Back on the street, creatures flooded from their now-searched buildings, teeming between the cars. The five smaller creatures that seemed to be in charge bounded up the street to a battered SUV and hunched on the hood and roof. One of them bellowed. A heartbeat later, creatures rushed into a building on the opposite side of the street and the office building right next door.
Karen pushed back her internal terror and focused. Within two minutes, the vicious army would be done with its current buildings and then storm through these apartments. She guessed this time, there would be no hiding during an uncompromising search.
She looked at the office break room on the roof once more, seeing the creatures swarm through.
Only one option came to mind.
Jump.
After the creatures had cleared the office building next door and headed back out, she and Joey had to jump across the six-foot gap and hide in a place that had already been purged.
Joey won’t make the jump.
Unless I hold him in my arms.
Then we both might not make it.
But there was no other choice.
It was a fifty-fifty shot at life—maybe better, maybe worse. They make the other roof and possibly live, or they plunge to their deaths trying. Either way, they had to try.
She sucked in a deep breath. Tried to imagine succeeding at the jump in her mind, time and time again. Tried to believe she and Joey could make the leap. It was a silly technique she’d heard during a team-building event, when a life coach came along as a guest speaker and attempted to fill their heads with hocus-pocus. It had failed to elicit optimism in her back then, and it failed to bring her comfort now. It didn’t matter, though, and she shook the silly exercise from her head. The more she thought of the leap, the more she realized it was a do-or-die moment she couldn’t avoid.
A window shattered below her.
She craned her head over the lip of the roof.
A lone creature stood inside the break room of the office building. It had hurled a dead woman into the patio area. She lay facedown, surrounded by broken fragments of glass. Pale legs and arms with purple blotches. Blood pooling below her skin as rigor mortis set in.
Seconds later, the creature tore out of the room.
Karen glanced toward Lombard. Hundreds of the nightmarish creatures flocked into the street once again. Then they systematically rushed into the apartment building she and Joey were in.
A collective earsplitting shriek filled the stairwell.
Windows below her smashed out, on higher and higher floors.
There’s no time left. We have to jump now.
Karen rose and picked Joey up in her arms. She moved to the edge of the roof, to the gap between the buildings. She kept low to avoid being spotted from the street.
“What are we doing, Mommy?” Joey asked.
“We have to jump across.”
“We won’t make it!” Joey said in a panicked voice.
“We’ll make it, baby,” she lied, but she had no other choice.
The carnage below her feet reached within two floors below. The sounds of the creatures’ rapid approach came loud from the external roof door: Heavy feet pounding the steps of the stairwell. Growling. The building shook below her.
Karen glanced down, first to the ground below. She hoped that wasn’t their next destination. Then she identified her landing spot on the neighboring roof: a clear area of paving next to the walled edge of the building.
Within seconds, the creatures would burst onto the roof. She couldn’t delay and risk them seeing her. It was jump now or die regardless.
Karen crouched down and summoned all of her strength.
She thrust forward and leaped.
Joey tried to scream, but she slapped her hand down over his mouth in the nick of time.
Their bodies flew through the air off the edge of the roof.
Halfway across the gap, their forward momentum slowed and gravity took over. They began to fall.
Karen flung out an arm to catch the edge of the roof.
One arm wouldn’t give her enough strength to hold them both.
Or herself for that matter.
But her sneakers hit the patio of the office building. She landed and collapsed to her side, turning Joey to avoid him slamming against the ground. Pain shot through her right ankle.
Karen lay on her back, momentarily dazed from the impact and the experience.
Then her training kicked in, reacting to an immediate emergency situation when many others froze. She grabbed Joey and rolled them flush against the walled edge of the building, biting her tongue as agony tore up her leg from her ankle, praying their bodies were not visible from the other roof. She clutched her hand over her son’s mouth again and held her breath.
Above her, from the apartment building roof, a metallic crack signaled the door slamming open from the stairwell.
Karen prayed the creatures didn’t notice her.
She prayed Joey and she had remained unseen.
A massive creature rushed to all edges of the roof, scanning every inch for any signs of life. Karen could hear its heavy breathing only a few feet above their heads, a few feet away. If it wished, she knew the creature could easily make the same jump.
Karen’s whole body shook from fear and adrenaline. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the sound of the creature crashing onto their roof to finish the job.
Silence.
Nothing.
Minutes ticked past. The creatures had left the apartment building, and the sound of shattering windows had moved farther up the street.
They were safe. She and Joey had survived for now.
But the question remained: How would they get out of this living nightmare? And even if they did, was anybody else around to join their quest for survival?
Chapter Eleven
After two refuels, the massive C-130 Hercules airplane powered toward Albert Van Ness’ coordinates in Antarctica, past the Weddell Sea. Cafferty sat on a red bench inside the back of its bright green rectangular interior. He stared across to the opposite bench where Ellen, Diego, and Sarah were catching up on some well-deserved sleep. They all realized that if Van Ness truly had some kind of weapon to fight the creatures, this might be their last chance to rest in the fight against extinction.
An armed soldier sat between Cafferty and Van Ness, mostly focusing on the old man. His wheelchair had been secured next to the bench, and Van Ness sat with his eyes closed, though he was clearly awake.
Cafferty peered out the window. The glistening deep blue ocean stretched for miles from east to west. Directly ahead, icy peaks jutted into the skyline. As Cafferty stared at the foreign land ahead, the implication of his deal with the devil at last started to sink in.
He had probably sacrificed his life for humanity’s survival. That also meant Ellen becoming a widow and David becoming fatherless. On one hand, he would gladly give his life to keep those two alive. On the other hand, though, this wasn’t that. This was playing a demented game at the behest of a narcissistic sociopath.
This wasn’t sacrifice. This was suicide.
He looked back at the meditating Van Ness, studying the man.
As if he could sense Cafferty’s stare, Van Ness opened his eyes and returned the look. And then the old man grinned.
This is insane.
The copilot exited the cockpit door and made his way over to the group. “We’re passing Mount Tyree.”
“Lovely,” Van Ness replied. “We’re so very close now, aren’t we?”
“Close to what, Albert?” Cafferty asked. “What’s out there?”
“Sir, there’s nothing out there,” the copilot replied. “Palmer Land is a barren ice sheet. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. There’s no secret base there.”
Anger welled up inside Cafferty.
If this is a wild-goose chase . . .
“Before you lose that famed temper, Thomas,” Van Ness replied, “I never said the base was on t
op of the ice, did I?”
Could Van Ness have built something below the ice in the most remote part of the world?
Cafferty knew anything was possible, after seeing the Foundation’s secret underground lair built inside a creatures’ nest underneath Paris. He hated to admit it, but Van Ness was capable of anything.
“Simply land at those coordinates, Lieutenant,” Van Ness said. “I will take care of the rest.” With that, he closed his eyes and continued to meditate.
Cafferty followed the copilot past the twenty soldiers on the plane up to the cockpit. The plane crossed over a steep mountain range and descended toward a barren icy plateau.
“Can this bird land on ice?” Cafferty asked.
“Yep, no problem,” the copilot replied. “But . . . you sure we want to? Radar shows nothing down there, above or below the ice.”
Cafferty knew Van Ness was not to be trusted, except when it came to one thing: bragging about his accomplishments.
“Land the plane at the coordinates, Captain,” Cafferty said.
“You’re willing to bet your life on this?”
Though the question was hypothetical, it gave Cafferty a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He’d already bet his life in the last twenty-four hours, and it only served as an unwanted fresh reminder—not that he required reminding of anything.
“Land the plane, Captain.”
Cafferty returned to his seat, squeezing Ellen’s hand before sitting and buckling in.
The massive airplane descended quickly and, within moments, touched down onto the frozen wasteland. The pilots reversed the engines and the plane slowly drifted to a stop.
The copilot stood from the cockpit and walked back to Cafferty’s team. “Um,” he said. “Now what?”
“Van Ness?” Cafferty asked.
“When I’m done meditating, please . . .” Van Ness replied, eyes still closed, oblivious to the question.
His silence enraged Cafferty.
“Van Ness!” Cafferty shouted, pounding his fist into the bench. “Now what?”
Slowly, Albert Van Ness opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on the former mayor. “Now what, indeed . . .” he replied.
Suddenly, the cracking of ice shook the plane, and Cafferty could feel it dropping downward. The copilot raced to the cockpit. The ice sheet they were resting on was descending into Antarctica itself. The plane lowered downward until the sky above disappeared entirely.
Cafferty bolted to the front to watch the spectacle unfolding. They were literally disappearing into the ice into an unknown abyss below. His eyes widened in disbelief.
What the hell?
“What’s going on?” Cafferty shouted back into the plane.
Van Ness smiled. “We’re here.”
Chapter Twelve
Munoz and Bowcut scrambled to the windows and stared openmouthed at the scene before them. The plane continued to descend on a perfectly square block of ice, plunging at least a hundred feet below Antarctica’s surface. But it wasn’t a free fall—it was definitely a controlled descent.
And as they lowered, a distant mechanical whine came from beneath the C-130’s body. The plane’s lights illuminated a thick layer of cobalt-blue ice—and something more. Huge steel girders supported the walls, with electrical units attached at regular intervals.
This is some feat of engineering, Munoz thought. The strength and technology to hold back the powerful shifting ice.
This is more awesome than if the Death Star was on Hoth . . .
As the plane descended farther, the ice opened up into a massive hangar, carved into the bedrock. Its metallic concertina doors were open, revealing another internal space roughly the size of four football fields. Giant, dazzling globes of light, like the ones that held the creatures at bay in the Paris caverns, blazed down from the steel vaulted ceiling.
Van Ness built a cathedral in the ice . . .
A central path led deeper into the complex. Hundreds of tall steel racks lined the route, each packed with enough supplies for years of underground survival.
“How . . . is this possible?” Munoz uttered, staring out the side windows of the plane.
“I’m afraid I cannot take all the credit,” Van Ness replied. “The Foundation for Human Advancement inherited what you see here. Naturally, I expanded it greatly.”
“Inherited?” Sarah asked.
“Learn your history, my dear,” Van Ness replied cockily. “The Third Reich built the initial fortress in the forties. Surely your government knew and tried to find it. I believe they called it Operation Highjump. The United States futilely scoured the continent for this base in 1946, even launched missiles to try to destroy it. Naturally, they never found it. But surely your president told you this already?”
The silence on the plane answered the question.
“Clearly not,” Van Ness said. “I wonder what else you haven’t been told.”
Munoz had heard of Operation Highjump. The official line was it was a training mission: the U.S. government testing personnel and equipment in frigid conditions, to determine the feasibility of establishing and maintaining Antarctic military bases. He had always suspected it had other motives, but none had ever been credibly established.
“And let’s not forget,” Van Ness continued, “your country’s Operation Deep Freeze in the fifties that also failed to find this base. Needless to say, I improved on the design since then and, of course, dramatically expanded and modernized the facility.”
Once again, Munoz knew the code name for the American mission to the region, but to his knowledge, no government had built a military compound in Antarctica.
Until he had seen this . . .
“If you’d like, I can send your team a few books to read up on all this,” Van Ness added. His arrogance grated the team.
“What now, Van Ness?” Cafferty asked, coming back from the cockpit.
A slight jolt shook the plane, and the platform came to a stop, finally level with the icy fortress. Munoz estimated they had descended at least three hundred feet.
No wonder why no one detected this former Nazi base . . .
“May I suggest we open the cargo bay doors and go for a stroll?” Van Ness replied.
The U.S. soldiers on the plane suited up and grabbed their AR15 rifles and laser pistols.
“Oh, you won’t need weapons,” Van Ness said. “Your soldiers would be far outmatched anyway. And besides, we are on the same team, are we not? Why would I want any of you dead? Isn’t that right, Thomas?”
Munoz caught Van Ness shooting an odd look at Cafferty.
What the hell is going on?
Munoz suspected something was said between the two men back on the prison rig. But that would have to wait. He, like everyone else, remained acutely aware that the outside world was falling fast. What he had seen so far in Antarctica provided a glimmer of hope that the Foundation had something substantial here. Whether it was enough to beat back the creatures was yet to be seen.
The last time he felt this uneasy was when they were climbing down a rope into a nest beneath London, not realizing it was all a trap.
Van Ness pointed a bony finger toward the windshield. “My head of combat strategy, Franco Roux, will join us on a tour of the facility.”
A stocky figure strode toward the hangar entrance. He was dressed in dark combat fatigues with lasers holstered on the sides of his chest. He rested his hands on his hips, grim faced, and glared toward the cockpit. From the looks of his blond hair, blue eyes, and fair complexion, Munoz gathered Roux was Dutch or the like.
“Looks like a pleasant dude,” Munoz said sarcastically.
“Franco Roux is my blueprint,” Van Ness replied. “What he lacks in charm he makes up for in brute force and brilliant combat planning and execution.”
“Blueprint for what?” Diego asked.
“Shall we?” Van Ness said, ignoring the question. “Every minute wasted amounts to an untold loss of life.”
Muno
z could not argue with that.
Cafferty instructed the pilots to open the rear cargo doors. Then he headed toward the plane’s rear, closely followed by Van Ness, Munoz, Ellen, and Sarah.
Bowcut kept her rifle slung by her side with her hand on the grip. Munoz had seen her adopt this stance before. In the blink of an eye she’d be firing, if required.
“What’s the situation?” she asked.
“We’re getting a grand tour,” Diego whispered.
“Any clue what he’s got here?”
“Well, it’s either a really big ice-skating rink or another evil lair.”
“You can say that again.” Sarah smiled.
The cargo doors fully opened, creating a ramp to the icy surface. Freezing air rushed through the cabin, as well as a steady collective hum coming from electrical units mounted on the frozen walls.
Cafferty trudged down the ramp.
Van Ness descended by his side to the bottom, and the wheels of his chair crunched over the ice as he spun it to face the hangar entrance.
By the time Munoz and Bowcut had joined them on the ground, Franco Roux, looking even meaner up close, stood in front of them. He had scars on his forehead and right cheek. His muscles bulged against his clothing. And his piercing light blue eyes darted from person to person as his breath fogged in the frigid air.
“Mr. Roux,” Van Ness said, now sounding as if he was completely in command. “It is excellent to see you again.”
Roux replied with a slight nod of his head.
“Lead the way, if you will,” Van Ness continued. “Let’s show our guests most everything.”
Roux gestured the team forward, spun on his heel, and headed toward the base.
“Some tour guide,” Munoz whispered to Bowcut. “We didn’t even get headphones.”
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