Eternity Base

by Bob Mayer

  Riley nodded. “That’s a good idea. Let’s get back and join everyone else.”

  They negotiated the corridors to the unit where the rest of the party was sleeping. As Sammy reached for the doorknob and started to push, Riley screamed “NO!” He grabbed her by the shoulders, rolling to the left, his body on top of hers as they hit the wooden planks on the corridor floor.

  The sharp, devastatingly loud crack of an explosion split the air. Sammy felt a strong current of air rush by her and Riley, and she heard the sounds of splintering wood and tearing metal. Then came a brief moment of absolute silence until excited voices started from inside the unit.

  Riley rolled off Sammy and sat up, his back against the wall, as the door opened and the rest of the party surged out into the hallway, Conner in the lead. “What happened?”

  Sammy just shook her head, trying to clear her ears of the ringing. She turned to Riley for the answer. Riley pointed up, and everyone’s eyes followed. A scorched black mark on the ceiling and the remnants of a piece of wire were all that was visible. “Our saboteur has turned to more direct means to try and solve his problem. Someone put a Claymore mine up there and rigged it to blow when the door opened.”

  LUBANGO, ANGOLA, SOUTHWEST AFRICA

  “I have prepared the plane to fly ninety-seven hundred kilometers, sir.” Captain Lim stood underneath the massive nose of his plane.

  “How?” No congratulations. Pak didn’t believe in them.

  “Normal range is sixty-five hundred kilometers. If we also use the one-hour reserve fuel supply, our possible range is extended to seven thousand one hundred twenty-five kilometers. We will make the additional two thousand five hundred seventy-five kilometers by using three of the fuel bladders here at the airfield. I have loaded them on board, and we will hand pump the fuel from the bladders to the main tanks as we progress.”

  Pak nodded. His narrow eyes watched the team members loading their gear on board the aircraft. They’d been instructed only to gather their equipment. Pak wanted to wait until they were in the air before fully briefing the team.

  “May I inquire where we are going, sir?” Lim held up his flight charts. “I need to plan a route.”

  “South.” Pak answered.

  Lim frowned. “South, sir? To South Africa?”

  “No. Straight south. Over the ocean.”

  “But, with all due respect, sir, there’s nothing to the south.”

  Pak turned his coal black eyes on the pilot, cutting him off. “You fly the plane, captain. Let me worry about everything else. We take off in ten minutes.”

  Lim saluted stiffly and retreated into the belly of his plane. Pak stepped back and ran his eyes along the silhouette of the Soviet-made IL-18. It was an old plane, built in the late fifties. Four large propeller engines mounted on its wings reminded one of an old-style airliner. The Russians had dumped the obsolete plane on their so-called North Korean allies in exchange for desperately needed hard currency. The plane was the way Pak and his fellow commandos had traveled to Angola, and it was their only way out and back to North Korea. Taking the plane meant that the other Special Forces men would be stranded. Pak was sure the people in Kaesong hadn’t thought of that either, or if they had, they felt this mission was worth more than these men.

  Kim snapped to attention before him. “All loaded, sir!”

  Pak nodded. “Let us board.”

  ETERNITY BASE, ANTARCTICA

  “But why try to kill you two? What would that accomplish?” Devlin’s eyes were riveted on the shattered wall of the next unit. The thousands of steel ball bearings projected by the mine had torn large gashes in the surface.

  Riley held the remains of the igniting wire in his hands. “Desperation. Whoever it is tried to stop us from getting here by trying to kill our pilot. That failed. Then they tried to keep us from communicating our discovery by damaging the satellite radio. That failed when we used the equipment already down here.

  “Now he—or she—has no choice but to somehow get rid of everyone here. They tried to start with Sammy and me. It was just luck that I saw the trip wire running from the top of the door.” He looked at Swenson. “You would be last, since that person needs you to fly out of here. Unless, of course, you’re the person. Or if whoever it is can pilot the plane.”

  “But,” Devlin protested, “the base would still be here. And Atlanta has tapes.”

  Riley looked at Conner. “Has SNN played those tapes on the air yet?”

  She shook her head. “No. They’re waiting until we have the complete story.”

  “If there’s a leak at SNN, it’s also possible that the tapes have been compromised.” Riley gave a twisted smile. “Not only can’t we trust anyone or any organization back in the real world, but we can’t trust each other here.”

  “What do we do now?” Sammy asked.

  “We stick together in groups of two or more,” Riley suggested. “If one half of a pair ends up dead, then we have to assume the live half is the culprit.”

  Conner stood. “All right. I agree. From here on out no one goes anywhere alone. We will also have at least two people awake at any one time.”

  “I also suggest we go to the arms room and see if any weapons are missing,” Riley said. “Whoever took that mine might have taken some other goodies that we don’t want to be walking into.”

  Conner headed for the door. “Everyone goes.”

  CAPE COD, MASSACHUSETTS

  The old man was jogging slowly along the deserted beach, leaving a trail of footprints just above the surf line. His head was slightly bowed, the sparse white hair reflecting the setting sun. His head cocked slightly as the sound of helicopter blades crept over the sand, but his feet kept their steady rhythm.

  A shadow flashed over him and a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter flitted by, less than thirty feet above the ground. The man’s feet finally came to a halt as the helicopter flared, kicking up sand. The old man covered his eyes as the wheels touched and two men in unmarked khaki hopped off.

  They ran over to him. There was no badge flashed or words spoken. They were all players and knew the rules. The old man allowed them to escort him onto the aircraft. It lifted and immediately sped off at maximum speed to the west, toward nearby Otis Air Force Base.

  The incoming tide washed over the footsteps, and within twenty minutes all traces of the lone jogger were gone.

  Chapter 18

  ETERNITY BASE, ANTARCTICA

  The tension was palpable. Riley looked up from the crates where he’d been counting ammunition. “We’ve been through everything, and we have one Ml6, four magazines, and eighty rounds of ammunition missing. That’s besides one Claymore, but we know where that went.”

  Conner was biting the inside of her mouth as she tried to figure out the next move. “Should we search for the rifle?”

  Devlin waved his hands about. “It could be anywhere. And if we found it, we still wouldn’t know who stole it. Any one of us could have come in here and taken it.”

  Riley agreed. “A search would be a waste of time. There is one thing I think we have to do, though.”

  “What?” Conner asked.

  “We need to make sure these bombs can’t be used. We need to destroy the PAL codes.”

  “How do you propose we do that?” Devlin asked.

  “I blow up the safe that holds them.”

  “No.” They all turned to look at Sammy. “Destroying the codes doesn’t do anything. If our saboteur was sent by whoever built this base, then that person could already have the PAL codes.”

  Conner rubbed her forehead. “You’ve got a point there.”

  “Then we neutralize the bombs by another means,” Riley said. He pointed at the two crates. “I told you that these bombs have a six-digit

  PAL code that allows limited try followed by lockout. I’ll enter two wrong codes and cause both bombs to go into lockout. That will mean they can’t be exploded.”

  “Bullshit!” Everyone looked at Devlin in surpr
ise. “How do we know you don’t already have the codes like Sammy said. You could arm the bombs with the correct six digits instead of entering the wrong ones.”

  “Why would I do that?” Riley asked.

  “I don’t know!” Devlin turned to Conner. “Listen to me. What’s to stop Riley from arming the bomb with a time delay? Then he kills us or just holds us at gunpoint and leaves, taking Swenson with him. If one of those bombs goes off, all evidence of this base will be gone.”

  Riley was shaking his head. “That’s stupid. You can hold a gun on me while I do it.”

  ‘That still won’t do us any good if you arm the bomb,” Devlin argued. “We wouldn’t know how to stop it. We’d all have to leave and the base would still blow. You’d have achieved your mission of destroying the real evidence of this base.

  “You’re also the only one among us with the military training necessary to do the acts of sabotage we’ve already had. You’re the one who would know how to rig that mine—and that would make it more than just luck that you avoided it.”

  Vickers spoke for the first time. “You know, it’s quite a coincidence that Riley is the only one of us who was involved in all three incidents.”

  “What do you mean?” Conner asked.

  “He’s the one who found Swenson. He says he just happened to wake up and find him out in the snow. He’s the one who figures out how to replace the destroyed transmitter so quickly, almost as if he’d known what had happened. He’s the one who just happens to see the trip wire for the mine and saves himself and Sammy. It would have been real easy for him to have avoided all those disasters if he was the one who planned them.”

  “But why would I do that?” Riley didn’t seem overly concerned by the accusations.

  Vickers pointed at the bomb. ‘To make us trust you enough to arm the bombs.”

  Riley shook his head. “If I had the PAL codes, I could have armed them at any time. I wouldn’t need your trust.”

  “Hold it!” Sammy yelled. “We’re all going a little nuts here. None of you are making much sense. Let’s calm down a little.”

  “What if someone other than Riley enters a six-digit code on the bombs?” Lallo asked. “Pick six numbers at random and enter them.”

  Riley laughed, the sound incongruous in the air of fear and mistrust that permeated the room. “Well, I’d have to say we run into the same problem. Since I know I’m not the person doing all this stuff, I trust myself, but I certainly don’t trust any of you. If you’re not going to allow me to lock out the bombs because you don’t trust me, I’m certainly not going to allow any of you to do it either.”

  Conner slapped her hand on a crate of ammunition. “Forget about the goddamn bombs for a minute. Our real problem is that someone here is trying to stop us from getting out this story about the base. Even if the tapes in Atlanta have been compromised, we can still get the truth out. Once the support team gets here, we can go live on satellite feed and that will mean whoever it is has failed. Until then we have to stick together and work together. There’s nothing else we can do.”

  “I don’t like the idea of being cooped up in here with a killer on the loose,” Devlin muttered.

  “Well, there isn’t anything you can do about it,” was Conner’s reply. She looked around the room, from one person to another. “Let’s continue on with the work we planned. We stay in parties of at least two from here on out, though.”

  “I still think we ought to open up the power access tunnel to the reactor,” Devlin suggested.

  “Good idea.” Conner turned to the rest of the team. “Riley, Sammy, and Devlin work on opening up the reactor tunnel. Kerns, Vickers, and Lallo work on the west tunnel. I’ll be with the group down at the west tunnel. We’ll meet back at the mess hall in four hours.”

  SAFE HOUSE, VICINITY FREDERICKSBURG, VIRGINIA

  The old man looked up as the door opened and two men walked in. The short one was carrying a briefcase, the taller one nothing. The short man placed the briefcase on the desk, and they both stared at the old man.

  Finally, he could take it no longer. “What do you want?” Not a word had been said to him since he’d been picked up on the beach, flown into Otis Air Force Base, cross loaded onto a military jet, and flown down here. He knew that the men were from his government because their procedures and resources were too complex for a foreign government operating in the United States.

  The taller one, whom the old man had correctly guessed was in charge, spoke. “We need information, Mr. Glaston. Or should I say Colonel Glaston, U.S. Army, Retired?”

  “What information?” Glaston asked warily. In twenty-three years of duty, most of it with the ultrasecret Intelligence Support Agency, he’d participated in more than his share of covert operations, any one of which might interest these people.

  The tall man reached into his pocket and laid an ID card on the desktop. “I’m with your old organization, Mr. Glaston. We need information on an operation you were involved in that we have no record of.” The short man flicked one of the locks on the briefcase.

  Glaston frowned as he searched his memory. “What are you talking about? Everything I did at ISA was fully debriefed and recorded.”

  “Eternity Base?” the tall man simply asked.

  Glaston felt a sledgehammer hit him in the chest. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  The short man pressed the second lock and swung up the lid. He turned it so Glaston could see inside. Various hypodermic needles were arrayed along the top, and serum vials were secured in the bottom. The tall man gestured at the contents with a wave of his hand. “The art of interrogation has developed to much higher levels than when you retired. We’re less crude and much more effective.

  “You know, of course, that everyone talks eventually.” The tall man reached in and pulled out a needle, holding it up to the light. “With these sophisticated drugs, that eventually comes much sooner. Unfortunately, the side effects cannot always be controlled. I would like to avoid resorting to such methods.” He laid down the needle. “Why is it that we have no records of Eternity Base?”

  Glaston considered his options. “What do I get out of this?”

  The tall man shrugged. “It depends on what you tell us.”

  Glaston sighed. He knew what the tall man had said was true—he would talk sooner or later. He’d been on the other side of this desk too many times not to know that. Jesus, to have it come to this all because of that stupid base! He slumped back in the chair.

  “I was the ops supervisor for the construction of Eternity Base in late 1971 in Antarctica. It was a group of buildings—twelve to be exact—that were buried under the ice. The sections—”

  “We know what’s down there,” the tall man interrupted. “What we want to know is who was behind the op and why.”

  That meant they’d found it, Glaston realized. That, in a strange sort of way, relieved him. He’d often thought about the base over the past twenty-five years, wondering if it had ever been shut down and the bombs removed. “I worked directly for Lieutenant General Woodson.”

  The two men exchanged glances. They both knew that Woodson had been head of the ISA in the early seventies. “How did Woodson give you this assignment?”

  “Personal briefing.” Glaston sighed again. If they’d been down there they’d found everything, and it wouldn’t do him any good to hold back. Except for the plane. That he could never mention. He hoped they hadn’t turned up any information on that.

  “It was an unofficially sanctioned mission—no paper trail and denial if uncovered. Woodson brought me back to Washington from Vietnam, where I was doing liaison work between CCS—Combat and Control South, MACV-SOG—and the Agency. Trying to keep the Green Beanies and the spooks from each other’s throats.

  “When I got to D.C., Woodson told me he had a mission that could be very profitable to both of us and had the president’s blessing.” Glaston ignored the disgusted looks the two men exchanged. If they hadn’t done work for cash
yet, they would someday. It was much easier to put your life on the line with a substantial bank account to back you up. A government pension wasn’t enough for this line of work.

  “Who was Woodson working for?”

  “Someone with the code name Peter. I had a number in Colorado where I contacted him. I don’t know who Peter was, and I certainly don’t remember that phone number. It was probably a cutout anyway.”

  “Woodson never told you who the place was for, or even what it was designed for?”

  “It was easy to see what it was designed for. It was a survival shelter. As far as the who goes, it had to be somebody with a lot of money and resources, along with leverage at the White House. Woodson and I supplied the manpower and the aircraft; Peter supplied all the equipment.”

  “What happened to the C-130 that was doing the flights from McMurdo to the base?”

  Glaston’s heartbeat escalated. “It went down a couple of hours out of McMurdo on the way home. I had to cover it up somehow, so I used the MACV-SOG cover.”

  The tall man looked at him dispassionately. He turned to his partner. “I’ll be back in an hour. Prep him.”

  “Wait a second!” Glaston yelled as the short man pulled out a vial of clear liquid and picked up the nearby needle. “I’m telling you everything. You said if I cooperated, that wouldn’t be necessary.” He thought briefly of the courier and realized that finding his body must be the reason they were doing this to him.

  “I said it depended. You just told us you did freelance work while at the ISA. You broke the rules, and now we’re going to find out what other rules you might have broken in your career.”

  The short man approached with the needle.

  AIRSPACE, SOUTH ATLANTIC OCEAN

  AS Captain Lim approached, Major Pak looked up from the plans he and his XO were studying. Pak was impressed that Lim had waited almost eight hours before coming out of the cockpit to talk to him. The interior of the IL-18 was stripped bare except for Pak’s team, their equipment, and the fuel bladders. The team was spread out on the vibrating steel floor, either sleeping or preparing their equipment for the infiltration.