The silence as Brothers turned off the engines was as shocking as any loud sound. They'd lived with that noise for many hours. As their senses adjusted, the steady whine of wind bouncing off the skin of the plane became noticeable. With the airplane's heater off, the temperature immediately started dropping inside.
"Everyone bundle up." Logan was cinching down his hood.
Vaughn pulled his own cold weather equipment out of his duffel bag. He was wearing a Gore-Tex camouflage parka over Patagonia Pile jacket and bib pants that zipped on the sides and the crotch. Tai wore the same thing. Logan and his two men's outer layer was bright orange. They all had polypropylene underwear next to their bodies to wick away any moisture from their skin. Large rubber cold-weather boots-Logan had referred to them as Mickey Mouse boots-covered their feet. The boots had a layer of air trapped in them that insulated the feet remarkably well, but Vaughn knew from experience they also brought about a lot of foot sweating, which had to be carefully monitored.
Brothers swung open his door, and the blast of cold air slammed into Vaughn's lungs with one quick gulp. Brothers scrambled out and Vaughn followed suit, his feet crunching into the snow. Despite his cold weather training in Special Forces, he'd never felt such cold. The air stung his face, the only exposed part of his body. His skin rebelled, trying to shrink from the pain of the cold, and he felt his muscles tighten, as if he could make himself smaller and that would in some way make him warmer. He forced his muscles to relax.
The other members of the party piled out and stood looking around. To the north, Mount Erebus was a solid wall reaching up into the cloud covering. To the south, an endless line of ice disappeared where the clouds seemed to touch down. To the west, the Royal Society Range blotted out the space between cloud and ice. They looked amazingly close, as if they could be walked to in an hour or two, yet Vaughn knew from the map that they were almost a hundred miles away.
The tractor kicked into life, drawing his attention away from the scenery. It roared up, treads clattering, placing the trailer alongside the plane. The driver, looking like a bear in his bright orange garments, waved down at them, pumping his fist. He seemed to be in a bit of a rush.
"Let's offload," Logan called out.
As they busied themselves transferring the gear from plane to trailer, Smithers used a sledgehammer to drive ice pitons into the ground. One for each wing, one for the tail, and one for the nose; Brothers attached a rope to each piton to secure the plane to the ice.
Once all the equipment was off the aircraft, Vaughn watched as Logan gave Tai a boost up onto the wooden platform that made up the floor of the trailer. She tried to get as comfortable as possible among the bags and cases. Vaughn and the three other members of the party climbed on board, and all grabbed on for dear life as the driver threw the tractor into gear and roared off toward the looming form of Mount Erebus.
Logan leaned over to put his face between Vaughn and Tai. "Welcome to Antarctica."
Democratic People's Republic of Korea Embassy, Manila
The ambassador's aide frowned as the secretary entered the meeting room and hurried over to his chair. "Mr. Choegu, there is an urgent message for you," she whispered in his ear.
Making his excuses to the delegation of trade bureaucrats from Singapore, Choegu walked swiftly to his office. The encoded message sat on the center of his desk, only the word URGENT readable in Han Gul, the rest in unintelligible seven letter groups. He turned and unlocked the safe behind his desk and pulled out the onetime pad.
He wrote the letters out in longhand as he deciphered the message on a single sheet of paper with a hard plastic board underneath in order not to leave an impression copy. As the words coalesced into meaning, Choegu felt both excited and confused.
– ABU SAYIF SAY THERE IS AN ABANDONED AMERICAN MILITARY BASE IN ANTARCTICA.
– BASE IS SUPPOSED TO CONTAIN NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
– WILL CONTINUE TO MONITOR AND RELAY INFORMATION AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
– ABU SAYIF WILL BE IN CONTACT WITH MORE INFORMATION SOON.
– RAWSS.
Choegu knew who Rawss was-one of their deep cover agents in Manila. He didn't even try to sort out the various pieces of the puzzle. He immediately pulled out another onetime pad and transcribed the letters of the message verbatim as quickly as his hand could write.
Done, he rapidly walked up the stairs to the fourth floor of the embassy building. A guard with an automatic rifle stood in front of a steel door. Despite his rank and stature, Choegu had to show his identification card to the guard, who knew perfectly well who he was.
Satisfied, the guard opened the steel door and Choegu stepped inside. Another steel door awaited him. An eye appeared at the small peephole, and he once again showed his identification. The door opened and he entered.
"Sir?" the man who had let him in asked.
Choegu held out the piece of paper. "Send this immediately."
Earth First South Station, Antarctica
Tai's first glimpse of Earth First South Station confirmed what she had expected. A large, squat box building looking more like several trailer homes sealed together than a research station sat on the ice. Established several hundred meters from the base of Mount Erebus, it was painted bright red, and just to the right a cluster of antennas was tied off to a tower. A colorful banner reading EARTH FIRST was strung along the front.
It had taken the tractor almost forty-five minutes to get them off the ice shelf and up here to the station. As they pulled in front with a clatter, a couple of people stepped out of the building to greet them. As Logan did the introductions, Tai could see Vaughn hanging back. She knew their camouflage cold weather suits didn't fit with the bright outfits and colorful banner hung on the outside of the station, and the lackluster handshakes from the station personnel confirmed that.
"Let's get our equipment inside," Logan ordered.
Vaughn helped Tai haul their gear bag inside, not wanting the Earth First people to handle it, especially the weapons cases. They were directed down a short corridor and into a small room barely containing three sets of bunk beds. Tai dumped her gear onto one bed while Vaughn put his across from her. Then they rejoined Logan in the mess hall/meeting room as Logan briefed a skinny bearded man on their mission to find the Citadel. Logan had introduced him as Peter McCabe, Earth First's foremost Antarctic expert. When Logan showed him the faxed photocopy of the picture, McCabe sat down at the table and looked at it for a long time.
"This looks familiar. It's rare that you have three nunatuks that close to each other." He pulled out a large chart. "Show me again where you think this place might be, based on the air time."
"The range of the resupply aircraft comes out to roughly five hundred miles." Logan traced a half arc around McMurdo Station.
"It's not to the west," McCabe firmly announced. "That would put it very close to the French station there. I've been in that area quite a bit lately, and I'd certainly recognize these peaks if they were in that area."
He stared at the map a long time, his eyes boring in as if he could see the actual ground from just looking at the two dimensional paper. Tai took the opportunity to look over at Vaughn. He appeared to be out of sorts around the civilians, and she shared some of his feelings.
McCabe turned the map around and placed the photo down on it. He tapped a spot on the far side of the Ross Sea. "It's here. I'd be willing to bet that middle peak is Mount Grace. The one on the right is McKinley Peak. The lower one on the left must be this one that has no name."
Logan shook his head. "Are you sure? I'd have thought they'd put the base farther south." He pointed at the map. "Down here along the Shackleton coast perhaps."