“Thoughts?” Zahra asked.
“If the Underworld is at Lake Untersee, then why hasn’t it been found by someone else yet? It’s not exactly a hidden place. Quite the opposite, actually. You can even see it clearly on Google Earth.”
Zahra folded up her map. “That’s just one of a hundred other questions that will have to wait. Let’s gather whatever gear we think we’ll need and move out.”
“Yes,” Hammet agreed, “let’s be quick, too.” He took in the bodies around the room. “We still don’t know who did this.”
Yana moved across the tent and knelt. But “I know who didn’t do this.”
“Whatcha got?” Zahra asked.
“This.” Yana stood and held up a brass casing. “This does not belong to the favored caliber of Russia, the 7.62.” She turned and gazed at Zahra and Hammet. “This is a 5.56 NATO round. Best guess is that the people responsible for this were either American or German.”
Zahra quickly agreed. 5.56 was used in weapons like the M4 carbine and the HK416. Both were widely used between the American and German militaries.
Hammet sighed. “It seems that the Sixth Seal has called in everyone.” He looked at Zahra. “This has gone from bad to worse.”
Zahra tried — and failed — to shake off the nerves.
It certainly has.
“We need to try and contact Kyle,” Zahra said. “We need to warn him of another new player.”
Chapter 33
Kyle
“Any luck?” Ethan asked.
Kyle stepped back inside the cargo hold and shook the chill from his body. “Yeah, but barely. Palmer is sending a rescue unit over immediately.”
The other man looked down at his watch. “What do we do until then?”
Kyle looked around Ethan, picturing the wounded team members laid up further into the plane. He also pictured the covered dead.
Footsteps approached from behind. Carlo had taken a round to the shoulder. Luckily, it had only been a flesh wound. His right arm was now in a sling. He had offered to help look over the other injured crewmember. Claire, the climatologist, had been shot multiple times. As of now, she was in stable condition. Everyone on board had received top-notch medical training since arriving in Antarctica, thankfully.
“How is she?” Kyle asked, still looking forward. The sight of the blank, icy canvas calmed him.
“Same,” Carlo replied.
The sole Greek crewman had a thick accent. He was on loan to the Antarctica arm of the National Science Foundation via some organization that Kyle had never heard of. He’d been a part of the climate studies team, not Kyle’s flight crew. Claire was his team leader and someone he thought highly of.
“How is your arm, Captain?”
Kyle waved him off. “It’s fine. A little sore is all. Keep at it, Carlo. All we can do is sit and wait for Palmer.”
Carlo motioned to the open cargo ramp. “Will do, but I would like to get some fresh air first. Hopefully, it will reinvigorate me some.”
Kyle and Ethan parted and allowed the man a clear path to the rear of the plane. They’d kept the ramp down for only one purpose: In case Zahra’s team returned early and needed a quick entry. The outdoor gusts were barely noticeable if they stayed behind the stowed Sno-Cat. At least to men like Kyle and Ethan. They’d spent enough time on the southernmost continent that they really didn’t mind the frigid temperatures.
An odd echo startled both airmen. They looked at one another with quizzical looks. Kyle exited the space between the passenger seats and the front of the Sno-Cat and headed to the right around the vehicle. Ethan went left. They met at the rear of the Sno-Cat and immediately went into defensive positions, kneeling and aiming their rifles out into the white void.
Carlo lay on the floor just into the open cargo hold ramp… with a bullet hole in his chest.
“They came back?” Ethan asked.
“No,” Kyle replied, “this is someone else…”
“How do you know that?”
The pair met eyes.
Kyle’s eyes hardened, and he smiled. “Because… I’m their leader.”
He adjusted his aim and shot Ethan point-blank in the chest.
Ethan fell back, gripping the wound with both hands. He was understandably confused and in severe pain. His trusted flight partner had shot him, and Kyle’s Wisconsin accent had vanished and been replaced with a German inflection.
Kyle got to his feet and stood over Ethan. “The Sixth Seal thanks you for your contribution.” For good measure, he shot Ethan again.
Six white-clad soldiers appeared from the wash outside. They calmly strode up the ramp and formed a tight semi-circle around their commander, Henri Vogel. He’d been stationed in Antarctica as a seasonal airman under the airtight persona of Kyle Ford for some time now. His connections within the American military had inserted him into Palmer Station with relative ease years back.
While here, Henri’s main objective had been to protect the location of the Underworld ruins. His time was also spent gathering intelligence as he hacked into mainframes and data storage for any useful information. The Sixth Seal possessed a stellar IT network that would then dig through the data for additional intel.
He was also now an expert in the terrain. No one in the Sixth Seal knew Antarctica better than he did.
“Good to see you, Commander. Been a long time.”
Master Chief Luka Meier was newer to the strike team, but Emil had praised his ability and efficiency. Henri had gladly promoted Luka upon receiving the lieutenant’s recommendation.
Kyle — Henri — gave the soldier a curt nod, then got down to business. “There is one other survivor on board. Eliminate her.” Two men rushed away. He turned to Luka. “Get this aircraft operational. Unfortunately, our Russian friends did a number on the control panel. Start there.”
Luka went to move but stopped. “The Underworld… Do you believe it’s safe?”
Everyone knew of the story, but only Henri knew the facility’s exact location outside of the Krauses. Over the years, soldiers had asked why the Sixth Seal hadn’t simply checked the Underworld for the reported cave-in.
Henri was once one of those young men.
“Why?” he had asked.
“Because of the poisoned air,” Ulrich had replied. “From what my father has told me, the entire facility is tainted with a cocktail of deadly vapor.”
“How does he know?”
Henri had known that his commander should not have been telling him any of this, but the pair had been friends for some time, and Henri had shown himself to be an exemplary lieutenant, as his father had been years prior.
“A communique was sent shortly after the disaster,” Ulrich replied. He stared hard into Henri’s eyes. “From Dietrich Krause.”
Henri then understood everything. Himmler and Dietrich were the ones who had instilled Hitler’s “leader principle” into the Sixth Seal. And similarly, their word had been treated as the Gospel. No one disobeyed them, especially Tobias.
But then, Himmler had died, and Dietrich was never heard from or seen again.
The evidence inside the U-boat concerned Henri. It called attention to a rising doubt inside his gut. Never once had anyone mentioned a missing submersible, not even Ulrich. The mass killing within it worried him, too. The American agent had executed Dietrich after he had sent the message to their allies back home.
Henri breathed. But that doesn’t mean the disaster was a lie.
All Henri knew for sure was that Dietrich Krause had been murdered by one of his own men. That in itself was a shock. But it was believable considering the crew’s predicament. It had also been possible that the American had snapped and killed everyone while lost in a crazed mental state.