by Bob Mayer
Freely’s voice rose an octave. “That was part of the bullshit about that mission. We’d just finished off-loading the plane and it had headed back when I got hurt. I’d been working on the surface shaft doors and I got careless. You’d think I’d have known better after three months, but . . . anyway I got the bite bad and needed to be medevacked.
“Well, this major who was in charge wouldn’t send another plane out to get me. I had to wait until that particular plane got back to McMurdo, set down, refueled, and came back out to pick me up. Probably wasted about three hours because of that.
“Since the whole thing was classified, they wouldn’t medevac me out of Antarctica after I received my initial treatment. So I had to go back to Eternity Base with my hand like that until the entire unit was pulled out. That’s what really screwed up my fingers more than anything else. And that’s why I only have three fingers on my left hand. I had to have the sons of bitches amputated eight years ago. The civilian doctor who did it said it was because they’d never healed right due to the prolonged exposure. So you can take the goddamn army and its station down there and shove it. I don’t want to have anything more to do with it.”
“I can understand that you are somewhat bitter, Mister Freely. You spent the entire four months there in Antarctica?” Conner coaxed.
“Yeah.”
“When did you leave?”
“About four or five days before Christmas.”
“Where were you stationed? At McMurdo?”
“No. Like I said, we only went to McMurdo for emergencies—we didn’t have a doctor with us. We were stationed right there at Eternity Base.”
“Where was Eternity Base?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? You didn’t know where you were?”
Freely’s voice took on that “I’m talking to an idiot” tone that Conner hated. “I mean, I knew we were in Antarctica, but I couldn’t tell you where. We weren’t allowed any maps. When we flew, they blacked out the windows in the hold of the C-130. No one in the company knew where the hell we were.”
“You had to have some idea. East, west, north, or south of McMurdo?”
“Lady, you ever been to Antarctica?” Freely didn’t wait for an answer. “The goddamn place is one big jumbled-up mass of ice and mountains. North or south?” Freely laughed. “Compasses don’t work too well down there. Do you know that the magnetic pole is farther north of the true South Pole than McMurdo? In fact, magnetic south from McMurdo is actually west if you look at a map. That was the most screwed-up place I’ve ever been. All I know is that the site was a little less than a two-hour flight by C-130 from McMurdo. You look at the pictures and you got as good an idea of where that place was as I do.”
“What did you build there?”
“We didn’t really ‘build’ anything. We put together a Tinkertoy set. It was all prefab,” he explained. “They flew it in by sections. Someone with a lot more brains than we had in our outfit designed that thing. Each piece could fit in a 130, yet when we put it all together it was pretty big. Of course there were a shit load of 130 loads coming in. Hell, they spent almost an entire week just bringing in fuel bladders. That plane flew every moment the weather allowed.”
“What was it you put together?” Conner asked quietly, hoping she could keep Freely going.
“My best guess is that it was some sort of C & C structure—Command and Control. We just put the buildings together. Before we were even done, they brought in more guys to put in other stuff. I remember a lot of commo equipment. They sealed off sections of the place as we finished, so I really couldn’t tell you what it looked like on the inside when it was completed.
“We stayed in two prefab Quonset huts on the surface, and we broke those down and took them back out with us when we left. All you could see when we took that last flight out was the entry and ventilation shafts. Everything else was underground.”
“What did it look like underground?”
“There were twelve of the prefab units.”
“How were the units laid out?”
“We set them up in three rows of four, about eight to ten feet apart, and roofed over the space between, which just about doubled the underground area of the main base.”
“That took four months?”
“What took the most time was digging out that much ice and snow even before they brought in the first unit. We also dug two really big tunnels on either side for storage and two areas for fuel. Plus the long tunnel and area for the power station.”
“Do you have any idea who occupied it?”
“You know, that was the funny thing. That last day when we flew out, I really don’t think there was anybody left behind. There was this major who was in charge. He was a real strange fellow. Spooky. Anyway, he was on the last flight out with us.”
“Do you remember that major’s name?”
“I don’t know. Claxton or something like that. He made everyone nervous—always sneaking around, checking on people.”
Conner was confused. “Why go through all that trouble to build something if no one was going to use it?”
“Hey, you got me, lady,” Freely snorted. “I’m just a poor tax-paying schmuck like everyone else. I don’t know why the government spends money like it does. I’ll tell you one funny thing though: the last two weeks we were there, the project was basically done—you know, the buildings and all that. We spent the remaining time in the tunnels storing a whole bunch of supplies off-loaded from that C-130.”
“What sort of supplies?”
“All I can remember is a lot of food.”
“What about—”
Conner’s streak had run its course. “Listen, lady. I already said too much.”
“I really appreciate your help, Mister Freely. I was wondering if perhaps I could send someone to talk to you and—”
“Lady, I just told you. I want nothing more to do with this. Don’t call me back. And if anyone asks, I didn’t tell you squat.” The phone clicked.
“Asshole,” Conner muttered into the dead receiver.
“Anybody I know?”
She looked up, startled. Stu was standing there with a smile on his face. “Sounds like you were having an interesting conversation.”
Conner made a snap decision. “It was. I have something kind of weird that I want to run by you. You have some time?”
Stu made a great show of looking at his watch. “Well, I suppose I could spare twenty minutes for my newest reporter. Shoot.”
Conner concisely briefed him on the entire development, occasionally using the notes she’d been making on the computer while talking to Freely. When she ground to a halt she looked expectantly over at Stu, who was perched on the edge of her desk. “Well, what do you think?”
“About what?”
Conner felt a flash of irritation. “About the story.”
Stu shook his head. “You don’t have a story.”
“What do you mean?”
“What are you going to do?” Stu sighed. “All right. Let me lay it out for you. The idea that the government built some secret place down in Antarctica is all very unique, but you have two major problems. One is that it was twenty-five years ago. People aren’t going to care that much.
“Even more basic than that, though, is you have no solid source. You say you can’t use your sister’s stuff because she’ll lose her job. And this guy Freely doesn’t sound like he’s willing to come forward. Maybe you could dig and come up with somebody else, but even then we need to backstop with something stronger than somebody remembering what happened that long ago.”
Stu stood up. “It was a good lead, though. Your sister sounds like she might be sitting on a gold mine of information there at the
Records Center. Keep up the link. I’d be careful about the Our Earth people, though. They’ll do damn near anything to get a story. They’d just get you hooked so they could talk about the whales getting killed.”
> As Stu disappeared, Conner swiveled her chair thoughtfully back to her computer. Stu was right about the Our Earth people. But it wasn’t just them. She thought of what she had done, or would do, for the sake of a story. Conner had always known that ambition was a card with a flip side. That other side was the sheer capability to do anything, damn the consequences. Conner had the ability to play that card. And this, plus her looks, would eventually get her everything she wanted.
Stu was dismissing the story too easily, she thought, but she had to admit he was right about not having a backstop. They’d get blown out of the water if they put what they had on the air. She had a feeling about this, though. The government had tried too hard to hide this base. Even though it was twenty-five years ago, who knows what they might have done. Conner scrolled the computer screen back on her notes, looking for another door to try.
It took her less than forty-five minutes to find it.
NATIONAL PERSONNEL RECORDS CENTER
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
Sammy slowly put down the phone. Her sister had acquired quite a bit of information in the last couple of hours. She considered the request Conner had made and looked at the in box perched on the corner of the desk. She was behind—a rare event. She’d spent a few hours this morning using the computer to try a few different avenues of approach on Eternity Base. The fact that she’d come up without even the slightest mention of the name made her recognize the extent to which the information had been buried.
Conner’s suggestion that she try to track down the aircrew of the plane that had made the runs from Eternity Base to McMurdo made sense, but Sammy wasn’t exactly sure where to find the information. She figured that Hawaii—where the plane was supposedly based— was her best bet.
Twenty minutes of work yielded two C-130 squadrons stationed at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii at the appropriate time: the 746th Tactical Airlift Squadron (TAS) and the 487th TAS. Sammy stood and stretched her back, preparing for the plunge into the stacks.
She pulled the 746th’s records first. An hour and forty minutes later she was familiar with the operations of that unit in 1971 but had found no record of flights to Antarctica. Her luck changed with the 487th. The records showed that C-130s from that unit had regularly made runs from Hawaii, across the Pacific, and down to McMurdo. But there was nothing to indicate that one plane had been detached for four months to the Antarctic, so Sammy went to her old standby—TDY records.
She was halfway through the folder that held the TDY records for the 487th and about to turn a page when something caught her eye. Sammy’s breathing grew faster as she read the DD-1610. It detached one plane and crew on 15 August 1971 to the operational control of MACV-SOG, Vietnam, for the duration. It was too much of a coincidence. Sammy quickly copied the tail number of the plane and the name of the five crew members.
Returning to her computer, she accessed the personnel database and punched in the name of the pilot. The screen glowed with the reply. Sammy quickly checked the other four crew members of that C-130. Their entries all read the same. With a shaking hand she dialed her sister’s work number.
“SNN. Conner Young.”
Sammy wasted no time on preamble. “Constance, what was the last day that engineer lieutenant told you he was down there? The day they flew out?”
“Hold on.” Sammy licked her lips as she waited for her sister’s answer. “Well, he didn’t give a date. He just said it was four or five days before Christmas.”
Sammy looked at the date on the screen and felt her stomach lurch. “And Freely said that only that aircrew knew the location of Eternity Base?”
“He said that crew and some major named Claxton or something like that. Why?”
Sammy told her sister what she’d just uncovered. There was a long silence on the other end.
Chapter 4
SNN HEADQUARTERS
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
“You have fifteen minutes, Conner,” Stu Fernandez whispered in her ear as they entered the conference room. “Make it good.”
J. Russell Parker presided at the end of the table. Only forty-eight years old, he had made SNN the leading news network after outlasting and out covering all the competition during the Gulf War. With a prematurely balding forehead, set off by large bushy eyebrows, he looked more like a friendly uncle than a CEO. He disarmed his competitors by his amiable appearance, but the mind behind that face was razor sharp.
Parker was flanked on either side by his primary assistants, John Cordon and Louise Legere. The latter was generally hated by all the reporters even if she was good at her job as special features editor. Legere was as strong as Conner in the ambition department but was less graceful, stepping on toes as she pursued her goals. Cordon, the executive vice president of operations, was considered more a flunky than an executive. He seldom spoke, but for some reason, when he did speak he had the boss’s ear.
Conner took her position at the other end of the table facing Parker. Stu sat in the middle of the three chairs on the flank, next to Cordon. Conner noted that careful choice of position: Stu wasn’t throwing himself totally in her camp until he saw which way the wind blew.
Parker greeted her, starting the clock. “Ms. Young, Stu tells me you’ve dug up something interesting and that you think it’s worthy of more investigation.”
“Yes, sir, I have.” Without further ado, she presented her information, laying it out concisely and in what she hoped was an intriguing manner. The three let her speak for five minutes without an interruption.
Done, she leaned back in her chair and waited. No one spoke, waiting for some indication of how Parker felt. The man in question rubbed his chin and then smiled. “Very interesting. Sounds dark and mysterious. I like that. But.” He pronounced the last word very clearly. “But, we really don’t have anything solid to run with. You say your sister does not wish to be used either as a source or even as an anonymous conduit of hard copy information.”
‘They check people going in and out of the Records Center,” Conner explained. “Even if she was able to sneak out the photos, if we used them in a story, it wouldn’t be hard for the government to find out where they came from and backtrack that to Samantha.”
“What about one of these engineer fellows?” Cordon asked.
Legere cut in, not allowing Conner to answer. “No good. We’re talking about something that’s twenty-five years old. People aren’t interested in some old fart standing in front of a camera recounting a story about a mysterious base in Antarctica.
“However,” Legere beamed a frosty smile down the table toward Conner, “if we did have something solid—a document, say, or especially these photos—I think it might make a good five-minute spot. We might be able to stir up enough reaction to justify further digging by one of my people. Antarctica is an interesting topic as far as audience reaction goes. The last frontier sort of thing.”
Conner pressed her case. She wanted more than a five-minute spot, and it was her story. If Legere got her way it would basically mean that Conner had wasted everyone’s time here, and she was sure Parker would remember that in a negative light. “I think we might be able to work the treaty violation angle.”
Parker was tapping a finger against his upper lip. “My big question is: what did they build down there? We’re talking 1971. Nixon is president. Vietnam is going down the tubes. The country is in bad shape and we have something secret being built in Antarctica. Maybe some sort of radar setup?” Parker roused himself from his musings. “Oh, well. It doesn’t matter. We don’t have enough to go with, I’m afraid. You really don’t have any hard evidence, Ms. Young. Nice—”
Conner took the plunge and cut in. “The tail number of an air force plane that was reported missing in action on 21 December 1971 in Vietnam is the same tail number of a plane that filed a flight plan out of McMurdo on 21 December 1971.” Conner knew she was speaking too quickly and tried to slow down. “I checked FAA records. Those men were the only people who knew where Eternity B
ase was, and all five are currently listed as MIA in Vietnam.” Conner had the room’s undivided attention. “Whatever they were doing was important enough to cover up the loss of five men. And those men did not disappear in Vietnam.” Conner looked Parker in the eye. “What if I find out what was built there?”
Legere swiveled her gaze at the reporter. “How?”
Conner played her last card. “I go there.”
“What!” exclaimed Legere.
“We send some people down there and find the place.”
“That’s if it still exists,” Legere countered.
“I believe it does,” Conner said.
“Huh? You believe!” Legere shook her head. “Young lady, do you know how much it would cost to mount a team to go to Antarctica? It’s the end of the world, for God’s sake.”
“We could get logistical support from Our Earth.” Conner had just finished talking to Devlin and he’d promised his help. But she knew that these people would be as leery as Stu about getting mixed up with Our Earth.
Parker raised his bushy eyebrows. “Our Earth? How are they involved?”
“They’re not involved, sir. But they have experience in the Antarctic. They run a year-round station near McMurdo Base, and McMurdo served as the supply conduit for Eternity Base. They are the only nongovernment organization to have such a setup on the continent. They have both ship and plane capability. The only expenses we would incur would be transportation to New Zealand. Our Earth would take care of logistical support from there on out—with no professional compromise. We can do the story however we like.
“Additionally,” Conner continued, “even if we somehow don’t find Eternity Base, we still can pick up enough other stories to make the trip worthwhile. There’s the French airstrip story. The Japanese and Korean whaling fleets, which those countries claim are operated only for scientific purposes. The new treaty and its effect on research down there.” She’d been told it was best to have more than one plan when you briefed Parker. She could see him finally crack a slight smile.
