‘Lopez!?’
Hellerman’s robot marched off his desk and clattered onto the floor as the scientist launched himself at her. Lopez hugged Hellerman tightly, always amused to see the younger man’s unveiled affection for her. When he drew back, she was surprised to see tears welling in his eyes and many of the other employees sat behind their work stations watching discreetly, the ranks of television monitors arrayed across the walls of the Watch Center glowing with news feeds from around the world.
‘When did you wake up?’ he asked, his voice constricted.
‘I got woken up,’ she said. ‘Looks like I’ll pull through.’
Hellerman nodded, took off his spectacles to clean them and then blew his nose as he recovered his senses and the smile appeared once more.
‘It’s good to have you back. For a while there I…’ He stuttered slightly and shook his head. ‘Can we get married now?’
Lopez placed a hand gently on his cheek, his tin beard rasping against the skin of her palm as she smiled back at him. ‘One thing at a time, Romeo. Where’s Ethan?’
‘Oh, him,’ Hellerman replied. ‘The competition. He’s in Antarctica.’
‘Where abouts in Antarctica?’
Jarvis walked into Hellerman’s office, his hands once again in his pockets as he spoke.
‘Ethan was dispatched on a new mission for us while you were still napping at the hospital,’ he said, all pretence of affection already vanished. ‘A lot’s changed while you’ve been gone.’
‘I’ll say,’ Lopez shot back. ‘I hope he’s not out there on his own. Have you got somebody covering his back?’
‘Ethan’s been partnered with Hannah Ford, formerly of the FBI.’
‘Her?’ Lopez uttered in horror. ‘What’s she doing working with Ethan?’
‘Like I said,’ Jarvis repeated, ‘a lot’s changed. After you went and got yourself shot up in DC, both Hannah Ford and Michael Vaughn resigned their positions at the FBI and joined us here at the DIA. Essentially, they both now knew what Director LeMay had been up to and wanted to join the fight against Majestic Twelve. I signed them up to this department with the blessing of General Nellis, knowing that they would have considerable personal motivation for vengeance against both LeMay and MJ-12 as a whole.’
Right on cue Lopez turned as Michael Vaughn, a stocky, dark skinned man and former partner of Hannah Ford walked into the office with his hands in his pockets and a welcoming smile on his face. Lopez was struck by how his casual manner seemed a mirror to that of Doug Jarvis.
‘Good to see you back on your feet, Nicola,’ he greeted her with a warm handshake.
‘Just about staying upright,’ she replied with a grin, and then turned to Jarvis. ‘So if this is the new team, then what’s the plan? If Ethan’s in Antarctica then I need to get the hell out there to support him.’
‘Not enough time,’ Jarvis countered. ‘The mission will be complete long before you could reach the site. I have a different task for you, if you’re up to it?’
Lopez straightened slightly and lifted her chin. ‘All I need is a shower and a shot of coffee and I’ll be ready for anything.’
Jarvis raised an eyebrow and glanced at Vaughn, who smiled.
‘Just like Hannah.’
‘Something I should know about here?’ Lopez demanded.
‘Your target is FBI Director Gordon LeMay,’ Jarvis said. ‘We know that Majestic Twelve will want to speak to him now that Black Knight has descended and Aaron Mitchell has escaped from custody. Mitchell is dangerous to them should he genuinely have decided to switch sides, and Black Knight represents a coup for them that they cannot afford to ignore. They’ll go full throttle to acquire it and that may be what we need to identify them should they meet LeMay in person.’
Lopez frowned. ‘Surveillance? I’m out of the game for a couple of months and now you want me to sit in a car watching LeMay?’
‘If you’d been here when the Black Knight case first emerged believe me, you’d have been deployed with Ethan, but it’s too late for that and besides, no matter how invincible you may think you are you’re not yet in shape enough to start charging around shooting the bad guys. Michael here is itching to get into the field and you clearly are too, so this is the perfect first case for you two to work together. Find LeMay, follow him. By definition he can’t meet members of Majestic Twelve inside the FBI building, so it’ll have to be somewhere far from prying eyes — that’s when they’ll expose themselves and I want the both of you there to see and record it.’
Lopez looked at Vaughn, who shrugged.
‘I’m not Ethan Warner ma’am, but I’ll do my humble best.’
Lopez sighed, not willing to brush Vaughn off without first giving him the chance to prove himself. She reached for her cell phone and began composing a text message.
‘Fine, let’s do it,’ she said as she tapped. ‘What about Mitchell?’
‘I’ve got my own plan for him,’ Jarvis assured her.
XX
‘How the hell are we going to get down there?!’
Hannah Ford’s voice echoed down into the plunging chasm before them as Ethan surveyed its depths.
The pristine blue ice of the first couple of dozen feet changed slowly to a deep, darkening blue that finally vanished into blackness far below. Ethan judged the limit of his vision as probably no more than fifty to sixty feet — beyond that was the impenetrable darkness that had likely not witnessed light for millions of years.
‘It’s a subterranean warm water vent,’ said Chandler. ‘We’ve seen these active on Jupiter’s moon, Europa.’
‘You mean it’s not from Black Knight’s descent?’ Hannah asked.
‘The initial chasm is, yes,’ Chandler went on, ‘but this is too uniform to have been carved so recently. The object must have broken through the ice here and crashed down into an existing cavity.’
‘I don’t care what it is,’ the SEAL commander said, ‘Black Knight went down into it and we’re going down there too. Break out the climbing gear and let’s get on with it.’
With practiced military efficiency the SEAL team unpacked climbing ropes and tackle from their ski gliders and began securing rappel lines to large boulders of ice and hammering metal stays into the rock-solid glacier.
Ethan strapped into a climbing rig, fastening his harnesses into place as he looked across at Chandler.
‘We’re not on Europa,’ he said. ‘What caused this cavity, if not the satellite?’
‘It’s the result of warm water rising and weakening the surface of the glacier, which eventually breaks free and rolls back either side of the warm water, leaving these ridges either side of the breach. Somewhere down in this chasm there must be a warm water channel just like the satellite surveys suggested, and at some point it must have reached the surface of the glacier.’
Hannah Ford frowned in disbelief.
‘The ice here is supposed to be kilometers thick, right? How could warm water have made it up this far?’
‘Because the continent below the ice is solid land, just like the rest of the world. It has contours, mountain ranges, ancient forests and other debris now crushed beneath the ice that could direct a flow of water close enough to the surface to breach it.’
‘Forests?’ one of the SEALs, a man named Saunders, asked. ‘What forests?’
‘Not now,’ the Lieutenant Riggs snapped. ‘Warner, you’re a former soldier, right?’
‘Fourth Marines,’ Ethan confirmed.
‘Good, you’re with Saunders. Down you go.’