Mercer had to fight himself to put aside the upwelling of empathy she evoked and concentrate on what had just happened. He asked the most obvious question. “Not that I’m not grateful, but I know you didn’t happen along at the right moment, so do you mind telling me who you are, who those gunmen were and why they want me dead?”
“My name is Tisa Nguyen.” Her last name was a common Vietnamese surname, but her first, which rhymed with Melissa, was one Mercer had never heard before. “And those men were sent to kill you because of your work at Area 51.”
That she used the name of America’s premier research facility wasn’t a surprise. After all, it was one of the best known secrets in the world. What startled him was that it seemed everyone and their sister knew he was working there. Ira Lasko was in for a shock if Mercer somehow survived long enough to tell him.
He noted that she hadn’t given the assassins’ identity.
Tisa guided the car onto a cross street and then rocketed up a ramp onto I-15 heading north. Commuter traffic was thick but she seemed immune to it, exploiting the tiniest opening and using deft touches on the accelerator and brake to keep them rolling at a steady eighty miles per hour. She handled the car like a professional race driver.
“I can’t tell you who the gunmen were. I’m sorry. But please know that my saving you tonight is an indication of my sincerity.” She paused. “I didn’t think it right that you should suffer for something out of your control.”
“Lady,” Mercer flared, “the past twenty minutes has been about as out of control as things can get. Since you knew where I was staying and what was about to happen, don’t you think you could have just called to warn me?” She tried to interrupt, but Mercer overrode her protests. “Thanks for your help, but why don’t you just pull off at the next exit and let me out?”
“I tried calling,” Tisa snapped. She spoke English with an accent, French and something else. “Several times. You never picked up and then just before they were to hit your room, the line was busy.”
Mercer opened his mouth and let it close. What she said was plausible. He’d been in the shower for a half hour and then dialed Harry almost immediately after he toweled off. Maybe she had tried to warn him. That still didn’t negate the fact that she knew exactly what time the gunmen were making the hit. Meaning? Meaning either she’d been tracking them or she was part of their team. He chose his next words carefully. “You know they killed at least one woman that I saw.” He kept his voice mild to heighten the barbarism. “Probably got two or three security guards too.”
His hoped-for reaction of guilt never came. Tisa barely blinked at the news. “It could have been worse,” she finally said.
“Worse? I just told you innocent people are dead and you say it could have been worse. I think you could have saved them. I think you could have stopped them by warning the hotel or something. Don’t you realize their blood is on your hands?”
“Theirs isn’t the first, Dr. Mercer,” she said matter-of-factly. “And it certainly won’t be the last.”
A tense minute went by. Mercer studied her profile, conflicted by her beauty and seeming indifference.
“I was too late to stop them from attacking your room,” she said at last. “But I could try to save you if they failed. I’ve put my life at risk just by helping you, though it doesn’t really matter.”
“What doesn’t matter? That innocent people are dead or that you may be next?”
“Actually, none of it.” They sped up to ninety miles per hour as traffic thinned.
Mercer had heard enough. He hadn’t needed Tisa to figure out that the attack concerned Area 51. He was thankful for his rescue, but he wasn’t going to put up with her nonanswers. He would know the truth after he and Ira grilled Donny Randall, who no doubt had some connection to the gunmen. And the truth, he knew, had nothing to do with Ira’s bogus cover about a nuclear repository. Terrorists didn’t assassinate miners for digging a waste dump. They’d attack the nuclear materials en route or hit the site after it was full.
He put his hand on the gear shift lever. “In ten seconds I am going to jam the transmission into neutral.”
Tisa glanced at him, then returned her eyes to the road.
“Unless you’re armed you can’t stop me, so why don’t you just pull over.”
“I’m not armed,” she admitted.
“Then stop the goddamned car.”
Tisa ignored his demand. She spoke confidently. “Four months ago there was a seismic disturbance that was triangulated to a remote spot at Area 51.”
“One.”
“The epicenter was eight hundred feet below the surface.”
The exact depth Mercer and his men had tunneled off the main shaft. “Two.”
“Looking through U.S. Geologic Survey records, there’s no evidence of a fault in this location, certainly not that shallow. It is the first such earthquake there.”
This part of Nevada was riddled with microfaults; many of which hadn’t been discovered. Mercer was unimpressed. “Three.”
“The problem is that it wasn’t an earthquake at all.”
Tisa paused and Mercer had to remind himself of his countdown. “Four.”
“The closest analogy is that a bubble erupted inside solid rock. One second everything was normal and the next, seismographs showed a tremendous displacement of simultaneous P and S waves. As quickly as it happened, everything went back to normal. Almost like a contained nuclear explosion that only lasted for a moment.”
“How big?” Mercer asked, despite himself.
“Five.”
“On the Richter scale?”
“No. Your ultimatum. You’re up to number five. On the Richter it registered a single spike of three-point-one.”
“Duration?”
“Like I said, one second.”
“That’s not possible,” Mercer stated. “What about foreshocks or aftershocks?”
“Just the one spike.”
While Mercer had never heard of anything like this, an unusual earthquake was no reason to have him assassinated. He asked her why.
“What about your countdown?” Tisa asked with a little lift to her lip. Despite his palpable anger, she was teasing him.
“I’m keeping it going in my head,” he growled, although a smile was trying to tug at the corners of his mouth. “Why would someone want me dead for working near an undiscovered fault?”
“Because it wasn’t a fault. They believe it was a weapon test of some kind. I don’t know the details. I… I’m not part of the group that ordered your murder. When I learned what was going to happen, I flew to Las Vegas to save you. You’re a pawn in this. Innocent. I didn’t want to see you hurt.”
“Why?”
She looked at him for the first time in several miles. Her eyes went soft while her mouth remained defiant. The shock of the attack had worn to the point Mercer could admit to himself that she was achingly beautiful. “The reasons are my own. That’s all I’ll tell you.”
“Can you at least tell me how you knew I was involved with Area 51?” He himself hadn’t known about the job until being stuffed into a government SUV.
She laughed. “I never expected modesty from you, Doctor. It’s charming.”
“I’m not being modest,” Mercer said.
“In some circles, you are one of the most famous people in the world. You are perhaps the greatest prospecting geologist working today. You’ve found or been instrumental in the development of dozens of successful mines. Opals in Australia. Diamonds in Canada and Africa. The Ghuatra ruby mine in India. It’s been estimated that you alone are responsible for having one hundred million cubic yards of earth shifted in just the past eight years.”