“Nate, did you happen to bring your axe with you?”
“Yeah, it’s back in the radio compartment,” replied Jackson. “Why? It’s not like we can hack our way out of here. There’s probably tons of ice above us now.”
“Au contraire, my friend, cutting our way out of here is precisely what we’re going to do.”
“You’re losing it, Captain.”
“Hardly. Grab your axe and meet me back here.”
A couple of moments later, with his axe in his powerful hands, Jackson stared over at a spot Mitchell had picked on the fuselage. “Are you sure about this?”
“Trust me,” replied Mitchell. “Swing away.”
There wasn’t much room in the fuselage for Jackson to swing his axe. With a resigned shrug of his shoulders, Jackson smashed the axe into the metal wall, cutting a deep gash through the thin metal exterior of the plane. Twisting his axe from side to side, Jackson enlarged the opening.
As soon as there was a large-enough hole, Mitchell moved over beside his friend and shone his flashlight through the opening.
“Son of a bitch!” exclaimed Jackson. “Did you know there was a cave back here?”
“Maria pointed it out when we first spotted the plane trapped in the ice,” explained Mitchell. “I wasn’t sure how big it was, but I was willing to take the chance that it led somewhere.”
Jackson held out his hand. “Damn, I can feel a breeze on my hand. It’s not much, but there must be a way out.” Jackson pulled at the metal exterior of the plane until the hole was wide enough so both men could crawl through into the ice cave.
Mitchell stood up and shone the light all around. Above their heads rested part of the seaplane’s wing that had snapped during the crash, creating the roof of the cave. “Come on, let’s find that way out,” said Mitchell, as he bent over and made his way to the far side of the small cavern. He pulled off his glove and held out his right hand. He could feel a cool breeze.
Mitchell grinned and pointed the light down a narrow fissure in the ice. It was barely wide enough for Mitchell, let alone Jackson, to squeeze through.
“I’ll starve to death before I slim down enough to work my way through that,” said Jackson, looking over Mitchell’s shoulder at their only way out.
“Quit griping and start cutting us a way out. We’ll take turns. I’m not going to die down here, and neither are you, not when I want answers.”
“Amen to that,” said Jackson as he edged past Mitchell and smashed his axe into the ice, sending chips flying everywhere.
It was nightfall before they made their way back up onto the glacier. Carefully making their way over to place where they had last seen Maria’s body, it took them almost two long hours before they found her remains.
Mitchell mournfully shook his head and cursed McMasters for what he had done.
“I’ll get a sleeping bag from the camp,” said Jackson.
Mitchell nodded his head. He was tired and feeling drained. Turning on his heels, Mitchell spotted the sled with the GPR on it sticking out of the ice, about fifty meters away. He slowly walked over, removed the radar, and then dragged the sled over to Maria.
A couple of minutes later, Jackson returned carrying a sleeping bag and another flashlight. “The bastards cleaned out the camp. The satphone, Maria’s laptop, all of our notes — they’re all gone. Hell, they even took the rations.”
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about that right now. Come on, Nate, let’s see to Maria,” said Mitchell. Together they reverently moved her remains into the sleeping bag and laid it down on the sled.
“Without a satphone, there’s no way to contact our ship,” pointed out Jackson.
“We might not be able to, but I’ll bet the Norwegians have a phone we can use,” replied Mitchell, looking off to the west.
“How far is it to the station?”
“A couple of hours’ walk.”
“Well, come on then, let’s get a move on,” said Jackson, pulling on the sled.
Mitchell couldn’t believe that the day that had started with so much promise had ended so badly. Not only had they lost a colleague and the probe, now they stood looking down into a fissure a couple of hundred meters from the Norwegian outpost. Dumped inside the crevice were the burnt bodies of four men.
“I thought Captain Serrano was going to send people over from the ship with gas for the Norwegians’ generator,” said Jackson.
“He probably did; however, the people his crew dealt with were most likely imposters. I’ll bet these people were long dead before we arrived on the island,” pointed out Mitchell. “Come on, Nate; let’s see if we can find a way to contact our ship.”
Ten minutes later, after scouring through the couple of buildings that made up the camp, they found that all of the radios had been smashed beyond repair.
“Now what?” said an exasperated Jackson.
“That’s easy. We light a fire so bright that we can be seen by our ship, and then we beg for forgiveness from the Norwegian government for what we’re about to do after the fact.”
Captain Serrano was becoming concerned. His radio operator had told him that he had stopped receiving regular updates from Mitchell’s team hours ago. It could mean that their satphone was not working, or they were unable to contact him. It was the latter that weighed heavy on Serrano’s mind.
The door to the bridge opened and Lieutenant Aragon, Serrano’s Second Officer, stepped inside. “Sir, there’s something you need to see,” announced Aragon.
Serrano followed Aragon out onto the darkened deck and looked over towards Bouvet Island. He didn’t need his binoculars to see that the entire Norwegian camp was engulfed in flames. He quickly dashed back inside the bridge and announced, “I want a rescue party to be assembled and dispatched over to the camp.” First, he had lost contact with Mitchell, and now the Norwegians were in danger; it was as if this supposedly quiet assignment was cursed.
Fifteen minutes later, Serrano couldn’t believe his ears when he was told over the radio that the rescue party had found Mitchell and Jackson waiting for them on the beach and that everyone else was dead. Serrano crossed himself. Calling his radio operator to him, he ordered the young man to immediately contact the police in Buenos Aires. Although the island was Norwegian sovereign territory, he had to tell someone so the investigation could begin. Serrano knew that there were going to be questions asked when they got back to port. Unfortunately, he doubted that he could answer any of them.
14
Mitchell walked wearily down the gangplank and onto the dock. He spotted Mike Donaldson waiting for him with a sad look on his face. Mitchell greeted Donaldson and told him that Jackson was still on the ship. He was waiting down below with Maria’s body until the police arrived and her remains were transferred to the morgue.
“Mike, how come you came all the way down here?” Mitchell asked Donaldson.
“I knew Maria in the Air Force,” replied Donaldson. “It’s kind of my fault that she’s dead. If I hadn’t asked the general to offer her a job, she’d still be alive.”
Mitchell shook his head. “Mike, it’s not your fault. You didn’t pull the trigger that ended her life, McMasters did. And speaking of that bastard, how the hell did he make it through all of the background checks and interviews?”
“I don’t know. General O’Reilly went ballistic when learned what happened. An investigation is underway to see how McMasters managed to infiltrate our organization.”
“Who’s running the investigation?”
“Fahimah.”
Mitchell nodded his head. If anyone could ferret out the truth, it was Fahimah.