Beneath the Ice (27 page)

“That would be some elevator ride,” Gleason
remarked, his eyes fixed on the dials.

“Twenty-five hundred . . . holding . . .
holding. It’s stopped.”

Perry began breathing again.

“A third of the way,” Griffin said. “Just as
I predicted.”

The retaining line slowed to a stop.

“How’s the probe?” Perry asked.

“Hairy is . . .” Sarah studied the display.
“Fine. We have readings from all the sensors.”

“Gleason, the rigging?”

“Perfect. No splaying and no crimping. The
autoreverse worked as designed.”

“Shall I activate the lights?” Sarah
asked.

“Yes,” Enkian snapped. “And let’s remember
who is in charge.”

“Whatever,” Sarah said.
“I’ve been through too much today to
care.”

It was an odd response from her, and it took
Perry a second to realize what she was doing. She was cultivating a
sense of apathy. If she could trick herself into indifference, then
maybe she could ward off another narcolepsy attack. It was a brave
front, but he doubted that she could pull it off for long.

The large plasma screen had been filled with
virtual gauges and dials. A small heater kept the screen
functioning in the freezing Chamber. The pale, solid background
gave way to black.

“Camera remains.” She
entered a few keystrokes. Enkian had
ordered her hands freed, as well as the others’. With over
fifty armed men surrounding the research team, there was little
need for re-straints. “Light shields retracting.” She paused as if
for effect, her finger hovering over one of the keyboard’s function
keys. Perry did
n’t need to be a psychic to
know that she hesitated out of reverence for the moment. They were
about to see what no one had seen before.

She tapped the key.

Jeter was reaching inside his suit coat when Steve
Belanger seized his arm and pushed him back until the chair flipped
backward. The two men fell to the plush carpeting.

“What are you doing?” Jeter demanded.

“Mr. President, get out!” Belanger
called.

“Get off me!” Jeter shouted.

Doors to the Oval Office sprang open and
four Secret Service men rushed into the room, guns drawn. Jeter
turned and saw the confusion on their faces. Wordlessly, two of
them grabbed the president’s arms and pushed him from the Oval
Office, his feet barely touching the floor.

“Wait a minute,” Calvert said. The Secret
Service disobeyed and continued to remove the president.

“He’s reaching for a gun,” Belanger
shouted.

Jeter felt the cold barrel of a gun pressed
against his forehead. He also felt the weight of the FBI director
suddenly removed from his chest.

“Sit down,” the agent ordered Belanger.

“How dare you!” Belanger protested. “I’m the
director of—”

“I know who you are, sir. Sit down. No one
moves until I say.” He raised a small radio to his lips. “Close us
down.”

Jeter knew that at that moment, every key
person in the West Wing was being shuttled to a safe place. Every
gate was being locked. Tour groups were being told to leave. Secret
Service agents were swarming the halls and the eighteen acres of
grounds. He didn’t move. Not with the business end of a handgun
pressing against his scalp.

The agent above held the
gun steady with one hand while
patting
Jeter’s chest and side. Jeter could see his perplexity. Holding a
gun on a man he had seen every day, a man he knew was the
president’s right-hand man was something he had never expected.
Jeter also knew that the men and women of the Secret Service took
their work very seriously. The safety of the president was their
primary concern. Everyone else was secondary—including the chief of
staff.

Next, the agent opened Jeter’s twisted coat,
reached into the pocket, and removed two envelopes. He handed them
to his partner as other agents descended on the location.

Seconds passed like hours
as Jeter was searched top to bottom. Only then was he allowed to
stand. He saw the others being searched as well. The agents were
efficient, serious and nonplussed. They had just held at gunpoint
and searched the persons of the directors of the FBI and CIA, the
secretary of homeland security,
and the
chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. None of the men
com
plained. It would have done them no
good.

Twenty minutes later President Calvert
stormed into the Oval Office, accompanied by two agents whom he let
know in the most colorful of terms his displeasure. “Yanked from my
own office like a rag doll. There’s no honor in that.”

“Sir, we were only doing our job.”

“I know, but I’m angry and you’re close by.
I would like to be alone with my security staff please. It was all
just a misunderstanding.”

The agents left, but Jeter knew they weren’t
far away.

“You had better explain yourself,” the
president demanded. “I just had both arms dislocated because of you
and Steve.”

“I thought he was reaching for a weapon,”
Belanger complained. “What was I supposed to do?”

Jeter answered for the president. “You did
the right thing. I would have done the same.” He reached for the
two envelopes and handed one to the president, who opened it
without hesitation and with adrenaline-driven animation.

“This is your resignation,” he said,
surprised.

“Yes, sir, it is.”

“What’s in the other envelope?”

Jeter hesitated then handed it to his
boss.

Calvert opened it and removed a folded
photo. He studied it a moment then said, “It gives me chills.” He
passed it around, and each man looked at the image of Courtney and
the crosshairs.

“By telling me all this,
you may be choosing your country over your
daughter?”

Tears ran from Jeter’s eyes, but he was too
tired, too frightened to care. He just nodded. “I can’t do what
they ask. They have done wonderful things for me, but I can’t do
what they ask—not even to save my daughter.”

“Help us find these people,” the president
said.

“I don’t know how,” Jeter admitted. “They’re
everywhere: in Congress, in the various departments of government.
Two are standing right here.”

“Yes,” the president said. “What am I going
to do with you boys?”

“
Wow,” Gleason said.

“Amen to that,” Jack said.

Perry inched closer to the monitor. The area
was crowded with Enkian, Tia, and his crew vying for a direct line
of sight. Perry was looking at a sight from another world. Light
from Hairy’s nose streamed through crystal-clear water that was
dotted with floating bits of white.

“It’s like having tunnel vision,” Jack
said.

He was right. The strong light pierced the
water and illuminated the white ice walls of the shaft. “What’s
that floating in the water?”

“Let me see,” Gwen said.

“Are those white things alive?” Gleason
asked.

“It’s ice,” Griffin said from his position
at the back. “While your machine has been melting its way down the
shaft, its metal sides have scraped off some ice, most likely when
the water propelled it back up.”

“He’s right,” Gwen said. “They look like
small animals, but they are nothing more than ice chips. Can you
magnify the image?”

“Sure,” Sarah said. “The camera has some
telescopic capabilities.” She zoomed slowly until several small
white flecks came into sharp focus.

“Ice,” Gwen said. “Nothing more, at least
not macroscopically. Microscopically . . . who knows?”

“Take it down,” Enkian said. “I didn’t fly
all the way down here to look at an ice tunnel.”

Sarah frowned but entered the keystrokes
that would allow Hairy to descend.

“How much movement will be available to us?”
Enkian asked.

Sarah moved her head from side to side as if
thinking. “A fair amount. Once Hairy exits the shaft, a portion of
the outer hull will separate, decreasing the probe’s weight and
exposing the small propellers that will allow it to move in any
direction we direct.”

“How do you maintain buoyancy?”

“Hairy is naturally buoyant in the water.
It’s one reason it is as large as it is. There are several empty,
sterile compartments that I’m flooding with water. We didn’t want
to introduce anything from the surface, so we use Vostok water to
decrease buoyancy. Once we emerge, I activate onboard canisters
filled with purified air. That air pushes out enough water to bring
about zero buoyancy. Then we’re free to tour as long as we
like.”

Enkian nodded. “Descent time?”

“Much faster than through the ice, of
course, but we still want to move slowly. I estimate we’ll make it
through the eleven hundred meters in about thirty minutes. That’s a
descent rate of—”

“Nearly forty feet a minute,” Enkian said.
“Let’s waste no more time talking. Get on with it.” He turned to
Tia. “Let’s use this time. Take some men and unload the plane.
Bring everything but personal supplies in here.”

Tia nodded and moved toward the rear air
lock, where large crates passed through. She chose several men who
followed without discussion.

Chapter
24

“
It’s dim,”
Enkian
said.

“
Hold on,” Sarah replied. “We’re back to the underlayer of
ice.”

Perry watched with such
rapt attention that he forgot for a
moment
that he was a captive. The plasma monitor displayed the video image
returned by Hairy. There had been nothing new to see—just the
vertical, white walls of the ice shaft and bits of ice that
flickered like stars at night. The minutes ticked by as the probe
began a slow, measured descent to the point where it had first
broken through. To Perry’s relief, the sudden impact of water and
the over-three-thousand-foot rocket ride the probe had taken had
left the device undamaged.

“We are seeing what no man has seen,” Dr.
Curtis said. “Water and ice laid down millennia ago.”

Enkian snickered. “You know nothing.”

“It is bad enough that you hold me at
gunpoint. Must you also ridicule my scientific credibility?”

“Science has gotten so much wrong,” Enkian
said. “Especially you archaeologists. You have little more than a
thimbleful of knowledge, and from that you make great
pronouncements you cannot back up.”

“What do you know of science?” Griffin said.
“You’re little more than a thug.”

Tia started for Griffin.
Perry took a step to intervene, but Enkian
waved his lackey off. “You would be wise to watch your words,
Dr. James. My patience has boundaries. To answer your question, I
know more than you think.”

“One meter,” Sarah said. All eyes returned
to the monitor.

The light from the cryobot reflected off the
ice shaft, forming a white ring on the monitor. Dead center was the
end of the shaft: a black hole. Light—natural or artificial—had
never pierced that darkness.

“All systems are green,” Sarah said. “I
assume we all want to see what lies beneath the ice.” She looked at
Perry.

“I don’t see any need to hesitate,” Perry
said. This was far from what he had expected. A hundred times he
had played this moment over in his mind. Sarah would be at the
controls, his team surrounding her, making excited comments and
observation. Instead, unexpected guests had come to the party. What
had been meant for a party of eight was now for well over fifty.
Perry resented everything about it. Despite his anger over the
situation, he could not draw his eyes from the monitor.

“Tally ho!” Sarah said, taking control of
the joystick.

“Wait,” Griffin said.

“What’s wrong?” Sarah asked.

“Do you see the ice crystals just beyond the
opening?”

“Yes,” Sarah said. “It’s a pretty tight fit
in the shaft. Hairy has pushed some of the floaters ahead of it.
It’s to be expected.”

“Do you see how they’re moving?” Griffin
asked, pointing at the monitor. “From our relative position,
they’re moving from right to left.”

“So?” Sarah asked.

“So you had better be prepared for a stout
current. It’s to be expected.”

“Explain,” Enkian demanded.

“Lake Vostok is not static,” Griffin said.
“Geothermal heat close to the lake bed keeps the lake liquid while
the ice cap freezes the surface water. That new ice accretes at the
surface. Unfrozen but cold water descends, and warm water rises and
creates a vertically circular current. If you drop the probe into
the water without taking that into account, the current might pull
the device away before you’re ready.”

“I thought you were opposed to all of this,”
Larimore said.

“I am. We should not have done this. We have
committed a crime against nature and against the scientific
community. But if you persist in moving on—well, you might as well
do it right.”

“Believe it or not, Dr. James,” Sarah said
formally, “I’ve considered that . . . but thanks. I’m afraid I let
it slip my mind. I’m a little nervous.”

“You’ve been practicing,” Perry said. “No
need to be nervous.” He imagined her keeling over in narcoleptic
sleep. He doubted Enkian and Tia would be sympathetic.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t practice under
gunpoint.” She laughed lightly. “This is weird. I’m in the coldest
place on earth, and my palms are sweating.”

“Enough talk,” Enkian snapped. “Get on with
it.”

Perry saw Sarah swallow hard, tighten her
grip on the joystick control, and take several deep breaths.