Beneath the Ice (33 page)

He took a step and felt the lake bottom give
slightly under his feet. The suit responded well, but he still felt
as if he were strolling though syrup. Like Armstrong on the moon,
he pushed himself through the alien territory, but unlike the lunar
astronauts, Perry felt not only his own weight but that of the
water. It was work, despite his having adjusted the dive suit’s
buoyancy.

Each step brought him closer to the surface.
He stopped to take a couple of deep breaths. “This is a little like
work,” he said.

“Take your time, pal,” Gleason said. “That
thing has been down there a long time. No need to press things
now.”

Perry saw something to his left, a large
cylinder he knew well. “My navigation is pretty good. I found
Hairy.” The cryobot lay lifeless on the bottom. Sarah had guided it
close to shore and raised it so that its camera broke the surface
that was just a foot above Perry’s head. “It seems to have slid
back a few feet. Probably happened when the cable
disconnected.”

“Makes sense,” Gleason said.

Perry took a few more steps. The work was
getting more difficult, and he was feeling a tug on his back. The
cable that kept him connected to the surface was becoming
deadweight. The plastic lines that shielded the fiber optics and
communication lines had been designed to counter the weight of the
cable. They carried enough buoyancy per foot of length to cancel
the weight of a foot of metal cable. Even so, Perry now had to tug
much of it behind him.

“Maybe I’m too old for this kind of work,”
he said. “I feel like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Did you
ever see that movie?”

“No, but I read about it in the history
books,” Gleason joked. “I wish there was something we could
do.”

Perry looked up. The surface was just inches
above his head. “Okay, here goes.” Perry took two more strides, and
his helmet broke the surface, water pouring off his faceplate in
sheets. The lights that had been struggling against water were now
set free in an open area of air. “Wow,” Perry said, lifting his
head. It was the same scene he had seen through Hairy’s electronic
eye, but the best video image could never replace the created human
eye.

He was standing neck deep
in Lake Vostok, his helmeted head above the surface like a beach
ball. Fifty feet above him was an ice ceiling that arched down to
either side. He estimated the distance from wall to wall was three
hundred feet. Perry felt as if he were
trapped in an upside-down bowl.

“Amazing,” he whispered. Straight ahead
about fifteen feet away was the side of a building, a brick wall
that sank beneath the shore and rose until it disappeared into the
ice ceiling. The scale of it was impossible to take in. The wall’s
edges disappeared into ice on either side. From the surveys
conducted before the mission began, Perry knew the ziggurat covered
several acres. He was standing at the base of a man-made mountain.
The receding ice had only laid bare a small portion of the ancient
structure, but it was enough to knock Perry back on his heels.

There was a scratching sound that pulled
Perry’s attention back. “I’m getting some noise on the line.”

“Sachs, this is Enkian. Press on.”

“What, no ‘please’?” Perry moved up the
gentle slope, the water level moving down his suit. The cable
became heavier as more of it was pulled from the water. The suit
was becoming a problem. It wasn’t designed to stroll around on dry
land. Perry pushed forward, grunting with each step. After what
seemed like a mile journey,

carrying a backpack of concrete, Perry stood
close enough to touch the ziggurat.

“How I wish I were you right now,” Enkian
enthused. “You are about to touch what has been hidden for
millennia.”

Perry was sweating, and
his heart was slamming. “Yeah, well, I’d trade places with you if I
could.” He leaned forward and laid his left-hand manipulator on the
surface. The only sensation was of resistance. He wondered what the
building felt like. “The surface is
largely intact. You were right. The larger stones are made of
small
er bricks, and a few of them are
loose.”

“Pick one up.”

Fortunately, Perry did not
have to bend over far. Sections of the wall had crumbled, leaving
bricks at the base sticking out from the sloped surface. Perry
found one in easy reach, closed the three-fin
gered manipulator hand around the brick, and
pulled.

“Gently!” Enkian ordered.

“I’m doing my best. Back off.” Perry wiggled
the brick until it came free. “It appears to be smooth, almost
glazed.”

“That’s how the Babylonians did it. The
outer surface was covered in glazed brick. There are several
ziggurats still standing, so we know this to be true. Turn it
over.”

Perry did as ordered, twisting the
manipulator so the various sides of the object could be seen in the
artificial light.

“Stop!
Turn it back around.”

Perry did and saw what caught Enkian’s
attention—writing. “It looks like a bunch of lines and dots.”

“It’s a type of cuneiform. It predates
Hebrew and any other script you know about.”

“So we can’t read it,” Perry said. He looked
at a string of marks.

“I know what it says,” Enkian remarked.
“It’s the name of an ancient god—Marduk.”

Perry brought the brick to his waist and
dropped it in a thick plastic bag. This would keep him from having
to hold on to the artifact while being towed back to the
surface.

There was a
pop
.

The lights went out, suffocating Perry in
abysmal blackness. “I’ve lost lights,” he said calmly. There was no
response. “I say again, I’ve lost lights.” Nothing. Just the sound
of his own breathing. “Um, hello. Anybody there?”

Nothing. The sudden darkness had startled
Perry, but the next realization terrified him. He couldn’t hear the
fans that circulated warm air though his suit.

The suit had lost all power. Perry began to
sweat as the cold began to seep in.

Chapter
29

The sound of alarm
bells
filled the Chamber, rebounding off
of the curved walls and ceiling. It was deafening.

“Power failure!” Gleason shouted. “The suit
has lost power. He’s in trouble.”

There was a pause of disbelief, then Jack
sprung into action. “Talk to me, people.”

Sarah started. “I have no telemetry at all.
No communication, no video feed, nothing, but my computer is still
up. Gleason is right. The suit must have lost power. It doesn’t
seem to be on our end.”

“Gleason, you’re with me.” Jack spun on his
heels and ran to-ward the support gantry. “Maybe something came
loose. You take the electronics; I’ll take mechanics.”

“Got it.”

It was only a few steps to the open hole in
the ice, but it seemed like a mile to Jack. He had made three
strides when, for a reason Jack couldn’t fathom, a guard stepped in
front of him and raised his weapon. Jack didn’t slow. He slapped
the gun aside with his left hand and seized the man’s parka with
his right. In a single fluid motion he shoved the gunman as hard as
he could. The man’s feet left the ice, and he landed on his back,
sliding several feet. Three additional steps and Jack was by the
support structure. First he traced the cable that was attached to
his friend. It seemed normal. A gauge measuring line tension read
well within safety parameters.

“Connections are good on this end,” Gleason
said. “Maybe it’s the generator. The systems generator runs
independently from the ones that power the facility.”

“Good idea. Check that. I’m pulling him in.”
He reached for the control that would begin rewinding the long
cable.

The room went dark.

“I’ve lost everything,” Sarah shouted.
“Computer is completely down.”

“What’s going on?” Enkian asked.

“I wish I knew,” Jack said. “We’ve got to
get the power back up. Gleason, go.”

“Wait,” Enkian ordered. “How do I know this
isn’t a trick?”

“Because my best friend is freezing to
death,” Jack said. “Either help or get out of the way.”

“Why would the power go out?” Enkian
demanded to know.

“That’s a good question, and I have another
one for you: Why haven’t the backups kicked in?”

Perry’s air had been cut off, and it was
already getting thick. He raised his left arm and looked at the
control panel. Without his lights, he could see nothing except a
small red dot in the bottom left corner. He tapped it and the fans
came back to life, air began to circulate, and his lights were
restored. The emergency batteries and oxygen were working, but they
would not last for long.

How had he lost power so
suddenly? He checked the pro
jected gauges
on his faceplate. Batteries were just under 100
percent, but they would drain fast. He did the one thing he
didn’t want to do: He turned off the lights. The Stygian gloom
swallowed him whole.

A sense of helplessness washed over him.
There was no place to go, no way to help himself. He couldn’t swim
to the surface. He might make it to the hole, but he could never
climb it. He was dependent on Jack and the others to bring him
up.

He weighed the
possibilities. Once his air was gone—and he only had thirty minutes
in reserve—he would die. He toyed with the idea of removing his
helmet in hopes that the ice cavern was filled with
breathable air. He doubted it was. It was
possible that there was
oxygen in the
chamber but equally possible that the gases surrounding him were
noxious. These were things they would have tested had they been
given time. Enkian had put an end to that. It was a moot point
anyway. Perry had no way to take off his helmet. Getting into the
suit and exiting required help. Aside from smashing the face mask,
he was stuck, and if he did something so foolish he would be
imprisoned in the small cavern. It would only be a matter of
time
before the cold killed
him.

He thought of Hairy lying useless a few feet
underwater. There was oxygen on board the probe, a tank used to
control buoyancy by expelling water to help it dive. But that tank
was deep in the device, and he had no tools to open it.

His hope lay above him, in the hands of
friends, and beyond that, in the hands of God.

Jeter hadn’t been told so, but he was sure there was
more security around him, and they were there not to protect him
but to monitor his activities. He leaned back in his chair and
rubbed his eyes. He had just received word that his daughter was
still safe in the care of the Secret Service, but he couldn’t rest
easy. The ancient cult had fingers all the way into the White
House, and he was just one small intrusion. It still amazed him
that Larry Shomer was part of the conspiracy. The man was the head
of Homeland Security. Add to that the head of the Joint Chiefs,
General McDivett. He felt sick just thinking about it.

He opened his eyes to dispel the nightmare
that was beginning and saw President Calvert standing in the
doorway. His tie was loose, his collar was unbuttoned, and he wore
no suit coat. He did, however, wear a worn and pained look. He had
not been to bed since the previous night.

Jeter sucked in a deep breath then let it
out. He picked up the phone and dialed for an outside line. A
moment later he said, “It’s done.” As he hung up, he noticed his
hand was shaking.

“It was a brave thing to do,” Calvert said,
entering the room.

“Do you know what I just did?”

Calvert nodded. “Yes, I do. Your country
appreciates it. Even more so, I appreciate it.”

Jeter rubbed his chin nervously. “She’s the
only daughter I have. We wanted other children, but it was never in
the cards.”

“You haven’t lost her,” Calvert said. “I’ve
ordered extra security. She’s being flown home right now.”

“How long?” Jeter asked. “How long can we
count on that extra security? At some point it runs out, and then
what? For all I know, her greatest danger may come disguised as an
agent of the Secret Service. Just yesterday morning two members
were sitting on the sofa opposite you.”

“Those two will be no immediate trouble,”
Calvert said. “They’re vacationing at Camp David until I can figure
out what to do with them.”

“But they weren’t alone,” Jeter said. “I
never thought of this organization as anything more than a type of
lodge, but here they are in the upper reaches of our government and
probably significant governments around the world.” He shook his
head again. “Every-where. They are everywhere.”

“And so are brave men like you.”

Perry turned and walked back into the water. Death
was rounding the bend, but he had no intention of waiting on it. He
had activated the lights long enough to get his bearings and
reenter the frigid waters. It was a simple plan, one most likely to
fail. To do nothing, though, made failure certain.

Once in the water, he fixed his gaze on the
line that hung limply in the current. It was the current he was
counting on. From the moment he emerged beneath the ice, he had
been battling the moderate flow. Now he would use it. His hope was
that he could make it to the hole. Perhaps Jack and Gleason would
figure out a way to reach him.

He sighed. It was a stupid plan.

There was a tug—a slight
tug at his back. He started to turn when
the suit spun 180 degrees. He was being pulled—pulled by the
lifeline.