Vulcan's Forge (41 page)

Waiting while the SEALs got into position was agonizing. Thoughts of fear and failure tried to weaken Mercer’s resolve, but he crushed them down mercilessly. He had come too far to be afraid now, he told himself. Yet even as he mentally prepared himself for the assault, his mind drifted to a vision of Jill Tzu. He chuckled at himself. Of all the times to be thinking about sex. When the first crackling report of automatic fire rippled the silent sky, he shook his head quickly and moved.

As ordered, the SEAL team had crept around to the front of the house and opened fire, raking the edifice with a scathing barrage. Mercer ran across the open back lawn, praying that human nature would cause the men inside to turn toward the sounds, leaving him undetected. As his booted feet pounded across the grass, he crouched in anticipation of a killing shot from the second-story guards.

He covered the twenty yards to the house in record time.

Mercer leapt onto an immature palm and shimmied up like a monkey, feet and hands working in perfect harmony. Near its top, his weight bowed the tree inward and he dropped easily onto an unguarded second-floor balcony. The sound of gunfire intensified at the front of the house as the SEALs and the guards traded ammunition at a staggering pace.

Mercer kicked in one of the French doors and rolled across the room’s carpet in case there was an unseen guard stationed inside. He came up onto his knees, the MP-5 tucked hard against his shoulder, and scanned the room quickly. Empty.

He stripped off his goggles and took a few calming breaths. The sounds of the fight below were barely muted by the thick walls of the plantation house. He had just turned to reach for the door when he noticed a shadow bisect the sliver of light at the floor. Mercer rested his hand lightly on the polished brass knob and felt it twist beneath his fingers. As the latch fully retracted, he yanked on the handle and brought up his machine pistol. The guard was caught unaware; Mercer pulled him into the room and jammed the barrel of the MP-5 into his belly. Just as Mercer felt himself being pushed backward by the man’s weight, he pulled the trigger. The 9mm rounds tunneled through the guard, boring a cone-shaped wedge of flesh from his body that smeared against the wall behind him.

Mercer yanked his bloodied weapon from the falling corpse and turned down the wide hall. A fatigue-dressed Korean ducked out of one of the other rooms and Mercer managed to snap off a burst that caught the man high in the back. A quick check showed that one of the rounds had been fatal, while the rest had just mangled the ornate millwork of the door frame.

He did a sweep of the rest of the upstairs. The remainder of the elegant guest rooms in both wings of the mansion were deserted. One floor below, machine guns and grenades pummeled the masonry and shook the walls of the old plantation house. Mercer paused at the head of the stairs, the acrid tang of cordite smoke searing his nostrils.

A stab of fear lanced through his body. The battle below was like nothing he’d ever heard before, the ugly sounds of death echoing up the stairs. His experiences in Iraq and Washington were nothing like this. Those times, he’d been ambushed and hadn’t had time to think. In the OF&C offices in New York, he had felt more in control. But this—this hell—was something different. He was about to voluntarily walk into carnage, and that terrified him. Grimly, he descended the ornate mahogany stairs, one finger squeezed firmly around the trigger of his MP-5. Just an ounce more pressure would unleash a hail of bullets.

In the mezzanine, two bodies lay sprawled in the rubble of the blown-out windows, one dressed in fatigues, the other, one of Kenji’s men, in a dark suit. Cloying smoke layered the air, burning Mercer’s eyes as he crouched just above the bottom of the staircase; bullets and shrapnel whizzed by like angered wasps. Obviously the SEALs’ assault had lost none of its fervor. In an adjoining room, someone screamed in pain. Mercer knew, thanks to the plans provided by Dick Henna, that the wailing originated in a formal reception area.

Mercer didn’t realize someone had spotted him until a stream of bullets tore into the railing and banister near him, shredding the wood like a chain saw. He tumbled down the remaining steps, ducking his head and hunching his shoulders. As he landed on the marble floor, he glimpsed the assassin silhouetted in the doorway to the dining room. Mercer fired, but only one round went off before his clip emptied. The shot caught the Korean in the shoulder and spun him nearly completely around, but left him very much alive.

He started to turn back toward Mercer, Uzi clutched in his hands. Mercer launched himself from the floor, diving across a rich Turkish carpet while reaching for his holstered Beretta as he flew. The move threw off the guard’s aim, giving Mercer time to torque himself as he landed and pump four or five rounds into him.

Mercer reholstered the Beretta and jammed a fresh clip into his machine pistol. He ducked around the doorway leading to the reception area, taking out three guards who were crouched under the shattered windows.

From the plans, he knew Kenji’s study was on the other side of the entrance foyer, several rooms past the dining room.

Another guard spotted him as he raced back across the foyer and bullets tore up the marble at his heels. Mercer jinked once, then dove into the dining room, landing on a table large enough to seat twenty. The table had been beautifully set—Mercer’s momentum shattered the ornate Royal Doulton china, turning it into a very expensive pile of trash on the polished wood floor. He tumbled over the far side of the table, knocking three chairs onto their backs.

He knelt up, steadying his H&K on the table. Shards of china dug deeply into the toughened skin of his knees through his black pants.

An explosion ripped through the foyer as the SEALs blew out the solid front door. A pall of smoke roiled into the dining room, and the Korean who had just fired at Mercer staggered into the room. Obviously he’d been standing near the door when it shattered and the wood splinters had torn through his body. Mercer’s dispatching shot was a relief to the pitiable figure.

Mercer smashed through the door to the kitchen. There was more blood on the floor than in an abattoir; crimson smears streaked the walls and pooled under the two bodies crumpled below a blown-out window. The SEALs certainly knew their business. Mercer returned to the dining room and cautiously nudged open the other exit door. The room beyond reeked of smoke. Flames licked at the ceiling from a destroyed television set a few yards beyond a large leather sectional couch.

One of Kenji’s guards feebly tried to lift his weapon from where he lay, but he was missing a massive chunk of his left shoulder. Blood streamed from the wound.

Dispassionately, Mercer fired a short burst between the man’s hate-filled eyes. The other guard in the informal living room, a uniformed Korean, was already dead.

Mercer took a few deep breaths as he changed clips. Glancing at his watch, he noted with surprise that only six minutes had elapsed since he had started running for the palm tree in the backyard. The adrenaline fizzing in his veins had made it seem more like six hours, yet each moment was etched into his brain like frames of film. Outside, the battle was dying down. Either the ranks of SEALs or guards had dwindled to nothing. He had no way of knowing.

Beyond the living room, a wide, window-lined gallery stretched the length of the northern wing of the house. The SEALs had shot out the tall transomed windows to his right, so the air was free of smoke. Opposite the windows, French doors opened into other rooms—a book-lined library, a silk-draped billiards room, a small cinema that had probably been the music room when the house was built at the turn of the century. The last door of the gallery led to Kenji’s study.

Mercer stealthily made his way along the promenade, quickly checking each room he passed. The door just before the study was open, and as Mercer approached, a foot kicked out with incredible strength. The MP-5 flew from his grip, tearing some meat off his right index finger where it had caught on the trigger guard. Before he had time to react, a fist pounded into him, catching him just below the heart. Mercer’s breath exploded in a wheezing gasp.

He staggered back a few paces, massaging his ribs. Kenji stepped into the corridor, wearing a black gi and no shoes. His dark eyes blazed with pure hatred as he gazed at the Occidental interloper.

“I do not know who you are, but I will take great pleasure in killing you for what you’ve done.” His voice echoed from someplace deep within, an empty chasm which contains normal men’s souls. Kenji had none.

Mercer struggled to draw his pistol, but Kenji paced forward cutting the distance between them in the blink of an eye. His foot flicked out with the speed of a viper’s tongue and the Beretta spun away as Mercer’s right hand went numb. Though Kenji was nearly twenty years his senior, Mercer had no hope of defeating him. Even if Mercer hadn’t been battered so much in the past week, Kenji would still be able to take him apart at a leisurely pace.

“Are you another of Kerikov’s errand boys?” Kenji asked mildly, cracking a hardened foot against Mercer’s ribs.

Mercer fell against the wall, clutching at the rough stucco to keep himself on his feet. His chest felt as if it had been worked over with a baseball bat.

“What are you talking about?” he gasped.

A fist slammed into Mercer’s stomach, doubling him over into Kenji’s knee, which shot upward into his face. Kenji spun away as Mercer went sprawling onto the flagstone floor. “Did Kerikov send you with those assassins at Ohnishi’s house?”

Mercer retched painfully, a trace of blood in the rancid bile that shot from his mouth and nose. Kenji’s questions had thrown him off as much as the brutal hits he’d taken. Dazed by the punches and kicks, he wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. “I’m not with your Russian allies.”

Kenji kicked again, but Mercer managed to block the shot with his arm. Kenji was thrown off balance by the move, giving Mercer precious seconds to regain his feet.

“Where are your Russian sponsors, anyway?” Mercer asked through gritted teeth as Kenji stalked around him.

Kenji gave a derisive laugh. “As dead as Ohnishi.”

He threw a combination punch at Mercer, the first blow knocking against Mercer’s skull and the other cracking two more ribs. Despite the pain, Mercer managed a counterpunch, but his fist felt like it merely bounced off the muscled cords of Kenji’s throat.

“Like Ohnishi, the Russians were pawns to be used and discarded by myself and my true allies.”

“The Koreans?” Mercer wheezed, understanding a bit.

“They have backed me for months in a double-cross against both Ivan Kerikov and Ohnishi.” Kenji wasn’t even breathing hard while Mercer was sucking in great draughts of air. “We triggered Ohnishi and Kerikov’s pathetic coup and shifted American interest away from the volcano and its mineral wealth. To Kerikov, the coup was a means to an end; for Ohnishi, it represents a lifelong dream. To us, it was simply a diversion.”

“You piggybacked onto Kerikov’s plan, took his idea and his agents for yourselves. Then it was you who rescued Tish Talbot from the
Ocean Seeker
?” Mercer had to keep Kenji talking in a vain hope that a SEAL was still alive to save him.

“As ordered by Kerikov for the benefit of Valery Borodin, I believe. But she has no use in my plan, so my allies hired some assassins to execute her in Washington.”

“Not quite.” Mercer managed a wry smile. “She is very much alive and well.”

“You?”

“Yes.”

“No matter, I’ll have her killed later on.”

“The fuck you will,” Mercer said, hatred giving him a reckless courage.

He dove at Kenji, slamming a shoulder into his chest. Both men flew backward, pounding into the wall hard enough to break away some of the plaster. Mercer recovered an instant before Kenji and fired three heavy punches into the older man’s muscled torso. Kenji grunted with each blow, but still had the strength to pick Mercer off his feet and toss him away. Mercer scrambled up as quickly as he could, his cracked ribs keeping him slightly doubled over.

“I thought killing Ohnishi would give me the greatest pleasure, but now I realize your death will be even better,” Kenji said menacingly as he came for Mercer.

Kenji’s kick contained every ounce of strength in his body. It was a killing blow. Mercer bent backward the instant Kenji’s foot rose, ignoring the pain that exploded in his chest with the movement. As he straightened back up, his hand reached for the Gerber knife suspended from his harness.

The steel pommel of the knife cracked against Kenji’s foot with all the strength Mercer had left. The blow shattered the delicate bones as though they were glass, checking Kenji’s attack. Mercer whipped the knife upward in a last desperate lunge. The tempered steel parted Kenji’s abdominal muscles, sliced through the tough membrane of his diaphragm, and punctured his left lung.

Kenji reeled back, yanking the knife from Mercer’s fingers. He stared down at the blade sticking from his chest with crazed and panicked eyes.

“You,” he sputtered, blood spraying with his word.

Mercer had fallen to the floor after his attack. He was too weak to rise, so when Kenji pulled the knife from his body and turned the bloody blade at him, he had no defense. The savagery was draining from Kenji as fast as his life’s blood, but he still had enough time to kill his last victim. Mercer lay sprawled like a temple sacrifice, arms at his sides, legs slightly parted. He could not avoid the blade plunging toward his chest.

The kinetic energy of the first bullet arrested Kenji’s downward thrust and nearly stood him upright. The second shot tore another hole through his chest, shredding his heart and damaged lung. The final shot blew out the back of his skull.

Mercer twisted around in time to see one of the SEALs, bloody and battered, fall to the floor. A full sixty seconds passed before Mercer recovered enough to get up and check on the wounded SEAL. When he turned him onto his back, Mercer was staggered. The man who had saved his life wasn’t a SEAL at all.