The first to spot Mercer was the man Mercer feared the most.
It was the South African, and he moved as fast as a mamba from his native land. His weapon was already in hand even as he began dropping into a kneeling position that would give him the best stability for an overhead shot.
Somehow Mercer knew he was going to take a knee, and he adjusted his aim to lead his target as he swung the barrel of the .45.
The mercenary’s gun was just a few arc seconds from zeroing in on Mercer when Mercer fired. His first shot missed by a millimeter and he fired again. Dead on center, and the South African was punched back by the .45 slug.
Mercer curled his torso up, grasped the edge of the vent with his fingers, and flipped his legs out. He dropped from the duct and landed squarely on the floor below, absorbing the shock in the long muscles of his thighs and calves. The scientists and techs moved back in a herd reflex, eyes wide with fear. Moments ago they felt secure in their fortress with an armed man to look out for them; now they were terrified. Mercer swept the gun so he covered them, and they all moved back until each was pressed against a workstation.
Mercer kicked aside the unmoving mercenary’s pistol. He saw that he’d hit the man in the narrow spot just below his rib cage. The angle meant the heavy slug had torn through his intestines. It was a killing shot, only the man wasn’t yet dead. It could take a long time to die from being gut-shot. He had one crimson hand pressed to the wound, but more blood was oozing out from under him where the grisly exit wound leached out his life. He looked up now at Mercer, and a sickly smile spread across his scarred visage.
“Can’t even finish me off proper, eh? Going to make me die slow so you can watch.”
“Not going to watch at all,” Mercer said, thinking about Abe.
Mercer moved to the sealed door and opened the latch. Booker came in with the Kriss high and tight. He took in the tactical scene in an instant and quickly moved to keep the scientists covered.
“Who is in charge here?” Mercer shouted. No one spoke, so Mercer fired a round into the largest display screen. The sharp blast of the pistol’s discharge was enough to loosen tongues.
A middle-aged man in a lab coat stuck a tentative hand in the air.
“You’re not in the bloody classroom. Put your hand down and tell me how to stop this experiment before it’s too late.”
“Professor Jean-Robert Fortescue is the project leader,” the man said, his voice shaking. He pointed to the large glass window on the far side of the room. “He’s in there. That’s where the crystals are rigged to the antenna relays. This is just the monitoring room.”
Mercer saw there was a thick door, like that of a bank vault, separating the two spaces. He peered through the massive slab of glass. Beyond was a bright space nearly as large as the control room with towering machines straight out of a mad scientist’s fervid imagination. They were sleek and high tech, their function completely unknowable. He imagined that somewhere in the tangle of power cords as thick as trash barrels, and featureless metal boxes wreathed in frigid clouds of super-cooling gas to keep them from overheating, were the fifty pounds of stones Amelia Earhart had lost her life trying to return to America.
Mercer couldn’t begin to guess how to stop the experiment once it came online. He only knew from Jason that once energy from the ship’s atomic power plant was flooded through the crystals and into space, the planet’s magnetic fields could show the effects within moments.
There were a couple of people in the room. Mercer guessed that the tall and balding man with a smug look on his face had to be Fortescue. Booker tried the vault handle and shook his head at Mercer.
“Can you communicate with them from here?” Mercer asked the tech.
“Yes.” The man pointed to an updated workstation with a modern headset.
Mercer strode over. The mousy scientist backed off, his eyes darting to Book, who stood with his wicked-looking weapon at the ready. Mercer slipped the headset over his ears and adjusted the tiny microphone. “Fortescue, you need to listen to me.”
Beyond the glass, the professor slipped on his own headset. “I believe I know who you are. Roland warned me a while back about someone interfering with our plans, but poor Niklaas there said you were abandoned on a desert isle just a day ago.”
Mercer recognized the voice from the PA countdown. “Please, you have to stop what you’re doing immediately.”
“Why would I do that?”
Mercer knew there was no time for discussion. “Listen to me. Whatever calculations you made are wrong. You ramp up that reactor, and there’s a good chance you will severely damage the earth’s magnetic field.”
“I do not think so.”
Mercer ground his teeth, thinking momentarily about Abe Jacobs and this long nightmare that had started back in the mine in Minnesota. “Okay, asshole, how about I start killing your team out here one by one if you don’t shut this down now?”
A momentary silence greeted Mercer. The Frenchman gave a shrug and said, “I do not know what it is you think we are doing here, monsieur, but the power output will be negligible. The effect will be tiny, though cumulative over many months. The field will not be harmed — slightly fewer clouds will form in this region, and the earth will get a degree or two warmer.”
Mercer wasn’t sure what the man was talking about. Jason was convinced this was an experiment to somehow use the earth’s magnetic field to reduce the amount of warming, given the amount of carbon dioxide that had been released into the atmosphere.
“You’re trying to make it warmer?”
“Oui.”
Mercer and Book exchanged puzzled glances.
Over the PA system, Fortescue said, “Zero.”
A palpable hum grew in the distance, nothing deafening, nothing really more than a background sound. Mercer had expected a torrent of power from the reactor to funnel through whatever apparatus they’d devised for the crystals, or to make a commanding high-tech tone while blinding light shot to the heavens from the main antenna dish. The vapor from the cooling system didn’t even show the tiniest perturbation.
Monitors hooked to the ship-wide CCTV system showed that nothing at all appeared to be happening.
“You see, monsieur,” Fortescue said condescendingly over the headset. “My machine and my calculations are flawless. Once I demonstrate I can warm the surface of the planet, I will then be able to cool it once again.”
“Mercer…” Book was pointing at another desk-mounted monitor. “Check it out.”
The camera showed the main satellite dish, which looked just as it had a few moments earlier. That’s not what had caught Booker’s attention. Above the ship, the night sky, which had been filled with stars, was now darkening with clouds that pulsed with lightning. As they watched, they realized the clouds were moving — spinning slowly, but accelerating visibly like a cyclonic eye with the Zhukovsky at its center.
Sykes added unnecessarily, “That can’t be good.”
Mercer shouted through the headset at the French scientist. “Look at your own cameras — you’re causing an atmospheric disturbance that looks like it’s building. Shut it down, Fortescue. Shut it all down!”