Beneath the Ice (9 page)

Perry watched Larimore
turn to face Griffin and prepared
himself
for more verbal fireworks. The passing days had done nothing to
alleviate the stress that had been sparked the moment the two
met.

“There are always underlings, Dr. James,”
Larimore replied. “Always.”

“Don’t look at me, Commander,” Griffin shot
back. “I’m no one’s inferior.”

“Shut up,” Gwen snapped at her brother.
“That was uncalled for. You’re even starting to get on my
nerves.”

Larimore shifted his eyes from Griffin to
Gwen. He nodded politely. “It’s my turn to cook,” he said and began
to walk away, then stopped. “Hey, Griffy, what kinda poison do you
want in your stew?”

Perry shook his head. They needed Larimore
because he was the on-site military liaison. Since the Pentagon had
funded the project, they wanted someone on the scene who could give
direct, eyewitness reports. For a moment, despite his admiration
for Larimore, Perry began to wish the commander had been on the
plane.

“My shift’s over,” Jack said. “I’ll help
peel potatoes.”

Perry turned to Gleason. “Let’s finish the
electrical hookup.”

“Right,” Gleason replied. “Sarah wants to do
a sensor check as soon as possible. If things go well, we can start
descent a little after dinner. If you’re ready, I mean.”

“I’m more than ready,” Perry replied,
slapping Gleason on the shoulder. “My curiosity is killing me—”

The ice shuddered.

A second later a
boom
rolled over the
camp.

Perry spun. It was a
sensation he had felt before. Henry Sachs had taken Perry, then
just twelve years old, to San Diego. Henry was there for meetings,
but he saw it as an opportunity for father-son bonding. Perry
waited by the hotel pool for his father to return from a meeting at
the Naval Training Center in the heart of San Diego. As Perry
hovered just above sleep, the lounge chair he sat in
moved with a jolt. His first thought was
earthquake, but nothing followed. Others around the pool murmured
and looked around in bewilderment. Then Perry saw it: a short
distance away, a rising plume of dense, obsidian black
smoke.

His father arrived at the hotel an hour
later than expected, and he brought with him the horrific story of
a Boeing B-727 that had crashed not far away. That September day
was still fresh in Perry’s mind, as was the thought of the 137
people who had died in the plane. Seven more had died on the
ground, and two others in a Cessna 172 practicing approaches at
Lindberg field. Perry never forgot the abrupt jolt he felt from the
crash even though he was several miles away.

The jolt he had just felt was similar.
Turning, he saw what he did not what to see: a column of smoke in
the distance. For the briefest moment, Perry’s mind struggled with
alternate explanations, but desperate as his mind was to avoid
facing the hideous truth, it could not sweep away reality. There
were no houses burning or forest fires because there were no houses
or forests.

There was only one explanation. The C-5 had
gone down and, unlike in San Diego all those years ago, there was
no fire department, no military rescue, no anything.

Larimore and Jack sprinted
back outside, both pulling on their
parkas.

“What was that?” Jack asked.

Before Perry could respond, Larimore called
it, “The plane . . . Oh, dear God, the plane went down.”

A stiff, cold wind pierced Perry.

Okay, think,
Perry commanded himself. “How far?” he wondered out
loud.

“It can’t be too far. The plane just took
off,” Sarah said. Her face was as white as the ice she stood
on.

“Farther than you think,”
Larimore said. “The C-5 isn’t a fight
er
jet, but it travels at a good clip.”

“How far?” Perry pressed.

Gleason answered. “Assume three hundred
miles per hour . . . that’s five miles a minute. The plane took
off—what?—five minutes ago? So it’s maybe twenty-five miles from
here.”

“Not so far,” Jack said. “It couldn’t have
gotten up to speed yet. Plus much of the distance would be
vertical. I’m guessing less than ten miles.”

“I think you’re right, Jack.” Perry turned
and jogged toward the supply module next to the Dome. He slid to a
stop in front of a wide pair of doors. He fumbled with the latch,
his gloves hindering his movement. A moment later, he swung the
doors wide and plunged into the dark room. He flipped a switch.
Sealed lights overhead sprang to life, bathing the room in white
light. In front of Perry was the Antarctic equivalent of a garage.
Large tools, two portable generators, and a pair of snowmobiles
filled the small space.

“What are you thinking?” Jack’s voice said
behind him.

“I’m thinking the same thing you are,” Perry
said.

“I figured as much. I’ll take the one on the
right.”

Perry and Jack moved forward when Griffin
and the others rounded the corner.

“You can’t be serious,” Griffin said. “You
can’t go out there. Not that far. Not with your lack of
experience.”

“There may be survivors,” Perry said.

“I doubt that,” Griffin said. “I haven’t the
slimmest of hopes that such is the case.”

“I do,” Perry said. “Now get out of the
way.”

“Hold on,” Larimore said. “You can’t go
alone.”

“He’s not,” Jack said. “I’m keeping him
company.”

Griffin was furious. “Committing a double
suicide won’t help those poor souls out there.”

“This isn’t suicide,” Perry said. “It’s what
a man does for his friends and those he’s responsible for.”

“Your friends are gone, Sachs,” Griffin
snapped. “Face it.”

Perry turned and marched to the scientist.
“Six of those men are down here because I asked them to be. Every
one of them has a wife at home, and most have children. I’m going
to have to face those families. When I do, I want to be able to say
I did everything I could.”

Griffin shook his head. “You won’t be able
to say anything because you will be frozen in the ice, dead as dead
can be. Don’t you feel the wind? It’s kicking up. It’s a katabatic,
a hurricane on ice. It will freeze you then blow your lifeless body
across the continent. You won’t survive. Be logical.”

“I am,” Perry said. He
returned to the snowmobile and mount
ed up.
“Someone get on the radio. Let McMurdo know what happened, and tell
them to send help.”

“I’m going, too,” Larimore stated. “Those
snowmobiles are designed to carry two each.”

Perry shook his head and started to object,
but the logic was too sound. Two men could do little if there were
survivors. Every hand would be helpful. Besides, Larimore had lost
as many men as Perry. How could he refuse? He gave a quick nod.

A sound behind Perry made
him turn. Jack was hooking a tow-sled, a simple device designed to
hold equipment or tools, to the back of Perry’s snowmobile.
Always thinking, Jack.

“Sarah, Gwen, gather up blankets, spare
parkas, and the med kit.” Perry watched them disappear around the
corner.

“I can’t tell you how unwise this is,”
Griffin said. “You’ve not seen what the wind can do.”

Perry hadn’t experienced severe winds in the
Antarctic, but he had done his research. The katabatic was a
downslope wind, moving from the center of the continent out and
becoming stronger toward the coast. He hoped they were far enough
inland to avoid the worst of it. Wind combined with extreme cold
was a two-edged sword cutting twice on the way into its victim. It
seemed a horrible way to die.

That thought made Perry
more resolute. The image of an in
jured man
lying with just the cold-weather suit to protect him chilled Perry
far more than ice-laden wind could.

He pulled the snowmobile out of the
equipment garage, dragging the skid-supported trailer behind him.
Jack followed suit the moment he had finished attaching his own
tow-sled. They stopped just a few yards from the garage,
dismounting to help Gwen and Sarah load the requested items.

“We brought what we could,” Gwen said. “I
hope it’s enough.”

“It will do,” Perry said. He remounted the
snowmobile.

“Oh, all right, all right,” Griffin said.
“I’m coming, too.”

Perry looked at him with surprise then
turned to see the same expression on Jack’s face. “Griffin, you
don’t need—”

“Yes, I do. I have more Antarctic experience
than all of you combined. It’s my duty.” Before another objection
was raised, he straddled the seat behind Perry and pulled his hood
lower. He said something Perry couldn’t make out, but he didn’t ask
the scientist to repeat it. Seconds were wasting, and every moment
an injured man spent on the ice was another moment closer to
death.

Perry gunned the throttle and set his course
to the plume of smoke. He just hoped there was someone to
rescue.

Chapter
7

The Learjet rolled
down
the runway with ease then turned its
nose skyward, slipping into the night. The yellow lights of Mexico
City glistened like jewels spilled on blacktop but soon gave way to
the dark of unpopulated desert. The ground below the aircraft
receded in feet then in miles as the jet banked south. Overhead,
stars blinked as if winking at the speeding craft.

Tia didn’t care for the stars tonight any
more than she cared for them any other night. They were burning
balls of gas hanging hundreds of light-years away that might or
might not even be there. What concerned her was what lay
ahead—thousands of miles ahead.

She leaned her head back onto the white
leather seat and closed her eyes. She was tired, wearied from the
day’s work. That was all the emotion she would allow. Tired or not,
it didn’t matter. The goal mattered. The prophecy mattered.
Pleasing Eric mattered. Everything else was incidental—including
her life.

Still, rest would be welcome, and there was
little else for her to do. She inhaled deeply and thanked the gods
for the next few hours of near solitude.

Solitude was her friend,
her treasure, her lifelong goal. Solitude was sweet, a delicious
aloneness that most avoided but that she thrived on. Her world
afforded her little of the precious commodi
ty. Even now she was not alone. Two pilots directed the
aircraft on its
course; two others waited
their turn. Five other people were aboard, people who were as
dedicated to the prophecy as she, trusted workers whose roots could
be traced through centuries and whose dependability had been proven
many times. They were people with a single goal and no conscience
to hamstring them—people just
like
her.

The Learjet was full, but
not one person would bother her. None
dared unless the disturbance was sufficiently important to
risk her
wrath.

Unlike commercial aircraft, the business jet
was equipped with tables, a workstation, and a luxurious office.
Tia sat alone in a seating group of four, two seats separated by a
maple-and-cherry-wood table from two facing seats.

The phone on the table rang.

What drowsiness circulated in Tia’s head
evaporated before the bell sounded again. She snapped it up and
said, “Matteo.”

It was Eric. She listened then set the phone
down. The conversation lasted less than sixty seconds. Again Tia
lay her head back and closed her eyes, keenly aware of the jet’s
movement through the clear air. She wondered what it was like to
feel one’s aircraft tumble from the sky. She had no way of knowing,
but she had learned nearly twenty people had just experienced the
sensation.

Of course, they weren’t talking.

Tia had no idea how Eric knew of the crash,
but she never asked such questions. She was the second most
powerful person in the organization, but there were still things
she did not know. Eric was not prone to trust anyone, not even her.
Most likely, Eric had another operative involved. He had operatives
everywhere.

The smoke rose from the ice as if someone had cracked
open a gate to Hell. Perry knew that jet fuel had combined with
wood crates, fabric, nylon, plastic, and a hundred other things
that terrified him. The plume was black as oil and roiled and
folded upon itself like the contents of a witch’s cauldron. Acid
churned in his stomach and burned his throat. His heart hammered
like a race-car piston, and his neck tightened into a wad of
muscles. He had one nearly overpowering desire—to turn around, to
avoid seeing what he knew lay before him. Images of the carnage
flashed like a strobe in his mind. He fought them back, but they
always returned more powerful, more garish, and more horrible.

Perry had seen enough airline accidents on
television for him to envision what lay a few miles ahead. Images
he had seen on the news that day in 1978 in San Diego and others
floated like ashes on the wind in his brain. Lockerbie, Florida,
the Iranian airliner shot down by a navy ship, and bodies—bodies on
the ground . . . bodies floating on the water.

Perry accelerated. One
hope drove him to face what no man
would
ever want to see—the possibility of a survivor. No matter
how
badly injured, no matter how slim the
chance of life, Perry would do his best to bring him
home.

Only the cold and the wind expurgated the
images of destruction. Griffin had been right, the wind was picking
up, and with it the windchill dropped. Added to that was the
“created” wind from Perry’s pushing the snowmobile faster and
faster over the ice.