Dark Watch

“Down in the Magic Shop fixing my skateboard,” the weapons specialist said.

“Hop on a computer terminal and tell me if mercury is used in any kind of mining techniques.”

Used to obscure requests, Mark said he would get right on it and killed the connection.

“What’s this about mercury?” Tory asked.

“Julia found heavy doses of mercury poisoning when she performed autopsies on the pirates who tried to attack my ship — the ones who dumped the container carrying those Chinese immigrants.”

“You think they picked it up on Kamchatka?”

Cabrillo nodded. “The Chinese weren’t contaminated, just the sailors. If they’d been up there a lot, say dropping off other workers or on guard rotation, then its possible that’s the source.”

A companionable silence passed while they waited for the couple of minutes until Juan’s cell chimed. He answered it by saying, “What did you find?”

“Mercury is the only element that bonds with gold,” Mark replied. “It’s been used to separate raw gold from ore. The practice is banned in a lot of countries because of environmental and health concerns, but it is still widely employed by indigenous miners in South America.”

Juan mouthed the word gold to Tory. “Thanks, Murph. You can get back to your skateboard now.”

Tory leaned back in her seat. “So Anton Savich is using Chinese slave labor, provided to him by Shere Singh, to mine gold on the Kamchatka Peninsula, most likely under the nose of the Russian government.”

“I think that about sums it up,” Juan agreed, taking another healthy swallow of his beer.

“That solves that mystery, then. We know the who, the how, and now the why.”

“Appears that way.”

Something in Juan’s tone made Tory wary. “What is it?”

“I was just thinking, with Shere Singh out of the piracy business, your end of this investigation is over. I don’t know what we’re going to find when we get up there, but if our run-ins with Singh and his gang are any gauge, it’s going to get bloody.”

“And?” she asked, already suspecting what Juan was about to say.

“And you don’t need to come with us. We’d only lose an hour or so by choppering you off when we pass the northern tip of Japan and enter the Sea of Okhotsk.”

Her fury was at full gale by the time he’d stopped speaking. She came out of her chair, placed both hands on the armrests of his seat, and leaned in so her face was inches from his. “I’ve dedicated the last six months to this investigation. This has been my life, my every waking moment. I had to fight to get the Royal Geographic Society to let us join their expedition, only there wasn’t anything I could do once the pirates hit. I had friends on the Avalon who were butchered by these monsters, so don’t think for one second I’m not going to see this through to the bitter end, Mr. Chairman of the bloody Corporation.”

For several long seconds their eyes were locked, neither giving an inch. Juan had known her strength, understood her intelligence, and now saw her passion. If he could forget that he had grown attracted to her, he would have asked her to join the Corporation right then.

“Just so you know,” he said in a low, intimate voice, “I can’t guarantee your safety.”

Tory sensed the shift in tone, and her anger was replaced with something softer, gentler. Their mouths were still inches apart, but for both of them it was an insurmountable distance. “I’m not asking you to. I just want to be there when you put an end to this once and for all.” She straightened reluctantly.

Cabrillo’s throat was suddenly dry, and he needed to finish his beer. “Deal.”

23

IF nothing more, Eddie Seng had to respect his captors’ efficiency. The volcano looming over what had been dubbed Death Beach continued to rumble and belch ash that fell in a choking black blizzard across the facility. Earthquakes were an almost hourly occurrence, and the sea had turned into a writhing sheet of lead. Yet the overseers never relaxed the pace of work even as they implemented their evacuation plans. The boilers in the separating plant remained lit so that the last precious gram of gold could be extracted before they left. Guards exhorted the workers with clubs and whips to keep toiling up and down the hillside burdened with baskets of gold-bearing ore. And at night the slave laborers were locked in the beached cruise ships dreading the call to start working again in the morning.

Out in the bay the crew of the tugboat had succeeded in ballasting the huge drydock so that the ship in its hold could be floated free. The rough seas had caused numerous delays in the tricky operation, which explained why the evacuation had gone slower than Eddie had anticipated. He had seen a young turbaned Sikh arguing with the Russian, Savich, and assumed that he was refusing to sacrifice the expensive drydock when the volcano finally blew. Unloading the ship meant they wouldn’t have any incriminating evidence when they sailed away.