Eternity Base

by Bob Mayer

  “Sir, may I speak to you?” Lim inquired.

  Pak nodded.

  “Sir, as captain of this airplane it is my duty to inform you that we do not have enough fuel, even with all this, to make landfall in this direction.” Lim waved a hand at the bladders. “In two hours we will be too low on fuel to turn around and make it back to Angola.”

  “There’s land ahead,” Pak quietly remarked.

  Lim blinked. “We are heading for the South Pole, sir. There are no all-weather airstrips suitable for this aircraft down there.”

  “I know that,” Pak responded. “My team will parachute out, and then you will attempt to land on the ice and snow farther away to ensure operational security. I will leave one of the members of my team on board to help you travel to our exfiltration point.”

  Lim blanched. “But, sir—” He halted, at a loss for words.

  Pak stood. “But what, captain?”

  Lim shook his head. “Nothing, sir.” He turned and retreated to his cockpit.

  Senior Lieutenant Kim looked at his team leader. “Our captain is a weak man.”

  Pak turned his attention back to the papers. “Are you satisfied that your men know the parts of the plan that they need to?”

  Kim nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Have you picked who will stay with the plane?”

  “Yes, sir. Sergeant Chong has volunteered.”

  “Good.”

  Kim scratched his chin. “The only thing I don’t understand, sir, is why we are doing this.”

  No one else would have dared say that to Pak, but the two of them had spent four years working together. They’d infiltrated the South Korean coastline three times and conducted extremely successful reconnaissance missions there. They owed their lives to each other.

  “There are two U.S. nuclear weapons at our objective.”

  Kim didn’t show any surprise. “But you briefed us that there is only a news team there. No military.”

  “Correct.”

  Now Kim was surprised. “You mean these two bombs are unguarded?”

  Pak nodded. “Yes. Our objective is to seize those weapons along with their arming codes and instructions. And to leave no trace of our presence there.”

  “How will we do that, and what will we do with the weapons? I thought our government already had nuclear weapons.”

  “We are not going back home with the weapons.” Pak shook his head. “The rest is not for you to know yet, my friend. You will be told when it is time. Suffice it to say that if we are successful, Orange III will be implemented and it will succeed.”

  Pak leaned back in his seat as his executive officer moved away. Although this whole plan had been jury-rigged on short notice, there was much precedent for the entire operation. The primary wartime mission of the North Korean Special Forces was to seize or destroy U.S. nuclear weapons. Pak had participated in the drawing up of plans for direct action missions against overseas targets, including the U.S. Seventh Fleet bases in Japan and the Philippines, and even Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

  North Korea had never been shy about striking at enemies outside its own borders, and the Special Forces (SF) had been involved in every action. In 1968 thirty-one Special Forces soldiers had infiltrated across the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and made their way down to Seoul to raid the Blue House, home of the South Korean president. The mission failed, with twenty-eight men killed, two missing, and one captured.

  Shortly after that attack, on 23 January 1968, People’s Korean Army (PKA) Special Forces men in high-speed attack craft seized the USS Pueblo. Later that year, a large SF force of almost a hundred men conducted landings on the coast of South Korea in an attempt to raise the populace against the government. It failed, but such failures didn’t daunt the North Korean government. In 1969, a U.S. electronic warfare aircraft was shot down by the North Koreans, killing all thirty-one American service members on board.

  As security stiffened in South Korea during the 1970s, North Korea moved its attention overseas, not caring about the international effect. In 1983, three PKA Special Forces officers planted a bomb in Rangoon in an attempt to kill the visiting South Korean president. That mission also failed. Later in 1983, four North Korean merchant ships infiltrated the Gulf of California to conduct monitoring operations against the United States mainland. One of the ships was seized by the Mexican authorities, but that didn’t prevent the North Koreans from continuing such operations.

  Pak knew that history, and he also knew more than the average North Korean about the changes that had been sweeping the world in the nineties. Living in Angola, he had been exposed to more information than the tightly controlled society back in his homeland ever received. The breakup of the Soviet Union had never been acknowledged by Pyongyang, except in cryptically worded exhortations to the people, telling them they were the last true bastion of communism in the world. Pak truly believed he was part of the last line in the war against western imperialism—especially with the Cubans running home. If this mission succeeded, he would strike a blow greater than any of his Special Forces predecessors. That was enough for him.

  Chapter 19

  ETERNITY BASE, ANTARCTICA

  They’d managed to clear not only the west tunnel of ice, but also the entryway into the west ice storage area. That room was as large as the east one, but there was no ramp at the end. It was also stocked full of supplies and food. Conner’s team had taken footage of the entire event.

  Right now, Sammy was lying behind Devlin and Riley in the power access tunnel, which was made of corrugated steel tubing approximately three feet in diameter. They’d been digging here by hand for two hours. Removing the ice was slow work, because it had to be put on a blanket and dragged the length of the tunnel, then Sammy would dispose of it along the south ice wall.

  It probably would have been easier to go up to the surface and use the sonar to find the reactor, then try to dig out its access shaft. The only problem with that plan was the weather. Sammy had gone up the main surface shaft several hours ago with Riley and Devlin to take a look outside. Visibility was close to zero as the wind lashed the countryside with a wall of white. Ten feet from the doorway, a person would be lost and would find his way back only with a lot of luck. It was hard to believe Vickers’s latest radio message that the storm was actually lessening in intensity.

  Remembering the blowing snow and the icy talons of cold ripping at her clothes through the open door, and thinking about the frozen body lying at the foot of the stairs, brought to mind something Sammy had read in Conner’s binder during her two-hour guard shift: the fate of Capt. Lawrence Oates, a member of Scott’s ill-fated 1911-12 South Pole expedition. Scott’s party had arrived at the South Pole after man-hauling their sleds most of the way, only to discover a tent and note that Norwegian Roald Amundsen had left behind, proving that he had beaten Scott there by a month. On their return trip, the party was running out of food and was in the middle of a blizzard. Oates, who was suffering from severe frostbite, walked out of the campsite into the blowing snow, sacrificing himself so the party could continue on more quickly. His noble gesture was all for naught, though, because the rest of Scott’s party died only eleven miles from a supply depot. Eight months later their bodies were discovered along with Scott’s journal relating the sad tale.

  “I’ve got an opening.” Riley broke Sammy out of her snowy reverie. He was poking his shovel through the ice. Together, Riley and Devlin scratched away to widen the opening. The tunnel continued on ahead for another ten feet before angling off to the right.

  “Let’s see what we have,” Riley said, as he led the way.

  Sammy crawled along on her hands and knees behind Riley and Devlin, her Gore-tex pants sliding on the steel. Fifty more feet and they reached a thick hatch. Riley turned the wheel and the door slowly opened. Another two hundred feet. Then another hatch. They squeezed out the second one and could finally stand. A small shielded room opened out onto the reactor’s core. Radiation warning sign
s were plastered all over the walls. Sammy looked through the thick glass at the slots where the rods were to be inserted in the reactor core itself. In front of the glass was a small control panel with a few seats.

  “Unbelievable.” Devlin shook his head. “They really thought something this poorly constructed could work. No wonder the one at McMurdo had to be taken apart.”

  “You have to remember this was twenty-five years ago,” Riley reminded him.

  “Hell, even twenty-five years ago someone should have had more common sense.” Devlin ran his hands over the thick glass separating them from the core. “Why are people so stupid?”

  “Let’s get Conner. She’ll want to get this on tape.” Devlin reentered the access tunnel and headed back. Riley and Sammy stayed a few seconds, checking out the room, and then followed.

  AIRSPACE, ANTARCTICA

  Pak watched as Sergeant Chong finished securing the steel cable that would hold their static lines to the roof of the airplane, just in front of the aft passenger door. Pak had never jumped out of an IL-18, but he had heard that it had been done. The IL-18 was not specifically designed for paratroop operations, but the team was making the best of the situation, which seemed to be the overriding concept for this whole mission. Everything about the operation was being improvised due to the time constraint, and Pak didn’t like that.

  He looked out a small porthole at the polar ice cap glistening below. They were flying at the plane’s maximum altitude. Pushing up against the glass and looking forward, Pak could make out a dark line indicating the storm blanketing Lesser Antarctica. The OPLAN had told him about it. Jumping into the high winds was going to be extremely dangerous, a factor the bureaucrats at Special Forces Command seemed to have overlooked.

  Pak checked his watch. They were less than an hour and a half from the target. ‘Time to rig!” he yelled.

  Splitting into buddy teams, the nine men who would be jumping began to put on their parachutes, Sergeant Chong helping the odd man. Pak threw his main parachute on his back and buckled the leg and chest straps, securing the chute to his body and making sure it was cinched down tight. The reserve was hooked onto the front. Rucksacks were clipped on below the reserve, and automatic weapons were tied down on top of the reserve.

  After Sergeant Chong inspected all the men, they took their seats, each man lost in his own thoughts, contemplating the jump and the mission ahead.

  Pak pulled the OPLAN out of his carry-on bag and checked the numbers in the communications section. With those in mind, he waddled his way up the aisle toward the cockpit.

  ETERNITY BASE, ANTARCTICA

  The wind had actually diminished, although it was still kicking along with gusts up to thirty-five miles an hour. Visibility was increasing to almost fifty feet at times. The slight break in the storm could last for minutes or hours.

  Below the surface, in the base itself, the party was taking turns sleeping. Vickers, Kerns, and Lallo were seated at the doors to unit B2, standing guard on the sleepers and each other.

  In the communications unit, A3, all was quiet. The lights had been turned off since Conner finished videotaping hours earlier. There was no one in the room to notice the small red light that suddenly flickered and came alive on the transponder. Someone had initiated the beacon using a radio on the proper frequency, and it was now pulsing out the location of Eternity Base to any receiver within a three-hundred-miles radius in all directions.

  Chapter 20

  WALTER REED HOSPITAL, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  The young nurse looked up from her romance novel as the doors at the end of the corridor opened. Four men appeared, one pushing an empty wheelchair. The nurse glanced up at the clock behind her work station, wondering what they wanted this early in the morning. They trooped to a halt at her desk, and the older man in front slid a piece of paper out of his briefcase. The other three men flanked him, their faces expressionless.

  “I’m Doctor Wallace. This is the transfer order for one of your patients. We’d like to pick him up immediately.”

  The nurse frowned. At four in the morning? “I’ll have to get the intern on duty to sign off on that.”

  The man gave a grimace that seemed intended as a smile. “We’ll wait.”

  Two minutes later the intern stood before the men scratching his head as he read the order. “This is a legitimate transfer, but normally the patient’s doctor is the one who signs off on the transfer. The intern shot a pointed glance at the clock on the wall. “That’s usually why they occur during regular duty hours.”

  Wallace seemed not to have heard. “The paper is in order. Note the signature by the hospital director. Please sign.”

  The intern had noted the signature. That effectively relieved him of responsibility. Still, he knew that the patient’s doctor would probably give him a dose of grief. “All right,” he finally said, taking this easiest course of action. His pen scratched in the proper spot.

  “He’s in three-nineteen,” the nurse offered.

  Wallace inclined his head and the three men strode down the hallway.

  “He’s hooked up to monitors and IVs,” the nurse said as she stood. “They’re going to need help unhooking him.”

  Wallace held up a hand, the command implicit in the gesture stopping her. “One of them knows how to do it.”

  In three minutes the men reappeared, one wheeling the chair, the IV carried by another. The third held a bag containing the patient’s possessions. The patient appeared to be semiconscious and didn’t say a word as they passed by. The party was gone in record time.

  “That’s strange,” the nurse muttered, the intern barely picking it up.

  “What is?”

  “The patient, General Woodson, always was very alert.”

  The intern shrugged. “Nobody, especially not a man who’s had half his guts removed for cancer, likes being jerked out of bed at four in the morning.”

  The nurse shook her head as the intern headed back to his cot. She’d have sworn that Woodson looked drugged. But that wasn’t possible; they had him on only a mild pain suppressant. She picked up her novel. Within a few minutes, General Woodson’s transfer was forgotten as she plunged back into the heroine’s perils in Victorian England.

  Thirty minutes later a figure slipped in the fire door at the other end of the corridor and moved to room 319. The man quietly opened the door and stepped into the room, drawing a syringe out of his pocket at the same time. He halted, surprised by the empty bed. He checked the chart at the foot of the bed to be sure that it had held his target. Replacing the syringe, the man retraced his steps and departed the hospital.

  He went to the first pay phone he could find and dialed the number he’d memorized when assigned this mission.

  “Peter here.”

  “This is Lucifer. The target is gone. I was too late.”

  There was a long moment of silence. “All right. Your contract is over.” The phone went dead.

  AIRSPACE, FORD MOUNTAIN RANGE, ANTARCTICA

  Sergeant Chong was wearing a headset that allowed him to communicate with Captain Lim in the cockpit. Chong stood next to the rear passenger door, his hands on the opening handle. A rope was wrapped around his waist, securing him to the inside of the plane. The plane itself was being buffeted by winds, and the men tried to keep their balance as the floor rose and fell. Up front the pilots were flying blind, eyes glued to the transponder needle, praying a mountainside didn’t suddenly appear out of the swirling clouds.

  “One minute out, sir!” Chong called to Major Pak.

  Pak turned and looked over his shoulder at the men. “Remove the coverings on your canopy releases!” The jumpers popped the metal covering on each shoulder. These metal pieces protected the small steel cable loops that controlled the connection of harness to parachute risers; pulling that loop would release the risers on that side, separating parachute from jumper. Doing this in the air would result in death, but Pak had a reason for taking this dangerous step prior to exiting
the aircraft.

  Pak shuffled a little closer to the door, his parachutes and rucksack doubling his weight. “Open the door!” he ordered. He reached down and activated the small transmitter/receiver attached to his right forearm, as did the rest of his team.

  Chong twisted the handle and the door swung in with a whoosh. They’d depressurized a half hour ago and were flying in the middle of the storm, Lim keeping the plane on track with the transponder. They were at an estimated altitude of 1,500 feet above the ice.

  Snow swirled in the open door, along with bone-chilling cold. Pak didn’t even bother taking a look—he wouldn’t have been able to see more than a few feet anyway. The plan was to jump as soon as Lim relayed that the needle focusing on the transponder had swung around from front to rear, indicating they’d flown over the beacon. The one-minute warning was Lim’s best guess, meaning the needle had started to shiver in its case in the cockpit.

  Pak grabbed either side of the door with his mittened hands, his eyes on Chong, waiting for the go. The seconds went by slowly. Pak realized he was losing the feeling in his hands, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  Chong suddenly stiffened. “GO!” he screamed.

  Pak pulled forward and threw himself into the turbulent white fog. Behind him, the other eight men of the team followed.

  Pak fell to the end of the eighteen feet of static line, which popped the closing tie on his main parachute pack. The pack split open and the parachute slid out, struggling to deploy against the wind. Pak felt the jolt and looked up to make sure he had a good canopy.

  He couldn’t tell what the wind was doing to him, nor could he see the ground. With numbed hands, Pak reached down to find the release for his rucksack so it would drop below him on its deployment line and he wouldn’t land with it attached.