“Hold it!” Sammy yelled. “We’re all going a little nuts here. None of you are making much sense. Let’s calm down a little.”
“What if someone other than Riley enters a six-digit code on the bombs?” Lallo asked. “Pick six numbers at random and enter them.”
Riley laughed, the sound incongruous in the air of fear and mistrust that permeated the room. “Well, I’d have to say we run into the same problem. Since I know I’m not the person doing all this stuff, I trust myself, but I certainly don’t trust any of you. If you’re not going to allow me to lock out the bombs because you don’t trust me, I’m certainly not going to allow any of you to do it either.”
Conner slapped her hand on a crate of ammunition. “Forget about the goddamn bombs for a minute. Our real problem is that someone here is trying to stop us from getting out this story about the base. Even if the tapes in Atlanta have been compromised, we can still get the truth out. Once the support team gets here, we can go live on satellite feed and that will mean whoever it is has failed. Until then we have to stick together and work together. There’s nothing else we can do.”
“I don’t like the idea of being cooped up in here with a killer on the loose,” Devlin muttered.
“Well, there isn’t anything you can do about it,” was Conner’s reply. She looked around the room, from one person to another. “Let’s continue on with the work we planned. We stay in parties of at least two from here on out, though.”
“I still think we ought to open up the power access tunnel to the reactor,” Devlin suggested.
“Good idea.” Conner turned to the rest of the team. “Riley, Sammy, and Devlin work on opening up the reactor tunnel. Kerns, Vickers, and Lallo work on the west tunnel. I’ll be with the group down at the west tunnel. We’ll meet back at the mess hall in four hours.”
The old man looked up as the door opened and two men walked in. The short one was carrying a briefcase, the taller one nothing. The short man placed the briefcase on the desk, and they both stared at the old man.
Finally, he could take it no longer. “What do you want?” Not a word had been said to him since he’d been picked up on the beach, flown into Otis Air Force Base, cross loaded onto a military jet, and flown down here. He knew that the men were from his government because their procedures and resources were too complex for a foreign government operating in the United States.
The taller one, whom the old man had correctly guessed was in charge, spoke. “We need information, Mr. Glaston. Or should I say Colonel Glaston, U.S. Army, Retired?”
“What information?” Glaston asked warily. In twenty-three years of duty, most of it with the ultrasecret Intelligence Support Agency, he’d participated in more than his share of covert operations, any one of which might interest these people.
The tall man reached into his pocket and laid an ID card on the desktop. “I’m with your old organization, Mr. Glaston. We need information on an operation you were involved in that we have no record of.” The short man flicked one of the locks on the briefcase.
Glaston frowned as he searched his memory. “What are you talking about? Everything I did at ISA was fully debriefed and recorded.”
“Eternity Base?” the tall man simply asked.
Glaston felt a sledgehammer hit him in the chest. “I’ve never heard of it.”
The short man pressed the second lock and swung up the lid. He turned it so Glaston could see inside. Various hypodermic needles were arrayed along the top, and serum vials were secured in the bottom. The tall man gestured at the contents with a wave of his hand. “The art of interrogation has developed to much higher levels than when you retired. We’re less crude and much more effective.
“You know, of course, that everyone talks eventually.” The tall man reached in and pulled out a needle, holding it up to the light. “With these sophisticated drugs, that eventually comes much sooner. Unfortunately, the side effects cannot always be controlled. I would like to avoid resorting to such methods.” He laid down the needle. “Why is it that we have no records of Eternity Base?”
Glaston considered his options. “What do I get out of this?”
The tall man shrugged. “It depends on what you tell us.”
Glaston sighed. He knew what the tall man had said was true — he would talk sooner or later. He’d been on the other side of this desk too many times not to know that. Jesus, to have it come to this all because of that stupid base! He slumped back in the chair.
“I was the ops supervisor for the construction of Eternity Base in late 1971 in Antarctica. It was a group of buildings — twelve to be exact — that were buried under the ice. The sections—”
“We know what’s down there,” the tall man interrupted. “What we want to know is who was behind the op and why.”
That meant they’d found it, Glaston realized. That, in a strange sort of way, relieved him. He’d often thought about the base over the past twenty-five years, wondering if it had ever been shut down and the bombs removed. “I worked directly for Lieutenant General Woodson.”
The two men exchanged glances. They both knew that Woodson had been head of the ISA in the early seventies. “How did Woodson give you this assignment?”
“Personal briefing.” Glaston sighed again. If they’d been down there they’d found everything, and it wouldn’t do him any good to hold back. Except for the plane. That he could never mention. He hoped they hadn’t turned up any information on that.
“It was an unofficially sanctioned mission — no paper trail and denial if uncovered. Woodson brought me back to Washington from Vietnam, where I was doing liaison work between CCS — Combat and Control South, MACV-SOG — and the Agency. Trying to keep the Green Beanies and the spooks from each other’s throats.
“When I got to D.C., Woodson told me he had a mission that could be very profitable to both of us and had the president’s blessing.” Glaston ignored the disgusted looks the two men exchanged. If they hadn’t done work for cash yet, they would someday. It was much easier to put your life on the line with a substantial bank account to back you up. A government pension wasn’t enough for this line of work.
“Who was Woodson working for?”
“Someone with the code name Peter. I had a number in Colorado where I contacted him. I don’t know who Peter was, and I certainly don’t remember that phone number. It was probably a cutout anyway.”
“Woodson never told you who the place was for, or even what it was designed for?”
“It was easy to see what it was designed for. It was a survival shelter. As far as the who goes, it had to be somebody with a lot of money and resources, along with leverage at the White House. Woodson and I supplied the manpower and the aircraft; Peter supplied all the equipment.”
“What happened to the C-130 that was doing the flights from McMurdo to the base?”
Glaston’s heartbeat escalated. “It went down a couple of hours out of McMurdo on the way home. I had to cover it up somehow, so I used the MACV-SOG cover.”
The tall man looked at him dispassionately. He turned to his partner. “I’ll be back in an hour. Prep him.”
“Wait a second!” Glaston yelled as the short man pulled out a vial of clear liquid and picked up the nearby needle. “I’m telling you everything. You said if I cooperated, that wouldn’t be necessary.” He thought briefly of the courier and realized that finding his body must be the reason they were doing this to him.
“I said it depended. You just told us you did freelance work while at the ISA. You broke the rules, and now we’re going to find out what other rules you might have broken in your career.”