Ira recognized the recrimination written on Mercer’s face. He’d expected no less from his friend. “According to what you said, they knew about the test because of a seismic disturbance inside Area 51, right?”
“That’s what she told me, an anomalous earthquake.”
“Dr. Marie pulled USGS records for the day the submarine materialized under the mountain. There were dozens of earthquakes in the west, but none of them close to Area 51. The biggest was a four-point-two near Barstow, California, which they said was an aftershock of the quake that hit Bakersfield a few months back. There were two three-point-fours in Washington State and a three-oh near Reno. The sub didn’t cause any detectable disturbances when it came back.”
Mercer sat quietly for a second, searching for and finding the flaw in Lasko’s statement. “How did they know you were doing something out there? She knew the date, time, everything.”
“Randall,” Lasko answered. “They must have gotten to him, or maybe he was already part of their group. Either way, he must have told them something was up even if he didn’t know what it was.”
Again, Mercer pondered the logic, wondering if he wanted to exonerate Tisa because she was right or because he wanted her to be right. He hated the doubt. “Obviously no one at the excavation site knew the nature of the experiment you’d run, but did any of them even know the date it happened?”
“They weren’t supposed to,” Ira replied. “That doesn’t mean it didn’t slip somehow. I know what you’re trying to do, Mercer, but you have to look at this reasonably. The only way she could know the timing of our test is through a security breach at the mine site. Someone talked and Donny Randall passed on the information. Later, he must have received orders to sabotage the job — the cave-in that brought you on board and later the explosion.”
“And when he failed they tried to gun me down in Vegas.”
Could it be that easy? Mercer asked himself. It made sense. At least more sense than Tisa’s group detecting the emergence of the submarine through some other, unknown way. Yet a doubt lingered at the back of his mind. What was it? What were they missing?
Tisa’s group had found a hydrate deposit where no one had ever thought to look and secretly built an enormous machine to protect it. Either feat was incredible and showed a tremendous level of sophistication. Why couldn’t they have the capability to discover Ira’s secret project through some extraordinary means?
“So where does that leave us?” he finally asked.
“That’s up to what you learn in Greece.”
“Tisa told me about some unusual phenomena in the Pacific to get my attention. Well, she got it. Now I hate thinking what’s going to happen in Santorini.”
“By the way, do you want backup?”
Mercer shook his head. “That’ll spook her. Don’t ask me how or why, but I know she’s on our side and that’s why we’re meeting in such an out-of-the-way place. She probably could have told me whatever she needs to back in Vegas or anywhere else. She must feel comfortable on Santorini, like it’s out of reach of the splinter faction she’s trying to protect me from. If I show up with a bunch of men with earphones shadowing me, she may bolt.”
Ira nodded. “I can buy that. A driver will be waiting for you at the airport. He’ll be holding a sign saying Harry White.”
“Nice touch.” Mercer smiled.
“You’ll have to take the ferry to Santorini because the package he’ll have for you won’t pass an airport security scan, if you know what I mean.”
“Gun?”
“Beretta 92, as you seem to favor.”
“Now that’s backup I do appreciate.”
SANTORINI, GREECE
Mercer stood at the rail of a three-hundred-foot inter-island ferry, glazing across the waves. The view from this ship was little different from what he’d seen from the Surveyor on the opposite side of the planet. His eyes felt gritty and his body was starting to ache from so much travel and so little sleep. Ira’s revelations about the possibility that Tisa had been lying to him only deepened his exhaustion. He’d spent the flight from Washington mulling the consequences and his next moves. He had a real fear that her group had installed towers like the one he’d seen near Guam over other hydrate deposits. The ecological devastation of a massive coordinated release of gas was incalculable.
The ferry was heavily loaded and it seemed hundreds of people were on deck waiting for the first sight of the island of Thira, better known as Santorini. A young German couple apparently on their honeymoon stepped close to Mercer, almost brushing into him. He turned so the blond husband wouldn’t feel the heavy automatic pistol slung under Mercer’s arm.
There was a commotion of pointing near the distant bow and soon everyone pressed to the rail. The smudge just forming in the distance was Santorini, a paradise of dazzling whitewashed buildings and domed roofs painted a distinctive blue seen on travel posters worldwide. Formed by volcanic eruptions, the crescent-shaped island had once been substantially larger until a cataclysmic blast thirty-six hundred years ago had destroyed half of the caldera and jettisoned a cloud of ash that many archaeologists believe caused the destruction of the Minoan civilization on Crete several hundred miles south. Home to black sand beaches and some of the most spectacular views in the world, Santorini was heavily developed as a European tourist destination.
As the weather-beaten ferry motored nearer to the island, more and more passengers found their way to the railing. With the height of the tourist season still months away, Mercer was still pressed by throngs of half-drunk backpackers pointing excitedly at their first glimpse of Fira, the island’s largest city. Situated inside the flooded caldera, the town clung precariously to the cliffs as if it had grown out from the living rock. Even from a distance it gleamed in the sun.
The ship passed inside the protective arms of the caldera and the steady waves that had rocked them since leaving Piraeus ceased abruptly. The more inebriated vacationers lurched on their feet. The bluffs towering over the ferry were barren stone and the small island in the center of the caldera was nothing more than a pile of rubble. If not for the town, Santorini looked primeval.
The big ferryboats usually docked at Athenios, about a mile beyond Fira, but none of the passengers disembarking were taking an automobile onto the island, so the lumbering craft edged toward the open-air port at the foot of the mountain directly below Fira. Nearly a hundred passengers hastily broke themselves from their reverent gawking and headed below to the pedestrain disembarkment ramp.
Mercer waited at the rail while they made their mass exodus. The small dock was soon a sea of milling humanity. There were three ways up to the town. There was a winding footpath of switchback stairs that people could climb. They could ride one of the dozens of sturdy donkeys that shared the path. Or there was a modern cable car that shot straight into Fira. Admitting he was too tired to hike the ascent and dismissing a donkey ride as too touristy, he decided on the cable car, but only after it made several runs to ease the congestion.
He hefted his light bag and meandered down two decks to where the ramp had been lowered. Once on the cement quay, the heat hit Mercer full force. There was no wind in the volcanic bowl and flies rose in clouds from the manure piles left in the donkeys’ wake. People climbing the trail looked as bowed as Sherpas under their packs. A few had already given up and were headed down again to take the cable car.
Mercer had to wait ten minutes for his turn to pay for the ride and climb onto the glass-enclosed car. Around him people chatted animatedly in a Babel of differing languages. To his ear, most sounded German or Scandinavian, though there were a trio of twangy Australian girls and a young American couple who looked like they just stepped out of a hippie commune. Through it all he could feel their excitement and wished a little would rub off on him. They were here for the trip of a lifetime. He didn’t know what to expect and in his present frame of mind he began to regard the unknown with suspicion.