by James Phelan
Sam, you fool!
He changed his Stealth Suit to invisible, knowing this would also dampen his heat signature. He looked over his shoulder again.
The missile was weaving left and right, then up and down, as though searching for a target that a moment ago had been right in front of it. It did a spiralling loop and curved away from him, headed away.
“All right! Take that!” Sam looked down at the ground below, now lit up with activity but he felt confident that he was invisible to them. The guard dogs would be more of a problem but he had Henk doing something about that. Henk was going to the other side, where he’d land and make it on foot to the outer fence and dump the cooler of fish that he’d caught back at the islands. The stink would be enough for the dogs to get distracted.
Henk … oh no!
Sam looked to his right at the blinking of the helicopter’s tail light in the darkening sky.
And the red hot plume of the missile racing to catch it.
31
ALEX
Alex had a bump on his forehead the size of an egg and his left eye was swollen. The cool air that blew in from the sea was soothing. The painkillers he’d taken before he’d slept were still working.
He stumbled out onto the deck to find the morning had brought with it a new world. The Ra had steamed through the night, full speed south and they had long ago passed into the Antarctic Circle.
The ice floes were big and jagged and dangerous looking, but the Ra’s ice-breaking hull sliced a path through with ease. Alex was wrapped up in a thick yellow snowsuit, standing on the frozen-over starboard deck. The Ra passed icebergs the size of houses, the sound of their heavy ice cracking and groaning in the quiet cold. Now they were navigating by hunks of ice the size of apartment blocks. The frozen continent was in sight.
“Never in my life did I think I’d see this,” a deep voice said.
Alex turned to see Ahmed standing next to him, his breath fogging out over the sea.
“I didn’t expect it to be so quiet,” Alex said.
“Peaceful, but hostile,” Ahmed said. “We are not meant to survive in such conditions.”
“These suits will protect us,” Alex said.
Ahmed nodded. “For a while. But you do not want to get separated from the group, stuck out on the ice, overnight.”
“Because of frostbite?” Alex said. “I’ve read about it.”
“Yes, very dangerous. Before you know it, you may have lost your fingers or toes.”
“I’ll be careful,” Alex said.
“How is the head?”
“Still a bit sore.”
“That was quite the tumble, for a moment we thought maybe that was it for you.”
“It? Like I was a goner? Like … dead?”
“It was quite the bump on the head.”
“You’re telling me.” Alex squinted against the grey sky, the clouds backlit from the sun that hid somewhere out of view.
They watched the scene in silence for a while. A massive ice wall, easily as tall as a twenty-storey building, formed a cliff on one side as far as the eye could see. Every now and then huge pieces of frozen water would sheer off and cascade into the sea.
“What was in the safe?” Alex asked. “Did Hans find what he was looking for?”
“The log? Yes, but it’s gone, destroyed by a water leak. Nothing more than a pile of sludge.”
“Where does that leave us?”
“We go by the old maps, hope that we can find the way. Or …”
“Or?” Alex prompted.
“If there’s a Gear down there, we wait for the Dreamer to come along. If we search, even with the old maps, it will still be like finding a needle in a haystack.”
“Do you really think that we’ll find something down here?” Alex asked. “I mean, even with all the special equipment that we have, it’s dangerous enough for us to be here, let alone some ancient seafaring people.”
“Nonetheless, it seems there was something here, once,” Ahmed said. “There are too many mentions through history and in ancient maps—including that carving of the coastline we found at Micronesia.”
“Of a time before it was so iced over?”
“Mm-hmm,” Ahmed said. “Of course, time seems to take much and leave little.”
“I just don’t see what could be in such a barren place.”
“I’ve never stopped digging, Alex, and neither have others in my country. Egypt’s hot deserts are just as barren as the cold deserts here,” Ahmed said. “And what do you think they are digging for? Gold? No, dear Alex, it’s power. It’s power that keeps them digging.”
“Power?” Alex said. “I don’t understand.”
“Power, fame. That’s if they’re legitimate archaeologists. For treasure hunters, it’s all about the money that will come from selling the artifacts on the black market. You see, that kind don’t cherish what they find, they just want to find it before someone else. There are very few now, who, like me, dig for no other purpose than to preserve our history, to understand it, to learn from it.”
“Then why are you working with Hans?” Alex said. “I thought you were working with Dr. Dark? I mean, doesn’t Hans just want whatever is beyond the Dream Gate for himself?”
“Perhaps,” Ahmed said. “But sometimes you need to work with others to achieve the outcome you desire.”
“Make sure you’re safe. And for the record, I still don’t like it,” Phoebe said. “Jack has a contact at one of the US bases down there. I’m going to give him your coordinates, should anything go wrong.”
“Mom, I’ll be fine.”
“Alex, you don’t understand,” Phoebe said. “We’ve lost contact with Sam and Eva in Australia.”
“When did you last hear from them?” he asked.
“Yesterday,” Phoebe said. “They went there in disguise, and Lora and her team, all that are left of our Guardians, have gone to shut down Stella’s operations.”
“I’m sure they’re OK,” Alex said. “Sam always seems to scrape through. And I sure hope that Lora catches up with Stella and she gets what’s coming to her.”
“Just worry about yourself and be safe, Alex.”
Alex looked at the bright orange submersible and swallowed hard. It had only five mechanical arms now, the missing appendage now sunk within the U-boat. The Osiris was in the water next to the Ra, ready to dive below the ice. The pilots were aboard, as was Ahmed, and all of their equipment. A German Guardian was in the spare seat.
“It’s safer this way,” Hans said to Alex. “I know it probably doesn’t seem like it, but it is.”
“I understand,” Alex said. “This way we can travel under the ice for a few kilometres.”
“Which I would rather do than scale the cliff and make it across the ice on skis,” Hans said.
Alex looked up at the imposing white cliff face. “I still don’t understand how we can go under the ice. I thought that more of the ice was under the water than above it.”
“Technically, we’ll be going through it,” Hans said. “Warmer water has carved tunnels through the ice, big enough for vehicles to go through.”
“Well, that makes more sense, I guess.”
“And just like lava tubes on land, these tubes run for vast distances and will lead us to the heat source, which is a thermal lake in a cave system ten kilometres inland.”
Thermal lake? This is starting to sound like my dream.
“—in the heated water from volcanic action,” Hans was saying. “From satellite imagery penetrating the ice, the water temperature at the lake is only about ten degrees, because it’s such a vast system. But some thermal lakes are much, much hotter than that—boiling, in fact, so you must be careful. We’ll prep you on safety on the way in.”
“And that old U-boat made this trip through the ice tubes?”
“Oh no, not at all,” Hans said. “The ice is always changing and that submarine was too big. No, they made it overland, over the period of a week or mo
re, but when they found the site, and the thermal lake and the tubes leading out, they floated markers in the water—and they all ended up at sea.”
“So it’s a shortcut!” Alex realized.
“Precisely.”
“We’re ready!” Karl called from inside the Osiris.
“No time like the present,” Hans said.
For the second time in two days, Alex climbed aboard the Osiris. This time, he vowed, he’d keep his harness on and his head in one piece.
The journey through the ice tunnel took just over half an hour. At a depth of thirty metres, the smooth white walls made for easy navigation. The two forward claw arms were extended out and at opposing angles, so as to be a first line of defence should an outcrop of ice block their way. So far it had been clear. They had made swift progress, buoyed by a steady current.
“We are coming up to the lake,” Hans announced.
Alex, seated next to Ahmed again, watched on their monitors. The view from the forward cameras showed the tunnel disappearing—and a new world emerging.
They were in an enormous space, completely black but for a shimmer above where the water surface met the air pocket and the reflection waved back at them.
“Depth is eighty metres,” Karl noted. “The surface of the water is approximately ten metres above us. And according to the GPS, the ice cap above is nearly fifty metres thick. The lake stretches out from here nearly three kilometres in each direction.”
“Take us to the hot spot,” Hans said.
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s that?” Alex said.
“There are thermal vents to the south,” Hans explained, reading off coordinates on his own GPS monitor. “They lead to the surface and near where we have to go.”
“You seem pretty sure of that,” Alex said. His monitor showed nothing but the reflection of their lights on the surface above as the tiny Osiris powered along in the subterranean lake.
“We managed to piece together enough of my grandfather’s map to put us within a five-kilometre search grid on the coastal side of the mountain range.”
“I thought all you found in the U-boat’s safe was sludge?”
Hans passed over his tablet computer—it showed an image of a hand-drawn map, pieced together from tiny fragments, all photographed or scanned.
“My tech guys worked through the night to get it that far,” Hans said. “And they’ll update us in the field should they get it more complete. But in the meantime, we go on.”
“Perhaps Alex and I should have stayed aboard the Ra, until you had a team scout ahead,” Ahmed said. “We are not trained adventurers.”
“Nonsense!” Hans said with a smile. “You’re going to be naturals!”
32
SAM
The missile was headed straight for Henk.
The helicopter was outside the restricted area and therefore not a legitimate threat or target, but the missile didn’t know that. It had been fired at Sam, who’d then disappeared from its view, so it had gone searching for a new heat signature.
Any heat signature.
The red-hot engines of the helicopter were a prime target.
“Henk, look out!” Sam shouted helplessly into the air.
He watched as the missile flashed toward the aircraft at phenomenal speed, eating up the distance too fast. Henk had no chance—
KLAP-BOOM!
The missile exploded in an ear-splitting bang and a huge flash of red flames.
Sam closed his eyes for a second and thought the worst, guilt immediately gripping him.
I brought him into this.
When Sam opened his eyes, he saw the helicopter still flying. He whooped with joy.
The controllers must have detonated it when it flew out of their restricted airspace!
Sam was still celebrating when he looked back at the ground below him.
“Oh no!”
He was coming in to land too fast.
Way too fast.
Moments after he changed his Suit to maximum padding, Sam hit hard on the dusty red earth, belly first. He skipped like a stone across water.
He may have been invisible, but he was kicking up clouds of dust with every bounce and he didn’t seem to be slowing as he headed for the gatehouse and the boom gate across the road.
“Oh no!”
Sam brought his arms and legs into a ball and willed his Stealth Suit to protect him.
KLANG!
He got to his feet, stumbling around, the sound of bells ringing in his head. He checked his arms and legs, feeling for any injuries. As he looked up, he saw a Sam-sized dent in the side of the gatehouse.
But I’m OK, I’m OK!
Sam deflated the Suit as the guard, who Sam had seen in his dream, came out of the hut, frantically looking around.
His dog was there too.
So much for a silent infiltration. But there’s no time to do things any other way, no time to sit and wait until the alarm dies down.
Sam pulled his dart gun.
“Sorry, guys,” he whispered, and the guard spooked as he looked from the huge dint in the side of his booth to—nothing. Sam was still invisible when he fired.
The guard fell instantly, unconscious.
The dog snarled and lunged forward.
Sam fired again.
The dog yelped as it fell to the ground, motionless.
Sam checked the dog, worried that the dart might be too powerful. But patting its side, he knew he didn’t have to worry. This beast was practically the size and weight of a grown man anyway and it was now sound asleep.
Sam got to his feet, taking the guard’s ID pass. “Hang on Eva,” he said, “I’m coming.”
Sam crept out of the bullet train at the terminal and made his way to the underground cavern and lake. As he crossed over toward the bridge, two men suddenly appeared from around a corner.
Not the base security guys in their uniforms.
Agents.
Stella’s rogue Agents.
But they can’t see me.
Sam dropped the first guy with a kick to the knee and a jujitsu throw to the floor.
The other Agent spun around, looking for their attacker, realizing it must be someone in a Stealth Suit. He reacted by switching his own Suit to blend in to the environment, but Sam already had a fix on him.
WHACK!
Sam darted the Agent in the back. The Agent slumped forward. Sam took the dart gun from the unconscious Agent. He now had a gun in each hand. It was different to the one he’d been given weeks ago by Tobias—this one had a longer barrel and held a larger clip of darts.
Sam headed across the bridge. On the far side, he could see the moving glow of flashlights.
Stella and Eva, he was sure.
EVA
“OK,” Eva said. “OK!”
“Yes?” Stella sneered.
“I’ll tell you,” Eva said. “I’ll tell you everything.”
“Everything?” Stella said. “All I want to know is where the Gear is. So tell. Tick tock. Your friends are walking into a turkey shoot.”
“Tell them to stand down.”
“Excuse me?” Stella said, incredulous.
“Tell your Agents there at Chernobyl to stand down,” Eva said. “Tell them to put down their weapons and walk away. Tell them that and I’ll tell you where this Gear is. You win this round, and no one gets hurt.”
Stella leaned in close, her sneer looming large as Eva squirmed away from her. “This round?” she spat. “You think this is a game, little girl? You need to wake up and see who’s really in control here.”
She strode back to the console and picked up a headset. “Attention all units,” she said, turning back to look at Eva, “fire at will.”
33
XAVIER
Xavier walked slowly alongside Lora. They were now behind the huge antenna structure and still had no more idea as to where an enemy might be lying in wait.
He could tell that Lora was wary.
If she’s spooked, that’s not good.
“Can you see anything?” he whispered.
“No.”
“That’s good, right?”
“I don’t think so,” Lora said.
She stopped, crouched down to the ground.
Xavier crouched next to her.
“Look,” she said, pointing at the soft earth that covered the paving stones beneath their feet. “What do you see?”
“Footprints.”
“Yep. Combat boots, lots of them.” Lora drew her dart gun. “And they don’t belong to our Guardians.”
“They don’t?”
“Nope.” Lora looked around, worried now.
“How do you know?”
“I know,” Lora said.
“So what do we—” Xavier said, interrupted by the earth-shattering sound of gunfire, right above them, breaking the silence into a million pieces.
“Get down!” Lora yelled, grabbing her mic. “Road team, report in!”
No reply. The shots kept coming, now shouts could be heard above the bullets raining down around them. Lora grabbed Xavier by his bulletproof vest and pulled him to a pillar next to the windows.
“Don’t move,” she whispered. “Road team, report.”
There was nothing—just static.
“All teams, do you copy?”
More static.
Lora gripped her dart pistol in both hands. “Whoever it is, they’re playing for keeps.”
“Stella?” Xavier whispered back, checking his weapon, his heart thudding in his chest.
“Follow me,” Lora said, “and keep it quiet.”
They ran quickly and quietly to the control room of the antenna and carefully approached the windows, the glass long ago—many years ago—broken and gone.
The Guardians were there.
But they were all lying motionless. Bullets littered the ground.
Lora cursed and pulled Xavier away from the windows, but not before he’d caught a glimpse.
All the men and women who’d just been with us—now all dead.Xavier could feel his panic rising as he watched Lora pull out a gun. Her hands shook, ever so slightly, but her face was resolute.
“They might think they got everyone,” Lora said, “but we’ve got to stay calm. I’ll get you out of this, I promise.”