“Good, good. We can bring him in as well, if you like.”
“No, it’s best if Peter goes back home. It’s not right that he got dragged into this in the first place. Don’t want him becoming submerged… like me.”
“You’re not submerged, or a prisoner, Aimee.” Hammerson watched her closely.
“We are and we aren’t, Jack. You know that.” She looked up. “Will it ever end?”
“If it did, I’d be out of a job.” He smiled with little humor. “But for you, yeah, sure. Don’t know when, but time passes, things change, people forget. The world and everything in it moves on.” Hammerson stood and walked to his desk, and poured a glass of water for her.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. You’ve done so much for us. I’m grateful.”
“Here, drink this.” He left the glass on the desk, and walked to the window. He faced the pane, but watched her reflection. Aimee went to the desk, and took the glass to her lips. As she went to set it back down, she craned her neck to look at the report, reading quickly. She frowned and leaned closer, putting her glass on the desk.
“Zhang Li?” She looked up, her brows knitted. “What’s going on, Jack?
“Chaos,” he said without turning. “Subterfuge, war, aggression, and a fight for order.” He shrugged. “The usual stuff.” He turned and motioned to a chair. “Please, sit down, Aimee. We need to chat about a few things.”
“I used to know a Zhang Li, from my university days.” Aimee sunk into the chair. “This is no friendly catch up, is it?”
He stared directly into her eyes. “No.” He went and sat on the edge of his desk. “The world is tilting under our feet, and we need to act, before we all slide off.” He smiled apologetically. “I’m afraid we need your help.”
She still frowned. “Me? How?”
He watched her for a few more moments, then exhaled slowly.
“What is it, Jack? No bullshit. You know me.” She put down her glass and sat forward.
He nodded. “Here are the facts, all boiled down nice and neat. In 2008, we lost an experimental sub in the Southern Ocean. A few days ago, its emergency beacon fired up… coming from deep beneath the Antarctic ice.”
“What?” She recoiled, confused.
Hammerson half smiled. “Strange, I know. We don’t understand it either. But we weren’t the only ones to pick up the signal. The Chinese army look hell-bent on getting to it.” He looked into her eyes. “They’re going into the restricted zone — Area 24.”
“Area 24.” Aimee sunk into her chair, her eyes haunted. “You have to tell them.”
“We’ve tried, they won’t listen to us, and even if they did, they’d never believe us.” He watched her. “There’s a storm coming, Aimee… a big, hot, nasty one.”
She frowned. “For godsake, Jack, what does that mean?”
He sighed, rubbing one hand up through an iron-gray crew cut. “This doesn’t leave this room.” Hammerson stared for a few moments until she nodded. “At 0800 Pacific time, a team of Chinese PLA soldiers and a relief team of engineers and miners arrived on the ice, and immediately entered a tunnel system below their base.”
He paused, letting the information sink in. “I say, relief team of engineers and miners, because their previous team vanished — all of them. Including your old friend, Zhang Li.”
“He’s not my friend. I mean, I knew him. He was a brilliant geologist and engineer, and got a top job back in China. He was working in the Antarctic?”
“Yes, and now he’s gone. Maybe they headed down into the caves and got lost, or there was a cave-in. Something happened down there.” He waved it away. “Doesn’t matter now. But the new team is headed up by a scientist called Shenjung Xing. He’s a moderate, like Zhang Li, also educated in the US, and we believe he, and Zhang Li, will both be open to hearing the truth.”
She shook her head. “Wait, I still don’t understand. You said, a submarine under the ice… you mean the ice shelf?”
“No, the ice and rock. Somehow, all those years ago, our submarine managed to find a way in. We just detected its distress signal buried in some other data.” Hammerson shook his head at her horrified look. “It’s automated, we don’t expect it’ll be a rescue mission. But, what we can’t do is let the Chinese military get to that sub first. We’re going in to try and talk to them, but…” He shrugged.
She snorted. “You’re going in? And what happens if they won’t listen? You’re not a negotiator, Jack. You don’t bring in HAWCs when you want to talk, you bring them in when you want something obliterated.”
“We won’t draw first blood, Aimee, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Hammerson remained calm. “But the facts are, a Chinese destroyer is now parked down there. So is one of our Seawolf submarines, keeping an eye on it. Both are nuclear capable.” His face became grim. “If they won’t listen, we will do what needs to be done to protect our people and property.”
“Including starting a war?”
He didn’t flinch. “We won’t draw first blood.”
“You know as well as I do, that if the HAWCs go in, there’ll damn well be blood — nothing but blood. That’s what you made them for. You must fear a war, Jack?”
“Yes, Aimee, we fear war.” He sat staring at her for another moment. “But it’s our job to make the other guys fear it more.”
She scoffed. “And how will that destroyer react when you come back to the surface, and their own team doesn’t?”
“Aimee, you know what’s down there, they don’t. Without our help, you really think they’ll make it back to the surface anyway?” He tilted his head. “But like I said, we’ll try and talk to them. The rest is up to the Chinese.”
She sat back, her head tilted to the ceiling. “This is a nightmare.”
Hammerson shrugged. “We’re out of time and options, Aimee. They’ll send reinforcements, so will we. There is no real overt deescalation point available at this time. Someone has to back down, and as it’s our technology, and our people, it won’t be us. Sorry, Aimee, but we’re in the pipe — lock and load.”
“Oh for chrissake, Jack, who wins a nuclear war?” Her brow was creased in disbelief.
He shrugged. “They start something, we finish it. If they walk away, we all go home. But if we don’t establish our superiority, well, they’re already mining illegally, so they obviously have little regard for international law. Our game theorists suggest they’ll establish a permanent military presence on the Antarctic. That’s right on the doorstep of one of our allies. Added to that, they get their hands on our secret technology, and probably establish sea primacy over the Southern Ocean. Nothing in that scenario is good for our — or the world’s — future or interests. Like I said, they pull back, or we push them back.”
“No, no, no, that’s not an option. You must talk to them — send diplomats, not damned HAWCs, I beg you. You know there’s a reason for that saying about the pen being mightier than the sword.”
Hammerson’s smile was lackluster. “You want to know what General MacArthur said about that?” He didn’t wait for her response. “Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword, obviously never encountered automatic weapons.” He held up a hand to stop her protest. “Aimee, I’m under orders to resolve this issue, fast and with as little mess as possible. We will try and negotiate, I promise.”
“Bullshit.” She sat back, staring at the carpet.
Hammerson sighed. “Getting there first was to have been our ace-in-the-hole. They couldn’t steal something, if we were already sitting on top of it, but…” He grimaced. “Things didn’t go to plan.”