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because of the paper he had written two years earlier on the use of geothermic vents as possible energy sources and rich mining areas.
    Mercer had heard of the tragic loss of the ship with all hands. It had made the newspapers even in South Africa.
    The invitation itself was not the cause of his racing heart or shallow breathing. At the bottom of the invitation was a list of the specialists already assigned to the survey. The first name was Dr. Tish Talbot, marine biologist.
    Mercer had never met Tish, but her father was a good friend, a man to whom Mercer owed his life following a plane crash in the Alaska Range. Mercer had been returning from his first private consulting job when his plane had suddenly lost power. The pilot had been killed landing in a rock-strewn field and Mercer had broken a leg, a wrist, and a bunch of ribs. Jack Talbot, a grizzled tool pusher on the North Slope fields at Prudhoe Bay, had been camping near the crash site on a one-week leave. Talbot had reached Mercer within ten minutes of the crash and tended him overnight until he could signal a rescue copter with a flare salvaged from the wrecked plane.
    The two men had seen each other infrequently in the years since then, but their friendship lasted. And now, Jack’s only daughter was dead, a victim of a terrible accident. Mercer empathized with his friend, feeling hollow inside when he imagined the pain that Jack must now be facing. Mercer had known such pain, losing his parents when he was only a boy, but no parent ever thinks that they will outlast their child. Many say that that is the worst kind of agony.
    Mercer turned off his desk lamp. He left Harry on the couch in the rec room, not wanting to kick his friend out at two in the morning. Mercer’s huge bed didn’t really look inviting, but he made the effort anyway. His sleep was fitful.

Hawaii
    J ill Tzu eased on the brake of her Honda Prelude and slipped the transmission into neutral. Her car slowed to a stop about twenty yards away from the main gates of Takahiro Ohnishi’s estate. She tilted the rearview mirror downward until her mouth was in sight and deftly applied another slick layer of lipstick. She pursed her lips, flashed a professional smile to herself, then opened her mouth wide. Satisfied that the makeup was perfect, she canted the mirror back.
    As a female reporter, she knew the necessity of a glamorous appearance on camera. Despite her abhorrence of such sexism, she was pragmatic enough to know that she alone wasn’t about to change the custom.
    Yet it wasn’t her stunning beauty or her dancer’s legs that got her this interview today, it was her heritage.
    Takahiro Ohnishi was easily the wealthiest man in Hawaii. In fact, he was the twelfth richest man in the world, with interests as diverse as real estate, medical research, shipping, and mining. He had offices on six continents, seven palatial homes, and nearly thirty thousand employees. Despite the global aspects of his holdings, he remained rooted in one tradition, that of Japan.
    He had built his empire on an ethnic pyramid with himself, a native born Japanese on top and his key managers at least pure Japanese regardless of their country of birth. The next level down had to be three-quarters’ Japanese or more, and so on until only the lowliest of workers had no Japanese blood at all. Ohnishi employed two entire law firms to battle the hundreds of cases of discrimination filed against his companies. To date they had not lost a single case.
    His obsession with his Japanese heritage consumed his personal life as well. Ohnishi had never married, but the numerous mistresses who had come and gone during his seventy years were all Japanese. If he found even the slightest trace of any other heritage the affair would end on the spot. All the servants in all his homes were Japanese, and even his rare press interviews had to be conducted by reporters who were at least half Japanese.
    And that brings us to me, thought Jill Tzu,