“You can’t know that.” Tish was uncomfortable by Mercer’s accuracy and covered it with an accusation.
“The first reason is obvious. He’s going to want to be a provider for you and a possible family, unlike his father had been to him, and that data could make the two of you quite comfortable for the rest of your lives. I’m even more familiar with the second reason.
“Remember I said that I used to live in Africa when I was younger, that I was actually born in the Congo? Well, I left there as an orphan. My parents moved to Rwanda so my father could work on opening a copper mine. They were killed during an insurrection in 1964, ambushed going to a party on the first night of the fighting. Both of them were burned alive. My nanny, a Tutsi woman, took me back to her village the next day. I lived there for a couple of months until the fighting died down, then she turned me over to a World Health Organization team, who eventually contacted my father’s parents in Vermont.
“Even though my grandparents were kind and loving people, I hated being with them and I hated my real parents even more for abandoning me. I felt utterly betrayed. I remember winter nights when I’d go cross-country skiing. I’d stop in some meadow, miles away from the nearest house, and scream at them, cursing them, accusing them of leaving me on purpose. It was the loneliest time in my life.
“If I could foster that much hate against my parents who actually died, I can only imagine the hate Valery must feel toward his father for leaving him for some government project and then just as casually returning.”
“How did you ever get over your parents’ death?” Tish asked quietly. Mercer’s story had touched her deeply.
“An old farmer overheard me one night when I was about sixteen and we talked. He was the only person I ever opened up to. When I’d finished my story, he told me I was acting stupid and if I kept it up he’d slap me around because I was upsetting his dairy cows. I guess I’d received so much sympathy before that, I saw myself as a perpetual victim. By callously saying I was stupid, he made me realize that, in fact, I was. My parents’ deaths were beyond their control — it was never their choice to abandon me. Finally I could accept that.” Mercer poured a shot of Scotch into his coffee, then drained the cup in three deep swallows.
Tish didn’t say anything, but the tension had eased from her neck and shoulders and her blue eyes were misted and soft.
“I owe you an apology,” Mercer said softly. “I thought you were part of this operation. I thought you knew all about it.”
“No,” Tish said quietly, “I didn’t.”
“Do you still love him?”
“I don’t know,” Tish replied haltingly. “The time Valery and I had together was the most precious in my life, but it was so long ago. Is that shallow of me?”
“That’s not for me to decide,” he dodged the question adroitly. He took the bar stool next to her and held her slim hands in his.
“I was in love once.” Mercer spoke slowly, deliberately. “I was twenty-five years old, taking summer classes at a mining school in England. She was four years older than me, a police psychologist just getting her start in the London constabulary. We spent every moment together that we could. I would commute a hundred miles to see her in the city, and she took the maximum number of sick days she could without being kicked off the force.
“One weekend toward the end of the summer, she was seeing me off at Paddington Station. We had just talked about marriage for the first time.” Mercer’s voice was barely a whisper, but the force of his words carried to the far corners of the room. “My train was just pulling out from the station. Suddenly there was gunfire. A man had burst into the station and opened up with a machine pistol. I watched from the window of the accelerating train as he emptied the clip, then dropped the weapon and pulled a revolver. By then the police had begun to swarm into the station. The gunman grabbed a woman and used her as a shield, the revolver screwed into her ear. It was a standoff.
“Then the woman, my possible fiancée, started talking to the gunman, trying to calm him down, get him to surrender. It was her job. Later they found that the man, an IRA terrorist, had taken so much heroin that he probably never heard a word she said. She spoke for only a few seconds before the gunman simply pulled the trigger and then turned the gun on himself.
“I saw their bodies fall across each other just as my car pulled out of the station. I was too numb to try to get off the train. I just sat there as we sped north. I never returned to London. I didn’t even go to her funeral. . ” Mercer’s voice trailed off.
“What was her name?”
“Tory Wilks,” Mercer replied evenly. “You’re the first person who’s ever heard that story. I finished my classes in England and came home as if nothing ever happened.”
“I’m sorry.”
Mercer looked at her squarely. “We never had a chance to start a life together. I told you about Tory and what I lost because you at least deserve a chance. You once loved Valery Borodin and lost him because of circumstances out of your control.” Mercer’s voice firmed. “I’m going to make sure you have a fair shot at making it work.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s simple.” Mercer smiled warmly, the wrenching emotions of a few moments earlier safely tucked back where they belonged. Again he was his normal sardonic self. “I’m going to help him escape.”
“How? You don’t know where he is.”
“Don’t I, though?” Mercer raised a mocking eyebrow. “I happen to know down to the inch where he is at this very moment.”
“Where?” Excitement raised Tish’s voice an octave.
“All in good time,” Mercer replied vaguely. “I’ve got some things to figure out first. Why don’t you take that nap you wanted?”
Tish saw that she could get nothing further out of him, so she went to the couch. She looked over at Mercer and saw he was already scratching away at a note pad with a fountain pen. She tucked the Normandie lap robe up around her chin, and for the first time in a long time, started considering a real life with Valery.
Ten minutes later, Tish sat up suddenly. “Mercer?”
He looked up from the pad. His normally dark complexion was drained and his wide set eyes were narrowed by exhaustion.
“I was thinking — Valery took a risk to have me rescued from the Ocean Seeker and put you in contact with me, right? Well, who tried to kill me in the hospital?”
Mercer stared at her for a moment, his weary mind grinding away at her question. He tore the top sheet of paper from the pad, crumpled it up, and tossed it into the plastic trash can behind the bar. “Back to the drawing board.”
Several hours later, as the sun ambered the room with its dying rays, Mercer finally put down his pen, drank the last sip of his second pot of coffee and stood for a stretch. He had written twelve pages of notes and made eighteen phone calls. Tish was still asleep on the couch.
Mercer knuckled the kinks out of his lower back and squeezed his eyes tight, trying to clear his sleep-deprived brain. The caffeine he had drunk left him feeling weak and with a pounding headache. He pulled Dick Henna’s card from his wallet and dialed his office number. Henna himself answered the phone.
“Mr. Henna, it’s Philip Mercer.”
“Do you have anything new?” Mercer liked the squat director for his bluntness.
“I need to get to Hawaii,” Mercer stated flatly.
“I’m afraid that’s impossible. Two hours ago all communications from the islands stopped, no telephones, radio, or television. All aircraft that could be routed to other destinations were turned back. Our reports from Pearl Harbor say the mob has started taking potshots at soldiers. I’ve gotten unconfirmed reports from ham radio operators that Honolulu is under martial law by authority of Mayor Takamora and that National Guard troops are shooting any white face they see.”