by Bob Mayer
“Who is Peter?”
“The gatekeeper ... the builder. The man with the money.”
“A name.”
“Peter.”
“His real name.”
Woodson blinked and his face settled into normalcy for a brief moment. “Bradford P. Kensington.” Woodson gave a dreamy smile. “He uses his middle name for people like me.”
The two interrogators exchanged glances. The tall man stood and headed for the door; this had just gone to the highest echelons, and he wanted nothing further to do with it.
RUPPERT COAST ANTARCTICA
“Ready?”
Sammy looked up at Riley and weakly nodded. Conner had a death grip on Sammy and didn’t say a word. The two women were wrapped in a nylon poncho, lying on their backs inside a sleeping bag, heads cushioned with their backpacks. Riley’s M16 was on Sammy’s chest, her hands wrapped around it.
Riley began walking, the rope tightening around Sammy’s and Conner’s waists, pulling them along on the ice. He accelerated to a jog, the slope helping increase their speed. Satisfied, he flopped down on his stomach, his Gore-tex parka and pants sliding on the ice.
Linked together, the three tobogganed down the glacier, Riley trying to control speed and direction with the point of his entrenching tool. As they rattled over bumps in the ice, Sammy thought to herself that they’d all be very black and blue, if they survived.
They were three-quarters of the way down to the coast, Sammy too numb to feel anything anymore, when Riley broke through the ice into a crevasse. His yell gave Sammy less than a second to react. As her feet slammed against the far side of the break, she did the only thing she could do, raising the M16 up across her body and desperately jamming the muzzle of the weapon into the ice. She and Conner started sliding down. The poncho and sleeping bag fell off and disappeared into the depths. Sammy came to an abrupt halt, bracing herself against the rifle, and then felt a tremendous jar as Conner reached the end of the rope and dangled below.
Suddenly there was no more weight on the rope. Sammy held still, not believing she was alive. Her feet and back were pressed up against the walls, and the rifle, dug into the ice, kept her in a precarious balance across the mouth of the crevasse. Carefully, she looked down.
The crevasse widened and descended into a blue darkness as far as she could see. No sign of Riley. Conner was standing there, her feet on a narrow ledge of ice, looking up, eyes wide with fear. Sammy followed the rope with her gaze until it disappeared under an overhang of ice.
“Riley!” she cried out.
“Yeah. Are you all right?” The voice echoed off the walls.
“I can’t move!” she replied.
“Hold still! I’m on a small ledge down here. Let me try to climb up.”
Sammy wasn’t about to go anywhere. She could hear Riley working with his entrenching tool below her. The minutes passed and she felt her feet shift slightly on the ice, her heart going to her throat. How far would she fall if she slipped? she wondered. Would the fall kill her, or would she lie there broken but alive, waiting in an icy grave for the cold to take its final toll, preserved like the body at the base?
“Hang tough,” Riley called up. She could hear his labored breathing. Finally, out of the corner of her eye, she could see him. He had reached up and was digging out a hold in the ice with the shovel so he could haul himself up. It was a slow process. Sammy wasn’t sure how long she could hold on, her numbed hands wrapped around the rifle, all feeling in her feet already gone. She assumed her feet were still at the end of her legs.
Riley had passed Conner and was almost at Sammy’s level. She carefully turned her head to look at him. He gave her a very forced smile. “Some ride, eh?”
He was now wedged as she was—his back and feet against the ice. She watched as he squirmed his way up to the lip. He disappeared over the side, then his head reappeared. “Okay, I’m anchored up here. Sammy, you come on up first.”
Sammy shook her head. “I can’t feel my feet.”
Riley puffed out a deep breath. “All right. I’ll pull you up. When I yell, you pull your feet out. OK?”
“Can you do it?”
“I’ll do it.” He was gone. Sammy anxiously awaited. “Ready?”
Sammy briefly closed her eyes. “Yes.”
“Let go.”
Sammy tucked her knees in and fell for an interminable split second. Then the rope tightened down on her waist, causing her to exhale sharply. But the rope stopped her fall. She scrabbled at the ice with her dead hands and feet, trying to help Riley as much as she could. Inch by inch, she went up until she could slap an arm down on the surface. The pressure on the rope was maintained, and she continued up until she could get her waist over and roll onto the surface.
She lay there, savoring the sight of the open sky. Riley crawled up next to her and collapsed, throwing an arm over her and pulling her in tight. “You all right?” he asked.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Let’s get your sister up here.” Together the two leaned into the rope and hauled Conner to the surface. When she flopped down on the ice and stared up at the sky, Riley leaned over her.
“Do you want to go on?”
Conner shook herself, and with great effort she managed to stand.
“Yes.”
ISA HEADQUARTERS, SOUTHWEST OF WASHINGTON, D.C.
“What does the president want done?” the bald man at the end of the table asked General Hodges.
“The president wants the matter kept quiet.” Hodges nervously fingered his eel skin briefcase.
A snort of laughter. ‘That’s damn near impossible. What’s his second choice?”
“He needs to satisfy the Russians that this wasn’t a government-sponsored action in Antarctica that malfunctioned and that we’re trying to cover ourselves by this story. We need to pick up Kensington.”
“Kensington is the second richest man in America,” the bald man replied. “He’s supported every Republican president for the past thirty years.” He picked up a file. “Since we uncovered the name, we’ve done some checking. The facts fit. Kensington helped us recover the codes from that Soviet sub off Japan back in ‘68 using his oil exploratory deep-sea minisub. Apparently he used the same minisub to recover the two nuclear bombs on that A-7.
“Kensington has had extensive contact with many government agencies—”
‘To include this one!” Hodges threw in.
The bald man acknowledged that with a tilt of his head. “Yes, including this one. And the CIA. And the FBI. I understand he also paid people to do covert work for the Republican Party. That would make interesting news.
“Kensington had the government contacts, the subsidiary companies, and the money to get Eternity Base built as his own personal bomb shelter. We’ve discovered that his nuclear power plant in Utah had a contingency plan to load rods onto a plane with a three-hour notice. The specifications fit the power plant at Eternity Base.
“Kensington also is the man behind a very large number of defense manufacturing companies in this country. Even with all the cutbacks, he still has his finger in a lot of pies.
“I wonder what names would be on the list of people that Kensington planned to bring down to Eternity Base in case of nuclear war. I’m sure we would not want that to become public record.
“There are other things we’ve discovered, but we won’t go into them right now.” The bald man closed the file with a snap. “Again. What does the president want done?”
“Kensington has gone from an asset to a liability.” Hodges stood. “I’ll inform the president that it will be taken care of.”
The bald man did not seem happy with the decision, but he nodded. “All right.”
Chapter 30
RUPPERT COAST, ANTARCTICA, 1 DECEMBER 1996
“Come on!” Pak exhorted his three exhausted partners. “There’s the ship.”
The four leaned into the rope, and the sled creaked along the ice, making way towar
d the ship now slightly less than two miles away.
*****
“How close ... do you ... have to ... get?” Sammy asked, trying to catch her breath as they crossed a high point where two sheets of ice had buckled together.
“A quarter mile at maximum. I’d like to get closer than that,” Riley replied. They were at least three-quarters of a mile behind the Koreans. Riley’s best estimate was that it was going to be close, very close.
He hadn’t mentioned the additional problem of weapons on board the ship. If it carried weapons, Riley had to assume that once he fired on the party pulling the sled, the ship would return fire. He didn’t fancy the idea of being caught out on this ice in a running gun battle—the forseeable conclusion wasn’t favorable for him and the two sisters.
As they went along, Riley noticed black spots on the ice about three hundred yards to the left. He dropped down, out of sight, pulling Sammy and Conner with him. An ambush? He raised his head and peered at the figures, finally realizing what he was looking at. Seals were lying near a water hole they’d broken in the ice. It was the first sign of animal life they’d seen.
*****
“There they are!” the political officer exclaimed, pointing off the starboard bow.
The captain trained his telescope in that direction. “There are four men, and they are pulling a sled with something on it.”
“I want you to gather a party of men to go out there and help them.”
The captain wasn’t thrilled with that idea. His men were civilians, and he didn’t want to risk them on the ice. But he turned to his executive officer and reluctantly relayed the order.
Seven hundred yards off the port side, the ice suddenly erupted, three long black shafts pushing through. The shafts abruptly widened and a massive black conning tower appeared, tossing aside the ice like child’s blocks. The ice behind the tower split to reveal a long black deck sloping 150 feet behind the tower. The exposed portion of the vessel was almost as long as the Am Nok Gang.
“What is that?” the political officer gasped.
“A submarine,” the captain replied, stunned at the sight.
“I know that, you fool,” the officer snapped. “Whose submarine? American?”
“I don’t know.”
“What should we do?”
The captain turned to look at the officer. “There is nothing we can do.” He nodded at the black hull. “We wait to see what they do.”
Pak and his men halted, staring past the ship at the submarine. He knew in his heart that it was all over. Even if they made it to the ship, the Americans would never let them sail away. He wondered how the plan had failed.
“Sir?” Kim turned to him for instructions.
Pak looked at his executive officer. “We go to the ship. Quickly.”
The four men strained against the rope.
*****
Riley started sprinting as soon as the submarine broke surface, leaving Sammy and Conner behind, yelling at them to stay put. He passed four seals around a small circle of open water. The distance was now down to five hundred yards. Another two hundred and he could fire.
*****
The present Hawkeye on station was the third one rotated in; the earlier ones had exhausted their fuel supplies and returned to the Kitty Hawk. The radar operator had picked up the sub as soon as the mast breached the ice. Now he was busy guiding in the Osprey and the two F-14 Tomcats from the Kitty Hawk, matching the glowing green dots representing the planes with those of the ship and submarine.
“Eagle One, this Eye One. Assume heading eight seven degrees, range one hundred fifty kilometers and closing. You’ve got a sub on the surface, about seven hundred meters to the east of the ship. Over.”
“Roger. Out.” The acknowledgment from the pilot of the lead Tomcat was heard in the operator’s left ear. In his right ear was the tactical center of the Kitty Hawk demanding information.
“Eye One, this is Big Boot. Do you have an ID on the submarine yet? Over.”
“Negative. Over.”
“Eye One, what is Eagle’s ETA? Over.”
“ETA five minutes. Over.”
*****
Pulling at the front end of the rope, Pak felt the ice crackle beneath him. He halted and looked down in surprise. In his haste he’d run onto a thinner portion. There was no way it would support the weight of the bomb, twenty feet behind him.
“To the left,” he ordered Kim, Sun, and Ho.
As they turned, the thin ice exploded upward, and Pak caught a glimpse of a massive black and white snout rising into the air. The snout split in two, revealing rows of glistening white teeth. The forward half of the creature slammed down onto the ice, half out of the water, and the teeth closed on Kim.
The XO’s scream was cut short as the killer whale slid back with its meal into the hole it had just made in the ice. Pak pulled out his knife and desperately slashed at the rope around his waist as he was dragged toward the hole. He succeeded just inches short of the freezing water. Ho and Sun were not so fortunate. Scrabbling at the ice as they moved inexorably toward the hole, the men were pulled in. Pak had a last glimpse of Ho’s pleading eyes as the rope, still attached to Kim and Sun, drew him under the ice.
Pak quickly cut the rope attached to the sled and scrambled away from the thin ice.
“What happened?” screamed the political officer.
“Killer whale,” the captain curtly replied, saying a mental prayer for the three men. “That’s how they hunt seals.” He removed his eye from the telescope and turned to look at the political officer. “Men. Seals. Not much difference is there? What do we do now?”
They both twisted their heads as two gray jets came roaring in low over the ice from the west.
*****
“Big Boot, this is Eagle One. Over.”
“This is Big Boot. Over.”
“Roger. We’ve got a visual on the sub. You’ve got one Russian Delta class boomer on ice. Over.”
There was a pause. “Roger. Maintain station and await further instructions. Break. Viking Two, break from patrol and head for target site, maximum speed. Over.”
“This is Viking Two. Roger. Out.”
Aboard the E-2 the radar operator exchanged a worried look with the SIGINT operator. The Delta was the largest submarine in the world and carried twelve missile-launch systems for multiple-warhead ballistic missiles. What was it doing here?
The Viking diverted by the Kitty Hawk’s tactical operations center was its primary antisubmarine defense system—a plane totally dedicated to killing submarines, carrying both torpedoes and depth charges for that purpose.
The radar operator checked his screen. He estimated another fifty minutes before the Viking arrived. He had a feeling that whatever was being played out below would be over long before the Viking arrived.
His eyebrows raised at the next message from Kitty Hawk. “Eagle One, this is Big Boot. Delta submarine is to be considered friendly. I say again. Delta submarine is to be considered friendly. Out.”
*****
Riley came to a screeching halt after witnessing the whale attack. He looked down and realized he could see a dark shape through the ice. He quickly sidled left to thicker ice, figuring that if he couldn’t see the whale through the ice, it couldn’t see him.
He twisted his head and watched as the two planes with U.S. Navy markings flew by once more. About fucking time, he thought. Of course, they couldn’t spot one man on the ice.
Riley moved forward more slowly, aware that the lone man ahead had a weapon that could kill him as easily as the whales could.
*****
Pak glanced up as American planes flew by. He looked to the whaling ship and beyond it to the submarine. He could not pull the bomb by himself. There was only one thing left to do. He reached inside his parka and took out a sheet of paper.
Pak bent over the gray carcass of the bomb. He had done this once before, so he knew the preliminary steps. He stripped off his gloves—
ignoring the knife of cold that stabbed into every joint—and flipped open the latch on the control access panel.
*****
“The submarine is signaling us!” the ship’s executive officer exclaimed.
The captain swung his telescope around to port. A light on the conning tower was flashing international Morse code. “Copy!” the captain ordered. Something was going up one of the tall black masts on the conning tower. The captain focused on that. Halfway up, the wind caught it. A Russian flag unfurled.
The captain pulled back from the telescope and turned to his executive officer. “What does the message say?”
The XO ran a tongue over his lips and glanced at the political officer.
“Go ahead!” the captain insisted.
“Sir, it says: L-E-A-V-E-N-O-W.”
The captain ran his eyes over the familiar lines of his ship. Slowly he reached for the speaking tube. “Engine room. Port engine. One-quarter, reverse.”
“What are you doing?” the political officer demanded, grabbing the captain by his coat.
“I am going home,” the captain replied.
“You cannot. I forbid it!”
The captain pointed out the window to the left. “The Russians are there, and they say leave.” He pointed up. “The Americans are there, and I believe they want us to leave. We have no weapons.” He pointed out to the ice. “He is alone out there. We cannot help him.” The ship shuddered as the engines engaged for the first time in hours and the newly formed ice cracked around the hull. “We leave.”
*****
Riley picked his way through the ice, avoiding the thinner sections and at the same time making sure he was out of sight of the Korean. He wondered what the man would do now—there was no way he could pull the bomb by himself.
Riley’s head snapped up as he heard the throb of engines and the crack of ice. The civilian ship was moving very slowly, turning away. He looked farther and saw the flag above the submarine. It didn’t make sense, but he didn’t care. It was over. He continued forward, going slower, making sure he didn’t expose himself to a chance shot from the man trapped on the ice.