When the others left the room to get their gear, Tai looked at Vaughn. "We've been infiltrated."
"No shit," he said.
Tai took one of the pistols out and offered it to Vaughn. He took it, checking the magazine. "Make sure you keep it close to your body," he said. "The gun is sweating in here and will freeze up if you don't keep it warm."
Tai nodded, took her pistol out, opened her parka and pile shirt and stuck it inside. "Going to be hard to get to in a hurry if I need it."
Vaughn was doing the same. He shrugged. "Everything is going to take longer down here. Let's hope if we need the guns, whoever we need them against is just as slow."
CHAPTER 7
Geneva, Switzerland
Dyson was not used to being made to wait. Before becoming the head of the North American Table, he had been CEO of one of the top three corporations in America. He'd advised Presidents. Been on the boards of dozens of organizations. He was worth untold billions.
And now he waited after having been summoned like an errant schoolboy to the principal's office.
After forty minutes the door to the Intelligence Center opened. There was no secretary to usher him in. Just the open door. Dyson got up and walked through, eyes blinking as he tried to adjust to the dimmer light inside. He saw the four Assessors in their chairs. He headed for the fifth chair, glancing at the large video displays lining the walls, trying to get a quick glimpse to see if any of the data referred to the current situation he had been summoned for. He could see that one of the large screens displayed a map of Antarctica, but his quick look couldn't reveal anything else.
He sat down, picked up the headset and put it on. He had never met the High Counsel in person. As far as he knew, none of the heads of the various Tables ever had.
"We have received your report," the High Counsel said, his voice coming through the headset. "It was woefully lacking in information. I want to assume that during your flight here you had time to reflect and come up with possible explanations."
Dyson cleared his throat. "I believe David Lansale planned all of this a long time ago, and he set it up that if he died, this information would be released to cause us problems."
"Explain."
"Understand that this is speculation on my part, not hard data," Dyson said.
"We understand."
Dyson could see that two of the four Assessors were watching him, the other two intent on the screens.
"I've tried to line up what we do know and added in the unknown of Lansale's motivations. Lansale was a very good agent, one of our best, and he participated in many top level assignments. But our psych profiles-which we did not have when he was first recruited out of the Office of Strategic Services in World War II-indicate he had maverick tendencies. He questioned things. I believe he questioned who he worked for.
"This all started when he parachuted into Japan as part of Doolittle's raid in World War II. He rendezvoused with Emperor Hirohito's nephew, Prince Chichibu, to negotiate for us. Part of those negotiations were the Golden Lily, the fledgling Japanese atomic weapon program, clemency for the Imperial family-all this is in your database. He did as he was ordered to do, and the mission was a success.
"However, I believe he did more than he was ordered to do. I think he began planning this Citadel operation. After all, the Japanese submarine, I-401, was tasked during the waning days of the war to conduct a mission to Antarctica prior to the establishment of the Citadel."
"Do we know what was on the I-401 or the two German submarines?" the High Counsel asked.
"I believe the I-401 carried part of the Golden Lily. We always knew parts of it were missing. Abayon and the Abu Sayif, of course, have recently revealed they held a significant portion of the treasure on Jolo Island, but there are still many missing pieces."
"And the German submarines?"
The American head shifted in his seat. "It might be part of the Nazi Black Eagle treasure. Most likely some of it that has never been accounted for in public or by us. But I fear that they also might have carried weapons of mass destruction." Dyson noted that all four Assessors were now looking at him.
"Explain," the High Counsel said.
"We know the Germans sent uranium to Japan via U-boat after they surrendered and before the Japanese did. Lansale helped keep that from developing into anything via his Japanese contacts in the Far East Table. But-we also know from Operation Paper Clip that a large amount of experimental nerve gas that the Germans developed went missing at the end of the war. I believe some of that gas was on those two U-boats that linked up with the I-401."
"And your agent did not get the location of the I-401 and the two German submarines, correct?"
"He only called in the information. He was supposed to fully debrief Royce later. He never made it to later. His body was found, and there was no sign of Fatima. We have to assume she's on the trail of the I-401."
There was a long silence. Then finally the High Counsel spoke. "You will remain here at the castle until the head of the Far East Table arrives. We will then coordinate our actions."
Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica
Brothers pulled in the yoke, and the heavily laden Cessna bounced a few times and then was in the air. Reaching sufficient altitude, the plane banked and headed for the search area. Vaughn was crowded in the back with Tai, Logan, Smithers, and Burke. The plane was almost as crowded with people and equipment as it had been on the flight from New Zealand. If they found the area the base was in, Vaughn wanted to be prepared to land and try to find it. He was keeping a close eye on Brothers, not sure the knock on the head hadn't affected the pilot.
Their course followed the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf to the east. Ross Island faded behind them, and after an hour and a half Roosevelt Island appeared below and then slid to the rear. They slowly decreased the distance to the Ford Mountain Range, looming up in front of them. As they approached the first mountains, Brothers increased power, and the wings groped in the thin air for even more altitude until he had sufficient height to clear them.
While the magnificence of the peaks that jutted out of the white impressed Vaughn, what struck him more was the depth of the sea of ice that swept the flanks of those mountains. It was hard to imagine an ice sheet almost two miles thick.
Brothers piloted them over a glacier and through a pass, putting them on the opposite side of the mountain range. Now they turned north, flew along the eastern side of the mountains, looking to their left, searching for the three mountains. Vaughn had taped the photocopy of the picture against the bulkhead above the left side window, and he and Logan were scanning in that direction.
Brothers flew straight up the middle of the mountain chain. The weather was remarkably clear, and the peaks seemed startlingly close to Vaughn. It seemed possible to reach a hand out the window and caress the rock. He glanced right at the map board on Logan's lap. He had their route marked on the plastic cover with grease pencil.
"Everyone look carefully," Logan yelled out over the whine of the engine. "McKinley should be coming up soon." His words disappeared into the rumble of the engine without any reply from the others.
"That's McKinley," Brothers yelled out from the front a short while later. He immediately banked to the left, and the nose of the aircraft settled on a northeasterly route.
Vaughn tapped Logan on the shoulder, gesturing for the map board. Logan passed it back, and Vaughn oriented it, checking the map against what he could see below.
"Can we move to the right a little bit?" he called out to Brothers.
Visibility was unrestricted, and far out to the front through a gap in the range they could even see the ice pack on the coast. To the left and right, isolated mountaintops poked out of the white carpet of ice.