escape. He needed a half hour to reach Keflavik Airport, where they could trade the hostages for a jet to get away from Iceland.
“Come on!” he shouted and cuffed one of the fishermen. The man staggered and the box fell heavily into the cargo area of the van, rocking its suspension.
Without thought or mercy, Rath pulled his automatic pistol from where it was jammed into his belt and shot two of the fishermen. Two others leapt onto their boat and hid from view and the fifth jumped into the water. “Load up,” he snarled, gesturing at the three hostages with the smoking gun. Mutely, they climbed into the van, the Dalai Lama giving him a look as if he understood what demons drove Rath to murder so callously. Tommy Joe Farquar, while sobered by the long boat ride, simply allowed himself to be maneuvered, too stunned by what happened to his wife to offer any kind of resistance. Cardinal Peretti did nothing to hide his contempt.
“Willie, I want you to stay on the dock,” Rath ordered the youngest of his men. “Keep that boat from landing as long as you can. Buy us thirty minutes and get yourself out of here. Stay away from the Geo-Research office in Reykjavik and get word to the Party’s office in Hamburg. They’ll know how to contact me and we’ll extract you in a couple of days.”
Greta kept her pistol on the hostages as she entered the van through the side door, reveling in the smell of testosterone and fear filling the cab. She was near a sexual peak and the pressure of her clothing against her breasts sent ripples of energy through her body. Her faith in Gunther was so absolute that she knew they would make it away.
With Dieter behind the wheel and Rath in the passenger seat, the van started rolling down the dock. Once it was on the road, they accelerated quickly. The airport was just thirty miles away.
Frustration filled Mercer as the hostages boarded the van for a ride he doubted any would survive. As soon as the vehicle disappeared into the quiet town, he started for the dock and only realized Rath had left behind a picket when the water around the Riva exploded and bits of her forward deck blew away in bright slivers of precious wood. He cranked the wheel while Ira and Raeder returned fire. The gunman on the dock had cover behind a stack of heavy steel fish traps, and nothing short of a missile would dislodge him.
“I’m going to beach down the coast and we’ll run back to town to find a car,” he shouted over the engines.
Before he could execute his plan, the gunman suddenly staggered out from his hide, his hands smeared red where they clutched his stomach. The sound of a rifle reached the men on the water a second later, and they all saw a puff of smoke blow from the bridge of the fishing boat tied to the dock. The neo-Nazi looked up to where the shot had come from, and the back of his head erupted as the rifle the fishermen used for sharks blew his brains all over the dock.
Mercer didn’t waste a second. He took them in under nearly full power, not caring that he scrubbed off speed using the side of the $300,000 Riva against the dock. Ira vaulted up to the concrete quay with a line and cinched it tight. Raeder came next and then Mercer, now holding a submachine gun and a Beretta pistol. Two Icelanders stood on the bridge of the boat, their deeply weathered faces and suspicious eyes never leaving the three men. The third survivor of the group had just reached the rocky beach and began walking back to the dock.
“There’s a woman in the cabin.” Mercer pointed at the Riva, hoping that these men spoke English like most Icelanders. “She’s near hypothermic and needs a doctor for a concussion.” The fishermen said nothing. The old bolt-action rifle was leveled at Mercer’s head. “The men who killed your friends dumped her in the sea. We need a car to go after them.”
The wind whistled through the fishing boat’s rigging.
“If you won’t help us, at least don’t stop us,” Mercer pleaded.
The man holding the shark rifle let the barrel fall until it was pointed at the deck of his boat. “How long the woman in the water?”
“Five minutes, maybe eight.”
Gunfights and cold murder were beyond what these men knew. A person sacrificed to the sea was a danger they could understand. “The two men they kill. My cousins,” the captain of the boat said and reached into his pocket. He tossed a wad of keys onto the dock at Mercer’s feet. “You know killing. You kill them. I know sea. I will help woman.” He raised his hand toward the town. “Blue Volvo in front of Vsjomannastofan Restaurant.”
Mercer didn’t thank them. They wouldn’t expect it and he didn’t have the time. He scooped up the keys and raced off the dock, confident that Ira and Klaus would keep up. He was stopping for nothing until Rath was dead.
The Volvo was a beaten four door, rust smeared and so often repaired that little of its original paint remained. The interior reeked of pipe smoke and the seat covers were so shredded they showed more foam padding than black vinyl. The engine belched and snorted and barely settled down when he forced the transmission into first gear with a painful grind. Mercer’s Heckler amp; Koch was across his lap. Ira’s window refused to roll down, so he smashed it out with his machine pistol.
The road twisted out of town, following the vagaries of the volcanic terrain. As their speed approached sixty, the bald tires and mist-slick macadam tried to throw them in the ditches bordering each curve. Mercer wished he had his Jag right now. They’d be doing a hundred without a chirp from the wheels. Still, he pushed the old Volvo harder, drifting through corners with quick touches of brake and gas, his hand working the stick without regard to the gears’ worthless synchronizers.
In the distance, he could see steam plumes from the Svartsengi power plant rising into the gray dawn like clouds struggling from the black landscape. What he couldn’t see was a white van driving as recklessly as he was. At the end of this road was a branch east to Reykjavik or west to the international airport and Keflavik. Each route held promise for fugitives, and Mercer needed to be close enough to see where Rath was heading.
“Any sign of that chopper?” he asked. The Volvo briefly lifted on two wheels as its tires screamed through a tight bend.
“Ceiling’s only about five hundred feet,” Ira said, referring to the low cloud cover that hung from the tallest peaks like muslin. “We won’t see it until we pass under it.”
The road leveled out and straightened as they neared the geothermal generating station and the adjacent Blue Lagoon spa. A trio of hundred-foot cooling towers rose from the lava field like slender rockets on a moonscape, their tops wreathed in steam. The rest of the sprawling facility was hidden in a dip in the topography. A half mile ahead was the turn for the plant and spa — and just beyond that was the van. Mercer’s jaw tightened. Then he realized something was wrong. The van wasn’t in his lane, it was in the opposite. It wasn’t heading away from them. It was coming closer!
Like an enraged insect, a Hughs 500 helicopter painted olive drab hovered above the hurtling van, its skids no more than fifty feet from the vehicle’s roof. A sniper with a Barrett.50 caliber rifle sat in the open door, his clothes rippled by the wind, his eye screwed to the weapon’s enormous scope.
Mercer slammed on the Volvo’s emergency brake and slipped the car into a skid that completely blocked the two-lane road. Even the sturdiest four-wheel-drive SUV couldn’t penetrate more than five feet into the moss- covered lava fields. Rath was caught between the helo and the car. Throwing open his door, Mercer pulled the H amp;K and watched the van approach over the sights. He pulled the trigger, intentionally aiming low. He couldn’t risk the driver or a stray shot ricocheting in the cab.
It was one thing for Dieter to risk his life on a race track, another thing entirely facing the winking eye of an automatic 9mm. It was a game of chicken that he wouldn’t play. Braking so the van’s back end broke loose, he spun into the driveway of the generating plant and accelerated away.
Mercer knew from his tour of the facility a couple years ago that this was the only way in or out of the complex. As long as he could disable the van, the Pandora box was trapped. He dove back into the Volvo, willed the transmission into gear and tore after the fleeing vehicle. Ira jammed a fresh magazine into Mercer’s MP-5. The van continued past the turnoff for the power station and drove toward the newly constructed Blue Lagoon spa. The Hughs 500 flashed over the car, nose down and menacing.
The spa’s modern glass-and-steel building was set back from the empty parking lot. It was reached by a meandering foot path cut into the lava, a narrow trail flanked by ten-foot walls of tortured stone. Dieter careened through the lot and shot down the footpath, sparks flying whenever the fenders scraped rock. With Mercer still several hundred yards behind them and unable to communicate with the chopper, the maneuver bought them a few
