“The Russians deny all knowledge of the operation code-named Vulcan’s Forge, but admitted that Ivan Kerikov was known for operating outside government sanction.”
“You said ‘was known.’ Is he dead?”
“No, he’s vanished. He was in Thailand, then went to Switzerland, but from there, no one knows. He simply disappeared. The Russians are looking for him now, as well as the CIA and Interpol. He’ll turn up.”
“Don’t count on it. If he’s cagey enough to nearly succeed with an operation like this, he can easily stay lost too.”
“Maybe you’re right, I don’t know.” Henna nodded slowly. “Remember, though, there’s also a group of very pissed-off Koreans after him.”
“Have you been able to find out who was behind the Korean angle?”
“We got nothing from the bodies at Ohnishi’s house, but the guy found near the gardener’s shed at Kenji’s was the grandson of Way Hue Dong, one of the seven richest men in the world. To further link him to what happened, the day after you were rescued, a small flotilla of ships, one of them specially designed for high-temperature dredging and all owned by one of Way’s companies, arrived at the volcano site. You better believe they were surprised to see the U.S. Navy already there with a carrier and a half-dozen support ships. Way’s already lodged a formal complaint with the World Court at The Hague, but he doesn’t stand a chance of taking the bikinium from us.
“As for Hawaii itself — there was one more night of rioting after your raid, but that was it. Without the Koreans or Ohnishi to act as agitators, the mobs lost their will to fight and pretty much just went home. Hawaii’s senators have both resigned, claiming health problems, but it was either that or face prosecution for treason. The President has pardoned all others involved, and a special task force has been set up to deal with any legitimate claims by the Hawaiians. He felt it best to sweep the violence under the rug rather than make the nation relive it for months in the courts. In all, about three hundred people died during the riots.
“The President’s going to ramrod some funding through Congress to try to end a lot of the racial tension in this country — education programs, urban aid, that sort of thing. The Los Angeles riots and now this recent crisis have finally brought people to their senses. The old adage, ‘United we stand, divided we fall,’ almost came true, and it’s scared enough people who want to really do something about it. With the current conciliatory mood in Congress, he’ll get all the funding he needs.”
Mercer interrupted. “You can’t change people’s opinions with new laws and federal spending.”
“Thirty years ago doctors were advertising the health benefits of cigarettes,” Henna countered.
“Touche.”
“It will take some time but at least we are finally on the right track. No one wants the type of ethnic strife that’s tearing apart central Europe and the old Soviet republics. We’ve maintained racial diversity for two hundred years and we’re not going to let it slip away now. America is famous for pulling through a crisis just as things reach bottom, and we’ll do it again.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Henna took a swig of his drink. “Valery Borodin is with our own people at the volcano, assaying the parts of it now above the surface to see where to begin mining the bikinium. I believe Dr. Talbot is with him.”
“She is. As a favor to me, the President had her flown out there two weeks ago. I spoke to her on the phone yesterday, just before my flight back to Washington. She and Valery have rekindled the passion they once felt. Already they’re talking marriage.”
Henna smirked. “Kind of funny, you were the hero in all of this. I thought it was customary for the hero to get the girl at the end.”
“When they make the television mini-series, I’ll make sure they change the ending,” Mercer replied offhandedly.
“Well, don’t think you’re going to come out of this completely empty-handed.” Henna fished a set of keys from his pocket and tossed them to Mercer.
“What are these?”
“The keys to a new, black SJX Jaguar convertible with tan interior, cellular phone, CD player, and an aftermarket turbo charger. It was the least we could do.”
Mercer looked at the keys and gave Henna a sardonic smile. “After getting me shot at a few dozen times, nearly smeared against a train, almost drowned, beaten up more than once, crashed into the ocean, and within a few minutes of being nuked, you’re right, buying me a new car is the very least you could do.”
Henna knew by Mercer’s tone that he wasn’t really angry and gave a low chuckle. “The car’s parked in front of your house. There are two things I want to know: how did you know to go to Kenji’s house rather than Ohnishi’s? And how in the hell did you pinpoint the John Dory when the experts at NSA couldn’t find a damn thing?”
Mercer smiled slyly. “Finding the John Dory was easy. Those infrared photos showed a classic shield volcano, a number of small vents surrounding a central magma outlet. Normally those smaller vents are located on the side of the volcano and therefore under deeper water. Well, on all of the photos, there was a white hot signature nearly a mile from the central vent. At that distance, the thermal image would be yellow or orange, cooler because of the water depth. That white dot couldn’t have been a natural vent; it had to be something man-made, like the nuclear reactor aboard the John Dory as she rode near the surface.”
Henna was impressed. “And what about Kenji?”
“That was a hunch really, but I felt confident. I worked for Ohnishi as a consultant a few years ago in Tennessee. Ohnishi Minerals was interested in buying the second mining rights to some disused property owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Second mining is when the coal pillars that support the mine tunnels are ripped down to their very weakest tolerances. It’s dangerous work and cave-ins occur frequently, but the profit margin is astronomical if the mines can be bought cheap enough.
“The TVA didn’t want the old mines stripped the usual way, citing all sorts of possible insurance liabilities. I was brought in at the TVA’s request because there had never been a cave-in on any of the second mining operations I’d worked on. TVA was still reluctant to sell after they read my geomechanic report, but Ohnishi Minerals managed to end run them. Ohnishi bought off officials, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to some high-power lawyers, and in the end opened his own bogus insurance company to underwrite TVA’s liability.
“What he did was illegal to a degree, but American mining laws are gray enough that he got away with it. At the time the vice president in charge of Ohnishi Minerals was a guy I’d gone through the doctoral program at Penn State with, Daniel Tanaka. When his crew was reopening the mine, I met with him and explained that I had faked some of the figures, underestimating the strength of the coal pillars. I had rightly guessed that Ohnishi would order him to pull out more coal than I said could be safely removed. We both knew that I’d saved the lives of his men, so he owed me a favor. I called him just before I went to Hawaii and he told me confidentially that Ohnishi himself had no knowledge of the details of the transaction when they had acquired the mining rights. Anything that could be construed as illegal or corrupt was handled by his aide, Kenji.
“I assumed that when Ohnishi was approached by Ivan Kerikov concerning the bikinium, he’d ordered Kenji to handle any of the details. Therefore Kenji was the real linchpin, not his boss. It wasn’t until I reached Kenji’s estate that I found out the Koreans had gotten to Kenji too. He was the perfect agent-provocateur, working all sides. Koreans and Ohnishi against the middle, Ivan Kerikov.