Vaughn leaned over also. What had been a vague form was now clearly the body of a man lying at the base of the stairs, facedown, his hands stretched out in front of him, almost an act of supplication.
"Great," Vaughn muttered. "Come on."
Tai cautiously followed Vaughn down the metal steps. The man hadn't moved. When they reached the bottom, Vaughn shone his own light on the body, revealing a figure clothed in Army-issue clothes, circa the 1950s. Three black holes were stenciled in the back of the man's jacket, surrounded by a red frame of blood. Vaughn knelt down and turned the body over. Sightless eyes peered out from a young face, forever frozen in the surprised grimace that must have come as the bullets slammed into his back.
Vaughn looked closely at the face of the corpse, marveling at the frozen preservation. He wondered how long the man had been dead. He looked up at Tai. "Let's get everyone in here before the storm gets worse."
Indonesia
Among the tens of thousands of islands that made up the Republic of Indonesia, this was one of the smaller and less significant. At least to most outsiders. It was an island whose lone small village had been completely wiped out by the tsunami that struck on December 26, 2004.
The village was now reoccupied. But not by fishermen and their families, as the old village had been. It was occupied by a strange international conglomeration. One drawn together from secret meetings around the world. Surprisingly, it was a group that owed its formation to one man: the President of the United States. Because gathered on this small island, working together and training each other, were small elements from the various countries that had been dubbed the Axis of Evil and from the terrorist organizations the United States was at war with.
There were Al Qaeda operatives, Iranian commandoes, a small group of representatives from the Abu Sayif, remnants of Saddam Hussein's elite inner circle, and an elite Special Forces team from North Korea.
This latter group kept itself apart from the others as much as possible. Mainly because their commander considered his men to be real soldiers and the others to be terrorists at best, although they considered themselves freedom fighters.
The commander, Major Min, once more read through the message his radio operator had decoded twenty minutes ago. It was the longest message he had ever seen transmitted over high frequency radio in all his years of special operations. He was holding a complete operations plan (OPLAN) for a new mission that was to commence immediately.
Min's face twisted in a sneer as he read the concept of operations. Those desk-bound fools in Kaesong! He looked up at the thatched roof of the hut that comprised his team's headquarters. Hyun was a small man, less than five and a half feet tall and weighing no more than 120 pounds dripping wet. He was the spitting image of Bruce Lee, the major difference being that Min had actually killed many more men than Bruce Lee had ever simulated killing in his movies.
"Get me Hyun," he snapped at Kim Chong Man. As his executive officer scurried out to the airstrip, Min leafed through the pages of the OPLAN, his mind trying to rationalize the words. This was going to be difficult, very difficult.
Min had been on this island for four months, supposedly advising the other groups on various Special Forces techniques, particularly bomb-making and covert operations. At least that's what they were supposed to be doing. Min had found that the other groups did not like getting advice. In his personal opinion, the real reason he and his men were here was to make a small political statement to these other groups that North Korea supported them in some manner.
Min had been in Special Forces for twenty-one years and had run more than his share of classified missions, so he was no stranger to being awakened in the middle of the night and handed an OPLAN. This one, however, was different in several important aspects. The first was the fact that it was outside of his immediate area of operations. The second was the strategic significance of the mission. It all looked very nice on paper, but implementation was going to require great sacrifices and effort. One of Min's favorite adages was that nothing was impossible to the man who didn't have to do it.
Typical bureaucratic thinking, Min thought with disdain as he read through. It was the same type of thinking that had left him in the DMZ infiltration tunnel north of Seoul two years ago when they should have pulled out at the first sign of compromise. Indecision in his chain of command had left him and his old team in there long enough for the South Koreans to flood it. Min shuddered as he remembered the torrent of water pouring into the tunnel and the muffled screams of the men who couldn't escape.
Hyun stepped in and snapped a salute, breaking Min out of his black reverie. "Captain Hyun reporting as ordered, sir."
Min looked at the short man in the flight suit with undisguised disgust. "What is your aircraft's range?"
Hyun blinked. "It is 6,500 kilometers with a one hour reserve, sir."
"We need to go 9,700 kilometers."
Hyun looked at Kim, who had accompanied the pilot in, and then back at the major. "We will have to refuel somewhere then, sir."
"If we had someplace to land and refuel I would have told you that." Min's voice was ice cold. "We need to travel 9,700 kilometers without refueling."
"That is impossible, sir."
"Make it possible. You have one hour to be ready to leave." Min turned his gaze to his XO. "Bring the team in and I will brief them."
Antarctica
"How long do you think he's been down here?" Vaughn asked as the rest of the party piled up their gear in the dimly lit space at the base of the stairs. The three flashlights combined with the dull reflected light from the still open door to produce a gloomy effect. The man wore unmarked Army fatigues under olive-drab cold-weather gear. There was no name tag on his shirt. He had the insignia of a captain pinned to his collar.
"He was probably the last one," Tai said, then corrected herself. "Well, the next to last one in here. Sometime in the fifties."
Vaughn pulled a poncho out of his rucksack and gently draped it over the body. "Whoever he worked for shot him in the back to keep him from talking about what he did and what he saw here. Judging by the size of the wounds, I'd say it was a small caliber gun. Probably a.22. You have to be damn good to kill someone with a gun that small."
Tai turned to the rest of the group. "We have got to find out everything we can about this place. I want to know who built it and why."
Vaughn began organizing the group. He stared down the corridor, his eyes trying to pick up details. His flashlight reflected off the metal sides and faded out after thirty feet. The ceiling, ten feet above, consisted of steel struts holding metal sheeting that blocked out the ice and snow. Conduits, pipes, and wires crisscrossed the ceiling, going in all directions. The corridor itself was about ten feet wide, and the floor was made up of wood planks, each separated by a few inches to allow snow and ice to fall through the cracks to the sloping steel floor below.
It was as cold down here as it was outside, but at least they were out of the wind. Vaughn went over to Smithers. "How's the head?"
Smithers pulled back the bandage. "I think the bleeding has stopped." He looked around. "We could use some heat, though."
Logan spoke up. "There ought to be some sort of generator or space heaters down here."
"You think they would still work after all this time?" Vaughn asked.
Logan nodded. "Oh, yes. Antarctica is the perfect place to preserve things. This body is proof of that-the man looks the same as the day he died. Think about it-the temperature never gets above freezing. There's no moisture. No bacteria.
"There are supplies in Shackleton's hut on Ross Island that were placed there in 1907 and are still edible today. I have no doubt that if we find the power source down here, or even a portable heater, we can get it going." He pointed his flashlight at a lightbulb set in a protective cage on the ceiling. "We might even get the lights on."