by Tom Clancy
Let their targets be stationary captives of the elements. His team would be a moving force.
The storm was like a rushing stallion, and they could either stay in front of the charge or be trampled.
Cold Corners Base
Ten minutes after exiting the chopper, Nimec was in Megan’s square, monotone-blue office, still wearing the wind parka he’d donned for his scratched departure.
“They think they can ground us, they’re wrong,” he fumed, standing in front of her desk. “McMurdo doesn’t have any right butting into our affairs. They’ve got no authority.”
She regarded him from her chair. “Pete, calm down, this is just as frustrating for me. . . .”
“Then get on the phone with somebody over there. Explain that we appreciate their concern for our safety, but have decided to do what’s necessary to find our people.”
“I can’t for a lot of reasons. Russ is one of their pilots—”
“Okay, then we’ll use our own. The guy who was jockeying the pols around is back, why not him? I know he isn’t as familiar with the Valleys. But it’s not like he’s green. . . .”
“I told you, Russ is only part of it. Cold Corners operates under special arrangement with USAP. We receive direct sponsorship from the American government. In a sense, we represent an extension of its foreign policy interests here. Though we’ve never locked horns over anything, McMurdo Station is an official United States base, and we’re arguably subject to its auspices.”
Nimec leaned forward over the desk, knuckling its edge with both hands.
“And you know, and I know, and these walls know we’ve bent the rules before,” he said.
Megan sighed. “The air-travel restrictions were called with good reason. You’ve never been through a Condition II Antarctic storm. I have. And trust me, MacTown’s alert is absolutely nothing to disregard.”
“Who’s doing that? I checked the weather outlook. The storm’s still miles to our southwest. Even further from Bull Pass. And Granger told me we’d need an hour at most to fly from here to there. I’m not thinking to go ahead with the kind of thorough search I wanted, but if I can accomplish anything at all it’s worth a try. Give me three, four hours and I’ll be back in plenty of time.”
Megan shook her head. “You’re still missing the point,” she said. “Maybe a little intentionally. You know how forecasting works. Anyone who’s ever gotten drenched in the rain because the local weatherman predicted a sunny beach day knows. It’s a matter of estimates. Especially in this place. The situation could deteriorate faster than anyone thinks. Look at how the storm’s motion has already shifted from the original forecast.”
Nimec stared at her. He could see where this was leading. “Antarctica. It controls the show. Like mighty Olympus. Have I got that right in my head yet? Or do I have to hear it from one more person?”
Megan looked at him.
“Listen,” she said. “My decision has to be about the good of the whole base. If you wind up in a bad situation, getting you out of it becomes a priority. Which would mean putting more of our people at risk. I can’t allow it.”
“And how about Alan Scarborough and those scientists? Since when have they stopped being a priority?”
Megan sat in silence for perhaps thirty seconds, her gaze suddenly sharp.
“Alan wouldn’t want anyone doing something as unwise as what you’ve suggested,” she said in a tight voice.
There was another long interval of silence. Nimec straightened, lifted his hands off her desk, and stepped back from it.
“So we’re done, that it?” he said at last. “This place makes the call.”
Megan shook her head slowly.
“No, Pete,” she said. “I do.”
Their eyes momentarily clashed.
“Appreciate you telling me,” Nimec said, and abruptly turned away from her, leaving the office without another word.
Near Cold Corners Base, Victoria Land
Burkhart stood in an ice-sheathed elbow of rock and gazed through his binoculars as the rising, snarling gusts blew around him.
There, he thought. There it is.
He could see UpLink’s ice station in the basin below, perhaps a half mile to the north, its modular core elevated above the snowdrifts on mechanical stilts. Much closer to his position was the geodesic dome housing the critical life-support facility that had been marked for destruction.
Unseen beneath the neoprene face mask he’d donned in the worsening cold, a touch of a smile. He had emerged from the senses-numbing vacancy of the whiteout, reached his destination with the gale well at his rear.
He turned to the man who’d accompanied him onto the bluff.
“Go back to the others,” he said. “You’re to make camp in the lee slope, wherever its best shelter can be found. Shovel plenty of snow over the ground flaps of our tents. Be sure the flies are also secure.”
The man’s eyes widened behind his goggles, but he remained quiet.
“What’s on your mind?” Burkhart said.
The man hesitated.
“Tell me,” Burkhart said. “I’ll reserve my bite.”
The man shook his head.
“I don’t understand why we’d wait,” he said. “We’ve driven ourselves without halt to outpace the storm.”
Burkhart looked at him, wind clapping the sides of his hood.
“Langern, you’re mistaken,” he said. “We’re meeting the storm. Joining its attack. There’s actually much it can help us take care of, can you see?”
Langern stood a moment.
“Yes, I think,” he said. “But there’s danger in it—”
“No worse than in immobility.” Burkhart made a dismissive gesture. “Is anything else bothering you?”
Langern just shook his head.
“Then get moving,” Burhkart said. “I’ll be along shortly.”
Langern started across the snow, walking downhill to where the rest of the men had waited with the snowmobiles and equipment.
Alone on the escarpment, Burkhart lifted the binoculars back to his eyes and resumed studying the base.
There was much yet that he wished to observe.
Cold Corners Base
“I really feel responsible for you being stranded,” Megan said. “Sorry, Russ.”
Granger was careful not to show his uneasiness.
“You didn’t call in the storm,” he said.
“No, but I did call you, even knowing it was on the way.” She shook her head, her shoulders moving up and down. “Guess I’d been anxious for Pete to make it to the pass and take a look-see.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Granger coerced an accepting smile out of himself. “There isn’t much difference whether I’m wheels-down at Cold Corners or MacTown. And from what they told me over the radio, our field camps are in fair enough shape for the duration. So it’s not as if my detour caused any harm.”
Megan looked at him a moment, then nodded.
“Let’s just keep our fingers crossed that the weather blows over fast,” she said. “Meanwhile, you should be okay using this bunk. There weren’t any others available with our delegation from the States needing accommodations.” She paused, glanced down at the neatly made bed to her right, and settled herself. “It’s Alan Scarborough’s, you know. Sam Cruz here is his roommate.”
Granger turned to the man beside them in the little dorm and shook his hand. In fact, he wouldn’t feel remotely okay sleeping in that bed. Knowing what happened to the rover’s S&R team, the idea of it gave him the horrors.
“This must be a tough spell for you,” he said to Cruz. “Hope I’m not being too much of an imposition.”
“No, no, please,” Cruz replied. He was dark-complected, wavy-haired, with a strong grip. “It’ll be good for me to have some company.”
Granger had noticed the humorous marker-inked rendering on the closet door across the room. He glanced at the words above it.
“Prisoners of Fashion,” he re
ad aloud.
“Blame me for that one,” Cruz said. “Megan lets us juvies amuse ourselves by making a mess of our quarters. It’s sort of an in-joke I’ll explain to you later.”
Granger manufactured another smile and plucked at his synthetic thermal vest.
“Think I already get it,” he said.
A half hour after stalking out of Megan’s office, Nimec beckoned the manager of base security over to the same paneled workstation he’d seized for his ultimately wasted planning session with Granger.
“I want to conduct a site security check while there’s an opportunity,” he told him. “Tour the installation so I can get a close-up sense of things.”
And feel like I’m doing something marginally constructive with my time, he thought but did not say.
The Sword base chief nodded. He was a burly guy named Ron Waylon, with a thick walrus mustache and a head that was shaved smooth except for a gladiatorial nape lock reaching to the middle of his back. The lock of hair was bound with a leather cord down its full length. Some sort of body tattoo peeked above his shirt collar on the right side of his neck. The silver earrings he wore on both sides were shaped like long swords, an interesting but questionably appropriate variation on the organizational badge. Or maybe they were supposed to be daggers and Nimec was reading too much symbolism into them.
Whether or not that was the case, he’d found dress and appearance codes to be pretty damn lacking at Cold Corners. Hadn’t the base chief been clean-cut when he was hired? Or was his recollection about that also off the mark?
“Yes, sir,” Waylon replied now. His road-warrior appearance belied a disarming mild-manneredness. “I’m thinking I should mention CC’s probably different from other locations, where the emphasis would be to harden it against corporate spies, armed intruders . . . human threats to property and employees. Here we try to prepare for emergencies shaping out of natural events. Like, say, the storm that’s headed toward us. If any of our personnel become sick or injured when we’re snowbound, it could be a long spell before relief arrives. So we push real heavy on self-sufficiency, and drill a crisis-and-escalation checklist into everybody’s minds. We try not to ignore perimeter defense. But rescue transport, triage, stopgap equipment repair . . . I guess they’d be stressed over it.”
Nimec nodded, itching to make himself useful.
“Understood,” he said. “How soon can we do this?”
“Be ready in a jiff, sir. We just need to suit up.”
Nimec rose from his chair. He gave the big man an after-you gesture.
“Lead the way and I shall follow,” he said.
Megan Breen stared at her computer screen feeling strangely under assault from the e-mail messages in her queue. Turn on the machine, and there they were demanding attention, zipped through electronic space from scattered points of origin around the world. Amsterdam, Johore, Tokyo, New Delhi, San Jose, Washington, D.C. . . .
There were two, no, three, waiting to be answered from Bob Lang in Washington, D.C.
She sighed. It was stupid, she knew. An armadillo’s reflex to roll up behind its head and tail shields. But when the boss had first requested that she do a stint in Antarctica, its isolation—and separateness—had appealed to her. In fact, his proposition had come at just the right stage in her life, filling a definite need to time-out from the Cuisinart grind of corporate affairs, the relationships with men that seemed like listless dances around a circle broken and faded from too many retracings of her own footsteps. . . .
She didn’t immediately acknowledge it. In fact, she’d been too knocked for a loop at the time to know exactly what to think.
“We’ve been through a lot of wear and tear lately, Meg,” Gord had said when he’d broached the idea. “A change of scenery might be good for you. Something dramatic. Along with the chance to captain your own ship.” And then he’d given her the look that might have almost convinced her she’d been struck by a thunderbolt. “I know it could only help you prepare for the day you inherit mine.”
Boom.
Megan’s automatic reaction had been a kind of befuddled astonishment. Inherit mine. The thought had never occurred to her. Not consciously, at any rate. The boss had been her vertical constant for too long. Her Kilimanjaro towering at an unmatched height. Turn her eyes to their loftiest reach and he’d be there. Even when he was hospitalized, part of her had denied admittance to the prospect that she could lose him. Somebody take his place one day? Her? It seemed inconceivable. . . .
Gordian had asked her to wait a bit before giving her answer, let the idea sink in, and she’d agreed out of deference alone, or told herself that was the reason, figuring she’d put the whole crazy thing out of her mind, wait a respectable week or so, and courteously decline.
Surprise, surprise. She’d found herself thinking about his proposition, really thinking about it, at odd instances throughout that day. And the next day. And the next. The thoughts had sneaked up on her during morning workouts, business conferences, lunches, cocktail parties. They had slipped between lines of office memoranda, the paragraphs of a novel she was reading, song lyrics on her car stereo. And they’d struck her often when she was with Bob, much too often . . . once, finally, while they were thrashing toward the climax of an ardent scene on his living-room rug.
It was fairly crass as turning points went, but you weren’t often able to choose their times of arrival, and she supposed you just had to be grateful when you recognized them. That hers had coincided with a moment of intense physical pleasure, some emotional connection to Bob clicking off even as her body aggressively pursued its own independent gratification, was fitting and probably necessary in its way. Action plus conflict equaled change, wasn’t that how it went?
Megan didn’t fault Bob for not noticing; she was almost sure she hadn’t shown any outward signs, and there had been enough happening to distract him if she had. But the episode had been privately embarrassing. And worse, terribly depressing as she stood in his shower the morning after, wishing she could stay under its stream until the pipes ran dry. She’d always believed she wanted loose romantic ties, easygoing friendships with sizzle. Now, suddenly and unforeseeably, Megan had realized that she needed more rather than less . . . and wondered how she could have been so dissatisfied without knowing it.
The first thing at work that same morning, she had gone to the boss’s office and told him she was taking him up on his offer. She did it without stopping at her own desk, not wanting to give herself pause to reconsider. Not wanting to overthink. Seeing at last that her greatest fear in life wore the shape of her own heart, she had refused to back away from coming to terms with it.
Three weeks or so afterward, Megan had swapped her Cole Haan city heels for mukluks and was riding a plane toward the southern polar cap. And she hadn’t regretted it for a second. Little about being in Antarctica was easy. But her choice, its timing, couldn’t have been righter. . . .
Megan was still thinking in front of the computer when she heard a light knock on the door, told whoever it was to come on in, and saw that it was Annie Caulfield.
“Hi,” Annie said, entering. “This an okay time?”
“Actually, you’re rescuing me from a screen full of e-mail I’d prefer to neglect.” Meg rose to show her inside, pulled a chair up to her desk. “I was sort of expecting Pete Nimec anyway.”
“Oh.” Annie sat, cleared her throat. “How’s Pete doing? I heard he came out of San Jose in a hurry.”
“That he did. As a huge favor to me,” Megan said. “To be honest, we’ve had some differences that need to be ironed out . . . but you got that strictly on the QT.” She shrugged. “I’m sure my minor waves with Pete can’t be more trying than playing travel guide to the Capitol Hill Gang.”
“That’s probably not understating the case. They’re so used to being coddled by aides and interns, motherhood’s starting to seem like a breeze by comparison.” Annie smiled. “Seems we both needed a break, huh?”
�
�No understatement there either.”
They looked at each other across the desk.
“Annie Caulfield, you’re about the best visitor I could have wished for right now,” Megan said. “I’m just sorry the storm’s messing with your schedule.”
Annie flapped a hand in the air.
“Houston can survive without me a few extra days,” she said, and then was quiet a moment. “You know, Meg, the main reason I dropped by was to thank you for the open reception my group’s gotten in light of everything else that’s going on. And I don’t mean some bad weather.” Another pause. “Having been Chief of Astronauts for a lot of years . . . and especially after Orion . . . well, I understand how it feels to be hijacked by outside circumstances. What you and the rest of the base staff must be going through with your people lost out on the ice. Yet you’ve all bent over backwards to make us welcome.”
Megan nodded a little.
“Glad things are working out,” she said. “The kids going to be okay with your extended absence?”
“Are you kidding? When they hear I’m stuck in the snow they’ll think it’s an answer to their prayers,” Annie said. “My mom’s staying with them, poor woman . . . she’s the one I worry about.”
Megan smiled. She clicked in on Annie’s expression, realized there was more on her mind, and waited.
“I don’t mean to be nosy,” Annie said after a companionable silence. “But since you’ve mentioned it . . . what’s bothering Pete? He seemed so great to work with in Florida. We became friends . . . and then, well, kind of lost touch . . .”
“Between us again?”
Annie nodded.
“Pete’s a gem,” Megan said. “He means everything to me. There’s no one in the world I’d rather have at my side in a crunch. But I guess certain adjustments are hard for him.” Her eyes made contact with Annie’s. “People in general have trouble changing direction. And men . . . they’re the worst. Quick to move when they know it’s wrong, slow when they know it’s absolutely right. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you. Put a guy at a crossroads, and you’ve got a real problem. He’ll stand there with his feet planted forever unless somebody gives him a push.”
