Mitchell grabbed Jackson by the arm. “Company’s coming. Grab an axe and break a hole through the ice wide enough for us to climb down into the plane.”
Jackson handed Mitchell the M4, picked up the nearest axe and slid down into the hole. With the strength of two men, Jackson swung the axe down, trying to cut his way down into the ice.
The helicopter took flight.
Mitchell propped himself up on one knee and looked up at the helicopter as it began to climb up into the sky. He took aim at the cockpit and pulled the trigger, hoping to hit the pilot or at the very least scare him off. With a curse on his lips, Mitchell saw the rounds strike home, only to ineffectually bounce off the cockpit’s reinforced bulletproof glass.
“Nate, hurry!” yelled Mitchell, over his shoulder.
“Almost there,” replied Jackson as he dug furiously at the ice, trying to make it wide enough for him to fit through. Not for the first time since he and Mitchell had started to work together, he bemoaned the extra pounds he carried around his waist.
“Down!” hollered Mitchell, just as the helicopter swung over them.
A split-second later, the ice all around them seemed to erupt as hundreds of bullets tore into the glacier.
In the helicopter, McMasters swore at the door-gunner. He warned him that if a single bullet struck the probe, he would pay with his life.
The gunner, a veteran of Colombia’s drug wars, leaned out of the door and carefully adjusted his aim as he tried to get a clear shot at Mitchell and Jackson. A second later, he felt a burning sensation in his leg. The gunner looked down and saw blood seeping from a wound in his leg. With a loud yell of surprise and pain, the man grabbed his leg and fell back inside the helicopter.
“Got him,” said Mitchell with a great sense of satisfaction as the gunner disappeared back inside the helicopter. He had no idea who these people were, nor did he care. They could all go to hell as far as he was concerned.
“Nate, how’s it coming?” called out Mitchell, knowing they had seconds before someone else took over the machine gun.
“Gimme a couple more seconds,” replied Jackson. Rivers of sweat poured down his brow as he frantically worked to enlarge the opening.
McMasters looked over his shoulder at the wounded door-gunner and swore. He ripped off his headset, jumped out of his seat and moved over behind the machine gun. McMasters quickly checked that it was still good to go, and then took aim at Jackson.
“Okay, I’m in!” yelled Jackson, trying to be heard over the deafening sound of the helicopter’s rotor blades cutting through the air right above them.
“Go ahead, get inside!” called out Mitchell as he fired off one last long burst at their tormentor.
McMasters saw Mitchell aiming up at him. His stomach dropped. He barely had time to duck back inside the when the fusillade of bullets struck his side of the helicopter and ricocheted back and forth inside the open crew compartment.
Without waiting to see if he hit anything, Mitchell tossed the empty M4 to the ground, turned around and dove for the open hole dug into the ice. Nate’s head disappeared just as Mitchell, sliding across the icy surface, went feetfirst into the hole. Almost right away, the light from above began to diminish, making the mad scramble down inside the wrecked aircraft treacherous.
With his heart racing, McMasters jumped back behind the machine gun. His blood was up. With his hands gripping the door gun, McMasters looked down and was stunned to see that his prey had disappeared.
“They went down into a hole,” called out the pilot.
McMasters hung out the door and cursed when he saw the hole Jackson had dug into the ice. Swinging back inside, he pulled back on the machine gun’s trigger, sending a stream of bullets down into the ice. He knew that he was wasting ammunition, but he didn’t care. He was blinded by his anger. A couple of seconds later, realizing that he wouldn’t hit a thing that way, he swung about and asked for every hand grenade that they had on the helicopter. Four grenades were quickly handed over to McMasters. He ordered the pilot to hover over the hole while he pulled the safety pin from the first grenade and tossed it down into the opening in the ice. He hoped that it would slide down into Mitchell and Jackson’s refuge. A couple of seconds later, the grenade exploded, sending a plume of ice shooting up into the air.
McMasters swore; the first grenade had harmlessly exploded on the surface.
“What the hell was that?” called out Jackson, as he made his way through the obstacle course that once was the fuselage of the doomed plane.
“Don’t worry about that, just keep climbing down,” replied Mitchell, praying that McMasters didn’t have plenty of grenades with him.
Above, McMasters dropped another grenade. Like the first, it detonated on the surface. However, the next two fell straight down inside the hole, one right after the other. With a sadistic grin in his face, he waited for the grenades to explode.
The sound of the grenades bouncing from side to side as they tumbled down inside the tail section made both Mitchell and Jackson let go of whatever they were holding onto and let themselves fall down into the dark abyss. A second later, with a deafening roar, the first grenade exploded, sending metal splinters and debris flying through the air. The second grenade didn’t immediately explode and continued to fall.
As McMasters watched, a plume of black smoke escaped up through the ice. He took pleasure from Mitchell and Jackson’s certain demise. He had planned to put a bullet through their skulls; however, resting for eternity in an icy tomb would do nicely. He ordered the pilot to land their helicopter. McMasters was the first onto the ice. He dashed over and quickly examined the probe. He was relieved to see that it hadn’t been hit when his door-gunner had foolishly opened fire. McMasters slammed the lid down, secured it, and waved for one of his men to help him drag the container over to the helicopter.
Two minutes later, with the container secured to the floor of the helicopter, McMasters ordered the pilot to maneuver towards nearby Olav’s Peak. A large, overhanging slab of ice on the side of the peak soon came into view. McMasters let loose with the heavy machine gun, sending a torrent of bullets into the ice. Within seconds, the shattered ice broke free and raced downwards. With a deafening roar, a river of ice and snow swept towards the hole where Mitchell and Jackson had met their fate. McMasters watched intently as the avalanche erased any sign that they had once been there.
Satisfied that there was nothing more to do, he sat back in his chair as the ice below the helicopter faded away to be quickly replaced by the cold, dark waters of the South Atlantic. He looked over his shoulder at the two dead bodies of his men lying on the metal floor beside the probe. McMasters didn’t feel anything for their deaths. He knew that their sacrifice had not been in vain. With the cargo he had on board, he was about to help shape the future of mankind, one that would see plenty more death and suffering before it was all done.
13
Bouvet Island
South Atlantic
If they hadn’t been as deep as they were inside the plane when the second grenade went off, both men would have been killed in the deadly blast. Mostly protected by the spare metal chairs in the radio compartment, Mitchell and Jackson survived. As it was, all they got was an uncomfortable ringing in their ears and a few superficial cuts on their hands and faces from the razor-sharp grenade fragments that had ricocheted around inside the wreckage. Neither man could believe their luck.
Inside the gloomy interior of the plane, Mitchell was about to tell Jackson to dig out his flashlight when he heard a noise. At first, it sounded like the surf crashing against the shore on some faraway beach. However, the rumbling sound grew louder by the second. Mitchell barely had time to call out a warning before the sea of ice and snow swept over the hole, instantly burying their way out under meters of ice. The light from above vanished in the blink of an eye.
After a few seconds, the terrible noise faded. The only sound they could hear was their own ragged breathing.
&nb
sp; Jackson turned on his flashlight. He looked over at Mitchell and said, “If this was the backup plan, I’m glad we didn’t go with the original one.”
“I’d planned for us to overpower the guards and then force the helicopter pilot to fly us to our ship,” replied Mitchell.
“On second thought, I like that one better than this one.”
“Me too,” replied Mitchell glumly.
“I sure as hell hope you have another plan in that head of yours,” said Jackson, moving the light around inside their icy tomb. Debris littered the floor of the fuselage. Jackson bent down, picked up a map, and saw that it was of Antarctica, dated 1918.
Mitchell let go of the chair he had been using for cover, wiped away the blood from a cut across the back of his left hand, and continued climbing down until he came to the wrecked cockpit. “Nate, give me your light,” said Mitchell.
Mitchell took the light and shone it about. He nearly jumped out of his skin when the light illuminated the frozen body of a pilot, slumped over the controls of his plane. He was covered in about an inch of ice; however, Mitchell could clearly see the man’s blond hair matted to his head. Moving the light around, he saw why the poor man had been unable to save himself: his legs were badly mangled and trapped under a piece of metal that had crushed them against his chair.
“Poor bastard,” said Jackson over Mitchell’s shoulder. “That’ll be us if we don’t find a way out of here, and fast.”
“Nate, did you happen to bring your axe with you?”
“Yeah, it’s back in the radio compartment,” replied Jackson. “Why? It’s not like we can hack our way out of here. There’s probably tons of ice above us now.”
“Au contraire, my friend, cutting our way out of here is precisely what we’re going to do.”
“You’re losing it, Captain.”
“Hardly. Grab your axe and meet me back here.”
A couple of moments later, with his axe in his powerful hands, Jackson stared over at a spot Mitchell had picked on the fuselage. “Are you sure about this?”
“Trust me,” replied Mitchell. “Swing away.”
There wasn’t much room in the fuselage for Jackson to swing his axe. With a resigned shrug of his shoulders, Jackson smashed the axe into the metal wall, cutting a deep gash through the thin metal exterior of the plane. Twisting his axe from side to side, Jackson enlarged the opening.
As soon as there was a large-enough hole, Mitchell moved over beside his friend and shone his flashlight through the opening.
“Son of a bitch!” exclaimed Jackson. “Did you know there was a cave back here?”
“Maria pointed it out when we first spotted the plane trapped in the ice,” explained Mitchell. “I wasn’t sure how big it was, but I was willing to take the chance that it led somewhere.”
Jackson held out his hand. “Damn, I can feel a breeze on my hand. It’s not much, but there must be a way out.” Jackson pulled at the metal exterior of the plane until the hole was wide enough so both men could crawl through into the ice cave.
Mitchell stood up and shone the light all around. Above their heads rested part of the seaplane’s wing that had snapped during the crash, creating the roof of the cave. “Come on, let’s find that way out,” said Mitchell, as he bent over and made his way to the far side of the small cavern. He pulled off his glove and held out his right hand. He could feel a cool breeze.
Mitchell grinned and pointed the light down a narrow fissure in the ice. It was barely wide enough for Mitchell, let alone Jackson, to squeeze through.
“I’ll starve to death before I slim down enough to work my way through that,” said Jackson, looking over Mitchell’s shoulder at their only way out.
“Quit griping and start cutting us a way out. We’ll take turns. I’m not going to die down here, and neither are you, not when I want answers.”
“Amen to that,” said Jackson as he edged past Mitchell and smashed his axe into the ice, sending chips flying everywhere.
It was nightfall before they made their way back up onto the glacier. Carefully making their way over to place where they had last seen Maria’s body, it took them almost two long hours before they found her remains.
Mitchell mournfully shook his head and cursed McMasters for what he had done.
“I’ll get a sleeping bag from the camp,” said Jackson.
Mitchell nodded his head. He was tired and feeling drained. Turning on his heels, Mitchell spotted the sled with the GPR on it sticking out of the ice, about fifty meters away. He slowly walked over, removed the radar, and then dragged the sled over to Maria.
A couple of minutes later, Jackson returned carrying a sleeping bag and another flashlight. “The bastards cleaned out the camp. The satphone, Maria’s laptop, all of our notes—they’re all gone. Hell, they even took the rations.”
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about that right now. Come on, Nate, let’s see to Maria,” said Mitchell. Together they reverently moved her remains into the sleeping bag and laid it down on the sled.
“Without a satphone, there’s no way to contact our ship,” pointed out Jackson.
“We might not be able to, but I’ll bet the Norwegians have a phone we can use,” replied Mitchell, looking off to the west.
“How far is it to the station?”
“A couple of hours’ walk.”
“Well, come on then, let’s get a move on,” said Jackson, pulling on the sled.
Mitchell couldn’t believe that the day that had started with so much promise had ended so badly. Not only had they lost a colleague and the probe, now they stood looking down into a fissure a couple of hundred meters from the Norwegian outpost. Dumped inside the crevice were the burnt bodies of four men.
“I thought Captain Serrano was going to send people over from the ship with gas for the Norwegians’ generator,” said Jackson.
“He probably did; however, the people his crew dealt with were most likely imposters. I’ll bet these people were long dead before we arrived on the island,” pointed out Mitchell. “Come on, Nate; let’s see if we can find a way to contact our ship.”
Ten minutes later, after scouring through the couple of buildings that made up the camp, they found that all of the radios had been smashed beyond repair.
“Now what?” said an exasperated Jackson.
“That’s easy. We light a fire so bright that we can be seen by our ship, and then we beg for forgiveness from the Norwegian government for what we’re about to do after the fact.”
Captain Serrano was becoming concerned. His radio operator had told him that he had stopped receiving regular updates from Mitchell’s team hours ago. It could mean that their satphone was not working, or they were unable to contact him. It was the latter that weighed heavy on Serrano’s mind.
The door to the bridge opened and Lieutenant Aragon, Serrano’s Second Officer, stepped inside. “Sir, there’s something you need to see,” announced Aragon.
Serrano followed Aragon out onto the darkened deck and looked over towards Bouvet Island. He didn’t need his binoculars to see that the entire Norwegian camp was engulfed in flames. He quickly dashed back inside the bridge and announced, “I want a rescue party to be assembled and dispatched over to the camp.” First, he had lost contact with Mitchell, and now the Norwegians were in danger; it was as if this supposedly quiet assignment was cursed.
Fifteen minutes later, Serrano couldn’t believe his ears when he was told over the radio that the rescue party had found Mitchell and Jackson waiting for them on the beach and that everyone else was dead. Serrano crossed himself. Calling his radio operator to him, he ordered the young man to immediately contact the police in Buenos Aires. Although the island was Norwegian sovereign territory, he had to tell someone so the investigation could begin. Serrano knew that there were going to be questions asked when they got back to port. Unfortunately, he doubted that he could answer any of them.
14
Buenos Aires
Argentina
Mitchell walked wearily down the gangplank and onto the dock. He spotted Mike Donaldson waiting for him with a sad look on his face. Mitchell greeted Donaldson and told him that Jackson was still on the ship. He was waiting down below with Maria’s body until the police arrived and her remains were transferred to the morgue.
“Mike, how come you came all the way down here?” Mitchell asked Donaldson.
“I knew Maria in the Air Force,” replied Donaldson. “It’s kind of my fault that she’s dead. If I hadn’t asked the general to offer her a job, she’d still be alive.”
Mitchell shook his head. “Mike, it’s not your fault. You didn’t pull the trigger that ended her life, McMasters did. And speaking of that bastard, how the hell did he make it through all of the background checks and interviews?”
“I don’t know. General O’Reilly went ballistic when learned what happened. An investigation is underway to see how McMasters managed to infiltrate our organization.”
“Who’s running the investigation?”
“Fahimah.”
Mitchell nodded his head. If anyone could ferret out the truth, it was Fahimah.
“I’ve been ordered to tell you that you aren’t to leave the country until the police are finished interviewing you and Jackson. I’ve got you rooms in a nearby hotel.”
“What about Maria?”
“I’ve been assured by the Argentine authorities that her remains will be released to me in a day or two. After that, I’m going to accompany her body back home to the States. She wasn’t married; however, her brother is waiting to bury her in their hometown.”
“Jesus, this is a nightmare,” said Mitchell, rubbing the back of his neck. He could feel the tension building up. “Did you tell the general that the people who took the probe were wearing protective suits?”
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