Beneath the Ice (26 page)

“Water?” Tia said.

“Yes, water,” Perry explained. “The lake is
under pressure. It should be; it has a couple of miles of ice
resting on most of its surface. There may be areas of ice bridging,
but the lake is far too large for us to think that the ice sheet
hovers over the water.”

“This thing is going to gush like a
geyser?”

“Of course not,” Griffin chimed in. “We’re
over ten thousand feet above the surface.”

“Someone had better clear this up for me,”
Tia demanded. “Someone without the attitude.” She raised an eyebrow
at Griffin.

Perry spoke quickly,
pulling her attention back to him. “We don’t know how much pressure
the water is under. There are many
variables to consider: the density of the water, the ability
of the ice
sheet to float on the surface,
the compressive strength of the ice sheet, the fact that water
cannot be compressed—”

“Cut to the chase.”

“Best guess is that a column of water will
rise up the shaft as much as a third of the distance.”

“So no shower,” Griffin said.

“What will that do to the probe?” Tia
wondered.

“We don’t know. It’s another reason we have
the larger cryobot. Not only will it widen the shaft, but it will
serve as a backup should Hairy take a beating and cease to
function. Ideally, the pressure will break through the last couple
of feet of ice in the shaft and push the probe back up. If it does,
we have to be ready to take up the slack in the support cable. Then
Hairy will begin to sink through the water.”

“There’s no chance water
is going to come shooting out of the
shaft?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say no chance,”
Perry said. “I assume you’ve seen film of oil gushing out of the
ground. Bottom line is: We don’t know. The lake has been expanding,
so that may have increased the pressure. Then again, it may have an
outlet that serves as a release valve.”

“What precautions have you taken?”

Perry shrugged. “Dr. James doesn’t think it
will rise more than a third, and that’s good enough for me.”

“And if he’s wrong?”

“Then we all take a really cold shower,”
Griffin said.

“We don’t know what’s down there,” Perry
admitted.

The sound of the air lock opening pulled
everyone’s attention to the door. Perry was confused. By his count,
everyone at the site was already in the Chamber. Then he remembered
Tia’s comment about “the man who is going to kill you.”

The door opened, and a tall, deeply tanned
man stepped in. His head was held high, his stride long, and he
wore a white parka. Behind him streamed armed men, who quickly
surrounded Perry and the others. Having five people with guns was
bad enough; now Perry was looking at fifty or more. What little
glimmer of optimism he held for escape flickered and burned low
like a candle flame, leaving only a red ember at the wick’s
tip.

Tia suddenly stood erect, walked to the man
in white, and kneeled before him, bowing her head. “My lord,” she
intoned.

“Oh brother,” Jack said.

Once again Jeter was the last into the room, this
time by choice. He closed the door to the Oval Office behind him.
He faced the president and the security team, the same men he had
met with the night before and the morning before that. Unlike the
previous night, when the president had made them all sit around his
desk, they were in their usual seats on the sofas and comfortable
chairs. A silver coffee urn sat on a mahogany serving tray, which
rested on the ornate cherry coffee table.

“You sick?” the president
asked. “You look like warmed-over
death.”

“I didn’t sleep well last
night,” Jeter said. Thoughts ricocheted in his mind. He thought of
the last meeting, when he had been unable to conceal the fact that
he had known of the C-5 incident and hadn’t told the president; of
the photo of his daughter with the crosshairs drawn over her
beautiful face; of his wife’s tearful response; of the phone calls
made to locate his daughter, all to no avail, only to have her call
at 11:00 that night to say she had arrived safely and been at a
loud party. Only after she went into the quiet restroom had she
noticed that she missed a call on her cell phone. He had demanded
she stay at the party until picked up by a man he would send. He
had even given a password: “pickles.” It was all he could think of
at that hour. Pickles had been her childhood dog. The moment he
hung up, he called the director of the Secret
Service, rousing him from bed, and told him of his fears. Ten
min
utes later, an agent from the San
Francisco office had taken Courtney from the party to a private
residence, and he and three other agents had stayed with
her.

Jeter also thought of his father and the
commitment he had made that day in the Watergate Hotel and the car
he had been given.

“What’s eating you?” the president said. “I
know it wasn’t yesterday’s criticism. You’re not that
thin-skinned.”

“I have a statement to make, sir.” He
paused. “If I may.”

“Does it have to do with this meeting?”

“It has to do with everything.” Jeter saw a
puzzled look paint the president’s face. He reached into the pocket
of his suit coat and removed his keys. He set them on the coffee
table. On the silver key ring was the clay cylinder.

“Hey, I’ve seen that before,” the CIA
director said. “The deputy director has one of those.”

Steve Belanger, looking every bit the prime
FBI agent, agreed. “So does the director of the DC office. Come to
think of it, so does the director of the LA bureau.”

Jeter pulled up a chair and fell into it.
His mouth was dry, his stomach burned, his neck felt as if it were
petrifying. He rubbed his weary eyes and explained about his ties
to the group. “It has been a family thing for generations, going
back to my Irish great-great-grandfather. Probably further than
that. My father told me about it when I was in college. It has been
nothing more than tradition to me, but it became more the other
day.” He explained about Sachs’s call, his own conversation with
the man named Enkian, and the photo of his daughter he had
received. “I didn’t sleep last night because I have to make a
choice. I have to choose between my country and my religion.”

“You mean like Presbyterian or Baptist?” the
president wondered.

“No,” Jeter explained. “Much, much older and
something far more different than you can imagine.” He paused. “We
are in danger, gentlemen—as a nation and as individuals. Whoever
has one of these—” he pointed at the clay ornament—“is a physical
danger to you.” He paused again, lowered his head, then said, “May
I see your keys—all of you—please?”

“What is this?” General McDivett asked. “You
want to see if we’re carrying some kind of Masonic charm?”

“Not Masonic, General. This group is unlike
any other.”

“They’re terrorists?”

“I don’t know what they are, but I do know
they have great wealth, tremendous power, and have had operatives
in government for decades. Now, may I see your key rings?”

“Fine with me,” Jannot said. The CIA man
pulled out a leather key case, opened it, and set it on the
table.

Belanger did the same.

“This is nuts,” McDivett said. “I’ve given
my life to this country and served in its military for over thirty
years.”

“Everyone in this room can say the same
thing,” the president remarked, his words sharpening to an edge.
“We’ve all served and are serving our country. Show your keys.”

McDivett looked at Larry Shomer. Jeter
caught the exchange. The homeland security boss fidgeted. McDivett
stood and pulled the keys from his pocket. Shomer did the same. A
clay cylinder dangled from each. A tsunami of nausea washed over
Jeter.

“Well, isn’t this interesting,” President
Calvert said. Jeter saw the color drain from the chief executive’s
face. “I assume you each received a call last night?” No one said
anything. “Tell me, Robert. This late night call you got from . . .
What was his name?”

“I only know him as Mr. Enkian.”

“What did he ask you to do?”

“My job today,” Jeter said, “is to kill you
all.”

Jeter reached into his pocket.

Chapter
23

“
Point five
meters,”
Sarah announced. “Assuming our sonar
apparatus is measuring the ice correctly.”

Perry felt every muscle tense. He surveyed
the others. Jack was now on his feet, still holding his injured
left arm. With busted ribs and a gun wound, it was a wonder he
could stand at all. Sarah’s eyes were glued to the monitor, as were
Gleason’s. The three academics had huddled together. Griffin looked
like a man teetering on the narrow ledge of a tall building; his
sister had both hands raised to her mouth. Dr. Curtis stood as
still as a statue, as if any movement would ruin it all. Tia stood
to the side, her eyes fixed on the one she called lord.

“History is soon to be made,” the
regal-looking man said. He turned to Perry. “I’ve been learning all
about you, Mr. Sachs—you and your team. I feel as if we are old
friends.”

“My friends don’t hold me captive and kill
my people.”

“Hyperbole, Mr. Sachs. Nothing more. I have
no friends.” He stepped to Tia and eyed her for a moment. He
returned his attention to Perry. “Just loyal followers. I’ve been
getting reports about you. You have been very resourceful. Putting
the C-4 on the snowmobile was creative.”

“A desperate act by a desperate man.”

“It doesn’t matter. It was never meant to go
off.”

“What?” Larimore said. “I know C-4 when I
see it, and that was the real McCoy.”

“Oh, it was real explosive all right,”
Enkian said. “Didn’t you find it strange that the counter reached
zero, but there was no explosion?”

It had struck Perry as strange. “Something
went wrong with the clock mechanism, or there was a short in the
electronics.”

Enkian shook his head. “There was no short.
You were meant to find it. It doesn’t strike you as strange that
only one bomb was found, and that it was found at the back of your
living quarters?”

“I don’t get it,” Larimore said. “What was
the purpose?”

“To get you to leave,” Enkian said. “And to
slow any return. You can tell by the number of men I have that I’m
in need of quality shelter. You have it. It doesn’t make much sense
to destroy what I can take.”

“You expected us to see the bomb then
leave?” Perry said. “How did you expect us to leave?”

“You were supposed to find it before the
transport left,” Enkian said. “Apparently my man failed to plant
enough hints.”

“The same man that died in the crash?”

“His life counted for something,” Enkian
said.

Larimore croaked out a
small laugh. “I thought Griffin plant
ed
it.”

“I was thinking you did,” Jack said. He then
asked Enkian, “Why kill all the radios if you thought we’d be
leaving?”

“Contingency, Mr. Dyson.
No plan is complete without sever
al layers
of backup plans. There was always the chance that someone like you
or Mr. Sachs would stay behind with the equipment. Your exploits
precede you, you know.”

“I guess your backup plan failed,” Larimore
said.

“I’ll admit the first one did. But I have
more. Many more.”

“And here we were suspecting one another,”
Perry said.

“I’m glad to have provided
you with some entertainment,”
Enkian
remarked. “Of course, now you have a bigger problem, don’t
you?”

“But the bomb did go off,”
Gwen said. “It exploded on the
snowmobile.”

“That’s why children aren’t allowed to play
with explosives,” Tia said. “Most likely the vibration from the
snowmobile made an unintended connection.”

“I think this is it,” Sarah said.

Perry stood close enough to see the monitor
but not as close as he would have liked. The onboard camera showed
nothing but darkness.

A minute passed. Another.

Perry let his eyes drift
to the aluminum support structure and the support line that was
attached to Hairy two miles below. It snapped taut, then went
slack. The pulley system was robotic. As soon as the line went
slack, it began to reel in the extra line. The
steel cable and black, plastic-coated fiber optics wrapped
around the drum pulleys. The whine of the motors filled the
Chamber. Gwen and Griffin took a step back.

“We’re through!” Sarah shouted. “We did
it!”

Then came a whistling sound. Air was being
driven up through the shaft, air that had not been to the surface
in eons. In an odd moment of detachment Perry wondered if it would
have an odor. He prepared himself for an onrush of wind. It didn’t
come. Instead of a windstorm there was a slight breeze which
diminished a moment later. It was as if the ground burped.

“As I expected,” Griffin said. “There was a
chance of a large quantity of trapped air, but the odds favored
less air. Of course, under pressure, much of the gas would be in
solution.”

“Hairy is coming up,” Sarah said.

Again, Perry found himself holding his
breath. They had broken through, according to Sarah, at negative
3,642 meters. Sarah began to count the numbers off. Hairy’s depth
was decreasing.

“Thirty-six hundred . . . thirty-four . . .
thirty-two . . .”

“It’s rising like a cork,” Jack said.

“Three thousand . . .” She paused. “Slowing
. . . twenty-eight hundred . . .”