by Alton Gansky
“Nice setup,” Tia said. “It looks like you know what you’re doing. Is that it?” She pointed to the vertical aluminum frame that had guided Hairy down the ice shaft.
“That’s the ice hole,” Perry said.
“How are you coring?” Tia asked. “I don’t see drilling equipment.”
Perry explained about Hairy and its operation. He saw no need to withhold information. It would only anger the volatile woman and gain them nothing. Tia walked to the rig and peered down the hole. “You’ve made headway. How deep is it?”
“The ice or the probe?”
“The probe. I know about the ice.”
“I don’t know. The monitors give the details.” He nodded at the table. They walked toward it. He explained the monitors and their readouts.
“This is the device Sarah Hardy designed?” Tia asked. Perry said it was. “Then where is she? I find it hard to believe that you would let her leave while the device is coring.”
“That’s my job,” Gleason said. “I’m checked out on the controls and operations. It’s too much for one person to monitor twenty-four hours a day.”
Tia nodded as if agreeing. “How long before it hits the lake?”
“Another twenty-six hours,” Gleason said. “Assuming all goes well.”
“It’s autonomous?”
“At this stage, yes. There is little for us to do but make sure the power source remains uninterrupted.”
“All the power comes from the surface?”
Perry nodded. “During the descent stage we provide energy to the device through the power cord you see feeding off the spool.”
“And once it hits the water?”
“It jettisons the cord, which is too heavy to tow. We control its movements by fiber optics.”
Tia seemed pleased. “Can we speed it up?”
“I wouldn’t,” Perry said. “Heat from the head radiates back along the cryobot’s body. Too much heat could damage something.”
“It’s that delicate?”
Perry shook his head. “It’s not delicate, but it’s powerful. You can try it if you want, but you may end up with nothing more useful than a fishing weight at the end of the line.”
She looked at her watch. “The timing is perfect.” She turned and studied the building and its contents. “What’s in the boxes?”
Perry hesitated. It struck him what was different about the place. The wooden crate that had held Hairy was closed. It shouldn’t be. “Most are filled with packing material and debris. We planned on transporting all waste from the site when we were finished. Once a box is empty of its load, we refill it with the packing material so it will be on hand when we need it.”
“But not all the boxes are empty?” Tia pressed.
“No, the ones to the left, the two tall ones and the wide, long crate that’s laying flat on its side.”
Tia marched toward the stack of boxes, stopping by Hairy’s container.
“That one’s plastic anti-impact material,” Perry called after her.
Tia turned and eyed Perry. He didn’t like her expression. Slowly, she reached down and took the edge of the loose lid, lifted it, and peeked inside. She let the lid fall and walked to the larger containers. “Open these. I want to see what toys they have. I’ll keep an eye on our friends.” She raised her machine gun.
Gwen held her breath. She had been listening to the conversation, muted by distance and the wood sides of the crate, slowly pulling the plastic packing material over Sarah and herself. It was a thin chance, a gossamer hope, but if she could blanket themselves in enough of the opaque material, they might avoid discovery, assuming no one looked too closely.
When the lid of the crate moved, she nearly jumped. She held her breath, waiting for a command or the blast of a gun. To her surprise, the lid dropped back into place.
Maybe Perry’s God was watching after all.
Enkian boarded the chartered Boeing 757, taking only a moment to appreciate its sleek lines. He had other things on his mind. As he stepped through the hatch, he was greeted by a red-haired beauty who looked half his age.
“Good morning,” she said with a smile that would capture the attention of every dentist lucky enough to be nearby.
Enkian didn’t return the smile. “Everyone is in place?”
“Yes, sir. The team is seated in coach, and the deck crew is awaiting your permission to taxi.”
“Cargo is secured?” he asked, stepping to the middle row of the first-class seating area. He was the only one of the fifty-plus passengers in the well-appointed area.
“Just as you’ve instructed.”
Enkian nodded. “Tell the pilot it is time to leave.”
The redhead nodded and disappeared into the crew cabin. She reappeared a moment later. “We have clearance to taxi. The captain says we will be in the air in five minutes. May I bring you anything after we’re airborne?”
“Water with lime.”
“Anything to read?”
“No.” Enkian fastened his seat belt and leaned his head back against the leather chair. He needed nothing to read. His attention focused on what lay ahead. Many hours would pass, and several stops would be made before the distance from Mexico City to the extreme southern region of the planet was reached. He planned to spend the time in meditation and planning.
He thought of the cargo in the hold and smiled. The 757 be-longed to Air Mexico, but the crew was his. He doubted the executives of the airline would appreciate his plans to bypass all cargo inspection. It had been difficult to arrange, but massive amounts of money made things happen, especially in countries where earning a livable wage was a luxury.
The plane began a slow taxi away from the terminal. Enkian heard the engines begin to whine as the large aircraft moved toward the runway.
Minutes later it took to the air, and Enkian had to suppress his excitement. Excitement was to be expected. It wasn’t every day that a man left his home on a flight toward his destiny. In his case, the destiny had been set eons before.
Chapter 19
Robert Jeter stepped through the door that joined his office to the Oval Office. He had been chief of staff for three years—the youngest chief of staff since Hamilton Jordan guided the Carter administration—but he still felt a rush of pride each time he crossed the threshold into the president’s historic office. The brown-and-tan carpet with the great seal of the president embroidered in the center, the alabaster walls, the high ceiling with its frescoed seal of the United States adorning the center, and the remarkable view out the windows gave him goose bumps. He never showed it, but they were there.
Waiting for him were four men: David Jannot, a skinny, anemic-looking man from the CIA; FBI Director Steve Belanger; the secretary of homeland security, Larry Shomer; and President Richard Calvert, who wore a charcoal suit, white shirt, and brilliant blue tie. He was seated in an overstuffed, high-back chair, a concession to the touch of arthritis in his lower back.
“Sorry to be late,” Jeter said. “There was a phone call I could not avoid.”
“You’re not late,” President Calvert said. “These guys are early. Coffee?”
“No thank you, Mr. President. I’m ready to float away as it is.”
Calvert chuckled. “This nation runs on caffeine. Take a seat, and we’ll get started.” Jeter sat on one of the two cream-colored sofas, crossed his legs, and opened his ever-present notebook. He was the only man with pen and paper in hand. The others—except the president, who held nothing—made use of handheld computers. “Start us off, Steve.”
“Yes, sir,” Belanger said and gave a brief report of FBI activities. Larry Shomer added information from the Homeland Security perspective. There was little of consequence, which Jeter knew was not unusual. These meetings were held daily and often lasted less than fifteen minutes.
“I have something new,” Jannot said when Shomer had finished. “NSA picked up on it. A plane went down in the Ross Sea yesterday with its crew and passengers. Presu
mably it sank, but a certain Coast Guard captain is throwing a fit. He thinks the whole thing is wacky.”
“Ross Sea?” the president said. “In Antarctica?”
“Yes,” Jannot said. “The National Security Administration monitors radio transmissions around the world. One of their listening posts picked up radio communication between the skipper of a Coast Guard cutter and his peers at McMurdo. Someone reported the plane missing, and there is an eyewitness that says he saw it hit the water.”
“So what’s the captain’s beef?” Belanger asked.
“I haven’t read the transcripts, but the reports say he thinks it’s impossible for a pilot to overshoot McMurdo and crash into the sea and only have one witness. His ship was in the vicinity, and they saw nothing.”
“Who was on the plane?” the president wondered. “Anyone we should know about?”
“There are many flights in the area,” Jeter said. He thought un-comfortably of his phone conversation with Henry Sachs. “Probably some college professors.”
“I wouldn’t dismiss it so lightly,” Larry Shomer interjected.
“It was an American plane?” the president wanted to know.
“NSA thinks so,” Jannot replied. “I’ve asked them to narrow it down. It seems no one knows much about the flight. Some kind of secret.”
“Secret flights over Antarctica?” the president said. “That’s a multinational place. Such things aren’t supposed to happen. Wait a minute.” He looked at Jeter. “Didn’t we get a briefing from Defense on a possible problem in that area?”
Jeter swallowed hard. “Yes, sir. About two months ago, maybe longer.” Jeter watched the president’s eyes dart back and forth as he recalled the meeting.
“I want more information, and I want it right away. The last thing we need is the Washington Post saying I don’t care about Americans lost overseas. Learn what you can.”
Jeter left the meeting feeling far more depressed than when he had arrived. He closed the door to his office behind him, set his notepad on the desk, and picked up his phone, dialing for an outside line.
Nearly two thousand miles away and thirty-five thousand feet above the earth, Eric Enkian took a call.
Perry watched helplessly as Tia’s four men pried open crate after crate, container after container. They scattered wood chips, dropped nails, and spread packing material like children opening Christmas presents. They worked with the finesse of a nearsighted bull. Since he could do nothing else, he tested the nylon tie that bound his wrists. He felt fortunate that it wasn’t so tight that it cut off his circulation, but it was clear that he wasn’t going to work his way free. The thick ties were the kind used to bind electronic cable. He had also seen police use them as auxiliary handcuffs. They were light, strong, and impossible to break, and any effort to try would only cut deep into his flesh.
He glanced toward the others. Griffin was near catatonic, frightened, no doubt, beyond any of his nightmares; Dr. Curtis was stoic and appeared more irritated than frightened. Jack was studying the men as they worked, and Perry knew he was sizing them up. While Jack did not seem happy, he showed no fear. Gleason cringed each time a box was opened roughly. Larimore worried Perry. He looked furious, ready to spring into action at the slightest opportunity. That, he knew, would be the end of the commander’s life.
Then there were Sarah and Gwen. He was certain they were hiding in the empty cryobot box, but Tia had given no indication that she’d seen them when she cracked open the lid.
“I’m impressed,” Tia said. “Come here, Mr. Sachs.”
Perry walked from his place near the ice hole toward the packing area, where the equipment had been set. He said nothing when he came close.
“These two items intrigue me,” she said, pointing at the contents of a just-opened crate. “Are these what I think they are?”
“That depends on what you think they are.”
“Don’t get cute with me, Sachs. You’ve seen how patient I am. These are dive suits, aren’t they?”
“They are,” Perry replied.
“Deep-sea diving suits, right?”
Perry nodded. He watched his captor study the hard-shell suits. Each of them hung on a metal rack, its arms extended slightly as if reaching for a hug. The “head” was a bulbous affair with a half sphere of clear plastic.
She looked at the suits for a moment then turned toward the ice hole. “You were planning on going down through the ice?”
“We tried to plan for everything. Being where we are, it’s hard to run down to the hardware store to pick up something we need.”
She looked back at the ice shaft. “These are too big for that hole.”
“I know,” Perry said.
“Are you going to make me beat this out of you?”
“I’m not much of a conversationalist.”
“Learn. Or someone, maybe your big friend over there, will get more of our hospitality.”
“They’re dive suits, yes. An advancement of the JIM suit, de-signed for additional mobility while being smaller than any suit ever developed. They are a hybrid of two suits—one from NASA and another from the navy. These suits allow us to work at depths beyond what a scuba diver can endure. They’re heated, self-propelled, and carry advanced communication gear. They’re designed to be used around offshore drilling rigs and in rescue situations. We had a few projects that required underwater construction. We call them Atmospheric Diving Suits: ADS I and ADS II. The designers dubbed them the Addy twins.”
“I’ve seen JIM suits.”
“Basically, that’s what they are.”
“You still haven’t explained how you’re going to get down a hole that small.”
Perry nodded toward a long, wide box that Tia’s men had pried open. Tia walked to it. “Another cryobot?”
“Yes.” Perry watched her study the device.
“It has to be six feet in diameter.”
“A little over,” Perry said.
“Why not start with this one?” Tia asked. “It would have saved time.”
“The larger the surface area of the heated head, the more energy it takes to move through the ice. Our plan was to open a smaller hole first, explore with Hairy, and—”
“Hairy?”
“The cryobot that’s working its way toward the lake. If need be—and if it’s safe—we could core out a larger hole with the bigger cryobot.”
“Which should go faster and take less energy since two-thirds of the ice has been removed.”
“Exactly.”
Tia stared off in the distance. “The suit provides more than heat and comfort. Correct?”
“Yes. One of the problems is that we are two miles above the lake. In addition, we are at twelve thousand feet above sea level. To send a man down from this altitude, through a couple miles of ice into a pressured lake would be unwise—actually, it would be murder. Even if we could do that, bringing the person back to the surface would be fatal. The pressure change would cause the air in his blood to bubble.”
“Decompression sickness. The bends.”
“The world’s worst case.”
Tia looked at the suit again. Perry could tell she was studying the white armorlike skin. “From what I know about JIM suits,” she said, “is that they’re huge, more submersible with arms and legs than a dive suit. This is what—half the size?”
“Forty percent.” She was intelligent, Perry decided, and that chilled his blood. Intelligent psychopaths were unnerving.
“You can maintain a stable atmospheric pressure in such a small suit?”
He nodded. “It’s based on a design that NASA was considering a decade ago. They examined the feasibility of a ridged-skin space suit. Materials technology has advanced considerably in the last few years, as has machine miniaturization. We were able to strip away the bulk and make articulated joints that moved in a far more natural way.”
“Depth rating?”
Perry was growing weary of answering questions at gunpoin
t.
“I asked you a question,” she snapped.
“Three hundred meters,” Perry replied.
“Nearly a thousand feet,” she murmured. “Didn’t the older JIM suits go deeper?”
“This isn’t a true JIM suit. It’s based on the same principle, but the design is unique. The bulkier suits had greater depth potential—six hundred meters to be exact—but they were, well . . . bulkier. We’d never get a hole in the ice large enough to accommodate one of those.”
“And the diver breathes normal gases?”
“That’s the real advantage.”
“That and not being crushed,” Tia said.
“And movement is fully three-dimensional?”
“As far as the tether will allow.”
“So air and power come from topside.”
Again Perry nodded. “The suits can operate autonomously for close to ninety minutes using onboard air and battery power. Longer dives require outside support.”
“Impressive.”
“How about undoing my hands?” Perry said. “I’ve been a good boy and told you what you wanted to know.”
“You haven’t told me where the women are.”
“I believe Commander Larimore gave you that information.”
“He’s lying. I can smell it on him.”
Perry frowned. “What is it you want?”
“I don’t want anything, Mr. Sachs,” Tia said, her face a mask of dissatisfaction. “I have it already, don’t I?”
“Only you would know that.”
She looked back at the suits, the large cryobot, and the other gear scattered about. “I’m very impressed. Enkian will be, too.”
“Who?”
“The man who will be killing you.”
Chapter 20
“Everything is normal,” Gleason said. His words caught in his throat. Tia was standing behind him, the barrel of the gun pressed to the back of his skull. Perry’s heart broke for his friend. He knew that Gleason’s mind must be racing to his wife and children, who might become a widow and orphans at any moment.
