Vulcan's forge

up.”

Mercer was hustled from the control room by two armed sailors. He called over his shoulder, “Don’t think strong-arm tactics will get me to lower my prices.”

He would have continued with the jokes but the pistol stabbing into his kidney jammed the air in his throat. He was led through the sub toward the stern, thankfully away from where he had planted the charges.

He was stripped of his wet suit and after a rather extensive body search, one of his guards undogged a hatch and thrust Mercer into a small cabin. The hatch was closed behind him but not locked.

In the spartan room, a man a few years younger than Mercer sat on one of the bunks. He was handsome in that Connecticut shore, hair blowing in the wind, sweater knotted around the throat kind of way. Mercer assumed, correctly, that this was Valery Borodin. Borodin said something to Mercer in Russian.

“Sorry, I don’t speak it.”

Mercer’s use of English drained the color from Valery’s face. “I said, you’re not a member of the boat’s crew. Who are you?”

“I’m Philip Mercer, the guy you sent the telegram to.”

“Who?” Valery’s eyes narrowed in confusion.

“Philip Mercer. You sent a telegram to me in Washington, warning me about the danger to Tish Talbot.”

“Tish sent you?” Valery stood, his voice brightening.

“No, you sent me.” Mercer was getting confused himself.

“I don’t know who you are, but you know Tish?”

“You didn’t send a telegram to me in Tish’s father’s name?”

“No.”

“Just after you had her rescued from the Ocean Seeker?”

“No.”

“If you didn’t, then who the hell did?” Mercer muttered. “Well, anyway, I’m here to help you get off this tin can.”

“Did Tish ask you to come?”

“Not exactly, but she’s safe and waiting for you right now in Washington, D.C.”

“There’s no way to escape. We’re hundreds of miles from Hawaii.”

“Listen, in thirty seconds this sub is going to have more holes in it than the golf course at Pebble Beach. I’ve got a helicopter waiting for us, so don’t worry about it. Where’s your father?”

“He died two days ago. Heart attack.”

“For the pain he’s caused, don’t expect my condolences.”

Mercer glanced at his watch and held up his right hand with fingers splayed. As each second ticked by, he curled one finger downward. With two fingers to go, several explosions rocked the John Dory. Immediately klaxons sounded throughout the sub. The dim battle lights blinked once, then shut off completely; a single white bulb lit as the emergency system took over. Above the wail of the sirens and the shouts of men, Mercer could hear the sound of water pouring into the vessel, signaling her impending death. Mercer thrust his hand down the front of his pants, ignoring Valery’s startled look.

Few body searches ever explore the area between the scrotum and anus. As Mercer’s fingers grasped the four-barrel pepperbox Derringer pistol held there by his jock strap, he was thankful that homophobia struck Russians, too. The gun, a favorite of nineteenth-century riverboat gamblers because of its small size, had been a gift from his grandfather years before and had remained in Mercer’s desk at home since then.

He yanked the tiny pistol from his pants, mindful of the stray hairs caught in the gun’s hammer. Although the Derringer was only twenty-two caliber, it was loaded with bored-out hollow-points filled with mercury. At a range of more than ten feet the gun was useless. Closer, a hit would be fatal.

“Are you coming?” The sub was already listing.

Valery grabbed a cheap briefcase from the bunk. “Yes, I’m with you.”

They stepped into the boat’s central passageway, Valery clutching the briefcase to his chest like a mother protecting her baby. Panicked sailors and officers ran down the narrow corridor, ignoring everything except their own safety. Mercer and Valery blended into the stream of men rushing to the nearest hatch.

Bursting into the control room, Mercer saw Captain Zwenkov leaning over the weapons officer. They were still going to launch the nuclear missile. Instinct made Zwenkov turn around and face his executioner.

The report from the Derringer was lost in the sounds of the dying vessel and her crew, but the bullet tore through the captain’s head cleanly. His cap flew through the air, carried by the top section of his skull. The blood- splattered weapons officer whirled in his seat, but before he could move, a round caught him in the throat, ripping out his carotid artery and jugular vein, sending a fountain of blood across the ballistic control computer.

A crewman grabbed Mercer from behind. Mercer whipped around, smashing his elbow into the man’s jaw. Blood and broken teeth sprayed from the Russian’s lips. Another man, this one wearing the coveralls of an engineer, charged forward, and Mercer shot him point blank in the heart.

The little four-barreled pistol had only one round left, and Mercer didn’t have any spare ammunition. “Valery, come on.” With Valery close behind, Mercer shouldered his way to the hatch, shoving, kicking, and punching his way to the bottom of the ladder.

On deck, the list of the submarine was much more noticeable, at least twenty degrees. Mercer guessed that the vessel would flip onto her back in moments. The confused mass of men on the deck were too busy trying to launch an inadequate number of life rafts to notice Mercer as he led Valery to the cache of scuba equipment. The din of the klaxons echoed across the storm chopped sea.

“There’s only one set of tanks,” Valery pointed out.

“We’ll buddy dive,” Mercer said, slipping the heavy tanks over his shoulders.

“But I’ve never dived before.”

“That’s okay, this is only my second time, so we’re almost even.” Mercer shoved Valery into the gap between the sub and the outer plating and leapt after him, losing his mask in the plunge.

In the water, Mercer slipped Valery’s hand through the straps of the scuba tank so they would not get separated in the confusion. Explosions rumbled within the sub’s hull and burning oil filled the narrow gap with reeking smoke. Mercer worried fleetingly about the very real danger that the nuclear power plant would melt down from the shock of cool seawater washing over its five-hundred-degree shielding.

“There will be a helicopter a few hundred yards directly astern. If we stay underwater, we won’t be spotted.”

A bullet plowed into the sea a few inches from Mercer’s head, throwing up a tiny fountain of water. Mercer fired the last round from the Derringer into the gloom above them, grasped Valery’s free arm, and ducked beneath the waves. He kicked downward, breathing as slowly as possible. About fifteen feet below the surface, he felt Valery tug the regulator from his mouth. The Russian took a few breaths, then thrust the rubber piece back between his lips. The John Dory was mortally wounded but her engines still pounded out eight knots. Mercer and Valery hung below the surface as the 285-foot hull glided over their heads. The concussion from the blasts that were wrenching her apart assaulted their ears painfully, but they had no time to worry about its effects. They began swimming away from the stricken vessel. Their progress was impeded by the turbid swells and their need to trade the life-giving mouthpiece.

After five minutes, Mercer brought them to the surface. The John Dory was a few hundred yards away and it was easy to see she was sinking. Her bow rode deep and her props thrashed the water into a white froth as they were pulled from the ocean. Only two of the lifeboats had been launched and the crew seemed too occupied, picking up survivors and corpses, to care about the huge helicopter that swooped in overhead.

Eddie Rice settled the Sea King into the water and let the rotors idle. Mercer could see the pilot scramble to the cargo door of the Sikorsky machine. Rice popped open a large drum of oil and spilled it onto the water. The churned-up sea settled immediately under the weight of the fluid.

Mercer and Valery swam toward the helicopter, their heads repeatedly swamped by the storm. Both men retched seawater regularly. They were only twenty yards from the machine when one of the lifeboats began motoring their way.

“Eddie,” Mercer screamed into the night, “get ready to take off.”

The pilot must have heard Mercer because he vanished from the hatch. The last fifteen yards of the swim