Deep Fire Rising Page 23

  She shook her head. “It is forbidden. I told you, only the archivists have access to the chronicles and only they understand how the oracle works. Because watchers aren’t really needed anymore, we never learn what the oracle had said until after it happens. We then verify the prophecy in order to determine if our efforts to correct the chi imbalance have had an effect. I’m not supposed to have this book,” she admitted in a soft, remorseful voice. “I stole it from the archive so I could convince you.”

  She suddenly became angry. “This is what has caused the schism within the Order. Some of us feel that it is our duty to humanity to tell the world what we know. Others, like those that tried to kill you at the Luxor, take a harder line and want to remain in the shadows. They don’t even believe we should actively try to correct the growing chi disparity.”

  “That’s how you knew about the experiment,” Mercer said, more to himself than her. “Those quakes that hit in Washington and near Reno hadn’t been predicted, had they? They were triggered somehow by Dr. Marie’s experiment.”

  “After they happened, it sent the archivists into a panic because the chronicle said there wouldn’t be any activity in those areas for many months. This was something far beyond the previous imbalances we’d detected before. Something severe had occurred. Something we had never seen before. They dispatched several teams to the United States to discover the cause. Some felt certain that the oracle was no longer reliable.”

  “What is the oracle?”

  “I’ve only seen it once, when I was a child, but—”

  The rumble came from all around them, a vibration that built in their bodies before it became a sound that reached their ears. It was low on the register, a bass that struck in a continuous wave. Several passengers lining the rail to watch the island in the twilight looked at each other in confusion. The moment stretched. A woman screamed as the sea puckered under the seismic onslaught of a mild earthquake. A few rocks dislodged from the massif ringing the caldera and tumbled to the water. The splashes looked like torpedo strikes against the base of the bluffs. Flocks of birds took wing all over Santorini and seemed to further darken the sky.

  And then the quake subsided, the sound fading even faster than it had grown. An uneasy buzz flew through the passengers, a few looked sickly pale, a few dismissed the moment with nervous laughter.

  Mercer remained rooted in place, his knuckles white on the steel railing, the line of his mouth grim. Even before it had struck, Mercer knew Tisa hadn’t made up her story. She hadn’t lied about a single thing and the implications were beyond belief. The best minds in science, experts in geo-mechanics and fluid dynamics and other branches of geology, had been working for years to give citizens a few hours’ notice of an impending quake. Their efforts had failed miserably. They couldn’t give even a moment’s warning. And now here he stood with a centuries-old book that gave the exact time and place of an earthquake, a feat of prediction he couldn’t possibly explain. He was overcome by superstitious awe but also the thrill of the potential. He had to understand. He had to learn everything Tisa knew about the oracle.

  As he turned to face her a figure striding across the crowded deck caught his eye. It took him a fraction of a second to understand who he was seeing, place him in context and react to the threat. He dropped the journal and tore at Tisa’s hand at the same instant the person closing in on them realized he’d been spotted.

  Donny “the Handle” Randall shot Mercer a wolfish grin and reached under the left arm of his windbreaker.

  Tisa glanced over her shoulder as Mercer pulled her from the rail. She didn’t recognize the big man who accelerated after them, but behind him was someone she did know, her brother, Luc. Her heart tripped like she’d just been shocked. In the stark illumination of the deck lights she saw the glow of a knife held flat against his leg.

  At the top of the stairs leading into the ship, Mercer shouldered aside a pack of German students coming up from the cafeteria. Pitchers of beer went flying. One of the drunker ones cursed him and took an awkward swing at Mercer’s head. The blow missed and the kid punched one of his own friends, sending him down the metal stairway. Someone shouted and a panic began to radiate from the epicenter of the altercation. The surge of passengers slowed Randall’s rush across the deck.

  “Give me my gun,” Mercer called as he dragged Tisa down the clogged stairs.

  “It’s in my bag on deck!”

  He gave her hand a squeeze as if to say that it wasn’t important while furiously thinking how to get out of this trap. No doubt Donny had backup. The slender guy behind him looked like he was part of Randall’s team. There would be others, too. They’d come after him with a half dozen men in Vegas, believing he would be trapped in his room. On board the ferry where he really was trapped they’d probably double the size of their team to be certain they got him.

  At the bottom of the stairs was an open mezzanine stretching the width of the ship. Sickly potted palms lined the walls. To the left and right were corridors leading to cabins and passenger lounges. The whole area was jammed with people, some leaning against the walls or sitting on their luggage, others just milling around. A steady stream of passengers passed through the cafeteria doors. While no one paid him and Tisa any special interest, he knew Randall’s backup was coming. A second set of stairs across the mezzanine ascended to the top deck. Donny would expect Mercer to hide amid the twisting interior corridors, not double back, so he led Tisa up the stairs before Donny and the man with him could see where they were heading.

  Back in the cooling breeze Mercer realized his body was bathed in sweat, although his breathing remained steady and his heart had slowed after the initial shock of seeing Randall on board. He cut through the crowd and scooped up Tisa’s bag from where she’d left it. Once the familiar heft of the Beretta was in his hand, he felt the odds had evened slightly.

  The lights of Santorini were mere pricks against the darkening horizon. Between the ferry and the island, a white motor yacht seemed to be keeping pace with them, hanging a mere thirty yards or so from the side of the ship. Mercer doubted its presence was a coincidence. He looked beyond the cabin cruiser at the receding island. Estimating distance at night was notoriously difficult but he judged the island was too far away to swim to. They had to get off the ferry, and if they were to survive they needed a boat. The ship’s life rafts were inflatable and capable of carrying forty people. Each was encased in bulbous fiberglass capsules. Mercer briefly examined the complex tangle of wires and pulleys that launched them and knew he’d never get one overboard in the minutes he had before Randall found him on deck.

  “What are we going to do?” Tisa’s eyes were wide with fright, but not for herself. Her half brother would never hurt her. She feared for Mercer.

  With Tisa in tow he took off toward the ferry’s bow. “When we came aboard, I noticed a big chest near the gangway. The label said it contained a six-man inflatable. If we can get to it we can get off this tub.”

  They cut past a circle of students ringing a young woman playing guitar and were a dozen paces from another stairway when a pair of men in matching nylon windbreakers came around a ventilator stack. Mercer paused for an instant, judging angles and distances, mindful of the passengers farther forward.

  The gunmen gave no such thought. Automatic pistols appeared from under their jackets and the first shots exploded across the open deck. Amid the screams of panic from the teens behind Mercer came the higher keen of an injured woman. He dropped to the deck, shoving Tisa to the side, and fired intentionally above the gunmen to avoid hitting anyone on the far side. The assassins ducked out of view, giving him precious seconds to roll out of their line of fire.

  The crowds still lingering at the rails had started a headlong stampede off the top deck. One person ended up going over the rail and into the black water below. Mercer and Tisa became caught in the tide of fleeing bodies, fighting to stay on their feet as the mass of people half ran, half fell down a staircase.

>   Once through the bottleneck of the stairs, the crowd spread. Mercer and Tisa lost the cover they provided. Just a few feet away, another pair of men wearing the same windbreakers were studying faces, searching for their quarry. This time Mercer didn’t hesitate. He hammered the first with the butt of his pistol, a savage blow to the back of his head that dropped the gunman instantly. The second was angled away from the crowd enough for Mercer to ram the Beretta into his gut and pull the trigger without worrying about the bullet’s follow-through.

  The shot was muffled by the man’s body, but not enough to prevent another stampede. An alert crewman hit the fire alarm and its piercing shriek added to the din. Mercer fought against the flow of the crowd, shoving and punching a path until breaking clear into a corridor.

  “They’re trying to kill us,” Tisa gasped as they ran from the melee behind them.

  “You just noticed?”

  “But one of those men, up on deck. It was my brother, Luc.” She still couldn’t believe it. “He’d never hurt me. He, he, he loves me.”

  Mercer didn’t know what to say, although he understood the bitterness in her voice when she talked about the schism within the Order. Her brother was on the other side and now felt that his beliefs meant more than his sister’s life. Who the hell were these people? he wondered. Obviously fanatics, but about what? Nothing Tisa had told him the night before made him consider this level of zealotry.

  The only answer was that there were parts that she hadn’t explained yet, something that had triggered violence in a group that had remained passive for centuries. Fear or power, those were the only two motivations he could think of. They feared some upcoming event or sought power through their oracle. And considering what the oracle did, he could imagine what they feared.

  “You have got to tell me what’s going on,” he said sharply, checking that a cross corridor was deserted before continuing his flight. “In Vegas they were after me. Now I think they want you.”

  Tisa opened her mouth to reply when a shot passed between them an instant before the concussive roar of the pistol filled the corridor. Mercer fired a snap counter shot and pushed Tisa ahead of him as they ran down the hall. At a sharp bend in the corridor, Mercer paused to see who was behind them. The hallway was clear, but as he watched, Donny Randall ducked his head from around a set of double doors. Mercer fired two quick shots. As he turned to flee farther into the ship, he caught sight of another man behind Donny. It was the guy with the knife he’d seen on deck. Two things he knew right away. The first was that this was the same guy who’d indifferently tossed the woman over the balcony at the Luxor, and the second was that he looked like Tisa’s twin, not just a brother.

  Tisa waited at an open hatchway, an access to the utilitarian parts of the ship prohibited to passengers. The lighting was flat and metallic, bare bulbs in wire cages. The walls were gray steel. A staircase as steep as a ladder descended into the gloom below. The air was hot and heavy with the stench of burned engine oil. Mercer stepped over the coaming and followed Tisa down.

  Their lead would only last a few seconds before the confines of the stairwell became a slaughterhouse. Tisa nimbly danced down the steep steps, Mercer hot on her heels. When they reached the next landing, the level where the gangway was located, she tried the hatch only to find it jammed. She stepped aside. Not only couldn’t Mercer move the handle, he saw that long ago the door itself had been welded to the frame.

  “Remind me to take this up with the captain,” he remarked offhandedly as he moved Tisa back to the ladder.

  A shot split the air, a sharp noise that beat on their eardrums. The bullet sparked a half dozen times as it ricocheted off railings and walls. Barely in control of their descent, Tisa and Mercer plunged down one more level. Though his ears were ringing, Mercer heard the sounds of pursuit. He was too low on ammo to fire a delaying shot.

  The next landing was the main car deck and also the bottom of the access shaft. If this door was welded too, Tisa and Mercer were as good as dead. The mechanism to unlock the heavy hatch was stiff and creaked like nails on a chalkboard. Mercer heaved the lever upward at the same time he pounded his shoulder into the steel. A thick crust of corrosion around the jamb held the door in place. He stepped back and launched himself again. The door crashed open and his momentum carried him onto the ferry deck. He fell and rolled into a parked Volvo hard enough to dent the driver’s door. Tisa already had the door closed behind them by the time he regained his feet. He helped her resecure the lock. A red fire ax hung from a rack nearby. Mercer wedged the handle into the mechanism to prevent it from opening again. Both he and Tisa fell against the wall, feeling safe for the first time since seeing Donny on deck. They’d run just a short distance yet panted like they’d completed a marathon.

  As he struggled to calm his breathing, Mercer surveyed their surroundings. The ferry’s car deck stretched from stem to stern, a forty-foot-wide steel tunnel with a twenty-foot ceiling of support girders. The paint had been yellowed by years of exhaust and neglect. The air reeked of diesel fumes. The steel decking was covered in a nonskid material that had long ago become smooth.

  The hold was divided into three rows, automobiles flanking the inner lane, which was reserved for heavy trucks in order to maintain the ferry’s stability in rough seas. With massive cables holding them closed against the rush of the sea, the tall loading doors at bow and stern resembled the drawbridges of a castle.

  The cavernous space vibrated with the power of the engines, which had to be nearby. Thick exhaust stacks rose along the wall from floor to ceiling. Waste heat made the hold uncomfortably hot.

  This close to the waterline, the steady whoosh of water rushing along the hull had a lulling resonance that drowned out nearly all other sounds. Mercer tightened his grip on the Beretta to remind himself they weren’t out of danger yet. More than likely Donny had enough men to cover all the exits from the hold. He could then take his time hunting down him and Tisa.

  The clank of steel on steel was muffled by the heavy door. Mercer whirled, bringing up the Beretta, ready to meet Randall’s charge if he somehow broke through the hatch. A second passed and then a few more. Nothing happened.

  “Hey, Mercer, can you hear me?” Donny shouted from inside the access shaft.

  Mercer scanned the ranks of vehicles looking for movement. He suspected Randall would try to keep him talking while his men gained entry to the hold from another direction. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

  “Come on, buddy. I know you’re there,” Donny called. When Mercer remained silent, Randall continued. “No matter, bud, I’ll do the talking. See, here’s the deal. In about ten minutes a lot of folks are going to die because you had to survive the flood in the mine back in Nevada. Ironic, huh? You got more lives than a cat and the people on this boat have to suffer for it. I can’t blame Luc for underestimating you at your hotel. Hell, we both done that.

  “Not this time. Luc figured you and his sister would be here tonight to watch that earthquake. Hey, hell of a thing, being able to predict quakes, huh? Anyway, we been on this boat since it left the mainland. Had us plenty of time to make certain, ah, preparations. Soon as we took off from Santorini, my men secured all entrances to the car deck except this one. If we couldn’t get you topside, the plan was to force you down here, and we gotcha good.

  “Now you tell that girl with you that Luc didn’t want her hurt, but hey, shit happens.”

  “Cut the crap, Donny, and tell me what the hell you want.”

  “I knew you were there,” Randall crowed.

  “Yeah, yeah, you’re a master strategist, Donny,” Mercer spat. “Congratulations. What do you want?”

  “I want to watch you die, but that ain’t gonna happen. Instead I’m going to get off this tub and about five minutes later explosives are going to blow the bottom out of her. I bet you’ll be the first to drown.”

  Mercer and Tisa exchanged a stricken look. “You sick bastard, why are you doing this?”

 
“ ’Cause you missed your chance to die in the mine, buddy.”

  Swamped by feelings of responsibility, Mercer didn’t hesitate. “If you only want me then open the goddamned door and get me. Leave Tisa and the other passengers out of it.”

  “No can do. I already busted the lock on this side and my finger’s real itchy to trigger the fifty pounds of ’splosives we stuck down in the engine room. When the water finally closes over your head and you’re about to suck it into your lungs, I want you to think about how this was all your fault.”

  “I’m going to kill you,” Mercer raged. The blood pounding in his ears blocked out any other thoughts. “I swear to God I am going to reach down your throat and pull out your heart.”

  Randall laughed. “Two little problems there, Mercer. One, you ain’t gonna get out off this ship alive, and two, you should know by now I don’t have a heart.”

  “Randall!” Mercer shouted, pounding his fists against the hatch. “Hey!”

  Randall was gone.

  “Mercer?” Tisa called, touching his arm, trying to calm him. “Stop, please. There must be another way out of here, a ventilator shaft or something.”

  He slapped the door a final time, certain he heard Randall’s laughter as he climbed up the stairs. “Okay, you’re right.” He took several deep breaths, purging his anger, turning it into action. “You take this side. I’ll check along the port side.” He looked into her eyes. “We’ll get out of this, I promise you.”

  Her smile was genuine. “I know we will.”

  Mercer crossed the deck at a sprint, zigzagging around cars and trucks until he reached the bow. This side of the ferry was identical to the opposite, steel walls ribbed by structural girders. He found two doorways, but as Donny had promised, the locks wouldn’t budge, even when he used another fire ax as a lever. He swept farther aft. There were a couple of vent grilles, but they were too small for even Tisa and her contortion skills to slip through. The hold’s main vents were on the ceiling, hopelessly out of reach and also too narrow to allow them to escape.