They set out for the long walk up the tracks back to the mine, Mercer using a stout branch as a crutch. At dusk they built a fire and slept in its rosy glow, Cali cradled in Mercer’s arm, her silky hair caressing his face. They reached the mine two hours after sunrise. The Russians were camped near the remains of the helicopter. Ludmilla, the heavyset scientist, was cooking rations scavenged from the chopper, while the other scientist and the pilot, who’d run from the gunfight because he had no weapons, tended an injured man. When they got close they could see it was Sasha Federov.
Mercer hobbled up and knelt next to the soldier, grinning. “I was certain that RPG had your number on it.”
“Bah,” Federov dismissed with a pained smile. “Nothing more than a little shrapnel in my shoulder and one hell of a headache. Did you stop the train?”
“Derailed it about twenty miles down the valley. No one got off at their last stop.”
“I’m afraid someone didn’t get on it at this one.”
Mercer’s relief that Federov had survived turned to instant concern. “What are you saying?”
“Yesterday I sent Yuri, the pilot, down to the tracks. One of the UAZs was there, its engine destroyed by gunfire, so we couldn’t use it. The other was gone.”
“Son of a bitch,” Mercer shouted and got to his feet. “Fucking Poli. He took off in the truck knowing I was going after the train.”
“Do you think he had any of the barrels?”
“Yes, goddamn it. There wasn’t enough time to load the last two. I had assumed Poli would have cut his losses and left them behind.”
“What are we going to do?” Cali asked.
“Sasha, how long before your superiors send someone out here when they don’t hear from us?”
“Do not worry, my friend. The real train should arrive sometime today.”
“Thank God.”
“That still gives him a day’s head start,” Cali pointed out. “Those barrels could be anywhere in the world by then.”
Her remark soured Mercer’s mood even further. She was right and he began to understand the stress of her job. Being right ninety-nine percent of the time when dealing with nuclear materials wasn’t good enough. He’d stopped Poli from carrying off tons of the plutonium ore but failed to prevent a couple of barrels from slipping away. How many people would die because he screwed up? In theory that was enough plutonium to irradiate dozens of square miles or the water supply of an entire city.
What would happen when elevated radiation levels were detected in the aquifer feeding Manhattan? Thousands would die just from the rioting and looting that would break out. How many more would perish during the evacuation? And then how many would suffer the devastating effects of ingesting the plutonium dust? It was conceivable that cancer would claim tens or even hundreds of thousands more.
And what would become of New York City with every pipe and conduit potentially contaminated? It would be uninhabitable for years, a ghost town of skyscrapers.
Mercer had been so proud of himself for blowing the train off the tracks, and now he’d never felt worse in his life. It was his fault. All of it. He would feel as responsible for those deaths as if he was the one who released the plutonium.
“We’ll get him,” Cali said, reading the anguish in his eyes.
“And if we don’t?”
“At NEST failure is simply not an option.”
“Cali, that looks good on the letterhead but it’s just not realistic.” He didn’t want to sound so harsh but his emotions were running at the breaking point. “There is a lunatic out there with a thousand pounds of plutonium and we’re stuck here. By the time Sasha’s train arrives, Paris or London or Rome could be a radioactive wasteland.”
A voice came from the other side of the helicopter. “Or New York or Chicago or Washington, D.C.”
Mercer recognized it immediately.
The Janissary who’d rescued Cali and him in Africa and had warned them off at Mercer’s brownstone stepped from around the helo’s scorched wreckage. He wore the same black suit he had in Washington and with him was the same assistant. “However, I believe Ankara, Istanbul, and Baku are more likely targets.”
Mercer had his pistol out and trained on the Janissary’s head. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you now.”
He smiled. “For a man who’s been calling me for a week, you don’t seem too interested in what I have to tell you.”
It took Mercer a moment to understand. “You’re Professor Ibriham Ahmad. Of the University of Istanbul.”
He made a gracious half bow. “At your service. I am also General Ibriham Ahmad of the Most Exalted Sultan’s Janissary Corps, tasked with being the last guardians of the Alembic of Skenderbeg.”
Mercer lowered his pistol.
“This is Devrin Egemen.” Ahmad introduced the young man next to him. “One of my star pupils and a trusted lieutenant.”
Egemen bobbed his head.
Ahmad looked around the deserted mine, noting the bodies covered in tarps. “We knew the Russians returned to Africa to mine Alexander’s adamantine ore but we believed they used it all up building their early bombs. How much was here and how much did they get away with?”
“I don’t know for sure. We stopped the train. Cali and I could see dozens of barrels in the wreckage but there’s probably more. Poli Feines escaped with two barrels, probably a thousand pounds’ worth, in a truck.”
“More than enough for their plans,” Ahmad said thoughtfully. He moved away, forcing Cali and Mercer to follow, so they could have some privacy. Then in one graceful movement he sat on the ground with his legs crossed. He patted the earth. “Please sit. This story will take some time.”
Mercer had seen his capacity for violence but he sensed that Ahmad’s true strength came from his intellect. It was in the way he spoke, confident and assured and eager to teach. Mercer thankfully lowered himself and set aside his makeshift crutch.
“Like all Janissaries Gjergi Kastrioti was trained in Istanbul at the finest military college of his day. He was an excellent student who intuitively grasped strategy and tactics. So when he decided that the sultanate had become corrupt and revolted against Murad II, it was little wonder his men followed him.”
“He went to Albania and held off the sultan’s army for twenty-five years,” Mercer said.
Ahmad cocked an eyebrow. “You’ve done some research. Very good.”
“It was rumored he had a talisman that once belonged to Alexander the Great,” Mercer went on. “I assume it’s the alembic.”
“Correct. The last credible report concerning the alembic came from a Syrian scribe who said that the generals who took over Alexander’s army following his death were squabbling over who should carry it. Because there was no consensus, they decided to return it to Egypt, where it would be buried with Alexander. Along the way a contingent of soldiers decided to steal the alembic for themselves and escaped with it into the desert.
“I can only speculate what happened from then. Suffice it to say the alembic was worth a fortune in the right hands and it must have passed from potentate to sheik to king over the next several hundred years. It eventually ended up in the hands of the most powerful rulers in the region, the Byzantines, and then when their civilization collapsed and the Ottoman Empire flourished, the Alembic of Skenderbeg was in their treasury. By then, however, no one knew what it was because it had sat forgotten for more than a millennium.”
“But Skenderbeg figured it out?”
“That he did. The story is that as punishment for staying out past curfew, at the bedroom of a nobleman’s daughter if the tale is true, he was sent to one of the army’s massive storehouses and ordered to catalogue every item inside. The story says it took a month but during that time he became fascinated with a large bronze urn and the strange writing on its side. He found someone who could translate it for him and that’s when he learned that it was Alexander’s secret weapon. It must have seemed like fate to him, for already some of his men were calling him Skenderbeg, or Alexander the Great.
“When he planned his revolt against Murad II, he made certain he took the alembic with him.”
Cali summed up, saying, “And having the alembic allowed him to hold off Murad’s army for so long?”
