Deep Fire Rising - v4 Read Online Free PDF

wouldn’t get him out of the walk.
    Harry looked up. “Told you so.”
    The doorbell rang an instant before his hand touched the knob.
    The two men standing on the doorstep were dressed in off-the-rack suits that screamed government employee. Their muscular builds, overly short hair, and expressionless faces narrowed the field to law enforcement or military. Startled that the door had opened so quickly, both reached inside their jackets. They stopped from drawing their concealed weapons a second before the pistols were shown, but there was no disguising what they’d almost done.
    “Are you Dr. Philip Mercer?” The taller of the two men made it sound like an accusation.
    “Yes, I am,” Harry replied automatically.
    The shorter of the pair stepped closer, pushing Harry back a couple paces. He was a few years older than his partner and appeared to be the leader. He looked Harry in the eye so there could be no misunderstanding when he said, “Omega ninety-nine temple. Counter?”
    Harry had been a merchant-marine officer during World War Two and recognized a code when he heard one. He said the first thing that came to mind. “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.”
    Standing above them, Mercer hadn’t heard the exchange nor did he see the play of confusion turning to anger. He had no idea who the men were or what they wanted. Didn’t particularly care either. He was on vacation. And then Harry called up to him, “Does omega ninety-nine temple mean anything to you?”
    The jolt of adrenaline hit like an electric shock. He’d been given the recognition code at a White House briefing three months earlier by the deputy national security advisor, Admiral Ira Lasko, USN (ret.). These men were Secret Service agents, doubtlessly part of the president’s detail. The counter code flashed in his mind. He yelled down, “Caravan eleven solstice.”
    The lead agent shot a furious glance up to where Mercer stood above them. “You’re Mercer?”
    “Yes.”
    Although Mercer didn’t know the specifics, he knew why the agents were here and it was his own fault. It had to do with his past accomplishments.
    Long ago Mercer had realized there were two ways to look at the distribution of the earth’s mineral wealth. Either Mother Nature had deliberately hidden her treasures in some of the world’s most turbulent political hot spots, which seemed rather unlikely, or the presence of mineral reserves turned indigenous people on each other in order to control the resources. Mercer knew it was the latter. He’d seen it firsthand too many times not to.
    The illicit diamond trade and the need to control the gem-producing regions funded nearly all of Africa’s recent civil wars. Colombia’s rebel groups, FARC and others, had been fighting for thirty years, buying their weapons with illegally mined emeralds. And the Middle East wouldn’t be able to export its particular brand of aggressive fundamentalism without the oil deposits to pay for it. It came as no surprise to him that the increased levels of rebel activity in Indonesia came shortly after the opening of an enormous gold mine on the island of Irian Jaya.
    The truth of it all was that wealth generated greed in some and jealousy in others and eventually the two sides would fight for dominance. The banners they rallied behind, the causes they claimed, were contrived disguises to hide the ugly truth of this most basic of human conflicts.
    Mercer’s career had embroiled him in all of it: the terror, the massacres, the unbelievable savagery. He’d been in the middle of a half dozen low-grade wars, ethnic conflicts, and revolutionary coups. It wasn’t in his nature to remain passive in situations like that, or to turn tail as many foreign workers tended to do. Often, Mercer stayed behind and through his direct involvement had been instrumental in saving countless lives.
    Because of Mercer’s record for success, he had come to the attention of military and intelligence