Vulcan's forge

“Why would somebody want to do that?”

“I have no idea, but it’s proved to be worth killing for.”

“Let’s get back to more recent history,” Henna prompted.

“The Ocean Seeker was sent out on an unscheduled survey to find the cause of some whale deaths. The whales had been found beached on Hawaii about a month ago with their digestive tracts filled with lava particles. Tish Talbot was an invited guest on the expedition. Twenty-four hours after leaving port, the ship exploded and Tish was thrown into the sea. After her rescue, she was transferred to George Washington University Hospital for observation. I received a telegram the day after she was admitted to the hospital saying she was in grave danger.”

“Who sent the telegram?”

“It was signed by her father, but I later found out her father has been dead for a year, so I don’t know who sent it. It’s obvious that someone wanted me to get involved.”

“Why?”

“Mr. President, that is the million-dollar question.”

“This is a waste of time,” Paul Barnes snorted. “He’s got more questions than answers.”

“You’re right, I do have a lot of questions. Why was Tish Talbot purposely saved when the Ocean Seeker was destroyed? The Seeker has the most sophisticated sonar systems found outside the U.S. Navy, so Tish being found alive breaks a well-established pattern. Why was she held prisoner for a few days before her official ‘rescue’ by a freighter called the September Laurel? And then why did someone try to have her killed?”

“Are these all things she told you?”

“No, I’ve figured it out myself. When the ship exploded she was thrown clear by the blast and suddenly there was an inflatable raft right next to her.”

“The raft could have been dislodged by the explosion,” Admiral Morrison pointed out.

“Impossible. The raft would have been shredded, not inflated. She also told me she swam to it, but admitted that she could barely hear anything. How could she have swam in the turbulent water around a sinking vessel if the blast had stunned her so badly? I’m certain there was someone aboard who was forewarned about the ship’s destruction and whose job it was to save her life.”

The men in the room all exchanged glances. Mercer felt that they knew something he didn’t.

“To get back to your question about why Dr. Talbot was brought to Washington and placed under the protection of the FBI, you must know that we received a warning a couple of days before the Ocean Seeker disaster.”

The President spoke slowly. “We felt putting her at George Washington University Hospital would raise less suspicion than bringing her to Walter Reed. You see, she is the only living witness to a terrorist act directed at the heart of America.” He pulled out the letter sent from Takahiro Ohnishi and read it aloud.

“ ‘To the President of the United States. After World War II, Europe, faced with economic necessity, released her long-held colonies and let them struggle through the arduous process of independence. Some made the transition smoothly, while others continue to struggle internally and with their former masters. It is a painful chapter of human history that is still being inked in blood.

“ ‘It is time now that the United States, too, face economic realities. The colonies that America maintains must be released, and that is how we on Hawaii feel we’ve been treated by you. The four-trillion-dollar debt that you carry is a burden too heavy to maintain. The stopgap efforts that you and your predecessors have attempted have done little but stave off the complete collapse of your system.

“ ‘While U.S. tax dollars flood the coffers of foreign nations and banks and bloat already engorged government contractors, the American people slide deeper into an unquestioning torpor spawned by inane rhetoric and slick presentations.

“ ‘Mr. President, this cannot be allowed to continue for Hawaii. The people of Hawaii are by origin not white Europeans nor should they be governed by them. We are a separate people with different beliefs and a different set of values, and it is wrong that we too should be bankrupted by the dying system to which you cling.

“ ‘You must realize by now that mankind does not thrive with cultural diversity. We are a tribalist species, one most comfortable within well-defined groups, and it is wrong to deny this. The idea of a ‘melting pot’ is as outdated as the ‘white man’s burden.’

“ ‘I fear that soon the United States will join that growing list of nations torn by factional fighting and I do not wish to see this come to pass for my people. Hawaii’s transition to independence must be made peaceably, but it must be made. Already plans are being implemented to draw us away from the United States and establish ourselves as a sovereign nation. Do not attempt to resist this action. I can promise peace, but only if you do not interfere.

“ ‘As a demonstration of the seriousness of my concern and conviction, I have at my disposal the means to destroy any American government vessel within two hundred miles of these islands. If I detect any such vessel in the coming weeks of transition, I will not hesitate to sink it.

“ ‘Please do not test my resolve or the resolve of the people of these islands. We are united in purpose and our goal will ultimately benefit all.’ It is signed, Takahiro Ohnishi.”

The President placed the pages facedown on his desk and looked up at Mercer.

Mercer remained expressionless while his mind churned through what the President had just read. He knew the eccentric billionaire’s views; in fact, he’d read one of Ohnishi’s books about the need for racial integrity. But he’d never believed the industrialist capable of this. Race relations between Hawaii’s Japanese majority and the island’s white population were strained, but what the President had just read was tantamount to a declaration of independence. He said as much.

“As it turns out, there were no naval vessels scheduled to arrive or depart Pearl Harbor at the time that we received this letter, but NOAA did have the Ocean Seeker heading northward. Dick brought the letter to my attention only after she’d been lost. Before that, he had assumed it was just a crank. Since then, I’ve suspended all activity within the two-hundred-mile limit Ohnishi outlined in this letter. Dr. Mercer, you are the first person outside this group to know the situation.

“We believed that this was a recent plot by Ohnishi, but the information you’ve brought us indicates that it goes back forty years.”

“Mr. President, I’m not even finished yet. This goes even further than some crackpot billionaire with a decidedly Hitleresque mien,” Mercer stated.

The men in the room turned to him intently.

“You see, the Ocean Seeker was sunk by a Soviet submarine called John Dory, not by Takahiro Ohnishi.”

Cairo, Egypt

The sun was still a sizzling torture over the crowded city streets despite the onset of evening. The Arabs in their long white galabias seemed immune to the hundred plus heat, but the Westerners in the city suffered. Evad Lurbud bought a cup of warm date juice from a passing vendor who had a huge pewter urn strapped to his back. The juice tasted awful, but his body needed the fluids.

Lurbud stood on Shari al-Muizz Le-din Allah, the main road in the Khan el-Khalili, a huge sprawling bazaar located three miles and about a thousand years from modern Tahrir Square at the center of Cairo. A rabbit warren of twisting alleys choked with people, the Khan is the true shopping center for the locals. Harried, red-faced tourists make it an obligatory stop after the pyramids, the necropolis at Memphis, and the crowded Cairo Museum.

Founded by Sultan Barquq’s Master of Horse, Garkas el-Khalili, in 1382 as a way station for camel caravans, the Khan had grown enormously over time. By the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517, items from as far away as England were being traded in the sprawling bazaar. The Ottoman sense of order established a guild system within the bazaar that is still evident today. Perfume sellers congregate just south of the Khan’s main crossroads. Gold and silver are sold in specific areas, while carpet merchants are found in another. The heady aromas from spice merchants and food sellers compete throughout the Khan while tourist curio shops cling to the Khan’s