They were sitting inside a large-diameter ice tunnel, with the vehicle's front end firmly embedded in a frozen wall opposite the shattered entry. In both directions the tunnel looked deserted. Seeing no sign of hostility, Giordino rushed into the Snow Cruiser and climbed the ladder to the control cabin. He found Pitt smiling hideously through a mask of blood.
"You look bad," he said, attempting to help Pitt from the driver's seat.
Pitt gently pushed him away. "It's not nearly as bad as it looks. We can't afford time for a clinical repair. You can patch me up with that old first-aid kit in the crew cabin. In the meantime, I vote we follow the tunnel toward the left. Unless I miss my guess, that will lead us to the mining compound."
Giordino knew it was senseless to contest the issue. He dropped down to the crew cabin and returned with a first-aid kit that hadn't been opened since 1940. He cleaned away the congealing blood on Pitt's face, then smeared the cuts with the antiseptic of the era, iodine, whose sharp sting had Pitt cursing in no quiet tones. Then he dressed the skin cuts. "Another life saved by the capable hands of Dr. Giordino, surgeon of the Antarctic."
Pitt looked into the face that was reflected in a side-view mirror. There was enough gauze and tape to cover a brain transplant. "What did you do?" he asked sourly. "I look like a mummy."
Giordino feigned a hurt look. "Aesthetics is not one of my strong points."
"Neither is medicine."
Pitt gunned the engines and maneuvered the hulking vehicle back and forth until he was able to straighten it around for a journey through the tunnel. For the first time, he wound down his window and studied the width of the tunnel. He figured the clearance between the ice and the vehicle's wheel hubs and its roof was no more than eighteen inches. He turned his attention to a large round pipe that ran along the outer arc of the tunnel, with small tubes running vertically from its core into the ice.
"What do you make of that?" he said, pointing to the pipe.
Giordino stepped from the Snow Cruiser, squeezed himself between the front tire and the pipe, and laid his hands on it. "Not an electrical conduit," he announced. "It must serve another purpose."
"If it's what I think it is…" Pitt's voice dropped portentously.
"Part of the mechanism to break loose the ice shelf," said Giordino, finishing his friend's train of thought.
Pitt stuck his head out his window and stared back into the long tunnel that stretched away to a vanishing point. "It must extend from the mining compound fourteen hundred miles to the opposite end of the ice shelf."
"An inconceivable feat of engineering to bore a tunnel that was equal to the distance between San Francisco and Phoenix."
"Inconceivable or not," said Pitt, "the Wolfs did it. You must remember, it's much easier to bore a tunnel through ice than hard rock."
"What if we cut a gap in the line and stop whatever activation system they've created to split off the ice shelf?" asked Giordino.
"A break might trigger it prematurely," answered Pitt. "We can't take the chance unless we find ourselves left with no other alternative. Only then can we risk dividing the line."
The tunnel looked like a great gaping black mouth. Except for the dim glow of the sun through the thick ice, there was no illumination. An electrical conduit with halogen bulbs spaced every twenty feet ran along the ceiling, but the power must have been shut down at the main junction box, because the lights were dark. Pitt turned on the two small headlights mounted on the lower front end of the Snow Cruiser, engaged gears, and drove off, increasing his speed through the tunnel until they were moving at twenty-five miles an hour. Though it was a pace easily sustained by a bicycle rider, it seemed a breakneck speed through the narrow confines of the tunnel.
While Pitt focused on keeping the Snow Cruiser from brushing against the unsympathetic ice, Giordino sat in the passenger seat, his rifle propped on one knee, eyes fastened as far as the headlights could throw their beams, watching for a sign of movement or any object other than the seemingly unending pipe with its intersecting tubes that ran down into the floor and through the roof of the tunnel.
The ominous fact that the tunnel was deserted suggested to Pitt that the Wolfs and their workers were abandoning the mining facility and preparing to escape to their giant ships. He pushed the Snow Cruiser as fast as it would go, occasionally spinning the wheel hubs into the ice walls and carving a trench before steering the vehicle straight again. Dread began clouding his mind. They had lost too much time crossing the ice shelf. The timetable that Karl Wolf had boasted of in Buenos Aires at the ambassador's party had been four days and ten hours.
The four days had passed, as had eight hours and forty minutes, leaving only an hour and twenty minutes until Karl Wolf threw the doomsday switch.
Pitt estimated that one mile, maybe one and half, separated them from the heart of the facility. He and Giordino were not given satellite maps of the layout, so finding the control center once they were inside would be pure guesswork. The questions nagging his mind were whether the Special Forces team had arrived and had been successful in eliminating the army of mercenaries. The latter would put up a bitter fight- the Wolfs had surely promised to save them and their families from the cataclysm. Any way he looked at it, the thought did not present a rosy picture.
AFTER another eighteen minutes of negotiating the tunnel in silence, Giordino hunched forward and gestured ahead. "We're coming to a crossroads."
Pitt slowed the Snow Cruiser, as they came to an intersection where five tunnels spread off into the ice. The dilemma was maddening. Time did not allow them to make the wrong choice. He leaned out the side window again and studied the frozen floor of the tunnel. Wheeled tracks branched into them all, but the deepest ruts appeared to travel into the one on the right. "The tube on the right looks like it's had the heaviest traffic."
Giordino jumped down out of the Snow Cruiser and disappeared up the tunnel. In a few minutes, he returned. "About two hundred yards farther on, it looks like the tunnel opens into a large chamber."
Pitt gave a brief nod and turned the vehicle and followed the tracks into the tunnel on his right. Strange structures began appearing locked in the ice, vague and indistinguishable but with the straight lines of objects that were man-made rather than a creation of nature. As Giordino had reported, the tunnel soon widened into a vast chamber whose curved roof was covered by ice crystals that hung down like stalactites. Light filtered down from several openings in the roof that illuminated the interior with an eerie glow. The effect seemed extraterrestrial, magical, timeless, and miraculous. Awed by the sight, Pitt slowly brought the Snow Cruiser to a halt.
The two men went silent in astonishment.
They found themselves parked in what was once the main square, surrounded by the icebound buildings of an ancient city.
42
No longer covered by the security blanket of the ice storm, the wind having dropped to only five miles an hour, Cleary felt naked, as his white-clad force fanned out and began advancing toward the mining facility. They took advantage of a series of hummocks that rose like camel humps for cover, until they reached the high fence that ran from the base of the mountain to the cliff above the sea and encircled the main compound.
Cleary had no prior intelligence on the force his men were up against. None had been gathered on the facility, simply because the CIA had never considered it a threat to the nation's security. Discovering the true horror of the menace at the last minute had left no time for covert penetration, nor had this simple hit-and-run strategy. It was a surgical operation, uncomplicated, requiring a quick conclusion. The orders were to neutralize the facility and deactivate the ice shelf breakaway systems before being relieved by a two-hundred-man Special Force team that was only an hour away.
All Cleary had been told was that the Wolf security guards were hardened professionals who came from elite fighting units around the world. This was information provided by the National Underwater & Marine Agency- hardly an organization p
racticed in intelligence gathering, Cleary mistakenly concluded. He was confident his elite force could handle any hostiles they encountered.
Little did he know that his small force was outnumbered three to one.
Moving in two columns, they reached what at first looked like a single fence but became two that were divided by a ditch. It looked to (weary as if it had been built decades before. There was an old sign whose paint was badly faded but could still be translated as `No Trespassing' in German. Made up of a common chain link, it was topped by several strings of wire whose barbs had become impotent long before from a thick coating of ice. Once many feet higher than now, ice drifts had built up against it until one could easily hoist one leg and step over it. The ditch had also filled in and was little more than a low, rounded furrow. The second fence was higher and still protruded seven feet above the snow, but posed no serious hazard. They lost precious minutes cutting through the strands until they could enter the grounds of the compound. Cleary took it as a good omen that they had penetrated the outer perimeter without discovery.
Once inside, their movements were shielded by a row of buildings with no windows. Cleary called a halt. He paused to examine a fifteen-by-eighteen-inch aerial photo of the compound. Though he had etched every street, every structure, in his mind during the flight from Cape Town, as had Sharpsburg, Garnet, and Jacobs, he wanted to compare a mark on the map to where they had passed through the outer fences. He was pleased to see they were only fifty feet from their intended infiltration point. For the first time since they had landed, regrouped, and advanced across the ice, he spoke into the Motorola radio.
"Tin Man?"
"I copy you, Wizard," replied the gravel voice of Lieutenant Warren Garnet.
"We split up here," said Cleary. "You know what is expected of you and your Marines. Good luck."
"On our way, Wizard," acknowledged Garnet, whose mission, as assigned to his Marine Recon Team, was to secure the generating plant and cut off all power to the facility.
"Scarecrow?"
Lieutenant Miles Jacobs of the Navy SEALs answered quickly. "I hear you, Wizard." Jacobs and his team were to circle around and assault the control center from the side facing the sea.
"You have the farthest to go, Scarecrow. You'd better get a move on."
"We're halfway there," Jacobs replied confidently, as he and his SEALs began moving out down a side road that led in the direction of the control center.
"Lion?"
"Ready to sweep," answered Captain Sharpsburg of the Army Delta Force cheerfully.
"I will accompany you."
"Happy to have an old hand along."
"Let's move out."
There was no synchronizing of watches, no further voice contact, as the teams divided and made their way to their assigned targets. There was no need. They all knew what they had to do, having been fully briefed on the horrendous consequences should they fail. Cleary had no doubts that his men would fight like demons or die without hesitation to stop the Wolfs from launching the apocalypse.
They moved lightly, almost fluidly, in offensive formation, two men ten yards ahead on either flank, and two men covering their rear. Every fifty yards, they stopped, dropped to the ground, or took whatever available cover presented itself, while Cleary studied the terrain and checked with the Marines and the SEAL teams.
"Tin Man, report."
"Sweep is clear. Approaching within three hundred yards of target."
"Scarecrow? Have you encountered anything?"
"If I wasn't sure, I'd say the place is abandoned," answered Jacobs.
Cleary did not reply. He rose from his crouched position as Sharpsburg moved his Lion team forward.
On the face of it, the facility seemed like a bleak and austere layout. Cleary saw nothing special about it, but then trepidation began to mount. The compound appeared totally deserted. No workers showed themselves. No vehicles moved. It was too quiet. The entire inner compound was cloaked in a cold, eerie silence.
Karl Wolf stared at an array of monitors in the headquarters of his security guards on a floor below the main control center. He watched with bemused interest as Cleary and his assault teams made their way through the roads of the complex.
"You'll have no problem preventing them from interrupting our launch time?" he asked Hugo, who was standing next to him.
"None," Hugo assured him. "We have contemplated and drilled for such an intrusion many times. Our fortifications are in place, the barricades raised, and our armored Sno-cats awaiting my orders to move into battle."
Karl nodded in satisfaction. "You have done well. Still, these are the elite of the American fighting forces."
"Not to worry, brother. My men are just as well trained as the Americans. We heavily outnumber them and have the advantage of fighting on our ground. The element of surprise is in our favor, not theirs. They do not suspect that they are walking into a trap. And we can travel through the facility's underground utility tunnels, emerge inside buildings, and attack their flanks and rear before they realize what is happening."
"Your overall strategy?" Karl asked.
"To gradually siphon them into a pocket in front of the control center, where we can destroy them at our leisure."
"Our ancestors who fought so many heroic battles against the Allies during the war would be proud of you."
Obviously pleased by his brother's compliment, Hugo clicked his heels and made a stiff bow. "I am honored to serve the Fourth Empire." Then he looked up and gazed at the monitors, studying the progress of the American fighting teams. "I must go now, brother, and direct our defenses."
"How long do you estimate it will take your men to crush the attackers?"
"Thirty minutes, certainly no more."
"That doesn't leave you and your men much time to reach and board the aircraft. Do not delay, Hugo. I have no wish to leave you and your brave men behind."
"And lose our dream of becoming the founding fathers of a brave new world?" Hugo said spiritedly. "I don't think so."
Karl motioned toward the digital clock mounted between the monitors. "Twenty-five minutes from now, we shall set the ice shelf detaching systems on automatic. Then everyone in the control center will leave through the underground tunnel that leads to the worker's main dormitory safely beyond the battlefield. From there, we'll take electric vehicles to the aircraft hangar."
"We shall not fail," said Hugo, with iron resolve.
"Then good luck to you," said Karl. He solemnly shook Hugo's hand, before turning and stepping into the elevator that would take him to the control room above.
Cleary and the Lion team were only a hundred and fifty yards from the entrance of the control center when Garnet's voice came over his intercom. "Wizard, this is Tin Man. There's something wrong here…"
In that instant, Cleary spotted the barricade blocking the road in front of the control center, saw the dark muzzles of guns propped on its crest. He opened his mouth to shout, but it was too late. A deafening volley laid down by the security guards exploded in front of the Delta Force from every direction. The blasts from two hundred guns swamped and reverberated off the walls of the buildings, cutting the icy air with a deafening roar.
Garnet and his Marines were caught in the open and exposed, but they laid down a covering fire and took whatever cover they could find along the buildings. Despite the ruthless fusillade, they continued advancing toward the power station, until Garnet recognized an ice barricade that was nearly impossible to distinguish against the white background until he was less than a hundred yards away. His men began a counterfire, firing their Eradicator rifles' fragmentation missiles at the security guards behind the barricades.
In front of the control center, at almost the same moment, Cleary found himself facing the same type of ice wall and blistering fire that Garnet was experiencing. Vulnerable to the heavy fire, the lead man on the left flank of the Delta Force caught bullets in a knee and thigh and he went down. Moving flat on his sto
mach, Sharpsburg grabbed the wounded man by his boots and pulled him around the corner of the building.
Cleary ducked below a stairway leading into a small storehouse. Shards of ice rained down on his shoulders as a stream of shells burst into the icicles hanging from the roof above him. Then a shot struck his body armor square-on above his heart, sending him staggering backward, alive but with a pain in his chest as if someone were pounding it with a sledgehammer. Sergeant Carlos Mendoza, who was the best shot of the team, lined up the crosshairs through the scope of his Eradicator on the Wolf security guard who'd shot Cleary and squeezed the trigger. A black figure jerked up from the crest of the barricade before falling back and disappearing. The sergeant then selected his next target and fired away.
More bullets slammed into the roof above Cleary, scattering ice slivers in a hundred different directions. He saw too late that Wolf's security force was prepared and waiting for them. The fortifications had been designed and constructed for just such an attack. He painfully discovered that the lack of proper intelligence was killing them. He also began to perceive that his attacking force was badly outnumbered by the defenders.
Cleary cursed himself for relying on untested information. He cursed the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency, who'd estimated the Wolf security force at no more than twenty to twenty-five men. He cursed his lack of intuition, and in the heat of the moment he cursed himself for making the biggest mistake in his military life. He had badly underestimated his enemy.
"Tin Man!" he shouted into his microphone. "Report your situation!"
"I count sixty or more hostiles blocking the road in front of us," Garnet's voice replied in a monotone, as steady as if he were describing cows in a pasture. "We are under heavy fire."
"Can you force the issue and secure the power plant?"
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