Charon's Landing Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Homer, Alaska October 17

  The White House October 19

  George Washington University Washington, DC

  Los Angeles International Airport

  Arlington, Virginia

  Falls Church, Virginia

  Alyeska Marine Terminal Valdez, Alaska

  The United Arab Emirates

  Arlington, Virginia

  Anchorage, Alaska

  The J. Edgar Hoover Building Washington, DC

  Alyeska Marine Terminal Valdez, Alaska

  The United Arab Emirates

  The Richardson Highway North of Valdez, Alaska

  Georgetown

  Arlington, Virginia

  Prince William Sound

  120 Miles West of British Columbia

  Abu Dhabi City, United Arab Emirates

  Alyeska Marine Terminal Valdez, Alaska

  MVHope

  Valdez, Alaska

  Valdez, Alaska

  VLCC Southern Cross

  London, England

  Over the Atlantic Ocean

  London

  MV Hope

  Alyeska Marine Terminal

  VLCC Southern Cross

  Miami, Florida

  London

  Fifteen Miles South of Fairbanks, Alaska

  Heathrow Airport, London

  One Hundred Eighty Miles North of Puget Sound

  Cook Inlet, Alaska

  Aboard the Petromax Prudhoe Omega

  The United Arab Emirates

  Cook Inlet, Alaska

  Valdez Harbor

  Alyeska Marine Terminal

  Aboard the Petromax Arctica Juan de Fuca Strait, British Columbia

  The United Arab Emirates

  Arlington, Virginia

  Praise for the novels of Jack Du Brul

  Charon’s Landing

  “A pleasure . . . a densely detailed and well-paced thinking man’s melodrama.”

  — Kirkus Reviews

  “Jack Du Brul has to be the finest adventure writer on the scene today. Romance, violence, technology are superbly blended by a master storyteller. Du Brul creates a fast-moving odyssey that is second to none.” — Clive Cussler

  “Du Brul’s well-calculated debts to Fleming, Cussler, Easter-man, and Lustbader, his technological, political, and ecological research, and his natural gift for storytelling bode well.”

  — Publishers Weekly

  Vulcan’s Forge

  “An exciting, well-honed thriller that will have Clive Cussler fans taking note of the new kid on the block.”

  — William Heffernan, author of The Dinosaur Club

  “High-tempo action. . . . The reader is constantly intrigued . . . an action-packed and intriguing thriller.”

  — The Mystery Review

  “The writing here is good, the pace very fast, the characters believable . . . a welcome addition to the ranks of thriller writers.”

  — Sullivan County Democrat (NY)

  “A fast-paced story well told.”

  — Cape Coral Daily Breeze

  Deep Fire Rising

  “Nonstop, over-the-top adventure . . . [an] adrenaline-drenched tale. . . . Smart, resilient Mercer is a savvy adventure hero for the new millennium.”

  — Publishers Weekly

  River of Ruin

  “Starts at 100 mph and then gets faster . . . intricate, intelligent, high-octane adventure.”

  — New York Times bestselling author Lee Child

  “Jam-packed with action . . . teeming with up-to-the-minute technology. . . . Du Brul demonstrates his knowledge of everything from geology to mechanics.”

  — Publishers Weekly

  Pandora’s Curse

  “A rare treat — a thriller that blends some of modern history’s most vexing enigmas with a hostile, perfectly realized setting. This is one thriller that really delivers: great characters combined with a breakneck pace and almost unbearable suspense.”

  — Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, coauthors of Dance of Death

  “Combining plenty of thrills and a touch of romance, Du Brul’s action-packed contemporary adventure zips along like an out-of-control locomotive. . . . A well-researched foundation of facts and details grounds the reader in this frosty setting. . . . Mercer’s love interest, Dr. Anika Klein, is his fitting counterpart and a strong heroine, and their romance adds a degree of warmth to this swift, sensational tale. Those who enjoy a good adrenaline rush will find plenty here to satisfy.”

  — Publishers Weekly

  “Have you been casually looking for a new thriller writer in the tradition of Clive Cussler? Would the idea of a touch of Jack Higgins intrigue you? Do you like your reading to move quickly, have a great plot, and the good guy gets the girl? Browse no more! Jack Du Brul is here. . . . Pandora’s Curse hits all the buttons. Read it and run to your favorite bookstore for the others. . . . A dandy read.”

  — The News & Citizen (Morrisville, VT)

  The Medusa Stone

  “[The Medusa Stone’s] nearly 500 pages of fast-paced prose propel Du Brul closer to the front ranks of thriller authors.”

  — Publishers Weekly

  “With novels like Charon’s Landing, Vulcan’s Forge, and now The Medusa Stone, Jack Du Brul is one of the leaders of adventurous intrigue novels. The story line of his latest thriller continually ebbs and flows, but each new spurt builds the tension even further until the audience realizes that this is a one-sitting novel in spite of its size. Philip is a fabulous lead character . . . [a] brilliant fusion of Eritrea, its people and customs woven into a dramatic plot.”

  — Midwest Book Review

  “A fun thriller.”

  — The Oklahoman

  “An intricate tale filled with action and intrigue where the stakes are high. Mercer is an action character with a brain, a penchant for beautiful women, and the ability to think fast and inspire respect and trust. . . . A fast-paced story well told by an upcoming new talent in the spy thriller genre. Du Brul has earned an avid fan.” — Cape Coral Daily Breeze

  BOOKS BY JACK DU BRUL

  Deep Fire Rising

  River of Ruin

  Pandora’s Curse

  The Medusa Stone

  Charon’s Landing

  Vulcan’s Forge

  ONYX

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Published by Onyx, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in a Tor edition.

  First Onyx Printing, January

  Copyright © J
ack Du Brul, 1999

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK — MARCA REGISTRADA

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-08772-5

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  This one’s for my father and

  brother and our monthlong Alaska

  crusade to hit every gin joint between

  Ketchikan and Point Barrow.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  With every book, the list of those people I need to thank grows and grows. First and foremost is Debbie Saunders for putting up with my telling her, “Not tonight, honey, I have to write,” way too many times. I love you. Then comes my agent, Bob Diforio, for his faith and patience. Writing has been my lifelong dream, and you have made it possible. I also want to thank everyone at Forge, especially Melissa Ann Singer, for getting this book out in a readable form. I promise someday I’ll learn how to type.

  I also want to thank my dad for keeping my job open while I finished this novel. Then come all those whose brains I picked, including but not exclusively: Captain Robert Foale; Michael McCleary; Chris Flanagan, who knows more about guns than one person should; and my mom for her sharp editing pen. I give them credit for everything that’s right in these pages, but I take responsibility for the mistakes. I also want to thank Clive Cussler for his fabulous quote and criticism, as well as the other Jack Du Brul, Todd Murphy, Cathey and Bill Bachman, Andy Lecount, and the Florida gang. To the guys at What Ales You, I just want to say that none of you are Harry White, but you all could be.

  Lastly, to everyone who bought my first book and those who replied with so many kind letters, thank you. I can’t express how much that touched me.

  Homer, Alaska October 17

  Howard Small leaned over the gunwale of the charter boat and retched so violently that he nearly lost his glasses. The soured contents of his stomach hit the water loudly, alerting the crews on the other charter boats. They looked over and cheered. Howard spat several times in a vain attempt to clear the foul taste from his mouth before straightening. He wiped clotted brown smears from his lips with his parka sleeve, laid his head back against the fiberglass hull, and moaned.

  “Christ, Howard, we’re still tied to the dock. Don’t tell me you’re already seasick,” teased Jerry Small, captain of the fishing boat.

  The two were cousins but couldn’t have been farther apart as physical types. Howard, younger by a few years, was prematurely bald, while Jerry still retained a tangle of black and silver hair. Where Howard was slightly built and bookish, Jerry’s features were broad and deeply weathered, and he carried his more than two hundred pounds on a solid frame.

  “Don’t blame me, Jerry. It was that sadist there that did this to me,” he answered, waving an arm weakly at the other passenger on the thirty-foot craft. “We were up until about four hours ago drinking tequila shots at the Salty Dog Saloon.”

  In the opposite corner of the boat, the other passenger smiled like the Cheshire Cat. He leaned negligently against the transom, one leg stretched out along a bench, the other tucked against his chest, battered hands cupping his bent knee. He wore faded jeans, a plain black sweatshirt, and a leather bomber jacket. His hiking boots were of good quality but heavily worn. His clothes looked slept in, but there was still a rough elegance about the man, the way a suspension bridge or a high dam can be elegant.

  Despite the few hours of sleep and the massive amount of alcohol he must have consumed, the passenger’s eyes were sharp and focused. They were an unusual shade of gray, hard yet at the same time friendly and laughing. They possessed a captivating depth that caught Jerry’s attention. He had to force himself to look away.

  “I know just what you need.” The passenger glanced at his TAG Heuer watch and took note of the still distant dawn. “Just as I suspected, it’s Happy Hour in Oslo, Norway.”

  He fished two bottles of Alaska Pale Ale from the plastic cooler on the deck next to him and tossed one toward Howard.

  “Nothing like a little hair of the dog.” The man grinned, twisting the cap off what he considered the finest beer in the world.

  “At four-thirty in the morning, this is the whole dog again,” Howard complained, but he opened the beer and took a long swallow.

  “Better?”

  “Better.”

  “The fore lines are off, Dad. Let’s get going.” Jerry Small’s teenage son was an even larger version of his father. The boy, man really, was at least four inches taller than six feet, with shoulders like an ox. His youthful face was incongruous on his large body.

  “Get ready to cast off stern, John,” Small said, as the big stern-mounted Chevy engine rumbled to life.

  John cast off the final line and jumped aboard their charter boat, Wave Dancer, a poetic name for a stout, roughed-up craft that had fared too many Alaska winters. The two passengers joined the captain and his son in the relative protection of the open-sided cabin.

  They were the first vessel of Homer’s charter fleet to head out in search of halibut, huge bottom-feeding fish strongly resembling flounder. Though it was late in the season, Jerry assured his party that he could still lead them to some monsters. To starboard, the boat motored past one of the largest natural spits in the world. In the protection of the Cook Inlet, where the currents from the Gulf of Alaska met those from the Shelikof Strait, the seas had created a mile-long thrust of land, narrow enough that someone could throw a baseball from one side to the other. The spiny projection on the Kenai Peninsula’s northern coast was home to some of the best salmon and halibut fishing in the world as well as the nesting site of a huge flock of bald eagles that scavenged around the sleepy town’s garbage dump.

  The Wave Dancer rounded the tip of the spit. To port, the Kenai Mountains were a murky shadow in the dim light of the false dawn. The sun was just a stroke of blush against the horizon. The temperature was a raw thirty degrees, forcing the men to hold themselves close to the cabin’s heating vents. The wind was mild, and the seas were no more than three feet — a gentle ride for a boat designed to battle ten-foot swells.

  “You don’t strike me as one of the regular eggheads Howard usually brings fishing,” Jerry Small said to his other passenger.

  The man smiled. “No, I’m an independent consultant, hired to check the viability of Howard’s work for commercial application.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “Does my cousin’s gizmo work?”

  “If my recommendation holds any weight with Pacific Machine and Die, this time next year, Dr. Howard Small is going to be a very wealthy man.”

  Howard grinned around his hangover. This was the first he’d heard of the endorsement after the two weeks of field trials they’d just completed north of Valdez. “Thanks, Mercer.”

  “Don’t thank me.” Philip Mercer shook Howard’s hand. “You did all the work. In a couple of years, the mining industry is going to
be turned on its ear by what you’ve developed.”

  For the past three years, Professor Howard Small and his staff at UCLA had been developing a mini-mole, a type of tunnel-boring machine that utilized the latest in laser guidance, hydraulic technology, and microminiaturization. Their creation, dubbed Minnie, had just proven itself on its first true test, under some of the harshest conditions any machine was forced to endure.The machine had bored a two-mile-long tunnel through granite bedrock with a deflection of only one ten-thousandth of an inch from her original course. Unlike other tunnel-borers, Minnie was small and economical. A crew of twenty could keep the sixteen-foot-long machine running twenty-four hours a day as she chewed out a four-foot-diameter tunnel. By comparison, the borers used to dig the Channel Tunnel between England and France were six hundred feet long and required hundreds of men to maintain.

  Mercer had been hired by Pacific Machine and Die, a huge equipment manufacturer, to evaluate Minnie’s utility in hard rock mining. A borer that small could potentially eliminate explosive blasting in mines and the hundreds of deaths and injuries it caused each year. With his formidable reputation in the mining industry, Mercer’s recommendation ensured that Pac Mac & Die would be buying the rights to Minnie within months. Howard’s years of work were about to pay off.

  This fishing trip was a way for both men to unwind after the long weeks of testing. Strangers just a short time ago, they had developed a rapport that felt as if it had been forged over many years.

  “Does this mean you’ll finally pay for one of these charters?” Jerry Small asked his cousin.

  “Don’t count on it.”

  An hour out of Homer, Jerry slowed the Wave Dancer in a small protected cove, cutting her engines to a slow trawl. He and his son watched the depth finder intently, comparing the bottom reading with geographic references from shore. After a few adjustments, Small shut down the engines and allowed the silence of the Alaska coast to wash over them.