Beneath the Ice (20 page)

“You’re saying they died in the crash of the
C-5?” She stepped over to him, crouched down, and stared into his
eyes.

“That’s what I’m saying. They’re dead, most
likely due to you.”

She straightened. “We brought the plane
down,” she admitted, “but I doubt the ladies were aboard. They’re
essential to your work here.”

“We’re not at the Honolulu Hilton,” Larimore
said. “These are adverse conditions. Sarah came down with altitude
sickness. Gwen is our paramedic. She was flying back to McMurdo to
make sure Sarah arrived safely.”

“How noble.” She turned to the men who
accompanied her. “I want a full search. Every nook and cranny.
There are only four buildings here. They can’t have gone far, and
they’re too smart to stay outside.” Three men scattered. The woman
stepped back to Larimore and pressed the barrel of the gun between
his eyes. “You had better not be lying to me, Commander, because
unlike the others, you are expendable.”

From his position, Perry could see a dark
green tattoo on the woman’s hand. It took a moment, but he
recognized it as a red-eyed dragon. “Since you know our names,”
Perry said, hoping to pull the woman’s attention away from
Larimore, “maybe you’d honor us with yours.”

She turned and stared into Perry’s eyes. He
felt like she was sucking the life out of him. Her eyes would have
been beautiful in any other context, but to him they looked flint
hard and cold.

“It beats saying, ‘Hey lady,’ ” Jack added.
He smiled, and Perry was once again amazed at his friend’s
fortitude.

“Tia,” she said. “You may call me Tia.”

“No last name?” Perry said.

“You don’t need one.” Her voice dropped an
octave, making her even more unnerving. “All you need to know is
that I’m in charge;

I have no sense of humor, and killing is a
hobby of mine.” She turned to Jack. “And I hate flippancy.”

Perry watched his friend open his mouth then
shut it without a word.

Gwen’s heart fluttered like a butterfly, and her
breathing was ragged. She wished she could blame it on the cold and
the altitude, but it was fear—simple, mind-shredding fear.

“In here,” she said to Sarah, sprinting
across the ice floor of the Chamber. She had assumed the unwelcome
guests would go to the Dome first. It seemed natural that the
three-building structure with its sleeping quarters would be the
first destination.

It was a guess, one she hoped was right.
Even if she were correct, she and Sarah had only minutes before the
intruders searched the Chamber. She had no idea what they wanted,
but the work site was too far off the beaten path to warrant a home
invasion. Logic told her that whoever the gunmen were, they were
here because of the project.

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m open to ideas.”

Sarah had none.

Gwen moved as quickly as she could to the
long wooden crate where Hairy had been housed prior to its
unveiling. The box was ten feet by six feet, large enough to hold
Hairy, its support equipment, and bubble plastic packing material,
much of which was still in the container. Its lid lay propped to
one side. “Get in.”

Sarah didn’t hesitate, throwing a leg over
the edge of wooden box and crawling in. Gwen hesitated a moment
then took hold of the rough, heavy wooden top. She grunted,
groaned, and pulled until her spine felt as if it would herniate.
“I need help.”

Sarah was out in an instant, taking hold of
the opposite end of the top. Together they hoisted it in place,
leaving just enough room to crawl into the near-empty container.
Sarah went first, then Gwen. Once inside, they jiggled the lid into
place.

It was a desperate and probably futile
attempt, but it was all they had. There were very few places to
hide. Gwen hoped the lid was in the correct spot and that the
others would think it an unopened crate. The hard work had calmed
her nerves, slowing her heart and quieting her breathing enough to
think.

“Now what?” Sarah asked.

“I have no idea.” Gwen wondered if she had
just crawled into her own coffin.

“At least it can’t . . . can’t get . . .
worse . . .”

“Sarah? Sarah?” It had happened again. Gwen
was thankful the narcolepsy attack hadn’t happened before they hid
themselves. She wasn’t strong enough to carry a limp body across
ice.

In the darkness, she reached for the other
woman and found her head leaning against the side wall. She traced
Sarah’s face with her fingers until she found her mouth. It was
clear, unencumbered by the plastic packing. That was a good thing.
The only good thing she could think of.

The sound of moving air seeped into the
hiding place. Gwen recognized it. She had heard the same noise many
times upon entering the Chamber. Someone had just entered the
building.

Chapter
17

“
We’ve made contact,”
one of the men
said to Tia. Perry watched as the woman stepped to a tall man and
took a black satellite phone from his hand. They were all tall,
Perry realized—Tia and her five soldiers. Tall, lean, and muscular.
After they had stripped off their parkas, Perry had seen biceps
bulging beneath the long-sleeved cold-weather shirts and shoulders
stretching the material. Something else bothered Perry, something
he’d noticed when they first emerged from the plane. The men moved
with a precision that came only from practice. This was no ordinary
group of thugs. He suspected they were ex-military.

“Phase one is complete,” Tia said into the
phone. Her spine straightened as she spoke, and her head lowered an
inch. Whoever was on the other end of the satellite link
intimidated her.

That was a frightening thought.

Perry tried to make sense of the one-sided
conversation.

“Six.” She paused as she listened.
“Searching now for the two women.” She listened some more. “They
say they were on the C-5. I don’t believe them.” Another pause. “No
casualties. Understood. Which one? It will be done.” She handed the
phone back to her accomplice then returned her attention to the
group. “Commander Larimore, I have just been instructed to put a
bullet in your heart if those two women are not found.”

Perry looked at the navy man, who showed no
fear. Larimore’s eyes narrowed, and his jaw set like a vise. “Bring
it on,” he said.

Tia studied the commander, waiting
for a break in his façade. Few men could face death without showing
some fear. She was disappointed that he was proving to be the
exception to the rule. In fact, his resolve concerned her because
it seemed to be shared by most of the others. Dr. James was
beginning to snivel—that was
to be
expected. Dr. Curtis seemed resigned to the situation. But
those who worried her most were the men from
Sachs Engineering
. She had done her
research and had been briefed in detail. They had faced death
before and survived each time. To her, that made them
dangerous.

There was something else. Enkian had hired
special investigators to do background checks on each of the party
members. Each was exceptional in his or her own right, but three
had something unexpected in common—they were churchgoers, religious
men. Dr. Curtis was a surprise to her, apparently a late addition
to the team, so she knew the least about him. She assumed he might
share the same beliefs as his friends.

Religious people could endanger her mission.
Often they were unafraid to die and were committed to ideals
greater than themselves. This was something she understood, and she
knew that the religion often didn’t matter. An Islamic extremist
might blow himself up to make a point and to enter paradise.
Christians, however, had always bothered her and often in ways she
couldn’t quantify. She was uncomfortable in their presence. It was
illogical, but nonetheless real.

“Perhaps I could change your mind,
Commander, with a well-placed bullet in someone else’s head,” Tia
said. “Maybe one of the Sachs people. There are too many engineers
on this site anyway.”

Larimore gave a humorless
chuckle. “I doubt you’re going to give any of us a
free lift home after this is over. People like
you kill their hostages. We’re dead no matter what we say or
do.”

“Nothing in this building,” a man with
bleached blond hair said as he emerged from the galley area. His
companion had no hair at all. “We checked the dormitory annex, the
supply building, and their rooms. There’s no one in this
complex.”

“That means they must be in the other dome.”
Tia thought for a moment. “Go help the others search—wait. We’ll
all go. There may be a faster way of doing this.”

“
I will not take no for an answer,” Henry Sachs
bellowed, and bellowing was something he did well. He had spent his
life working with employees a third larger and twice as strong as
he. Normally a soft-spoken man, he had a switch that turned him
from taciturn to tyrant. That switch had been thrown.

“Sir, I don’t know how your call made it
this far, but we at the White House receive thousands of calls
every day. The staff can’t speak to every caller.”

Sachs sighed then said, “Here’s what you do.
You put me on hold. You find Mr. Jeter and speak two words to him:
Henry Sachs. That’s all I ask.”

A moment later he found himself on hold. He
waited with impatience. Since receiving word about the missing
transport plane, he had been on the phone, begging for information
and calling in favors—and he was owed a lot of favors. Calls to the
Commandant of the Coast Guard had garnered a promise of instant
information, but Sachs wanted more. He had only one son, and he
wasn’t content to wait on others to find him.

“Mr. Sachs,” the woman’s voice said, “I
apologize for the confusion. Mr. Jeter will be on the line
momentarily. He was in a meeting and—”

“Thank you,” Sachs said. He felt bad for
bullying the aide, but he was not at his diplomatic best.

White House Chief of Staff Robert Jeter walked down
the hall of the West Wing, his head hung as it often did when he
was in thought.

“Mr. Jeter,” an aide began, “I have the
secretary of transportation on the line—”

“Not now,” Jeter said with a wave of his
hand. He stepped into his office and closed the door. The lights
were dimmed, just the way he liked it. He kept his shades drawn and
preferred dark furniture and dark wood paneling. The room was lit
by a single desk lamp, the television that was never turned off and
seldom moved from CNN, and his computer monitor. The president
called the place “The Grand Mausoleum,” but Jeter liked it. The
darkness helped him focus on the hundreds of items he had to keep
orbiting the administration.

He snapped up the phone. “Henry me-boy,” he
said with a weak and forced Irish accent. “To what do I owe this
pleasure?”

“I need your help. More specifically, I need
the president’s help.”

“I have a meeting with him and the director
of communications in three minutes.” He felt his stomach tighten.
“What do you want me to tell him?”

“As you know, in all my years of supporting
the president I have never asked for anything.”

“That’s true,” Jeter said. “You make the
rest of us look bad.” Sachs had been a financial supporter of
President Calvert from his first run for the Senate. It was the
only reason Jeter was talking to him now.

“It’s about my son, Mr. Jeter. I’ve been
told a cargo plane went down and he was on it.”

“That’s horrible,” Jeter said. He twisted in
his seat then pulled a pad of paper from his desk drawer. He had a
near-photographic memory, but he still took copious notes on
everything. “Where?”

“They’re telling me the plane overshot
McMurdo—”

“McMurdo? He’s in Antarctica?”

“Yes. Are you aware of the Lake Vostok
research project?”

“Vaguely,” Jeter said,
regretting the lie. “Something about an underground—I mean
under-
ice
lake
and some debatable environmental changes. The Pentagon sent a crew
down there.”

“That’s right. My son Perry was leading the
research team.”

“Really? I thought he was an engineer or
architect—”

“Forgive me, Mr. Jeter, but none of that
matters. What matters is that my son’s plane is missing and assumed
lost at sea after overshooting McMurdo.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. What can we
do?”

“Perry shouldn’t have been on that plane. It
was supposed to ferry back six of my employees and six navy
Seabees. Furthermore, I’m having trouble believing that the pilot
could overshoot their intended destination and then fall into the
sea.”

“But that’s what the experts are
saying?”

“Experts can be wrong. I’m an expert, and I
know how often I’m wrong.”

“Give me all the facts.” Sachs did, and
Jeter scribbled notes. “I’ll share this with the president.”

“I want someone to check out the research
site,” Sachs said, not as a request but as something that could not
be refused. “I know the military has means of satellite
surveillance. We built the building that houses the
electronics.”

“And you want the president to order that
kind of surveillance?”

“Exactly.”

“I’ll tell the president, Mr. Sachs, and I
know he wishes the best for your son. As I do.”

“Thank you.”

Jeter hung up the phone and reviewed the
notes on his desk. He pulled the paper from the pad, turned his
chair, and dropped it into the hungry teeth of a shredder. In less
than a second, the paper was reduced to tiny squares of
confetti.