed that tanker terminal and stopped the flow of oil from Kazakhstan.”

The President met Lasko’s gaze. “We’ve put him in a tough spot, asking him to lie to his people about the most significant act of terrorism since 9/11, while at the same time telling him that one of his own top advisors might be involved.”

“What would you do, Mr. President?”

“I’d like to think I’d come clean and let the chips fall where they will, but our esteemed Russian colleague is a hell of a lot more pragmatic than I am. My gut tells me he’ll follow our script, but he’s going to ask for quid pro quo when the time comes.”

Mercer wanted to tear the suit from his body and attack the pile of debris with his bare hands, knowing that on the other side Cali must assume he’d left her for dead. He calmed his breathing because the suit’s filters couldn’t keep up with his pumping lungs and he felt he was going to start hyperventilating. The helmet’s plastic eyepiece was also fogged, though with the dust choking the mine’s main shaft it was impossible to see more than a yard or two.

He groped his way along the shaft like a blind man, his flashlight turned off since it was worthless anyway.

One of the first rules about mine rescue he’d learned, going back to stories his own father had told, was that during a cave-in you never leave your buddies. You are going to live or die, that was up to fate, but you were always supposed to do it together. That way you could rely on each other as you waited for rescue. That’s the reason Mercer disregarded his training and instinct to leap through the collapsing mine entrance. There would be no rescue.

The blast hadn’t been big enough to be felt on the surface, and even if Sasha, Ludmilla, and the others became worried after an hour or two, Mercer and Cali had the only three flashlights. If the soldiers on the rescue chopper tried to dig through the avalanche they would probably make matters worse and entomb themselves. And if they were prudent and called in mine rescue specialists it would take days to assemble them here, days Mercer couldn’t afford.

His heavily gloved fingers brushed against something smooth. He’d found the forklift. He hoisted himself onto the seat and flicked on the motor. He felt its reassuring vibration through the suit. It took just a moment to reach the rubble that lay strewn halfway across the main shaft where it had collapsed. Rather than attack the pile closest to the entrance, Mercer began moving larger stones away from the area to give himself working room. He lifted them with the forklift’s tines and then manhandled them off farther down the drive.

By the time he’d finished clearing a wide swath of debris, the dust had settled enough for him to examine the rockfall. He tapped a few stones with the butt of his flashlight, and while his ears continued to ring, he could feel the rocks’ stability or looseness through his hands, reading the stones like a blind man reads Braille. In his mind he mapped out every boulder he wanted to remove, calculating its effect on the rest of the pile in the same fashion a chess master plans out entire games before making the first move, because he knows how his challenger will react. Mercer knew this opponent all too well, had faced it a dozen times for real and a thousand times in his nightmares. He shut out the distraction of knowing Cali was on the other side of the barrier, scared that she would die alone in the cold womb of the earth.

For twenty minutes Mercer studied the pile, and when he finally reached out, he plucked a little chip of stone no bigger than his fist and watched as it created a cascade of pulverized rock. He got down on his hands and knees to examine how the pebbles had settled on the floor. Satisfied that the effects of his action were within the parameters he’d established, he removed a larger stone and again analyzed the results.

Noting that they weren’t exactly what he’d anticipated, he adjusted his attack plan slightly and got to work. In a way he was like a master jeweler facing the most important diamond cut of his career. Only it wasn’t one swift motion that determined success or failure, it was dozens as he slowly whittled the pile away, ever careful that the stones didn’t become unbalanced, shifting weight loads from stone to stone as he bored a hole through the debris.

When he’d cleared enough away from his hole, he used the forklift to remove the detritus. It took him an hour to worm his way through half the mound and that’s where he encountered a slab of stone he couldn’t move. The jigsaw of rock was locked tight.

He tried shouting for Cali, but with the bulky contamination suit muffling his voice the gesture was futile. At that point Mercer should have left her, and returned when rescue personnel arrived, but he’d spent enough time with the stone to know how far he could push it. He returned to the forklift and smiled to himself tightly when he saw that the tines were held on by knobs welded to the lift chassis with thick carbon steel pins. He jerked one of the pins free and wrestled the hundred pound lance from the machine, then slid the cupped end onto the other tine, doubling its length.

Careful not to disturb the edges of the hole he’d created, he eased the single elongated tine into the burrow, hopping off the lift several times to ensure he was positioning it correctly. The tip scraped against the slab of rock and he lowered the metal bar slightly to wedge its leading edge under the stone. Again he inched his way into the hollow to check the position.

He weighed odds, cursed, then tore the soft rubber helmet from his head. “Cali, can you hear me? If you can, don’t take off your helmet. Bang something metal against the rocks.” He then realized his precarious situation and added, “But not too hard.”

A second passed, then five. Then ten and Mercer began to worry. She had been injured in the blast, maybe hit by a piece of shrapnel. She could be bleeding to death just a few feet away.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Mercer sagged with relief. “Hold on. I’m going to get you out.”

He slithered back to the forklift and slowly drove the elongated tine under the rock. He could sense by the way the motor’s vibrations changed how much of the load the machine was taking, judging the weight and balance of the rubble with his instinct and experience.

Something in the pile shifted suddenly. Mercer eased off the accelerator and safed the chain drive that lifted and lowered the fork. He peered into the hole, the beam of the flashlight casting bizarre patterns on the fractured stone. There was a foot-high gap under the big slab, but he could tell it lay at an angle; the side closest to Cali was still on the ground. By hand he moved a few other rocks, his earlier plan all but abandoned. This was no longer a chess match, but a frantic game of checkers.

He got back onto the seat and tried to ram the fork deeper under the stone. It wouldn’t budge. The slick wheels began to spin uselessly against the stone floor. He wasn’t going to get Cali out anytime soon.

Enraged, he was about to give up when the plucky little forklift lurched forward another foot. He raised the tine as high as it would go and leapt off the machine, diving headfirst into the hole. A brilliant light nearly blinded him. Behind it he could see the bright yellow of Cali’s contamination suit. She slipped her lithe body through the tight aperture, and when their fingers locked Mercer wanted to give a shout of triumph. Slithering backward he guided her out of the hole.

As soon as they were clear Cali ripped off her helmet. Mercer opened his mouth to warn her that the mine could be contaminated, but he never got the words out because her incredible lips were pressed to his in a kiss that squeezed his heart.

“I’m so sorry,” he breathed into her. “I had to do it.”

“Shut up,” she panted and kissed him more fiercely.

They held each other in the dim light of the forklift for all eternity, it seemed, or a blink of an eye. When they parted there was laughter in Cali’s eyes. “Professor Ahmad is right, you know. You are predictable. I knew you wouldn’t leave me.”

“If I hadn’t jumped out we would have both been trapped.”

“That’s what I figured when I realized you were gone.”

“It must have been terrifying.”

“Not really. I said I knew you’d come get me. While I waited I checked the rest of the chamber.”

Mercer couldn’t believe it. When they realized they were trapped most people would have thrown themselves at the pile of rock or sat in the dark and cried themselves insane. But not Cali. She went exploring.

“I found the rooms where they stored the plutonium. Just as we calculated they had seventy barrels left. The rooms were pretty big; I think to keep the barrels segregated so the plutonium wasn’t allowed to reach critical mass. The walls had absorbed some radiation, but nothing too bad. I’ll avoid dental X rays for a year or two and I’ll be fine.”

“You are amazing,” Mercer said, pride catching in his throat.

She smirked at him and he could imagine her freckles glowing pink on her cheeks. “Sometimes I am.” She kissed him again, a brief yet promissory caress of her lips. “No sense taking any more chances, let’s make like a tree and blow.”

“I thought that was make like the wind and leave.”

She laughed. “We could make like a Japanese board game and go.”

“Make like a left-wing Web site and move on.”

This time she groaned. “That’s enough.”

“Right.”

The forklift died before reaching the mine’s entrance, forcing them to walk the last half mile, Cali helping Mercer because his knee still bothered him. Ludmilla was the only person waiting for them when they emerged from the stygian realm. She gave a little snort when she saw them but her bovine expression didn’t change.

“Great to see you too, Milly old girl,” Mercer said to get a reaction. He didn’t.

She accompanied them down to the remains of the helicopter. Sasha was sitting up against a tree stump; the pilot and the other scientist were dozing near the chopper.

“It looks like it went well,” Sasha said to greet them.

“Hit a little snag,” Cali said airily, “no big deal.”

“Where are Professor Ahmad and Devrin Egemen?”

“When the helicopter reported they were lifting off from Samara, they got in their vehicle and left.” Sasha handed Mercer a piece of paper. “He asked me to give you this.”

Mercer unfolded the note.

Dear Doctor,

I want to apologize for how I manipulated you and Miss Stowe into helping us. My Janissaries have defended the alembic for generations and if not for a conversation among lovers decades ago we would not have faced the crisis we have. It is almost contained now thanks in part to you. The rest is our responsibility. I pray you will heed my advice and return to your lives, satisfied with the knowledge you have contributed to a noble cause.

It was unsigned.

“What do you think?” Cali asked after she read it.

He crushed the piece of paper. “Without the stele there isn’t much we can do this side of digging up half of Egypt. The Russians will handle the plutonium and Popov too if I’m right about him.” He felt the heat of their kiss once again and looked into her eyes. “I guess we go back and resume our lives like he says.”

“Exactly like it was before?” she said teasingly.

He took her hand. “I foresee a change or two.”