“That’s it?” Aimee carefully placed her coffee down on the bench top and walked forward. “I mean, that’s all you’re going to say?”
Dempsey watched Aimee with half lidded eyes, but Casey Franks smiled her usual sneer-smile, excitement rising in her eyes.
“You’d like to add something, Dr. Weir? Something you feel would assist the group?” Dempsey’s face was expressionless.
“You’ll be taking these guys into a highly dangerous restricted zone under the ice. I know what’s down there, and you’ve read the reports, so you do too.” She thumbed over her shoulder. “But these poor saps sure don’t. How is not telling them going to assist them?”
“We’re saps now?” Dawkins asked, with a grin.
“Poor saps.” Jennifer added.
Big Ben Jackson’s scowl creased his forehead. “Are we missing something here?”
Monroe went to step forward, but Dempsey held up a hand.
Aimee folded her arms. “Well? You want to tell them or would you like me to?”
Dempsey smiled. “The floor is yours, Dr. Weir. Like I said, if you think it will help… either the mission or their frame of mind.” He stepped back, poured himself a coffee and watched her as he sipped.
Aimee gathered her thoughts; conscious that she needed to inform, to warn the McMurdo guys about what lay ahead, but also cautious about panicking them. Her lips compressed, and her throat tightened, as she wrestled with the memories. Damnit, she thought, there was no other way to roll it out, but as the unvarnished truth.
She sucked in a huge breath, filling her lungs, and then let it out slowly. “About five years ago, I was involved in an undocumented mission to travel into a newly opened crater in the ice. There was a missing plane, and the first team in had vanished. My friend was a member of that team.” She swallowed and went on. “Well, anyway, in the course of our investigations, we detected what we thought was a huge reservoir of natural petroleum.” She shook her head. “Wasn’t petroleum. Oh no, it wasn’t anything as simple as that.”
Aimee paced now, pushing strands of shining, black hair back off her face. “There was no oil, and no empty caves or lifeless caverns below us.” She shook her head at the memory. “There was life down there all right, and not just lichens, microbes, or even blind shrimp in shallow rock pools. No, no, no, there was a whole freaking world down there — warm, alive, primordial, and more deadly than anything on the surface. It was a place where we, and our team of apex killers, like these guys,” — she thumbed over her shoulder at Dempsey and the HAWCs — “suddenly found ourselves just another part of the food chain… and nowhere near the top. Of the several dozen people that went into that hole, only three of us made it out alive.” She looked at the ground, her eyes watering. “So, we sealed it off and made it a restricted zone — Area 24.” She exhaled. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, we’re all going back down.”
Jackson, Dawkins, and Jennifer Hartigan blinked with disbelief, and Aimee maintained eye contact with Mitch Dempsey.
“Yes, we’ve read the briefing notes,” Dempsey said softly. “But we are prepared for all eventualities. There were mistakes made, and we learned from them — the first team expected to encounter nothing. We know that to be erroneous now, and have adjusted our methods and firepower accordingly.”
“Yeah, I hope so.” Aimee went back to staring at the ground, hugging herself.
“Wait a minute, exactly when were you going to tell us this?” Dawkins’s neck strained. “And what additional firepower do we get?”
“You get our protection, fuck-knuckle. All you’ll ever need.” Casey Franks sneered at Dawkins. “Welcome to real soldiering, pussy.”
“That’s enough,” Dempsey said evenly.
“And you expect our help?” Dawkins had stepped forward to jab a finger at Dempsey.
Hagel grinned and loomed closer to the McMurdo soldier. “Who said anything about a request, asshole?” He jammed a blunt finger into Dawkins’s chest, pushing him back a step.
“Now wait a minute, mister.” The towering soldier Jackson moved in, and went to grab Hagel’s hand.
In a flash Hagel had spun to grip the giant’s hand, and twisted it around, holding it in only one of his own hands, and forcing the bigger man to grimace in pain, and then forcing him to his knees. Hagel mimed drawing a knife and stabbing Jackson in the side of his neck — a kill stroke. He grinned. “Like we said, we’re all the protection you’ll ever need.”
“Enough,” Monroe raised his voice. “They’re right, this is not a voluntary mission. This has orders from the highest level and is of critical importance to the nation — no, to all nations. Make no mistake, we must succeed, as a team.”
Hagel pushed Jackson away, but continued standing over him.
“Back in line,” Dempsey said to his HAWC. Hagel grinned a little more into Jackson’s face, but complied.
“Sergeant Monroe is right. We will succeed, together.” Dempsey motioned to the door. “Be ready to leave in fifteen minutes.”
The HAWCs filed out, and Dempsey looked from Monroe, to each of the McMurdo soldiers.
“Make no mistake, people; we are all expendable in pursuit of the success of our mission.” He paused, looking for any challenge. There was none. “You now have fourteen minutes.”
CHAPTER 23
Three PLA Special Forces commandos remained on the surface. The base cook, Lim Daiyu, the sole survivor they’d found so far, was still unconscious on a cot in the rear of the facility’s sleeping quarters. They had decided to let the man sleep. At least that way they didn’t have to listen to him wail about monsters and demons anymore.
PLA Operative Chen Zu yawned; the team was at ease now, tending over into boredom from the lack of activity. They had been unable to monitor Captain Yang for hours, as the fixed-line communications had been ripped from the shaft, and their wireless updates had at first become scratchy, before then hissing over to nothing but white-noise, the further the descent team moved from the elevator shaft and deeper into the tunnels.
All PLA soldiers had emergency walkie talkies, but though they were high powered, it was unlikely they would connect. Also each second of usage meant they reduced battery life. There was nothing they could do but wait.
He watched as his two comrades, Dijiang and Lanling, played a game, slapping down cards hard and fast, and roaring their approval or cursing at their luck, good and bad. Chen drummed his fingers; he was bored, but couldn’t relax. Captain Yang being out of communication reach was expected and of no concern. However, what did gnaw at him was the Kunming going dark — the destroyer was only just off the coast, and seemed to suddenly vanish. As its primary role was to support them, it going offline was a mystery.
He drummed faster. He hoped it was just atmospheric ionization causing the disruption, but he desperately needed instruction. Yang had ordered them not to use the long range communications over the satellite link as the American base at McMurdo would undoubtedly be listening. If he disobeyed his captain’s order, demotion, and then possibly missing front teeth, was the likely outcome.
He ground his molars, as his peers roared over the finish of their card game. He watched, trance-like, as Lanling began to reshuffle the deck, his hands moving fast and deftly flipping, slotting, and reslotting the cards, finishing with a fanning motion that zipped the entire deck together. The man was about to deal, when his eyes went wide, and then Chen felt his own nerves shock when one of the proximity alarms suddenly squealed and blinked its warning. All Chinese bases had alarms and sensors to detect anyone or anything coming close to the main structure.