Beneath the Ice

by Alton Gansky

  So there they were—he with his fanny in a fiberglass folding chair and one, probably two women hiding in a crate across the Chamber.

  Then he heard it. It was slight, almost impossible to hear, and Jack would not have noticed it if he were not waiting for it.

  A scraping, soft and subtle. Wood against wood. If he could hear it then—

  Jack stood, stretched, and yawned loudly.

  “Sit down,” the gunman ordered.

  “My sitter is broken, pal. I need to stretch. You know how it is.” Jack spoke louder than necessary. It was his only hope of distracting the gunman. He caught a glimpse of the slow-moving container lid.

  “I said ‘sit down.’ ” The man’s sour face darkened and tensed.

  “Come on, give a guy a break. A man can only sit for so long.” Jack stretched his back and took another step to the side. The gunman’s piercing eyes followed him. As he moved, Jack let his eyes drift over the man’s shoulders and saw Gwen emerge from the crate, plastic packing material clinging to her parka. A second later, Sarah appeared. He didn’t know what they planned, but he had to keep the guard occupied.

  “So how do you get into this line of work?” Jack asked with a wry grin. “I mean, do you answer a newspaper ad or go to school for training? Acme School of Terrorism or something like that?”

  “You’re not funny, big guy,” the gunman said, raising the barrel of the wicked-looking gun to Jack’s chest. He flipped a switch and a small, red light appeared over Jack’s sternum. He hadn’t noticed before that the MP-5 was equipped with a laser marker.

  “Now that’s cool,” Jack said. “You could point out things on a map with a light like that.”

  “You’re a trigger squeeze away from death. Sit down.”

  “I don’t think you’ll kill me right now,” Jack said. He caught a glimpse of Sarah and Gwen moving. He didn’t look at them, fearing the guard would catch his eye movement. “Maybe later, sure. But not now. You’d have to answer to your boss, and she seems, if you’ll forgive me, a little edgy. Maybe she’s not sleeping well.”

  “I’m not afraid of her.”

  “Oh, sure you are,” Jack said as if he were having coffee with the man. “Can’t say I blame you. She’s tough as nails. I mean, look at what she did to your partner in the Dome. Wow. One measly mistake and he takes one in the chest. Your boss may not be much on employee morale, but she sure knows how to motivate.”

  “He screwed up.”

  “No doubt about that. Kind of makes you wonder what the price will be for your screwup.”

  “I don’t plan on making any mistakes.”

  Jack rubbed his side. “She gave me a couple of good kicks.” His side ached, and each movement caused him more pain. He was sure Tia had cracked one or more of his ribs. “It hurts to breathe.”

  “You’re gonna be feeling more pain if you don’t sit down.”

  “Now, now,” Jack said, wagging a finger like a teacher scolding a child. “Your boss said no one was to be killed. I heard her. Granted, I was on the floor rolling in pain, but my ears were still working pretty good.”

  The man flipped another switch on the machine gun. Jack recognized the safety being moved to the off position. He sighed melodramatically. “That’s the problem with you terrorist types—you have no sense of hospitality.”

  “I’m not a terrorist.”

  “A rose by any other name . . .” Jack said and began to move toward the chair, then stopped abruptly. “Do they teach Shakespeare in terrorist school? ’Cause I just quoted him, and you don’t seem all that impressed.”

  “My patience is gone, funny man. Now put your—”

  It had taken all of Jack’s discipline not to look up as Sarah stepped behind the man and swung something long and dark. He heard a thud and a grunt of pain, then saw the gunman’s arm drop to his side.

  Jack was moving before he had time to think. In two steps he was in front of the guard, whose face was twisted in pain. The man started to turn. Jack helped him with a punch to the side of the head. The gunman went limp and crumbled.

  Jack jumped into the air and reached for his fist. It was on fire. Pain radiated up his arm and into his shoulder. The movement made his ribs ignite in scorching agony.

  “Are you all right?” Sarah asked.

  Jack turned to see her standing two feet away with a crowbar in her hand. “Better than he is.”

  “I couldn’t bring myself to hit him on the head,” Sarah said. “I was afraid I’d kill him. Stupid reasoning, I know.”

  “Not at all,” Jack said. “That whack you gave him on the arm is gonna leave a mark.”

  “Yeah, well that punch you gave may leave a trace, too,” Gwen said.

  “I think it hurt me more than it did him.” He shook his hand as if he could throw off the pain. “You guys have been in that box all this time?”

  “Yeah. Not many places to hide around here,” Gwen said.

  “What do we do now?” Sarah asked.

  Jack bent and picked up the gun that lay next to the unconscious man. “Take control of this baby first. After that, I don’t know.”

  A whooshing sound rolled through the Chamber, and Jack looked up in time to see Tia and Perry walk into the room. Before Jack could think, Tia raised her weapon. Perry reached for the barrel, but the round had been fired.

  Jack felt the impact in his left shoulder, then his feet left the ice, and the floor rose to meet him. His breath was forced from his lungs on impact. The first pain he felt was from his damaged ribs, then his nervous system caught up with the event. Pain like a thousand hot nails radiated from his shoulder. He rolled to his side to see a red fluid spreading out on the ice like someone had spilled a quart of crimson paint. Then Jack realized the paint was his blood.

  He heard a scream.

  He heard his name.

  Jack saw Perry’s face hovering over his own. “Hey, buddy.”

  “Hang in there, pal,” Perry said. “I’m here. I’ll get you fixed . . .”

  Jack heard no more.

  Robert Jeter had been in politics all his life. He had never wanted to hold office; he wanted to manage those who did. That was where the real power was. The man who could sway a king was a king himself. That had been his philosophy, but now he felt like the marionette. Someone of great power and influence had just taken control of his strings.

  Jeter had prided himself on his control. At George Washington University he had graduated in the top one percent of his class. He knew more about the American political system than any ten experts combined. He knew how to work congressmen and senators. He knew how to plan a foolproof campaign. No candidate he backed had lost, including the man who now carried the title POTUS—President of the United States.

  Richard Calvert was the most powerful man in the world, and as the one who stood beside him, Jeter was the second most powerful. No one saw the president without first going through him. He controlled the appointment book, and if Jeter blackballed a person, that person would never meet the president again. Control the gate and he controlled the man behind the gate.

  For the most part, Richard Calvert was controllable. He played the game, and he played it well. He knew when to listen and when to turn a deaf ear. A master at conciliation, he hadn’t seized the presidency; he wiggled into it in a dance Jeter choreographed.

  But Calvert was also a principled man. He didn’t mind compromise, and he chose his battles well, but certain things were sacrosanct to him. One such thing was honesty; another was loyalty. In one day both attributes had come into play.

  Jeter knew what was going through his boss’s mind. He made it his business to know. The president was feeling that someone was working behind his back. News of the crash had not reached his ears as it should have, especially since the loss of life included military personnel and the son of a friend. The searing look he had given Jeter at the end of the meeting made it clear that he was blaming his chief of staff. Serious damage control was needed.

/>   That was just one side of his problem. The other was Eric Enkian, a man he had met only twice, each time for mere seconds. Despite the short time, Jeter knew he was deeply indebted to the man. Jeter came from a poor family. His father had been a miner in the hellish coal holes of Virginia’s Cumberland Plateau. When Jeter’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, it had been Enkian who paid for the treatment that saved her life. He had no doubt his mother would have died under normal care, but Enkian had arranged for care at a cancer treatment center in California. Not only had he paid for it, he also had arranged the travel, rented a home nearby, and allowed Jeter’s father extended leave so he could be with his wife. That was when Jeter was sixteen.

  A few years later, Jeter received a letter stating that EA Mining would pay full tuition and expenses to any college Jeter chose and could enter. While he had been expecting to spend a few years in a state college, suddenly Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and others lay before him. He was told it was because of his high school achievements; he later found out that there were other reasons.

  During his junior year a man from EA Mining came to visit. He was polite, dapper, and appeared extremely wealthy. This last fact became clear by the late-model Porsche he drove and the two large gold-and-diamond rings on each hand. Jeter rode in that Porsche that day, his benefactor’s representative at the wheel. As they motored down the freeway, the man asked a question.

  “You see these rings, boy?” the man had asked. Young Jeter said he did. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of them. “Everything about them comes from EA Mining.”

  “They must pay you a lot of money,” Jeter had said.

  “They do, son, but you miss the point. These are not just pieces of jewelry; they’re reminders. The diamonds come from our mines in South Africa, the gold from Alaska, the silver inlay from Nevada. The gold was heated in a furnace made by materials from our other mines. The material used to polish the diamonds . . .”

  “From an EA-owned mine,” Jeter posited.

  “Exactly. Look around the campus,” the man had said. “Marble from our mines, asphalt parking lots from our mines, even the chalk the professors use comes from our mines.”

  “Are you trying to talk me into going to work for EA Mining?” Jeter asked. “I’m a poli-sci major.”

  “Mr. Enkian knows that. Political science is an important study. We’re not asking you to work the mines like your father; we would like you to join us in a different way.”

  “What way?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Ten minutes later, they pulled in front of the Watergate Hotel, released the sports car to the valet, and walked into one of the world’s most famous buildings. Jeter followed the mysterious man into the spacious, world-class restaurant and was surprised to see his father seated at a table by the window overlooking the Potomac. It had been over three months since Jeter had seen him, and he looked different. He looked frail. The suit fit a little too loosely and hung limply on shoulders that Jeter remembered as always being broad and strong.

  “Dad, what are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to see my son.”

  Jeter felt ill at ease. Something was wrong. “What is it, Dad? Are you ill?”

  “I’m just getting old,” his father had said. “Working the mines has taken its toll.”

  Jeter’s heart skipped. His first thought was one that orbited the thinking of anyone who had a family member in the coal mines: black lung. “You mean . . .”

  His father smiled. “No, my lungs are fine. We use the best safety equipment in the mines, son. I have colon cancer.” He said it as if he were announcing the purchase of a new piece of furniture. “The doctors tell me they caught it early, and that it’s in a good location. They’ll perform surgery in two days. I’ll go home a couple of days after that. They don’t think I’ll need a colostomy. That’s good news.”

  “I’m coming home,” Jeter said.

  “No, you’re not,” Dad said flatly. “You stick with your studies. I’m going to be fine, and the company is sending me to the best doctors. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “But what about chemotherapy? You’ll need help . . .”

  Dad shook his head. “No, I won’t. The company has taken care of that, too.” He smiled. “I didn’t come here to talk about my surgery, but you have a right to know.”

  “What then?” Jeter was puzzled.

  “It’s time I talked to you about something I should have brought up long ago.”

  Food was brought, and drinks served, but Jeter had little interest. He was focused on his father.

  “You come from very noble stock, Son. We have a family history that goes back farther than you can imagine.”

  “I don’t follow, Dad.”

  For forty-five minutes his father explained about his lineage, about the people from which he sprang, about their skill and the nation they had formed. He also explained about their sudden downfall and effort to return to a former glory—an effort that had been underway for centuries.

  “I’ve never heard of this,” Jeter said. “In world history class, they mentioned the people you’re talking about, but we didn’t spend much time on it.”

  The man from EA shook his head. “History classes talk about the people who came after us. They know very little.”

  “Okay,” Jeter had said, “so I’m not Italian or British. So what?”

  “There’s a religion behind it all,” his father explained. “Some follow it closely; others, like your mother and myself, don’t.”

  “I’m not much of a religious person,” Jeter said. “You know that.”

  His father nodded. “I’m afraid you get that from me. It doesn’t matter. Belief isn’t part of our religion. It’s not like the Christians or the Jews or the Muslims. But it is part of what defines us. It makes us unique.”

  “And that makes us a unit, a people with a single purpose,” the man with the Porsche said.

  “No one’s asking you to join a church,” his father said. “But we are asking that you help keep the system alive.”

  “How?”

  The benefactor spoke first. “By learning who we are and teaching your children when the time comes. At times we may need help with one thing or another.”

  “I’m just a student. What can I do?”

  “You won’t always be a student, Robert,” the man said. “We take care of our own. Do you want to go to graduate school? We can make it possible. Need money to start a business? We can provide it. We can help make you successful beyond your dreams.”

  “Wait a minute,” Jeter said. “My father has been a laborer in the mines all his life. He didn’t get special treatment.”

  “Of course I did, Son. I don’t have the smarts you do. You got that from your mother. I hated school; I prefer to work with my hands. I was born a laborer, and I’m not ashamed of it. You were born for more. I know it, your mother knows it, and the company knows it, too.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Just listen, and help when you can,” the man said.

  Jeter looked at his father, who stared back with anticipation. “This would make you happy?”

  “Yes,” his father said. “And your mother, too.”

  “When does my education begin?”

  “We’ll let you know,” the man said. “You just keep up the good grades. Oh, and one more thing.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys and pushed them to Jeter. The key chain held a key with the Porsche emblem and a hard clay cylinder.

  “I don’t understand,” Jeter said.

  “The car we came over in—I assume you like it.”

  “I love it.”

  “It’s yours.”

  Jeter couldn’t believe his ears.

  “You’re giving me a Porsche?”

  The man nodded.

  “I’m . . . I’m speechless.”

  “That’s a first,” his father chided.

  “What’s this cylind
er thing?” Jeter studied it. It had six sides, and the image of a dragon was etched into its surface.

  “It’s our symbol, our identity. The six-sided cylinder represents the sixty-six clay cylinders that contain the prophecies.”

  “Prophecies?”

  “You’ll learn more about those in time. The dragon is an ancient symbol, something else you’ll learn later. For now, just know that anyone who carries one of these is family. He or she is duty bound to help you, and you to help them.”

  “Like a service club,” Jeter said.

  “In a way, but it is also much more.”

  Jeter turned to his father and saw a wide grin part his lips. It felt good to see his father smile. That day was the last time he saw his father smile. He died on the operating table two days later.

  Henry Sachs hung up the phone and fought back hot tears. The president had been kind, very gracious, but he brought no hope. He had told Henry of the crash and been honest about the wasted search efforts conducted in the Ross Sea.

  “Not that it would have made any difference, Henry. The

  photos of the crash make it highly unlikely that there were any

  survivors.”

  “Perry wasn’t supposed to be on that flight,” Henry said.

  “I’m told that repeated efforts to contact the research site have been in vain. The consensus is that there is no one there to answer.”

  “That’s not like Perry, Mr. President. Something else is wrong. I can feel it.”

  The president said he understood, but Henry doubted his conviction. “I’ve ordered another satellite survey. We plan to look for signs of life.”

  “How would you tell?” Henry asked. “Unless someone happens to be walking outside, you won’t see anything.”

  “Actually,” the president said after a moment’s hesitation, “we can.”

  When the call was over, Sachs was left clinging to a single hope: that despite the silence of the camp, Perry was still alive deep in Antarctica.