by Alton Gansky
“How noble.” She turned to the men who accompanied her. “I want a full search. Every nook and cranny. There are only four buildings here. They can’t have gone far, and they’re too smart to stay outside.” Three men scattered. The woman stepped back to Larimore and pressed the barrel of the gun between his eyes. “You had better not be lying to me, Commander, because unlike the others, you are expendable.”
From his position, Perry could see a dark green tattoo on the woman’s hand. It took a moment, but he recognized it as a red-eyed dragon. “Since you know our names,” Perry said, hoping to pull the woman’s attention away from Larimore, “maybe you’d honor us with yours.”
She turned and stared into Perry’s eyes. He felt like she was sucking the life out of him. Her eyes would have been beautiful in any other context, but to him they looked flint hard and cold.
“It beats saying, ‘Hey lady,’ ” Jack added. He smiled, and Perry was once again amazed at his friend’s fortitude.
“Tia,” she said. “You may call me Tia.”
“No last name?” Perry said.
“You don’t need one.” Her voice dropped an octave, making her even more unnerving. “All you need to know is that I’m in charge;
I have no sense of humor, and killing is a hobby of mine.” She turned to Jack. “And I hate flippancy.”
Perry watched his friend open his mouth then shut it without a word.
Gwen’s heart fluttered like a butterfly, and her breathing was ragged. She wished she could blame it on the cold and the altitude, but it was fear—simple, mind-shredding fear.
“In here,” she said to Sarah, sprinting across the ice floor of the Chamber. She had assumed the unwelcome guests would go to the Dome first. It seemed natural that the three-building structure with its sleeping quarters would be the first destination.
It was a guess, one she hoped was right. Even if she were correct, she and Sarah had only minutes before the intruders searched the Chamber. She had no idea what they wanted, but the work site was too far off the beaten path to warrant a home invasion. Logic told her that whoever the gunmen were, they were here because of the project.
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m open to ideas.”
Sarah had none.
Gwen moved as quickly as she could to the long wooden crate where Hairy had been housed prior to its unveiling. The box was ten feet by six feet, large enough to hold Hairy, its support equipment, and bubble plastic packing material, much of which was still in the container. Its lid lay propped to one side. “Get in.”
Sarah didn’t hesitate, throwing a leg over the edge of wooden box and crawling in. Gwen hesitated a moment then took hold of the rough, heavy wooden top. She grunted, groaned, and pulled until her spine felt as if it would herniate. “I need help.”
Sarah was out in an instant, taking hold of the opposite end of the top. Together they hoisted it in place, leaving just enough room to crawl into the near-empty container. Sarah went first, then Gwen. Once inside, they jiggled the lid into place.
It was a desperate and probably futile attempt, but it was all they had. There were very few places to hide. Gwen hoped the lid was in the correct spot and that the others would think it an unopened crate. The hard work had calmed her nerves, slowing her heart and quieting her breathing enough to think.
“Now what?” Sarah asked.
“I have no idea.” Gwen wondered if she had just crawled into her own coffin.
“At least it can’t . . . can’t get . . . worse . . .”
“Sarah? Sarah?” It had happened again. Gwen was thankful the narcolepsy attack hadn’t happened before they hid themselves. She wasn’t strong enough to carry a limp body across ice.
In the darkness, she reached for the other woman and found her head leaning against the side wall. She traced Sarah’s face with her fingers until she found her mouth. It was clear, unencumbered by the plastic packing. That was a good thing. The only good thing she could think of.
The sound of moving air seeped into the hiding place. Gwen recognized it. She had heard the same noise many times upon entering the Chamber. Someone had just entered the building.
Chapter 17
“We’ve made contact,” one of the men said to Tia. Perry watched as the woman stepped to a tall man and took a black satellite phone from his hand. They were all tall, Perry realized—Tia and her five soldiers. Tall, lean, and muscular. After they had stripped off their parkas, Perry had seen biceps bulging beneath the long-sleeved cold-weather shirts and shoulders stretching the material. Something else bothered Perry, something he’d noticed when they first emerged from the plane. The men moved with a precision that came only from practice. This was no ordinary group of thugs. He suspected they were ex-military.
“Phase one is complete,” Tia said into the phone. Her spine straightened as she spoke, and her head lowered an inch. Whoever was on the other end of the satellite link intimidated her.
That was a frightening thought.
Perry tried to make sense of the one-sided conversation.
“Six.” She paused as she listened. “Searching now for the two women.” She listened some more. “They say they were on the C-5. I don’t believe them.” Another pause. “No casualties. Understood. Which one? It will be done.” She handed the phone back to her accomplice then returned her attention to the group. “Commander Larimore, I have just been instructed to put a bullet in your heart if those two women are not found.”
Perry looked at the navy man, who showed no fear. Larimore’s eyes narrowed, and his jaw set like a vise. “Bring it on,” he said.
Tia studied the commander, waiting for a break in his façade. Few men could face death without showing some fear. She was disappointed that he was proving to be the exception to the rule. In fact, his resolve concerned her because it seemed to be shared by most of the others. Dr. James was beginning to snivel—that was to be expected. Dr. Curtis seemed resigned to the situation. But those who worried her most were the men from Sachs Engineering. She had done her research and had been briefed in detail. They had faced death before and survived each time. To her, that made them dangerous.
There was something else. Enkian had hired special investigators to do background checks on each of the party members. Each was exceptional in his or her own right, but three had something unexpected in common—they were churchgoers, religious men. Dr. Curtis was a surprise to her, apparently a late addition to the team, so she knew the least about him. She assumed he might share the same beliefs as his friends.
Religious people could endanger her mission. Often they were unafraid to die and were committed to ideals greater than themselves. This was something she understood, and she knew that the religion often didn’t matter. An Islamic extremist might blow himself up to make a point and to enter paradise. Christians, however, had always bothered her and often in ways she couldn’t quantify. She was uncomfortable in their presence. It was illogical, but nonetheless real.
“Perhaps I could change your mind, Commander, with a well-placed bullet in someone else’s head,” Tia said. “Maybe one of the Sachs people. There are too many engineers on this site anyway.”
Larimore gave a humorless chuckle. “I doubt you’re going to give any of us a free lift home after this is over. People like you kill their hostages. We’re dead no matter what we say or do.”
“Nothing in this building,” a man with bleached blond hair said as he emerged from the galley area. His companion had no hair at all. “We checked the dormitory annex, the supply building, and their rooms. There’s no one in this complex.”
“That means they must be in the other dome.” Tia thought for a moment. “Go help the others search—wait. We’ll all go. There may be a faster way of doing this.”
“I will not take no for an answer,” Henry Sachs bellowed, and bellowing was something he did well. He had spent his life working with employees a third larger and twice as strong as he. Normally a soft-spoken man, he had
a switch that turned him from taciturn to tyrant. That switch had been thrown.
“Sir, I don’t know how your call made it this far, but we at the White House receive thousands of calls every day. The staff can’t speak to every caller.”
Sachs sighed then said, “Here’s what you do. You put me on hold. You find Mr. Jeter and speak two words to him: Henry Sachs. That’s all I ask.”
A moment later he found himself on hold. He waited with impatience. Since receiving word about the missing transport plane, he had been on the phone, begging for information and calling in favors—and he was owed a lot of favors. Calls to the Commandant of the Coast Guard had garnered a promise of instant information, but Sachs wanted more. He had only one son, and he wasn’t content to wait on others to find him.
“Mr. Sachs,” the woman’s voice said, “I apologize for the confusion. Mr. Jeter will be on the line momentarily. He was in a meeting and—”
“Thank you,” Sachs said. He felt bad for bullying the aide, but he was not at his diplomatic best.
White House Chief of Staff Robert Jeter walked down the hall of the West Wing, his head hung as it often did when he was in thought.
“Mr. Jeter,” an aide began, “I have the secretary of transportation on the line—”
“Not now,” Jeter said with a wave of his hand. He stepped into his office and closed the door. The lights were dimmed, just the way he liked it. He kept his shades drawn and preferred dark furniture and dark wood paneling. The room was lit by a single desk lamp, the television that was never turned off and seldom moved from CNN, and his computer monitor. The president called the place “The Grand Mausoleum,” but Jeter liked it. The darkness helped him focus on the hundreds of items he had to keep orbiting the administration.
He snapped up the phone. “Henry me-boy,” he said with a weak and forced Irish accent. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“I need your help. More specifically, I need the president’s help.”
“I have a meeting with him and the director of communications in three minutes.” He felt his stomach tighten. “What do you want me to tell him?”
“As you know, in all my years of supporting the president I have never asked for anything.”
“That’s true,” Jeter said. “You make the rest of us look bad.” Sachs had been a financial supporter of President Calvert from his first run for the Senate. It was the only reason Jeter was talking to him now.
“It’s about my son, Mr. Jeter. I’ve been told a cargo plane went down and he was on it.”
“That’s horrible,” Jeter said. He twisted in his seat then pulled a pad of paper from his desk drawer. He had a near-photographic memory, but he still took copious notes on everything. “Where?”
“They’re telling me the plane overshot McMurdo—”
“McMurdo? He’s in Antarctica?”
“Yes. Are you aware of the Lake Vostok research project?”
“Vaguely,” Jeter said, regretting the lie. “Something about an underground—I mean under-ice lake and some debatable environmental changes. The Pentagon sent a crew down there.”
“That’s right. My son Perry was leading the research team.”
“Really? I thought he was an engineer or architect—”
“Forgive me, Mr. Jeter, but none of that matters. What matters is that my son’s plane is missing and assumed lost at sea after overshooting McMurdo.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. What can we do?”
“Perry shouldn’t have been on that plane. It was supposed to ferry back six of my employees and six navy Seabees. Furthermore, I’m having trouble believing that the pilot could overshoot their intended destination and then fall into the sea.”
“But that’s what the experts are saying?”
“Experts can be wrong. I’m an expert, and I know how often I’m wrong.”
“Give me all the facts.” Sachs did, and Jeter scribbled notes. “I’ll share this with the president.”
“I want someone to check out the research site,” Sachs said, not as a request but as something that could not be refused. “I know the military has means of satellite surveillance. We built the building that houses the electronics.”
“And you want the president to order that kind of surveillance?”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll tell the president, Mr. Sachs, and I know he wishes the best for your son. As I do.”
“Thank you.”
Jeter hung up the phone and reviewed the notes on his desk. He pulled the paper from the pad, turned his chair, and dropped it into the hungry teeth of a shredder. In less than a second, the paper was reduced to tiny squares of confetti.
He rose from the chair. Something on his desk caught his attention: his keys. He picked them up and noticed an adornment he had carried since college: a small oven-fired clay cylinder with six sides. Etched into its surface was a dragon.
He placed the keys in his pants pocket and left to meet with the president.
Chapter 18
Perry watched, concerned, as Griffin squirmed, fidgeted, and appeared to be an eyelash away from a nervous breakdown. Perry had seen what stress and fear could do to a man. Tia had just ordered them to their feet. They all rose, but Griffin began to rock like a metronome.
“Why can’t you just leave us alone?” he said. “We don’t have anything you could possibly want.”
“Oh, but you do,” Tia said. “Now stand up.”
“No, I’m staying here. You have no right to do this.”
Perry tried to sum up his situation. Bound, held at gunpoint, isolated at the bottom of the world, he had never been so powerless. Now he feared Griffin was going to make things worse.
“Calm down, Griffin,” Perry said. “It’s best if we do what they say.”
“No! Don’t tell me to calm down. You’re probably in on this. You can’t fool me. This is all part of your plan.”
“Griffin,” Jack began.
“Shut up! Go away, all of you. Leave me alone.”
“Yeah, like that’s going to happen,” one of the guards said.
Griffin spit on him.
“That does it.” The man raised his weapon.
“No!” Perry shouted.
The gun went off, and Perry expected to see a spray of red. Instead, he saw the guard land hard on the floor, Jack on top of him and the machine gun skittering across the floor. The guard next to Perry raised his gun but not far. Perry lowered a shoulder and charged, connecting with the small of the man’s back. The man fell forward but was on his feet a half-second later. The guard spun and punched him on the side of the head, and scorching pain raced down Perry’s neck. Another swing caught him in the midsection. Perry gasped for air.
Jack fared no better. Tia calmly stepped to his side and kicked him hard with her booted foot. Perry heard a rib crack. Jack rolled to his side, and Tia gave him another kick, just above the kidney.
The downed guard sprang to his feet and looked for his weapon. Tia raised a hand and stopped him. She walked over to the ownerless gun, picked it up, and brought it to the man, who said thank-you sheepishly.
Tia smiled and shot him in the chest. “I said no one is to be killed unless I order it. Drag him outside.”
The two remaining guards took their fallen companion under the arms and dragged him from the room.
Perry struggled to his feet then fell into the chair he had been sitting in a few moments before. His wind was coming back, but not fast enough. Jack lay on the floor, rolling from side to side.
“I have only been here a few minutes,” Tia said, “and I’m already tired of all of you.” She stepped to Griffin, who stared at the spot where the dead man had lain only seconds before. His eyes were wide and his face bloodless. She backhanded him so hard he fell from the chair. “You will do as I say, when I say, and without question. Do you understand?”
“Yes . . . yes, ma’am.”
“Get up. We’re going to the other building.”
“What? Not again.”
A hand clamped over her mouth, and Sarah jumped, ready to scream when the fearful reality of her situation came back to mind. The darkness of the crate covered her, and she froze. She gently touched the hand over her mouth, and Gwen removed it. Sarah said nothing. Outside she heard movement—feet on ice. She could also hear smaller boxes being moved.
They were looking for them. It was only a matter of time before they checked the shipping crate. Would they shoot them right there, turning the wooden box into a coffin? Sarah pushed the thought from her mind.
The vague sleepiness that hovered in her mind told her she had had another episode. Coming out of it, she had almost given away their position. Her condition nearly proved to be the very thing she denied it was: a danger to others.
There was another sound: the air lock opening.
“Anything?” A woman’s voice.
“No, ma’am. There’s no sign of them. Maybe the navy guy was telling the truth.”
Sarah wished she could see. At least then she would have more information. For now, she was blind and contained. There was enough room in the crate for them to prop up on an elbow but no more. She reached forward and touched Gwen’s leg, and she felt Gwen’s hand take hers and give it a squeeze.
It was silly, she thought, two grown women with Ph.D.s holding hands like schoolgirls.
Still, it gave her a measure of comfort.
Perry led the group into the Chamber. It was cold, but he felt fortunate that his attackers hadn’t removed his parka before securing his hands. When he stepped through the air lock, he saw the two men sent in search of Gwen and Sarah milling around the loading area. He was relieved but puzzled that they were empty-handed. Where could they have hidden? Surely—and he prayed this was true—they hadn’t stayed outside. They were too smart for that, but panic had a way of rendering the wisest people fools.