“Or maybe what you’re experimenting with,” said Garrett, “is so dangerous you wouldn’t work with it on your own — planet.”
Paulson shook his head. “I don’t buy it. There’s got to be a simpler explanation. This raises too many questions.”
Leah turned to him. “Such as?”
“If these ‘visitors’ were so advanced, how come you can open their doors?”
“It could be her skin chemistry, or the size of her hand, or the perfume she put on last week,” Jack said. “She also happens to be the only woman here.”
“Thank goodness at least one person noticed,” Leah said.
“And if Jack’s theory is correct,” Garrett added, “they might have been caught outside when the door somehow malfunctioned and the resulting avalanche buried this place. Even the most advanced technology doesn’t mean you can’t make a bonehead mistake.”
Leah wandered past the tubes, examining each carefully. She ran the tips of her fingers over the smooth clear surfaces as if tracing imaginary lines across the occupants’ faces. Suddenly she stopped and examined one of the ground-level tubes.
“Oh, my God, this one’s just a child,” she said softly.
Jack flooded the tube with harsh light. Inside, a small, frail body, unmistakably a girl, perhaps ten years of age, lay as if in a coma. Her eyes were closed and her expression tranquil, likely belying the terrible circumstances in which she’d been taken.
“She’s beautiful and just a baby,” Leah said, a tear rolling down her cheek. “How could they take a child, such a beautiful child?”
“I’ll climb out and contact Ridley on the radio,” Paulson said. “Whatever we’ve found is way beyond my level of expertise.”
“Don’t get into details.” Jack pointed at Marko and Garrett. “You two follow him up; everyone, keep this information under your hat for now.”
CHAPTER 71
Jack gently gripped Leah’s arm with the intention of leading her away from the child. “We’ve got to go.”
She yanked free. “You go. I’m getting these people out of these tubes.”
“We don’t have a clue how to do that.” Jack softened his approach. “Anything that we do might kill them, even if they are alive.”
“I’m taking them out of here, with or without your help,” she said stubbornly.
“Let’s climb out of this hole, and then we can discuss what happens next.”
“You can discuss all you want. I know what I’m here to do.”
Jack felt anger building in his chest. “Sometimes you can be—”
“Stand where you are and do not move,” said an unfamiliar voice from outside the structure.
Jack swung the light around toward the blocked entrance. “Who was that?”
As if anticipating the question, the disembodied voice shouted back. “Please return at once to the point of entry.”
A powerful light swept underneath the door, and a second later a white shape slithered under the door and knelt in a firing position.
CHAPTER 72
Mac Ridley and the others sat glumly on the steel floor of the shipping container that the Russians had used as a machine shop. They’d rolled the Caribou tire inside to use as seating, but it had proven to be less comfortable than sitting on a pile of rags to soften and insulate them from the cold steel floor.
“Fucking waste of time and money, if you ask me,” said Rooster, glaring at Beckam, who stood at the door. “Scare the shit out of a few airplane mechanics. Is that the best you can do these days?”
Beckam glanced at Rooster and then spoke softly into the microphone. He nodded once, then stepped back out of the machine shop and locked the two doors with a cable the SEALs had clearly brought along for just such an occasion.
Chase’s face broke into a wide grin. “Think he’s ordering a pizza?”
Rooster laughed despite himself and slapped his brother on the back.
CHAPTER 73
Outside, Beckam could scarcely believe what Frantino was telling him.
“It must be a Russian laboratory or something, Skip. We didn’t find any weapons, but it’s generating heat and there’s a shitload of these glass tubes.”
“With bodies in them?” Beckam remained incredulous.
“I counted thirty, plus one.”
“What does that mean?”
“There’s an extra one lying in the first room Paulson breached. It’s… ah, been there a while.”
Beckam swore under his breath. “I’ll bet a case of gin this is the little secret we weren’t supposed to find out about. I’ll phone this in and see if I can’t shake a few trees. For now, the mission stays the same. We get the civilians secured and prepare to evacuate.”
“So, bring ‘em on down?”
“Yeah, secure them in their tents down here. Leave one guard and one of the snow machines in case we need to move in a hurry.” He paused. “Oh, and make sure to search the campsite again; just to make sure we’ve secured any communication devices and weapons before letting them back into those tents.”
CHAPTER 74
“I know the way to camp, General,” snapped Leah.
“I’m a Navy lieutenant, ma’am,” replied Frantino. “But I appreciate the temporary promotion. And change in services.”
That was the last word any of them spoke for an hour, when they were all huddled in Jack’s tent, sipping hot soup. One SEAL guard stood out in the cold, his machine gun slung in a semi-ready position.
Leah lifted the cup of hot liquid to her lips. “So what do we do now?”
“I wouldn’t RSVP to any Christmas parties,” Jack replied.
Leah rolled her eyes. “Did you hear the guy in charge — Frantino? He thinks it’s a Russian military base, for Christ’s sake.”
“They’ll figure it out,” Garret said.
Leah shook her head in frustration. “If we’re right, this will change how we think about our world, our universe, forever. There’s no way the government can keep this a secret.”
“Oh, sure they can keep it a secret,” Paulson said, spooning more soup into his cup, “and they won’t be thinking of the philosophical, culture, or spiritual consequences.”
“What can be more important than that?”
“Technology and power,” Jack said, after sitting quiet. “If that structure has a power source that’s been cooking for nearly eight hundred years….” He didn’t bother to finish.
“Plus they’ve tapped the key to cryonics,” Paulson said, “if the poor souls in those tubes are really alive.” He pointed at Leah with his spoon.
“They’re right,” Garrett said. “No government would dare share technology like that.”
Marko asked, “So are we dealing with a — a flying saucer or something?”
Paulson shook his head. “I don’t think what we found was meant to fly. The shape’s not conducive to flight and I didn’t see anything that resembles flight control systems. My guess, as unreal as it sounds, is that this was some kind of transfer station. You’d bring your victims, or patients or whatever, here. Maybe they were checked out for diseases and then put into those stasis tubes for transport.”
“Like the first astronauts that went to the moon,” Garrett added. “They had to spend weeks in some isolation trailer to make sure they hadn’t brought back any moon bugs.”
Paulson nodded. “When pressure blew and the avalanche covered the station, either they couldn’t get to it or decided it had been destroyed. Given the fact that it was buried under hundreds of feet of ice in the middle of Antarctica they had good reason to assume that it’d never be found in the future.”