They pressed forward, hoping to put enough distance between themselves and the door to outpace anyone who might enter. There was no way to know how long they had before that plane set down and their assailants brought backup into the chase.
“What about the Cat?” Denzel asked as they raced downward. “Will the base track it?”
“Eventually,” Vicente said. “It pings the research station with its location every hour, so they’ll have a record of where it was last, even if those guys destroy it. There’s also an alarm if it doesn’t report in when expected.”
That was encouraging. Though Kotler worried that a rescue team might find itself outmanned and outgunned, in an unexpected ambush.
He shook his head. He couldn’t think about it that way. He and Denzel had made it clear that there were other factions interested in the site, and that there could be trouble. He prayed they made a connection and took precautions.
They were moving at a good clip down the sloping corridor, and Kotler noticed eventually that he was starting to feel warm. He took off one of his gloves and paused to put a hand on the steel wall of the tunnel.
“Warm,” he said. “There’s a heat source down here.”
"How is that possible?" Denzel asked. "What is this place?"
Kotler didn’t have an explanation, but he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He pulled off the heavy parka and lashed it to his backpack, giving himself more freedom of movement while allowing himself to cool off a bit.
Denzel and Vicente did the same, and now as they moved forward, they were making much better progress. Any advantage was good news, at the moment.
Denzel also had his weapon clipped into a shoulder holster, ready to go.
Vicente dug out a large revolver, encased in beaten and pockmarked leather, and threaded the holster onto his belt to let it hang from his hip.
They looked at Kotler, expectantly.
Kotler blinked. “I can’t believe I didn’t even think about it.”
“You’re kidding?” Denzel asked. “You’re constantly pestering me about having a weapon and the one time you’re all clear to bring one you leave it?”
Kotler shook his head. “I just … I …”
Denzel sighed. “Let’s get moving.”
They started their brisk descent again, and Kotler left his regret and annoyance behind. He'd survived without a weapon in some pretty sticky scenarios. He'd manage this time as well.
He hoped.
They had been racing downhill for nearly half an hour when the floor leveled out and then started to rise gently. Still, the exertion was taking a toll on both Denzel and Kotler. Vicente seemed to handle it with no trouble.
“It’s the low atmosphere,” Vicente offered. “If you’re not used to it, you can get winded easily. I play futbol in this almost every day.” He slapped his stomach, smiling. “Very fit.”
"We're going to have to push through it," Denzel replied.
“Says the ex-Special Forces super soldier,” Kotler huffed.
The incline became more pronounced as they moved but it blissfully leveled off again at a corridor lined with a series of doors.
They stopped there, checked behind for any signs of pursuit, and then looked around the corridor for hints of what to do next.
“Start opening doors?” Kotler offered.
“What if they lead to traps?” Denzel asked.
“No signs on them. No markings of any kind here. Not even lights mounted in the ceiling. And we have bad guys with guns somewhere behind us. I think we’re already in the trap, Roland.”
"I'll take this door," Vicente said, grasping the handle and pausing, looking to Denzel and Kotler.
Denzel chose another door, and Kotler picked a third. In silent agreement, they turned their handles at the same time.
All three doors opened. No explosions, no screams. So far so good.
Kotler shone his flashlight into the space beyond his door. It was a storage closet, from appearances. The small room terminated about six meters back, and there were shelves along the walls, lined with crates and boxes. Kotler was about to start peeking into them to see what he'd find when he heard Vicente call out.
Kotler and Denzel both turned back into the corridor. “Storage closet,” Kotler said to Denzel.
"Mine looked like some kind of utility room," Denzel said. "Gauges. Pipes. Wires."
"Guys!" Vicente shouted from the other side of his door. "You should see this!"
Kotler and Denzel moved toward Vicente’s door, Denzel stepping through first with Kotler following just after.
Once through, Kotler stopped and stared, his jaw hanging slightly open.
Before them, at a distance but just below the platform they were standing on and illuminated by the sweeping circles of their flashlights, was a very large submarine, floating gently in the darkened waters of an underground river.
Kotler quickly looked around and spotted a panel to one side of the door. He opened this and pulled on a lever, a metal-on-metal squeal and clack echoing into the room. There was a series of loud clicks and thuds in the distance as one large, roof-mounted light after another came on, bringing up all the details of a cavern turned submarine port.
The submarine was now entirely in view, as was the water and walkways.
“Holy crap,” Denzel said.
“Look,” Kotler replied quietly, pointing.
There, emblazoned on the side of the sub, in letters taller than the men themselves, was a single word:
Abigail.
There was no way to know how close the bad guys might be, so after a moment of gawking at the submarine floating in an underground port in a mountain cavern in the middle of the Antarctic, it was decided they needed focus on less surreal and more practical things. They opted to explore the other doors from the corridor to see what they could find.
"Vicente, you stand guard and alert us if anyone is coming our way. Kotler, search that closet," Denzel said. "I'll look through the utility room, see if I can figure anything out in there, and then we can try the other doors. We've got the radios, and we're just a shout away from each other if there's trouble. Keep ready."
Kotler nodded and left them to go start his excavation of the storage room.
Inside, he passed his flashlight along the walls and the ceiling. He spotted what he was after. It took a few moments to find the switch, but he pulled it, and the overhead lights came on.
"The fact that there's power in here is interesting," Kotler said, the radio picking up his voice and transmitting it to the others automatically. He thought for a moment. "The place is being warmed by something, too."
“And what does that mean, exactly?” Denzel asked.
“I think this place is built into a volcano,” Kotler replied. “Geothermal power.”
“Are we in any danger?” Vicente asked.
“Not that I can tell,” Kotler replied. “Of course, I’m not a volcanologist. But things seem stable enough for the moment.”
Kotler started pulling down boxes and pilfering through them. In the first few he found odds and ends—parts mostly, for some piece of equipment he couldn't even imagine. Eventually, however, he stumbled onto something that startled him.
“Hoo boy,” he said.
"What is it?" Denzel's voice came back.
Kotler shook his head, and then gingerly lifted the cloth material out of the wooden crate that housed it. He held two corners and let the rectangle of fabric dangle, revealing something that sent chills down his spine.
“Nazis,” Kotler said, looking over the swastika in a white circle, floating in a sea of red. “I guess I should have expected that.”
“Just so we’re clear, you didn’t find actual Nazis, right?” Vicente asked. “Zombie Nazis?”
Kotler smiled, “No, we’re safe from the undead. For the moment, anyway.”
“Be careful of traps, Kotler,” Denzel said.
“My thoughts exactly,” Kotler replied.
>
He approached the crates with a great deal more care and discernment now, but he felt confident enough that there was nothing much to worry about. There had been no traps on the doorway into this facility, nor in the hallway leading to this space. It seemed the Nazis were more than confident that no one would ever find this station buried in the middle of the most hostile region on the planet. It was likely that at the time there were plenty of Nazi guards to keep it protected. So why bother with traps? The frozen continent and a Nazi contingent would be more than enough protection.
As he continued to pry open more crates, he found a variety of things that might prove useful, under certain circumstances. In one container was a collection of MREs—"meals ready to eat," in military parlance. He inspected these and noted they were not from the WWII era. "I think I've found more evidence of McCarthy and Van Burren having found this place," Kotler said into the radio. "Found some provisions here that can't be more than ten years old."
“Food?” Vicente asked.
“Lots of it, too,” Kotler said, eyeing similar crates on the shelves.
“We may end up needing it,” Denzel replied. “All our stores are back with the Cat.”
Kotler considered this, and immediately shoved a few of the MREs into his pack, alongside the granola and water he already had there.
He went back to exploring and smiled as he opened the next crate.
It was crammed full of weapons.
He took out a Colt 1911, checked and cleared it, and then riffled through the grate to find a few clips and an ammo box. The clips were loaded, and he shoved one into the pistol. He put several more clips in his pockets, including in his coat and pack.
“I’m armed now,” Kotler said. “Found a weapons cache.”
“I’m heading to you,” Denzel replied. “There’s nothing useful in this utility room. Bunch of gauges and pipes, a few tools.”
In a moment Denzel entered the storage room and joined Kotler in picking through crates.
"Let's start moving some of this through the door to the sub," Kotler said.
“Why?” Denzel asked.
"So far, that sub represents the only reasonably safe way out of this place, unless we want to fight our way back through the front door and out into the Arctic snow."
"So, you want to use the sub for backup?" Vicente asked.
"Backup," Denzel agreed. He tipped one of the crates filled with Nazi paraphernalia and began loading it with rations and weapons, then hauled his bounty through the door to the submarine port.
Kotler finished opening crates but found nothing else of much use. He started to follow Denzel's lead, to dump a container and fill it with things they might need when Vicente's voice came as a tense whisper over the radio.
"Guys, someone is coming up from the corridor."
"Stay out of sight," Denzel said. "I'll be right there."
"On my way!" Kotler said, taking out the 1911 and chambering a round.
He rushed to where Vicente was hunkered against the door frame and peeked around the edge. Down the way, a light was bouncing along in the rising corridor. It took a moment before they could spot armed men crouching and moving forward, sweeping the walls, the ceiling, and the path ahead with cones of light from barrel-mounted flashlights.
“What do we do?” Vicente asked.
“Can the door to the sub room be locked from the inside?” Denzel asked.
"There was a drop bar on the inside," Kotler said. "It looked pretty solid."
“We retreat to there,” Denzel said.
They quickly raced to the door, but as they moved one of the men below spotted them and started firing. Bullets ricocheted from the stone and steel walls, forcing Kotler and the others to duck as they dove through the door. They pushed it closed behind them with a loud creak, and Kotler hurriedly swung the drop bar into place.
“I don’t know how long that will hold, but it gives us some time,” he said.
"Grab everything you can and let's get to that sub!" Denzel shouted.
They each grabbed crates and items from the floor and raced down the metal stairs to a gangplank that allowed them to board the sub. There was a heavy metal door at the top of the sub, and it took all three of them to force the wheel to turn so they could open it. A shriek of rusted metal giving way after decades of laying prone filled the chamber and echoed from the stone walls of the cavern.
“WWII-era sub,” Kotler said between clenched teeth. He nodded to the word Abigail. "That was painted on more recently. See that square blotch of grey paint? They covered a swastika ..."
"Less observation, more putting your weight into it," Denzel sneered between gritted teeth.
Finally, with a Herculean effort on the part of all three men, the wheel finally made its full circle, and they were able to force the door open.
From above them, at the top of the steps where the steel door kept the enemy at bay, there were several loud clangs, and then things went quiet.
“That’s not good,” Kotler said.
“What do you mean?” Vicente asked.
“Inside!” Denzel yelled, and shoved the two men into the sub. Kotler lingered near the hatch, taking crates and objects from Denzel before passing them on to Vicente in a fire line.
There was an explosion from up top, throwing Denzel forward against the side of the sub.
“Roland!” Kotler shouted, reaching out to try to steady his friend, but it was too late. Denzel lost balance and toppled off of the gangplank, into the waters below.
Kotler started to race forward, to see if he could help, but was forced back as gunfire blossomed and exploded into the room, pinging from the steel of the sub just inches from him. Kotler ducked back, taking cover in the doorway.
“The door!” Vicente shouted.
"Keep down!" Kotler replied.
Vicente didn't hear him or maybe decided that closing the hatch was more critical. He leaped up and out, grasping the handle and yanking the hatch inward.
In the next instant, he was peppered with weapons fire, blood blooming from his chest and shoulder in powdery-looking clouds of red mist that ultimately settled as droplets and splatter on everything. Vicente fell back, and his weight was enough to close the hatch behind him.
Kotler raced to him, gently bringing him down to lay among the provisions they’d brought onboard.
Vicente's eyes were glossy for a moment, but as Kotler watched in the light of his flashlight, the man faded until nothing was left.
He was dead.
If Kotler didn't act fast, he might be next.
He leaped to his feet and began turning the handle on the hatch, locking it in place with a cotter pin that dangled from a chain on the wheel's shaft. If those men had more explosives, it might all be for nothing, but at least it was enough to keep them out for a time. It could help slow them down, maybe long enough for Kolter to figure a way out of this.
Kotler dropped back to the floor, turning to Vicente, and putting a hand on the man's shoulder. He felt an overwhelming sense of grief over the man's death. He was a good man and deserved better.
Kotler's grief turned to terror as he realized that Denzel was now out there alone, facing God knew what. He was well-trained, at least. Tough, smart, and capable. But Gail's men were every bit as trained, and twice as ruthless. Roland was in genuine danger, and there was nothing Kotler could do to help.
Kotler checked his 1911, got to his feet. He double checked the hatch and piled some things in front of it just for some extra buffer. He inspected his work and then started making his way deeper into the sub.
If he was going to die, he was going to go out knowing what was so important here.
He was going to find whatever Gail McCarthy was after, on this ship bearing her name.
And he was going to destroy it.
Chapter 11
The water was cold enough that as Denzel splashed down his extremities immediately went numb. That was bad enough on its own—a bad sign and a wo
rld of sudden burning, tingling pain. Worse, it made him drop his weapon.
From above there was the roar of gunfire and the whine of ricochets, as well as men and women shouting commands and status updates. Denzel was helpless to do anything for Kotler and Vicente from this position, floating in the numbing waters next to the sub. He concentrated on keeping a low profile, trying to find cover where he could, in case anyone happened to look down.
It wasn’t easy.
The gangplank and the metal framework of the stairs and the dock were cover enough but using them meant staying in the water and eventually succumbing to hypothermia. Whatever volcano or other geothermal heat source was keeping the rest of this place cozy, it was doing practically nothing for this water. Denzel's teeth started chattering as he dove under the surface and swam as far and fast as he could.
The cold was so intense that it felt as if he were being crushed, and even with the large halogen lights from above, it was dark enough to make the dive difficult. After a moment, however, Denzel found the metal surface of the submarine, passed his hand along the slick surface, and dove deeper.
His lungs burned, and his arms and legs were starting to feel heavy and useless, but he kept the pressure on, kept kicking until he'd sunk deep enough to duck under the sub's hull.
Once on the other side, he raced upward, kicking and working his arms frantically, bursting through the water's surface and gasping for air.
He could hear the gunfire from the other side of the sub, but here on the far side, he was safe.
Or as safe as he could be, as all of the heat was wicked from his body. He still had the cold to deal with.
He looked around frantically, hoping to find any sort of egress or refuge. On the far wall, he spotted a rock ledge, and he used the last of his strength to swim to it and bring himself up and onto the shelf, panting and sputtering.
Shivering, but free of the water, he lay for several minutes, until finally he was overtaken by either exhaustion or hyperthermia. His mind was cloudy, and he felt as if all the energy had been drained from him. He fell unconscious to the echoing sounds of gunfire and shouting, embraced by a blackness that brought its own silence.
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