"How'd you find him?" Tai inquired.
"I heard a noise. Sounded like the main door slamming shut. I don't know." He shrugged. "Something just didn't seem right, so I got up and checked."
As Vaughn explained, the other members of the team filed in until all were assembled.
"So what happened to him?" Logan wanted to know. "Did he fall and knock himself out?"
Vaughn shook his head. "I don't think so." He broke open a medical kit and pulled out some smelling salts, waving them under Brothers's nose. The pilot gagged briefly, and then his eyes flickered open. He reached up for his head and moaned. Tai stepped forward and looked. A large purplish bruise was visible through the thinning hair on the back of the pilot's head.
Vaughn moved around to face Brothers. "What happened?" he asked.
Brothers tried shaking his head, but the pain got the better of him and he held still. "Shit. I don't know. I was going to take a piss and was in the corridor when someone whacked me on the back of the head. That's all I remember."
Six sets of eyes met, flickered to one another and then back to Brothers. The silence lasted almost a full minute, and then Vaughn asked, "Was anybody awake when he left?"
The three other men shook their heads.
Vaughn turned to Tai. "When I came in, all three were in their beds and appeared to be sleeping. You were in your room. The three people from Earth First were all accounted for also."
"That leaves you, then, doesn't it?" Logan observed.
Vaughn shrugged. "Then it would have been pretty stupid of me to have rescued him, wouldn't it?"
Tai decided to take charge before things went totally to shit. "Are you able to fly?" she asked Brothers.
He nodded carefully. "Aye. I don't think I have any permanent damage."
"Then we leave now." Vaughn turned to Smithers and Burke. "Get your gear ready to go. We leave for the plane in fifteen minutes."
Logan gestured at Brothers. "What about whoever knocked him out? I don't think it was chance that it was the pilot who was attacked. Somebody is trying to stop us from getting to this Citadel."
"And that's why we're leaving right away," Vaughn replied. "You have as much of an idea who did it as I do. But if we wait around here any longer, whoever it is will have a chance to do something else. I don't want to give them the opportunity. Let's load out."
When the others left the room to get their gear, Tai looked at Vaughn. "We've been infiltrated."
"No shit," he said.
Tai took one of the pistols out and offered it to Vaughn. He took it, checking the magazine. "Make sure you keep it close to your body," he said. "The gun is sweating in here and will freeze up if you don't keep it warm."
Tai nodded, took her pistol out, opened her parka and pile shirt and stuck it inside. "Going to be hard to get to in a hurry if I need it."
Vaughn was doing the same. He shrugged. "Everything is going to take longer down here. Let's hope if we need the guns, whoever we need them against is just as slow."
CHAPTER 7
Geneva, Switzerland
Dyson was not used to being made to wait. Before becoming the head of the North American Table, he had been CEO of one of the top three corporations in America. He'd advised Presidents. Been on the boards of dozens of organizations. He was worth untold billions.
And now he waited after having been summoned like an errant schoolboy to the principal's office.
After forty minutes the door to the Intelligence Center opened. There was no secretary to usher him in. Just the open door. Dyson got up and walked through, eyes blinking as he tried to adjust to the dimmer light inside. He saw the four Assessors in their chairs. He headed for the fifth chair, glancing at the large video displays lining the walls, trying to get a quick glimpse to see if any of the data referred to the current situation he had been summoned for. He could see that one of the large screens displayed a map of Antarctica, but his quick look couldn't reveal anything else.
He sat down, picked up the headset and put it on. He had never met the High Counsel in person. As far as he knew, none of the heads of the various Tables ever had.
"We have received your report," the High Counsel said, his voice coming through the headset. "It was woefully lacking in information. I want to assume that during your flight here you had time to reflect and come up with possible explanations."
Dyson cleared his throat. "I believe David Lansale planned all of this a long time ago, and he set it up that if he died, this information would be released to cause us problems."
"Explain."
"Understand that this is speculation on my part, not hard data," Dyson said.
"We understand."
Dyson could see that two of the four Assessors were watching him, the other two intent on the screens.
"I've tried to line up what we do know and added in the unknown of Lansale's motivations. Lansale was a very good agent, one of our best, and he participated in many top level assignments. But our psych profiles-which we did not have when he was first recruited out of the Office of Strategic Services in World War II-indicate he had maverick tendencies. He questioned things. I believe he questioned who he worked for.
"This all started when he parachuted into Japan as part of Doolittle's raid in World War II. He rendezvoused with Emperor Hirohito's nephew, Prince Chichibu, to negotiate for us. Part of those negotiations were the Golden Lily, the fledgling Japanese atomic weapon program, clemency for the Imperial family-all this is in your database. He did as he was ordered to do, and the mission was a success.
"However, I believe he did more than he was ordered to do. I think he began planning this Citadel operation. After all, the Japanese submarine, I-401, was tasked during the waning days of the war to conduct a mission to Antarctica prior to the establishment of the Citadel."
"Do we know what was on the I-401 or the two German submarines?" the High Counsel asked.
"I believe the I-401 carried part of the Golden Lily. We always knew parts of it were missing. Abayon and the Abu Sayif, of course, have recently revealed they held a significant portion of the treasure on Jolo Island, but there are still many missing pieces."
"And the German submarines?"
The American head shifted in his seat. "It might be part of the Nazi Black Eagle treasure. Most likely some of it that has never been accounted for in public or by us. But I fear that they also might have carried weapons of mass destruction." Dyson noted that all four Assessors were now looking at him.
"Explain," the High Counsel said.
"We know the Germans sent uranium to Japan via U-boat after they surrendered and before the Japanese did. Lansale helped keep that from developing into anything via his Japanese contacts in the Far East Table. But-we also know from Operation Paper Clip that a large amount of experimental nerve gas that the Germans developed went missing at the end of the war. I believe some of that gas was on those two U-boats that linked up with the I-401."
"And your agent did not get the location of the I-401 and the two German submarines, correct?"
"He only called in the information. He was supposed to fully debrief Royce later. He never made it to later. His body was found, and there was no sign of Fatima. We have to assume she's on the trail of the I-401."
There was a long silence. Then finally the High Counsel spoke. "You will remain here at the castle until the head of the Far East Table arrives. We will then coordinate our actions."
Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica
Brothers pulled in the yoke, and the heavily laden Cessna bounced a few times and then was in the air. Reaching sufficient altitude, the plane banked and headed for the search area. Vaughn was crowded in the back with Tai, Logan, Smithers, and Burke. The plane was almost as crowded with people and equipment as it had been on the flight from New Zealand. If they found the area the base was in, Vaughn wanted to be prepared to land and try to find it. He was keeping a close eye on Brothers, not sure the knock on the head hadn't affected the pilot.
While the magnificence of the peaks that jutted out of the white impressed Vaughn, what struck him more was the depth of the sea of ice that swept the flanks of those mountains. It was hard to imagine an ice sheet almost two miles thick.
Brothers piloted them over a glacier and through a pass, putting them on the opposite side of the mountain range. Now they turned north, flew along the eastern side of the mountains, looking to their left, searching for the three mountains. Vaughn had taped the photocopy of the picture against the bulkhead above the left side window, and he and Logan were scanning in that direction.
Brothers flew straight up the middle of the mountain chain. The weather was remarkably clear, and the peaks seemed startlingly close to Vaughn. It seemed possible to reach a hand out the window and caress the rock. He glanced right at the map board on Logan's lap. He had their route marked on the plastic cover with grease pencil.
"Everyone look carefully," Logan yelled out over the whine of the engine. "McKinley should be coming up soon." His words disappeared into the rumble of the engine without any reply from the others.
"That's McKinley," Brothers yelled out from the front a short while later. He immediately banked to the left, and the nose of the aircraft settled on a northeasterly route.
Vaughn tapped Logan on the shoulder, gesturing for the map board. Logan passed it back, and Vaughn oriented it, checking the map against what he could see below.
"Can we move to the right a little bit?" he called out to Brothers.
Visibility was unrestricted, and far out to the front through a gap in the range they could even see the ice pack on the coast. To the left and right, isolated mountaintops poked out of the white carpet of ice.
"There. That's it," Vaughn calmly announced.
Three peaks, backdropped against further nunatuks. Tai leaned across Vaughn, her body tight against his as she looked up at the Xerox taped on the fuselage and then out again. She leaned forward and tapped Brothers on the shoulder. "There. We're pretty close on line."
Vaughn looked at their guide and asked, "What do you think, Logan?"
Logan nodded. "Close. You have to consider the fact that the photo was taken from the ground. We're up much higher than that.
"Brothers," he called out, "drop down and let's see how they look."
Brothers did that, and they circled down until they were barely a hundred feet above the ice. Then the pilot pointed the nose straight at the peaks, and all six of the plane's occupants stared ahead.
Tai was the first to break the silence. "That's it. Let's land."
"All right," Brothers said, looking over his shoulder. "Let me find a flat stretch. We don't want to be buckling our landing gear. It's a long walk back to Base."
Brothers flew along and then did a long loop to circle around again. And again. And again, all the time searching the ice-covered ground. Vaughn was almost certain they were in the right area. The three peaks matched, and the basin was surrounded on three sides by mountains. The bowl was about twelve miles long by thirty wide, open to the south. If they could land and get an azimuth on the peaks to exactly match the photo, he believed they could get very close to the Citadel. The passes revealed no sign of any structure, but that didn't surprise him. The ice and blown snow would have covered the above-surface portions of the Citadel long ago.
"All right," Brothers announced. "I've got a stretch that looks like it might work."
"'Might'?" Tai repeated.
Brothers ignored her. "Everyone make sure you're buckled up tight."
Brothers slowly pushed forward on the yoke and reduced throttle. The ice crept closer and closer to the plane as they descended.
"Let's hope there are no crevasses," the pilot said in a cheerful tone.
Then the skis touched and they were down-for the moment.
"Shit," Burke yelled as they became airborne again, bouncing over a small ridge and then slamming back down on the ice once more.
The plane was shuddering, and the right wing tipped down as that ski hit a divot in the ice. They turned right slightly, and then Brothers straightened them out. The plane gradually came to a halt.
"Well, that was fun," he said.
Vaughn looked over his shoulder. "Can you taxi closer to those three nunatuks until we get on the exact right azimuth from the photo?"
"I can do it," Brothers said, but he glanced back at Logan. "The question is: how stable is the ice here?"
Logan licked his lips. "Actually, the ice should be all right here. We're on a pretty solid base. You have to worry about crevasses when you're on a glacier, but we're above solid ground now. Should be all right."
"Let's do it," Vaughn ordered.
"To the right," Tai said. Brothers looked at her questioningly. "If you want to line them up, go to the right."
The pilot increased throttle and worked his pedals. The Cessna slithered along.
"Hold it," Tai called out after three minutes of moving very slowly. "What do you all think?"
Six sets of eyes peered to the north.
"Yes." Vaughn was the first to answer.
"Yes." Logan echoed him. The other three said nothing.
"Let's get skiing." Vaughn unbuckled. He slapped Logan on the shoulder. "Which do you want? North or south?"
Kaesong, North Korea
The headquarters for the North Korean Special Forces is located just twenty-five miles north of the famous border city, Panmunjom. This location puts it in close proximity to the demilitarized zone, where many of its unit's covert activities are conducted. Tonight, however, General Guk Yol, the army Chief of Staff and former commander of the Special Forces Branch, had his eyes focused on a map that had never been unfurled in his operations room before. The fact that his staff had even been able to find the map was quite an accomplishment on such short notice. It was only forty-five minutes since General Yol had been awakened by the duty officer and given Choegu's message from Manila.
Yol pointed a gnarled finger, broken many times in hand-to-hand combat training, at the map. "It is there, sir."
There were only two people in the world that General Yol had ever shown such deference to. One had been Kim Il Sung, the leader of North Korea for forty years. The other was the man who presently stood opposite him looking at the map-Kim's son, Kim Jong Il. "It is very far away."
"Yes, sir, but it is a golden opportunity. It gives us a lever that is the perfect solution to the problem that has kept us from implementing the Orange III plan."
Kim Jong, long the designated heir to Kim Il Sung, and now the ruler, rubbed the side of his face. The recent reduction of American forces in South Korea had left that threat a paper tiger. With the Americans embroiled in Iraq and Afghanistan, they were stretched perilously thin. Kim had no doubt his massive army-sixth largest in the world-could now overcome their enemies to the south. The problem was the real threat the Americans still held: their tactical nuclear weapons.
Korea is a land of mountains and narrow plains. It is along those narrow plains that any offensive movement has to advance. And tactical nuclear weapons were the ideal countermeasure to such movement. If that one factor could be removed, the entire balance of power in the peninsula would shift to the North's favor.
In late 1991 the United States had removed all tactical nuclear weapons from the peninsula itself in a gesture to force the North Koreans to abandon their nuclear weapon program. The gesture had been ignored for the simple reason that it was seen as an empty one. The Americans maintained more than enough tactical nuclear weapons on the planes, submarines, and cruise missiles of the
Seventh Fleet to more than make up for the lack of land-based ones.
Orange III was the classified operations plans, known as OPLAN, for a northern invasion of South Korea. Unfortunately, Kim Jong Il rued, his father had never approved the implementation of the plan because of the high risk and cost potential if it failed-and fail it most likely would if the Americans used their nuclear weapons.
The fact that the North Koreans had their own small arsenal of nukes did not change that balance for two simple reasons. First, they only had limited abilities to project those weapons a few hundred kilometers into the south-they could never touch the United States itself to keep it from using the weapons. Second, tactical nuclear weapons favored the defender-not the attacker.
But now there was a window of opportunity. This new information could make Orange III a reality if it was used properly.
Kim looked up at his old friend. "I cannot believe that the American government has abandoned nuclear weapons in this place."
Yol smiled, showing stained teeth, the result of constantly smoking cigarettes. "Imperialists are like that, sir. Not only does one hand not know what the other is doing in the U.S. government, but fingers on the same hand are often in the dark as to the action of the other fingers."
"But the bombs-how could they have just been left there?"
"I don't know, sir. But it appears they are. Unguarded for the time being. We must seize the opportunity."
Kim was more cautious than his military commander. "Could it be a trap set by the Americans?"
Yol considered that very briefly. "I see no reason for the Americans to do that."
"But can we use these weapons even if we find them?"
"That, I do not know until we get our hands on them."
"And how can we do that?" Kim asked.
Yol turned to the map. "It is a long way," he admitted. "But we need not have to cover the entire distance."
Kim frowned. "Why not?"
Yol pulled down a larger scaled map that showed the entire Pacific region all the way down to Antarctica. "Because we have a team that could do the job right here." He tapped the map, indicating Indonesia. "If you will give me the permission, sir."
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