“I thought you didn’t make house calls,” Mercer croaked.
“And I was going to give up flying too,” she agreed, rolling him to examine the bloody wound in his leg, “but the Italian Navy got their helicopter running again and I knew you’d need a doctor.”
“What about Ira and the hostages?”
“They’re fine. Ira has already been airlifted to Reykjavik along with Mr. and Mrs. Farquar. Cardinal Peretti was unharmed. Stop worrying about the others.” She used scissors from one of the medics’ bags to cut away his pants while they concentrated on the Dalai Lama. Her fingers were sure and quick. “This isn’t too bad. We found what’s left of Greta and the other two Geo-Research guys. Where are Rath and Raeder?”
“Still fighting in hell, I would think,” he slurred.
Anika flashed a penlight in his eyes. “Looks like you’ve got a slight concussion. I’m surprised, thick skull like yours.” Her tone was teasing.
“You’re losing points for bedside manner.”
“How’s this then?” And she leaned over to kiss him lightly.
“Does that mean I’m forgiven?”
“No, it means that I understand you a little better.” Her eyes softened. As two stretcher bearers approached she whispered, “And I still like what I see.”
EPILOGUE
The Secret Service agent examined Mercer’s passport and the videocassette in the large envelope he carried before waving him toward the town house. The summer sun beat on the narrow Vienna street, gilding many of the architectural details of the Baroque and Rococo buildings. To Mercer the temperature felt like a sweet caress after so many freezing days. He climbed the couple of steps to the Institute of Applied Research, moving slowly because he’d abandoned his cane in Iceland. An elderly housekeeper opened the door before he knocked. She stepped aside wordlessly but her expression was one of displeasure. Knowing who was already here, Mercer couldn’t blame her.
He paused in the entryway. The tumult of books hanging from every wall and teetering on every surface overloaded him like a child at Christmas. He loved books, collected them and treasured them the way others accumulated fine wine, or stamps, or antiques. His collection ran toward old texts on geology and the earth sciences and first editions written by the pioneers in those fields, but any old book gave him a sense of excitement. It was the thrill of knowing that within their covers was information he didn’t have, a detail or an observation he’d never made. He loved their unique power to humble and enlighten at the same time.
Seeing the material Anika’s grandfather had accumulated reminded him that in a few months he’d be in Paris for an auction of journals written by the French engineers who’d failed in their nineteenth-century attempt to cut a sea-level canal across Panama. He wanted the diary of Baron Godin de Lepinay, the first man to propose the lake-and-lock solution that was eventually built. Mercer had an eccentric friend who was convinced the journal contained the last clue to the whereabouts of a treasure stolen from the Spanish Main and was willing to pay for half the book just to make a copy.
Frau Goetz indicated that everyone was in a dining room at the back of the town house. He heard a pendulum clock chopping at time. Like the rest of the building, the dining room was lined with shelves, and the books once covering the wooden table had been stacked around the room’s perimeter. With the door to the garden closed, everything smelled musty and accented with pipe tobacco. On the floor in front of the glass door was an apparatus for creating random sound vibrations to defeat laser microphones. And since the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency had brought a security contingent to this meeting, Mercer assumed the house had already been swept for other types of listening devices.
The DCI, Paul Barnes, was in his late fifties, with gray-streaked hair and a constant expression of irritation. His intense eyes weren’t enough to draw attention from the bulbous mole that sat in the crease where his nose joined his face. The mole appeared raw from constant rubbing. Mercer knew Barnes to be a political infighter who spent a great deal of time on damage control in front of the congressional intelligence committees. Uniformly agreed to be the worst of the president’s appointments, he didn’t have the proper background to effectively head America’s premier spy agency and fought tenaciously to maintain his position. Seeing Mercer, his eyes went tight. The animosity between them stemmed from Mercer’s successful involvement with several recent crises that Barnes should have handled.
Anika Klein was sitting between two elderly gentlemen in somber ties and worn shirts. One he assumed was her grandfather, Jacob Eisenstadt, and the other his research partner, Theodor Weitzmann. Mercer grinned when he saw her. She leapt to her feet quicker than she’d intended, paused to smooth her black skirt, and crossed to plant a chaste kiss on his cheek. She wore no makeup and was dressed modestly out of respect for her grandfather, yet her attempt to stifle her sexuality only made Mercer more aware of it.
“I can’t believe the doctors in Reykjavik released you.” She regarded the bruising on Mercer’s face and the sunken hollows that hid his eyes.
Only four days had passed since Gunther Rath’s defeat. Mercer’s left arm was in a sling for a sprained wrist, and he walked with a noticeable limp. “They didn’t. I checked myself out as soon as you left Iceland.”
“If I’d known you lacked the good sense to stay in the hospital, I wouldn’t have come here.” She introduced him to Eisenstadt and Weitzmann, who shook his hand in turn.
“It is good to meet you,” Eisenstadt rumbled in his accented English. Mercer and he had spoken on the phone a few times when the details of this meeting had been hammered out.
“My pleasure, sir.” The elderly researcher matched Mercer’s impression. Solid and apparently humorless, he had a formal grace lost to younger generations and a sagacity that commanded instant respect.
Frau Goetz put coffee and a glass of water at a place open for Mercer. He caught her scrutiny and her approving nod to Anika. Anika shook her head slightly, then smiled before making a slight gesture with her hand as if to say maybe. She blushed when she noted that Mercer had seen the exchange.
Barnes sighed. “Since we’re all here, we can get this over with.” He’d made no gesture to greet Mercer properly.
Thanks to Ira Lasko’s efforts from his hospital room in Reykjavik, Mercer had learned that Barnes had spent a very long afternoon in the White House. The chief executive was furious with Barnes for how he’d handled this affair, and Mercer understood that Barnes was under orders to make any concession necessary to set things right. He’d even been forced to Vienna to accommodate Eisenstadt and Weitzmann rather than hold this meeting in Washington.
Essentially, Barnes was here to agree to whatever Mercer asked for. Mercer would have flaunted his control over the DCI had he not gained some perspective in the past few days. Instead, he savored knowing he held all the cards and allowed Barnes a measure of dignity.
“Mr. Barnes, I want to thank you for agreeing to come here today,” Mercer began, perpetuating the illusion that the DCI still had a choice, “and I especially want to acknowledge your efforts camouflaging what happened aboard the Sea Empress. I sense your hand in the cover story about a terrorist attack in which all the hijackers were killed by the ship’s security personnel.”