The Medusa stone (7 page)
Authors: Jack Du Brul
"What the hell is he doing?" the copilot asked.
" Mercer srunning at the low-slung aircraft, judging distances, and at the critical second he leaped. One foot landed on the Lear's left wing, momentum making him tumble, but he had enough coordination to twist as he rebounded, aligning himself with his intended target. His arm went in first, the titanium blades of the Garrett TFE 731 turbofan having little trouble liquefying both muscle and bone, but when his shoulder and head hit the whirling turbine, the engine came apart, blades exploding off the roller-bearing shaft and blowing through the aluminum nacelle.
The Lear's pilot shut down both engines when he realized the gunman's suicide mission and prevented a spontaneous detonation. The Gulfstream lifted off the macadam a mile down the runaway, trails of exhaust marring the air like angry brush strokes. Mercer gave little thought to the pilots or the man who'd allowed himself to be sucked into the jet engine and watched as Harry's kidnappers flew off into the distance.
Because he hadn't done enough, his friend was gone. He'd been so close, but then again, he'd been only forty yards away when Tory was murdered. His hands began to tremble with rage and frustration. And guilt. He could have done more. He could have driven faster or run harder or shot out a tire rather than allow himself the grim satisfaction of using his last bullet to kill one of them. He wanted to believe he'd given it his best effort, but with these high stakes, it was obvious that his best wasn't good enough.
He was sitting on a grassy verge bordering the runway when an airport security car whooped its way to the stationary Lear. There were knotted muscles at the base of his jaw as he tried to keep his mouth firm. Dick Henna jumped from the car and approached slowly. Mercer was as close to breaking down as he had ever seen him, and the sight sent a chill through Henna's guts.
"Are you okay?"
Mercer took a long time to answer, his face blank, but beneath his eyes, rage boiled. "Yeah, I'm fine," he whispered. "You?"
"I lost a man in there and another is already on his way to the hospital. Listen, Mercer, I've got to get you the hell out of here. Marge has already called for an FBI forensics unit, and they'll be here shortly. I can explain away this thing as an arrest gone bad, but as a civilian, you can't be involved." He held out a hand. Mercer used it to hoist himself to his feet.
"What about the Gulfstream?"
"I don't know. I guess someone has it on radar, but I'm not sure."
"What a fuck-up, Dick," Mercer said. "I am so sorry."
They got into the car. "It's not your fault. Neither of us had any idea the men who took Harry are terrorists lugging machine guns. We had no way of knowing." Henna's voice was calm and soothing. "Chances are, that plane's heading outside the country, and that makes this an international incident. I'm going to call Paul Barnes at the CIA, and if we can figure out where they're headed, I'll have him get some agents there to meet it."
"Do you think the CIA can get him back?"
"Frankly, I doubt we'll have the time to learn where they're going to land. A jet with extended tanks can be in Europe, Africa, or South America in just a few hours. But, hey, there's a ton of evidence lying around here and a paper trail for the jet lease, so there is hope of finding them."
Mercer didn't speak until the sedan's driver circled around the te Henna forestalled any questions with a sharp look, so Marge gave Mercer's shoulder a pat and went into the building.
Her commiseration shook Mercer back to the present. Harry was beyond his reach, and for the time being, there wasn't a thing he could do about it. "You're right," he said. "Maybe you can find these bastards through the abandoned weapons or the guy I capped on the runway. I have to get to Eritrea and help Harry that way. Have you found anything on that front? Anything on Selome Nagast?"
"You're not going to believe this one. When I was following your lead about her not working at the Eritrean embassy, I got a call from the ambassador himself. He said that she was in the country under his authority and that she was working without the support of his staff. They know nothing of her or her mission here."
"Which is?"
"According to the ambassador, securing private funding for humanitarian programs within Eritrea. He didn't get more specific than that, and before I could press, he'd hung up on me." Henna paused. "I dug a little deeper and things got real interesting. I cross-referenced her name through the CIA database, and within minutes I got an angry call."
"Eritrea's ambassador again?"
"No. Are you ready for this? Paul Barnes."
"What?"
"You heard me. The director of the CIA. Typing her name into the computer sent up all sorts of red flags. Part of our system is indexed with the Mossad's, and when her name came up, alarms must have screamed all over Tel Aviv. Barnes's opposite number in Israel called and read him the riot act about interagency cooperation and a bunch of other shit. The upshot is, Israel did not like me poking into the background of Miss Nagast."
"Why in the hell would the Israelis care if you're researching an Eritrean national?" This was one turn Mercer hadn't expected.
"Because she's not," Henna said. "Selome Nagast holds duel citizenship, Eritrea and Israel, and she has an officer's commission in the Israeli Defense Force as well as a position in their government."
"I don't get it." If Selome was Israeli, that could mean Harry was being held by one of the Jewish state's legions of enemies.
"Neither do I. But ten minutes after getting off the phone with Barnes, Lloyd Easton called."
"The Secretary of State?" This was going far outside Mercer's realm, and the implications were beginning to scare him.
"No other. He told me that he'd just received a call too, this one from Israel's foreign minister. We are to back off Selome Nagast or face serious consequences. She's one of theirs, operating in the United States on a mission--get this--'not detrimental to America and therefore none of our concern.' The guy told us to piss off in our own back-yard. He said by investigating her mission, we are jeopardizing our close alliance with his nation."
"What the hell is going on here, Dick?"
"You tell me," Henna shot back. "I thought this would be a routine inquiry, and the next thing I know, I've got shit coming down on me faster than I can shovel. What do you think?"
Mercer thought for a moment, paying little attention to the ambulances and police vehicles around them. "I didn't trust her from the beginning. I thought there was something dirty about her--Prescott Hyde, too, for that matter--but this is unbelievable."
"Why can't you be like the rest of my friends?" Henna wasn't upset, but he was serious. "When they call up for a favor, it's usually to help paint their garage or put together a gas grill. With you, it always has to be something else, doesn't it? And it gets worse every time. Harry's kidnapping has turned into a bloodbath. What is it about you?"
"Lucky, I guess. What'd you find at Harry's?"
"Too early to tell. The team went to his place just as I was heading for the airport. What can you tell me about the night Harry was grabbed? It'll help sift through the evidence the forensic team picks up."
"There's nothing I can tell you that would help. It was a night like any other. We were drinking at Tiny's until Selome arrived. We had a couple more after she left, then Harry took off and I headed home too."
"I guess there's nothing we can do unless we can track that plane." Henna rested an arm on the Jag's open door as Mercer finally swung into his car. "Except wait for the forensics reports."
"When do you think you'll have something from Harry's apartment?"
"A couple hours for a preliminary, I'd think," Henna replied, watching his friend critically. "After this mess, I won't be going to California, so why don't you come over to my place tonight and we'll go over it? We'll have a couple of drinks."
"I know what you're trying to do and I appreciate the gesture, but don't bother. I've got too much work. I know my limitations better than anyone." Mercer fired up the Jag's throaty V-12. "When I reach the end of my rope, I'll stop."
"I just hope the end of your rope isn't a noose, you crazy son of a bitch," Henna muttered at the receding car.
Venice, Italy
Giancarlo Gianelli brooded with his back to the windows in the spacious drawing room of his ancestral home located on the Grand Canal. The windows--huge floor-to-ceiling affairs of leaded glass and wrought iron--were over three hundred years old, made at a time when the glassmaker's art was still being perfected. There was a blister in each of the eight hundred individual panes where the blower's pipe had once been inserted into the molten glass. The sunlight streaming through them cast a grid shadow on the floor that matched its checker pattern of beige and rose carrera marble.
The room's furniture were all antiques, each piece exceptional in its own right but coming alive when blended with the rest of the surroundings. It was a room of extraordinary wealth and was only one of forty-three in the home. Gianelli, too, looked as if he were a furnishing for the house, an elegant addition placed just so. His sports coat had been custom made in Milan, his shirt of Egyptian cotton, and his tie had been given to him personally by the late Gianni Versace. He was the epitome of an Italian merchant prince, comparable with the Renaissance Medicis.
Today, the planet was a small place. Anyone had global accessibility in just a few hours with jet aircraft or instantly with the telephone and the Internet. Thus the days when men with vision could generate wealth in direct accordance to the risk were all but gone. Only a few still retained the kind of independence to function without the constraints of obfuscating lawyers and miserly bankers. Giancarlo Gianelli was just such a person.
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"And then?"
"And then?"
"Well, Eritrea may be a small country when you look at it on a world map, but when you're exploring it on foot or from a vehicle, it's a big, rugged place."
"Are you any closer to getting a copy of the Medusa photographs?" Gianelli asked. "Those pictures are a sure way of narrowing our own search."
"No," the caller replied. "I explained to you before. Hyde never lets them out of his sight. I've already checked the National Reconnaissance Office's archives, and there was only that one set created, something to do with the material they are made from being impossible to photocopy or scan." He paused. "I'm sorry."
"Will Hyde give them to Mercer?"
"I believe so, yes. But he doesn't have them now. Hyde won't turn them over until Mercer is ready to leave."
"Hyde's reason being security?"
"Or paranoia."
"We should be able to get those photos from Mercer once he's in Eritrea." Gianelli was speaking more for his benefit than his listener's and realized that this discussion went beyond the caller's need to know. He changed tack. "When is Selome Nagast going back to Asmara? Will she be with Mercer?"
"I don't know yet. I'd guess she'll be flying with Mercer. When I find out her travel plans, I'll let you know."
"Anything on your suspicions about her?"
"Nothing. But my intuition tells me that there is more to her than she's saying."
"Your intuition also made you sell those pictures to Hyde for a fraction of what I would have paid," Giancarlo said acidly. "She'll be out of Washington in a few days. If there's anything to discover about her, I will handle it from this end. More than likely your instincts are picking up the fact she's sleeping with Hyde."
"It's possible, but I doubt it. He's a pig and she's a living goddess," Major Donald Rosen of the National Reconnaissance Office said.
"It doesn't matter. Just keep me informed. You may be able to atone for your earlier mistake." Gianelli hung up the phone.
So,
he mused,
Hyde has found his expert to dig in the desert for him.
While it was a complication that Gianelli didn't particularly relish, it wasn't totally unexpected and he might be able to make it work for his own needs. He would have preferred getting the Medusa pictures from Major Rosen, but Hyde had beat him to them. Now he had to try and steal them from Mercer in Asmara. He thought about taking both Mercer and the pictures and using the American as his own prospector. Giancarlo currently had people scouring the Eritrean wastelands, but his teams certainly didn't have Mercer's expertise. Taking Mercer alive, however, wasn't the priority, the pictures were. He reached for the phone again to put into motion just such a plan, recalling how it had all started.
he mused,
Hyde has found his expert to dig in the desert for him.
While it was a complication that Gianelli didn't particularly relish, it wasn't totally unexpected and he might be able to make it work for his own needs. He would have preferred getting the Medusa pictures from Major Rosen, but Hyde had beat him to them. Now he had to try and steal them from Mercer in Asmara. He thought about taking both Mercer and the pictures and using the American as his own prospector. Giancarlo currently had people scouring the Eritrean wastelands, but his teams certainly didn't have Mercer's expertise. Taking Mercer alive, however, wasn't the priority, the pictures were. He reached for the phone again to put into motion just such a plan, recalling how it had all started.
Eritrea had been an Italian colony starting at the end of the nineteenth century and had been the major staging point for their conquest of Ethiopia in 1935. That war had been particularly brutal, fought between a modern mechanized army on one side and horse soldiers on the other. The outcome was almost inevitable, especially after the League of Nations imposed an arms embargo on the region that Italy, with her own weapons manufacturers, including the Gianellis, totally ignored.
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