The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 2

by Christopher Cartwright

  “No. Per the owners of the Antarctic Solace, the crew and entertainers opted to have all security cameras removed from their deck due to concerns for privacy.”

  “So we’re looking at the possibility the entire passenger list have been trapped down there?” Alexis asked.

  “No,” Sam said emphatically. “You can’t hide two hundred people on a boat without making a sound. If they were trapped below we would have heard them by now.”

  The security phone rang. Sam answered the phone and placed it on speaker. “What have you got, Veyron?”

  “I just remembered,” Veyron said. “The owners of the Antarctic Solace or someone from her onshore team should have the security codes. Get the codes and you can input them into a security card and gain access.”

  “But we don’t have blank cards?” Tom said.

  “Yeah we do. There’s a whole bunch in the second drawer on your left, Tom. I checked before.”

  “Thanks Veyron. Have you got their number?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah. I’ll give them a call and let you know once we have access.”

  “Thanks.”

  The phone line went dead.

  “You want me to keep working on the elevators – see if I can beat the owners of the Antarctic Solace in finding the security code?” Elise asked.

  “No. Leave it to Veyron to work out. How long will it take you to find the deleted security tapes?”

  “Could take an hour. Might be days if they were clever enough.”

  “Is there anything you need to do? Or is it just your computer program working?”

  “Just my computer program. What do you need?”

  “I want you back on board the Maria Helena – we have to find out where the scientists of the Pegasus station went. While you’re appropriating the satellites overhead, you’d better include in your search any ships or landmasses with an extra couple hundred people on board. We now have two groups to rescue and I intend to do so before the entire Weddell Sea freezes over and we become the third group who need rescuing.”

  “Sure, Sam,” Elise said.

  Alexis put her hand to her mouth. “The scientists from the Pegasus station are missing?”

  Sam looked at her for a moment. She appeared unusually concerned after the news of the lost Pegasus scientists. “Yeah, that’s who we came down here to rescue. They sent a mayday call fifteen days ago. Apparently their ship had become stuck in ice when a large iceberg, the size of a small island, floated into the peninsula. They were unequipped to survive the upcoming winter on board their ship, which was now frozen in the ice, and returned to the Pegasus station.”

  “But you never made it because you found the Antarctic Solace in trouble instead?” Alexis asked.

  “No,” Sam said. “We made it to the Pegasus station, but no one was home. That’s when the storm hit. Tom and I waited inside for two days. When the storm finished this morning we came straight back to our own ship, the Maria Helena, and discovered the Antarctic Solace in trouble and came to investigate.”

  “Are you talking about the French science station, Pegasus?”

  “Yes. They had a French flag out the front of their ice station, but I couldn’t tell you where they had come from or what they were doing there.” Sam sighed. “In fact, I have no idea what they were doing there – the place looked like it had never been lived in despite clothing, food and boots all still being there.”

  Alexis took a deep breath. “I can tell you why it looked unlived in.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it wasn’t their ice station.”

  “What do you mean? They gave us the coordinates fifteen days ago. We lost communication with them after the second radio transmission, but they were able to provide their GPS location.”

  Alexis’s ordinarily soft and innocent façade took on an authoritative stance that took Sam by surprise. “Whoever it was you spoke to, it wasn’t the scientists from the Pegasus station – that’s for sure.”

  “What makes you say that?” Sam asked.

  “Because the real Pegasus station is situated in East Antarctica, two hundred miles Southeast of McMurdo Sound – nowhere near the Weddell Sea.”

  “Perhaps they set up a second camp on this side of the Antarctic Ridge?”

  “Definitely not. Their secret research for CERN was in East Antarctica.”

  Sam stared at her; a wry smile opened in his otherwise stern face. “How could you possibly know what they were doing there?”

  Alexis crossed her arms. “Because I sent them.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “You sent them?” Sam asked.

  “I’m a physicist at the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire in Geneva, known as CERN,” Alexis said. “Last year, a group of researchers discovered that the Antarctic was full of ancient ice tunnels. Most likely caused by ancient meltwater which eroded the weakest parts of the ice over millennia – some of these are said to be in excess of a hundred and fifty miles long.”

  “Okay, so what interest does a quantum physicist have in ice tunnels?”

  “None. I don’t care at all about them.” Alexis turned serious again. “Most of my research involves accelerating tiny particles and then colliding them together at unimaginable speeds.”

  “The Hadron collider,” Sam said.

  “She’s my little baby. Without her, all of my work would have remained in the field of theoretic physics. Unfortunately, my current research requires something a little larger – about ten times as large.”

  “You’re looking at building a new particle accelerator inside ancient ice tubes?”

  “That’s it.”

  “What were you researching, specifically?”

  “It’s a long story, quite complicated – you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  “Have you heard of the Higg’s Boson – erroneously dubbed the God Particle?”

  “Yeah, didn’t they prove it didn’t exist?”

  “No. They proved it exists, just that they can’t reproduce it or control it because it’s too unstable. My research suggests we could build more of them. I have a theory for how we could store them and if my research can one day prove it, we’ll have enough power to finally send people out into space. We’re talking about a totally different jump in the way we transport people. The sort of leap the human race got when they discovered the internal combustion engine.”

  Sam shook his head. “So that’s what this is all about.”

  “You think someone’s attacked the men from the Pegasus station and abducted every other person on board the Antarctic Solace, leaving me isolated, because of my research?”

  “It makes sense, doesn’t it?” Sam said. “Why else would someone go to such extreme lengths to get your attention?”

  “But that’s crazy. We’re talking about research that will take a lifetime to move from pure theoretical physics to practical uses. The particle I’m talking about is so unstable it will be decades before we can even consider handling it for research.”

  “Even so, you must admit the coincidence that some physicists have gone missing the same week an entire passenger list that includes you, the head of CERN, also disappears is too unlikely for mere chance. And now we find out the only connection is a man who was once set to be the next leading quantum physicist.”

  “No one knew what we were doing,” Alexis said. “It’s impossible to think the whole thing’s connected.”

  “But you sent a team down here to build a new particle accelerator!”

  “No. I sent a team down here to investigate the feasibility of such a project. It would take years to get approval to build such a thing and all the countries who share Antarctica would have to agree. Then it would need to be built. We’re talking at least a decade if we were lucky before we had a working particle accelerator.”

  “How many people know about your project?”

  “Not many and of those, most think I was purely considering it f
or future development projects. Almost nobody knows why I really wanted to build such a large collider.”

  “All the same, the coincidence seems uncanny. Telling even a small handful of people a project is 'super-secret' is enough to ensure a leak.”

  “Do you have the GPS coordinates of the real Pegasus station?”

  “Of course.” She looked up the details on her smartphone and showed him.

  Sam typed the GPS into his laptop. “The entire area is covered with cloud cover. It’s been there about five days by the look of it.”

  “We need to get to them.”

  “I agree, but how long would it take?” Sam asked.

  “If your ship could put us in at McMurdo Bay it’s under two hundred miles inland over relatively flat surfaces. What snow craft do you have?”

  “I have a two person hovercraft. It will do the return trip in under three days.”

  “Good. When can we leave?”

  “Now – and you’re coming with me.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Sam stepped aboard the Maria Helena with Tom, Elise and Alexis. He introduced Alexis to Matthew and Genevieve and filled them in on their plan to check out the real location of the science station, Pegasus. Genevieve brought out a warm lunch – roasted lamb with rosemary and vegetables.

  Elise switched on her second laptop while they ate. She quickly established contact with the satellites overhead and appropriated their functions to search the surrounding areas. Her laptop hummed as it confirmed a secure connection. “Okay, I’m in – Alexis, what’s the coordinates of the real Pegasus?”

  Alexis opened her smartphone and clicked on an App titled secure documents. Inside she quickly swiped left with her thumb until she found what she was looking for – a document titled Pegasus. She clicked to open it and then handed her phone to Elise. “Here.”

  “Thanks.” Elise looked at it for a second and then handed the phone back to Alexis. She then typed the exact latitude and longitude into her computer down to their sixth decimal place and pressed enter.

  The view on her computer screen showed a blurred image of Antarctica. East and West Antarctica is divided by the Trans Antarctic Ridge; the west being smaller and full of undulating ice and rock mountains, while the east was larger and almost entirely flat with deep ice. A moment later the image increased in size until it displayed only west Antarctica. By the time the process had magnified for the fifth time the entire screen went gray.

  “What happened?” Sam asked.

  “Sorry, Sam.” Elise clicked the negative button on her keyboard once, zooming out again. “Looks like there’s one hell of a storm cloud over Alexis’s science station.”

  “Any chance we can get a view from yesterday?” Sam asked.

  “Sure. These satellites take a digital image every twenty-four hours.”

  “Good. Do it.”

  Elise brought the image up again. “Same storm yesterday. I’m going to keep going back until I find you a clean image of Pegasus.”

  “Thanks,” Sam said. “Is it just me or does it seem like everywhere we want to look gets covered by a storm cloud? The same thing happened when we first tried to find the Pegasus after their original call for help.”

  “So now our dead physicist has the power to change the weather!” Alexis griped.

  Elise stopped at day fifteen. “Here we go. This was the image taken on the day someone from the Pegasus station made a call for help. Looks like you might be right, Alexis – someone has intentionally blocked our view of this station.”

  “People generally only like to obscure one’s view of things they want to keep hidden. I think it’s time we make a visit to the real Pegasus station.”

  “Do you want me to come?” Tom asked.

  “Yes, but I need you on board the Antarctic Solace. It will need to be moved out of the Waddell Sea if we don’t want it to become frozen in the ice.”

  “What about you?” Tom asked.

  “I’m still hoping the scientists are trapped by the strange weather formation, intentional or not. We should be able to get in there undetected using the hovercraft. We can be in and out in under a day.”

  “There’s one more thing you’re both forgetting to consider,” Elise said.

  “What’s that?” Sam and Tom said in unison.

  Elise grinned. “Are you going to open the armory?”

  Chapter Twenty One

  Alexis watched as Matthew, the Maria Helena’s skipper, unlocked the door to the armory. She followed him and the rest of the gang through the steel door. Inside were more than a dozen rows of stainless steel storage cabinets on wheels. The sort you have to slide to access the rows behind. Sam pressed a button on the wall and five separate storage cabinets automatically slid to the middle of the room – revealing a cache of military grade weapons ranging from assault rifles to large machineguns that needed to be mounted to fire and rocket launchers.

  “Holy shit!” Alexis swore. “I thought you were a civilian vessel? What are you planning on doing, overthrowing Antarctica?”

  “You’d be surprised by the kind of people we sometimes meet,” Sam said. “And I don’t want my team taking any chances.”

  Who are these people I’ve been rescued by?

  Elise stepped forward and picked up an Israeli 9mm open-bolt Uzi submachinegun from a foam cradle. She held it up to her shoulder and looked through its sight. It was dead straight. She retracted the bolt and checked the firing mechanism. Satisfied the weapon would fire if needed she picked up a box of 32 round magazines and grinned. “Can’t go past an Uzi – durable, reliable and effective. Okay, I’m ready to get back to work.”

  Alexis took a deep breath as Elise removed the last vestiges of doubt in her mind that she was anything but a computer geek.

  Tom moved the next three stainless steel shelves until a new weapons tray opened up. This one held seven types of shotguns. He ran his hand along the handles of three of them before picking up a twelve gauge Remington 1100 Tactical Shotgun. Lined it up to his shoulder and looked through its sight. Satisfied, he opened and checked the firing mechanism was intact. He then picked up two boxes of magazines loaded with eight rounds of 2 ¾ inch ammo. “Suit yourself, but I’ll take this one.”

  Sam picked up a Glock 17 and held it in his hand looking through the end of its sighting mechanism. It was obviously plastic and looked light and flimsy, more like a toy gun than a deadly weapon to Alexis. “This will do perfectly.”

  Alexis smiled. “Well, it’s nice to see one of you doesn't carry a weapon like it’s an endorsement of your male appendage. That looks like a nice civilized weapon.”

  Sam checked the safety was on and then handed it to her. “I’m glad you think so, because I picked it out for you. Have you fired a handgun before?”

  “No. Never,” Alexis lied.

  “Okay, I’ll show you –” Sam started but never got to finish.

  Alexis removed the magazine and then stripped the weapon, checking that each component was intact and functioning smoothly. She then reassembled the weapon and attached the magazine. She withheld the tiniest of coy smiles. “I was raised on a farm in Oregon – and you thought I’d never used a handgun before?”

  “Well that’s good.” Sam stood there in front of her grinning like the fool she’d made of him. He shook his head in wonder and picked up an Uzi and a M40A5 Sniper Rifle with bipod and suppressor. “All right, let’s get back to work.”

  Alexis walked out the armory door – unsure if she felt safer or more concerned by the weapons her rescuers armed themselves with.

  Matthew locked the massive armory door. Then looked at the outside wall where a Browning M2 .50 caliber heavy machine gun and a SMAW II Serpent Rocket launcher sat on two boxes of military ordinance he’d brought outside the armory. “Are we forgetting something?”

  Tom looked at the heavy weapons. “Good point, we don’t know who’s after Alexis, but we know they mean business and operate like professionals. No doubt about i
t, they’ll be armed and they’ll return for her on the Antarctic Solace. This time, we’ll be ready.”

  “I don’t mean to sound self-centered,” Alexis said. “But if they’re after me, shouldn’t we forget the Antarctic Solace. I mean, wouldn’t it be easier to defend the Maria Helena?”

  Matthew grinned. “I wouldn’t worry ma’am; the Maria Helena is armed better than most battleships and with some uniquely advanced weaponry systems. We’ll be very lucky if they come after you while you’re aboard.”

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Alexis wanted to laugh at the sight of Tom and Genevieve carrying the 128 pound heavy machinegun and tripod while Elise carried the rocket launcher, resting it casually over her lithe and muscular shoulder as she stepped down towards the runabout as though it were the most natural of all things for a computer nerd to be carrying. Trailing behind, Matthew whistled as he wheeled a cart of Serpent Rockets.

  Who are these people?

  “Elise.” Sam stopped her from descending the ladder onto the runabout. “I need you to do something for me before you go.”

  “Sure, what do you need?” Elise replied.

  Sam’s eyes turned to avoid Alexis’s gaze. “I’ll tell you inside.”

  “Okay, I’ll just be a second.”

  Matthew stopped pushing his cart and reached for Elise’s rocket launcher. “Here, give me that. Go sort Sam’s IT stuff out and I’ll finish loading the runabout. I don’t want to waste any more time than we have to.”

  “Thanks Matthew.”

  Alexis caught Elise’s eye as she followed Sam inside the Maria Helena’s bridge. She looked like she was going to say something to her, and then turned and entered the ship’s structure. Alexis couldn’t tell if she was simply in a rush or trying to hide something. Alexis thought of following her. No one had told her that some places of the Maria Helena were out of bounds. Even so, the thought made her feel like she was interfering.

  Instead, she waited outside feeling oddly conscious of the fact she had nothing of any use to contribute. Matthew completed his trip to the runabout, along with Tom and Genevieve, and then stopped to rest several feet from her. She watched as Tom and Genevieve remained on the runabout, chatting like old friends.