When the snowcats stopped, several people wearing one-piece winter coveralls covered in grease shook Paulson’s hand then worked one of the full barrels underneath the wing tanks.
“How long to fill this thing with gas?” Leah asked.
Chase pointed to what looked like a portable generator on a sled. “We’ll use a portable fuel pump that runs off a generator, so not too long.”
“What about when we get to Thor’s Hammer?”
“Unless we have any real trouble, we should have enough to make it back here.”
“If we don’t?”
“We’ll get a fuel drop from the Chileans.”
“What if they can’t make the drop or the barrels get smashed?”
“Then you’ve got a long walk back to Chile,” Chase replied flatly.
While Paulson chatted with the Chileans, Rooster, Garrett, Juan, Lyon, and Perez helped manhandled the fifty-gallon barrels of fuel while Ridley supervised the fuel transfer. Two hours later, the Chileans waved goodbye then drove the snowcats and sleds away from the ski way.
With the two engines running wide open, Chase pulled back sharply on the control wheel and the Caribou lifted smoothly off the ice.
Ridley gave Leah a high five, and everyone cheered. For better or worse, they were on the way to Thor’s Hammer — and the heart of Russian-claimed Antarctica.
CHAPTER 46
Chase Parker banked the aircraft in the direction of a massive granite cliff jutting straight up toward the sky. “Thor’s Hammer!” he shouted while pointing out the left side of the aircraft cockpit. Everyone rushed forward, taking turns looking through the windscreen as he made two passes by the gigantic granite formation.
“Jesus H. Christ,” whispered Paulson.
“Listen up,” Chase said. “We’ll fly down-range and check out the Russian-made ice runway.”
Rooster pulled a red bandanna out of his pocket and waved it around. “If we’re attempting at a landing, I’ll signal with this. That means it’s time to strap in and hang on!”
The ice runway sliced cleanly through sastrugi, sand-dune-shaped formations of ice and snow. It appeared to be at least two miles in length and in perfect condition except the blackened carcass and new sastrugi built up near the Las Tortugas.
The green tail section, with a large Russian flag painted on the rudder, lay on its side nearly intact, in marked contrast to the burned fuselage and wings that formed a debris field on the right side of the ice runway.
“We’re swinging around,” Chase said. “You guys get strapped in. Time for us to earn our paycheck.”
Jack crawled back to where Paulson appeared to be fiddling with his footwear. The billionaire glanced up and then re-laced the plastic mountaineering boots. “Don’t want my shoes falling off if this heap goes in.”
Leah rolled her eyes but tightened the straps on her makeshift seat belt.
Rooster slid open his side window, pulled the tape igniter on a smoke flare and let it drop several hundred feet to the ice below. Green smoke poured out from a stream that changed direction radically ever few seconds.
Rooster turned around and waved the red bandanna wildly, his signal to hang on tight or, as Rooster had put it, “Bend over, grab your ankles and prepare to kiss your ass goodbye.”
The wheels touched the ice and then the roar of the engines rattled the airframe as Chase applied full power and pulled back on the steering yoke.
On the second approach, he allowed the Caribou to descend smoothly, apparently confident the crosswinds fell within an acceptable range and the surface of the ice was hard enough for a safe landing. When the wheels felt firmly down on the ice, Rooster reversed the pitch on the propellers, stopping the aircraft in a matter of several hundred feet.
“Yaaahooo!” Paulson shouted for the second time that day as the aircraft came to a stop at the bottom of the world.
CHAPTER 47
News of the InterGalactic cargo plane leaving Chile with Paulson and his crew led to an emergency meeting of the National Security Council’s Crisis Planning Group.
The team included Stanton Fischer, military liaison Admiral Clay Williams, the President’s Chief of Staff Don Green, and several lower-ranking members of the Department of State and Department of the Defense. This meeting also included two non-regular participants: Teresa Simpson and Secretary of the Interior Winslow Emerson.
Teresa sat as directed and then studied the various high-ranking advisers and their aides who filed in, taking pre-assigned seats throughout the room. She took note of those who sat in chairs nearest the President.
She knew these were players, the staff and department heads that had the president’s ear. In Washington that meant power and influence.
The aides sat in hardback wooden chairs along the wall. They were out of the line of fire, but close enough to their bosses to lean forward and whisper information that might solidify their position with the President.
Fischer walked into the room, a folder under his arm. He didn’t make eye contact with any of his peers, but simply sat in one of the two power chairs.
In Teresa’s mind, Fischer was the archetypal academic-trained bureaucrat piece of shit, his lips permanently stained from kissing ass. Having had a call and a meeting at his office in preparation for this evening’s strategy conference, she had his shtick down cold.
After Fischer had ushered her into his office, which reeked of stale cigarette smoke, he’d tried to make her feel at ease by telling her the President was ‘probably overreacting, as usual.’
Clearly, this was how he tested loyalty, but it wouldn’t work with her. Teresa had put on her standard political smile and replied that if the President thought it was important, then of course she thought it must be important as well.
An aide opened the double doors to the conference room, and everyone stood. In strolled the President, dressed casually in blue jeans and a more formal white button-down shirt. He signaled for them all to sit as one of the staffers handed him a folder.
“I want to tell you I just endured another painful telephone conversation with the Russians.” The President looked at the faces, anger evident from his tone. “You can imagine they are not pleased to learn that our loose-cannon billionaire and his entourage slipped out of the United States, apparently without our knowledge.” He glanced up at Don Green. “Of course they said that in Russia, nothing of the sort could happen.”
“Did you remind them of the Red Square incident?” Green replied, referring to the German teenager who flew a single-engine Cessna undetected into the former Soviet Union, ultimately landing it right in the middle of Red Square.
The President was unimpressed with Don Green’s attempt at humor. “We’re in this meeting because I gave my word we wouldn’t allow our citizens to ‘invade’ Russian territory in an attempt to retrieve the B-29.” The President shook his head. “The Russians even insinuated that we are secretly supporting the retrieval of the bomber.” His jaw clenched momentarily. “I’m at a loss to understand why these people weren’t apprehended in Chile.”
Don Green tapped on the conference table. “The Chileans claim our request arrived too late to be formally translated and acted upon.”
“With allies like that…” the President said.
Green gave a slight shrug of agreement.
The President glared over the top of his reading glasses at the Secretary of the Interior. “Now, I understand a Native American archeological discovery is linked to this fiasco?”
Emerson cleared his throat. “Approximately three days ago, the National Park Police, while on routine patrol, flushed out what appeared to be artifact hunters in southwestern New Mexico.” He nodded toward the staffer working the slide projector. A slide of a cliff with the ledge sticking out from a long horizontal crack flashed on the screen. “This is Gila National Wilderness and the location where our rangers and we believe the artifact hunters discovered the new cliff dwelling.”