Beneath the Ice

by Alton Gansky

  “Power failure!” Gleason shouted. “The suit has lost power. He’s in trouble.”

  There was a pause of disbelief, then Jack sprung into action. “Talk to me, people.”

  Sarah started. “I have no telemetry at all. No communication, no video feed, nothing, but my computer is still up. Gleason is right. The suit must have lost power. It doesn’t seem to be on our end.”

  “Gleason, you’re with me.” Jack spun on his heels and ran to-ward the support gantry. “Maybe something came loose. You take the electronics; I’ll take mechanics.”

  “Got it.”

  It was only a few steps to the open hole in the ice, but it seemed like a mile to Jack. He had made three strides when, for a reason Jack couldn’t fathom, a guard stepped in front of him and raised his weapon. Jack didn’t slow. He slapped the gun aside with his left hand and seized the man’s parka with his right. In a single fluid motion he shoved the gunman as hard as he could. The man’s feet left the ice, and he landed on his back, sliding several feet. Three additional steps and Jack was by the support structure. First he traced the cable that was attached to his friend. It seemed normal. A gauge measuring line tension read well within safety parameters.

  “Connections are good on this end,” Gleason said. “Maybe it’s the generator. The systems generator runs independently from the ones that power the facility.”

  “Good idea. Check that. I’m pulling him in.” He reached for the control that would begin rewinding the long cable.

  The room went dark.

  “I’ve lost everything,” Sarah shouted. “Computer is completely down.”

  “What’s going on?” Enkian asked.

  “I wish I knew,” Jack said. “We’ve got to get the power back up. Gleason, go.”

  “Wait,” Enkian ordered. “How do I know this isn’t a trick?”

  “Because my best friend is freezing to death,” Jack said. “Either help or get out of the way.”

  “Why would the power go out?” Enkian demanded to know.

  “That’s a good question, and I have another one for you: Why haven’t the backups kicked in?”

  Perry’s air had been cut off, and it was already getting thick. He raised his left arm and looked at the control panel. Without his lights, he could see nothing except a small red dot in the bottom left corner. He tapped it and the fans came back to life, air began to circulate, and his lights were restored. The emergency batteries and oxygen were working, but they would not last for long.

  How had he lost power so suddenly? He checked the projected gauges on his faceplate. Batteries were just under 100 percent, but they would drain fast. He did the one thing he didn’t want to do: He turned off the lights. The Stygian gloom swallowed him whole.

  A sense of helplessness washed over him. There was no place to go, no way to help himself. He couldn’t swim to the surface. He might make it to the hole, but he could never climb it. He was dependent on Jack and the others to bring him up.

  He weighed the possibilities. Once his air was gone—and he only had thirty minutes in reserve—he would die. He toyed with the idea of removing his helmet in hopes that the ice cavern was filled with breathable air. He doubted it was. It was possible that there was oxygen in the chamber but equally possible that the gases surrounding him were noxious. These were things they would have tested had they been given time. Enkian had put an end to that. It was a moot point anyway. Perry had no way to take off his helmet. Getting into the suit and exiting required help. Aside from smashing the face mask, he was stuck, and if he did something so foolish he would be imprisoned in the small cavern. It would only be a matter of time before the cold killed him.

  He thought of Hairy lying useless a few feet underwater. There was oxygen on board the probe, a tank used to control buoyancy by expelling water to help it dive. But that tank was deep in the device, and he had no tools to open it.

  His hope lay above him, in the hands of friends, and beyond that, in the hands of God.

  Jeter hadn’t been told so, but he was sure there was more security around him, and they were there not to protect him but to monitor his activities. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. He had just received word that his daughter was still safe in the care of the Secret Service, but he couldn’t rest easy. The ancient cult had fingers all the way into the White House, and he was just one small intrusion. It still amazed him that Larry Shomer was part of the conspiracy. The man was the head of Homeland Security. Add to that the head of the Joint Chiefs, General McDivett. He felt sick just thinking about it.

  He opened his eyes to dispel the nightmare that was beginning and saw President Calvert standing in the doorway. His tie was loose, his collar was unbuttoned, and he wore no suit coat. He did, however, wear a worn and pained look. He had not been to bed since the previous night.

  Jeter sucked in a deep breath then let it out. He picked up the phone and dialed for an outside line. A moment later he said, “It’s done.” As he hung up, he noticed his hand was shaking.

  “It was a brave thing to do,” Calvert said, entering the room.

  “Do you know what I just did?”

  Calvert nodded. “Yes, I do. Your country appreciates it. Even more so, I appreciate it.”

  Jeter rubbed his chin nervously. “She’s the only daughter I have. We wanted other children, but it was never in the cards.”

  “You haven’t lost her,” Calvert said. “I’ve ordered extra security. She’s being flown home right now.”

  “How long?” Jeter asked. “How long can we count on that extra security? At some point it runs out, and then what? For all I know, her greatest danger may come disguised as an agent of the Secret Service. Just yesterday morning two members were sitting on the sofa opposite you.”

  “Those two will be no immediate trouble,” Calvert said. “They’re vacationing at Camp David until I can figure out what to do with them.”

  “But they weren’t alone,” Jeter said. “I never thought of this organization as anything more than a type of lodge, but here they are in the upper reaches of our government and probably significant governments around the world.” He shook his head again. “Every-where. They are everywhere.”

  “And so are brave men like you.”

  Perry turned and walked back into the water. Death was rounding the bend, but he had no intention of waiting on it. He had activated the lights long enough to get his bearings and reenter the frigid waters. It was a simple plan, one most likely to fail. To do nothing, though, made failure certain.

  Once in the water, he fixed his gaze on the line that hung limply in the current. It was the current he was counting on. From the moment he emerged beneath the ice, he had been battling the moderate flow. Now he would use it. His hope was that he could make it to the hole. Perhaps Jack and Gleason would figure out a way to reach him.

  He sighed. It was a stupid plan.

  There was a tug—a slight tug at his back. He started to turn when the suit spun 180 degrees. He was being pulled—pulled by the lifeline.

  “Way to go, boys,” he said, knowing no one could hear him. Perhaps they were reeling him in. It made sense. They had lost contact with him, so their only course of action was to bring him up.

  He wished they’d do it faster.

  “That’s not going to work,” Griffin said to Jack.

  Jack continued to pull on the cable, putting the strength of his back into it. “I’m not leaving him down there.” Utter terror pushed the searing pain from his wounds aside. A greater pain had replaced them.

  “I understand, but this is a waste of time.”

  Jack grunted and pulled on the cable with all his might.

  Griffin frowned. “Listen to me, Jack. You’re an engineer; do the math. If that cable weighs as little as two pounds per foot, then you’re trying to muscle ten tons. And even if you can move Perry to the bottom of the hole, you won’t be able to lift him. He weighs 180 and is wearing a suit that weighs at least that much. Do you re
ally think you can tow him up a two-mile-long shaft?”

  “I’m not giving up on him!”

  “I’m not asking you to,” Griffin said.

  “Then what?”

  “I’m asking you to think like an engineer.”

  Jack lowered his head and, with a reluctance conquered only by will, released the cable. He had managed to pull up several feet of the cable, which snaked down the hole the moment he let go. Griffin was right, and it pained him to admit it. Footsteps behind him made him raise his head. It was Gleason, looking as white as the ice he stood upon.

  “Sabotage,” he said, his breath coming hard. “Something’s been done to the generators. I can’t get them restarted, and even if I could, the cables have been cut in at least three places.”

  “Who would do that?” Griffin wondered. “Why would someone do that? It’s suicide.”

  Jack’s mind was spinning like the wheels on an Indy car. Think. Think. “Look for simple answers to hard problems,” he muttered.

  “What?” Gleason asked.

  “Something Perry always says. Look for simple answers to hard problems.” He paused. “Even if we get the generators going, we can’t run the power through severed lines. Perry will freeze by the time we get things running again, if we can get them running.”

  He looked around the Chamber—there was nothing that would help. His mind took a quick inventory of everything he had seen in the camp. He shook his head. Nothing. Nothing. He forced his mind to reevaluate the situation again. “We have two choices: Either we get power to Perry, or we get him up here fast.”

  “That’s been taken out of our hands,” Griffin said.

  “I want answers!” Enkian strode to the three men, his face red with rage.

  “I got nothing but questions myself, chief,” Jack said. Then he stopped. He quickly explained what Gleason had found. “I’m assuming there are those in your personal army that know something about engines. Find them and get them to work on the generators.”

  Enkian didn’t move.

  “You do want your precious brick, don’t you?” Jack said.

  Enkian growled then called for Tia, who jogged to his side. “Get some men working on the generators.”

  “Don’t let anyone work alone,” Jack said. “Put people in groups of three or four. Our saboteur is still around.”

  “You can’t be suggesting that one of my own did this?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting, because I know my crew didn’t. It’s our man down there. There isn’t one of us . . .” He paused then shook his head. “When was the last time anyone saw Larimore?”

  “He went to the head,” Gleason said. “A guard went with him.”

  Jack looked at Enkian. “Is your guard back?”

  “I’ll know soon enough.”

  “One more thing, pal,” Jack said. “I need your pilot, and I need him now.”

  “No one leaves.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Jack said. “Just get me your pilot.” He turned to Gleason. “Gleas, I need a few things.”

  “Give me a list.”

  “‘A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity,’” Perry said into his helmet. His breath fogged the faceplate. Without the circulating fans operating at speed, the mist stuck, obscuring a large portion of his vision. He tried to relax, to slow his breathing. Of one thing he was certain: If he died down here, it wouldn’t be because Jack and Gleason had failed to try. His life was in their hands now, and he was content to leave it there and with God.

  The tugging he had felt earlier had stopped a minute after it had begun. Perry had waited for it to resume, but it didn’t happen. That’s when he chose to make his way back to the entry point, to the hole. It had taken battery power to run the propellers, but he had been patient and the current helped.

  He wondered why he bothered to make the trip. He had no idea how being near the entry point to the lake would aid him, but it was something he felt he needed to do. Perhaps he wanted to be as close to his friends as possible. Or maybe they would lower something down the shaft. What that might be, he couldn’t imagine.

  Perry floated. Perry waited.

  Once he had followed the line back, he clamped a manipulator hand on the cable and went limp, trying to conserve oxygen. He was on his back, the ice ceiling inches from his head.

  The journey had brought bad news. He had used more power than expected. That puzzled him until he realized that he was not only moving himself but towing a quarter mile of cable be-hind him.

  He waited. And waited.

  Something squirted by his helmet, startling him. It disappeared then returned. Perry smiled.

  “Well, hello,” he said to the small fish that hung suspended near his visor. It was only an inch long, as white as the ice, and had no eyes. A ribbon of bioluminescence ran from gill to tail.

  It moseyed over the plastic shield, occasionally pecking at the smooth surface. It made Perry’s eyes cross. “You like my heads-up display? The amber lights, is that it?” He admired the beauty of

  the tiny fish and wondered how a fish without eyes could sense light. Some light-sensitive organ, he imagined. “I know someone who would like to meet you,” he said. “Her name is Dr. Gwen James. Of course, she’s a biologist, so she might want to cut

  you open.”

  The fish swam away. “Was it something I said?” He giggled. The comment was funny, but Perry had reduced the airflow in the suit as much as possible. He was getting light-headed. He shivered, and his bones hurt in the marrow. Another muscle spasm. Another pain. His lungs protested the lack of air.

  Waiting was such grueling work.

  “Got it,” Gleason said as he tightened the last nut on the large U-bolt he had placed around the support cable. Gleason slid it up and down. “That should hold.”

  Jack glanced at the work. Gleason had raced with Jack to the utility shed that held tools, spare parts, bolts, screws, wires, cable, and other supplies left over from the construction of the two domes and two support buildings. They wasted no time in cobbling together the new means of raising Perry to the top.

  “We’re ready on my end,” Jack said. He looked over his shoulder and checked once again that the steel cable he had pulled from the shed ran unobstructed from the gantry through the Chamber and out the loading door, which had been propped open.

  A rumble reverberated its way into the dome. It was a sweet sound to Jack.

  “Are you sure this is going to work?” Griffin asked. “It looks a little iffy to me.”

  “I’m open to other ideas,” Jack said. “Got any?”

  Griffin shook his head.

  “How about prayer?” Dr. Curtis said.

  “That hasn’t stopped, Doc,” Jack said.

  “Let’s get on with it,” Enkian said. He stood just a few steps away, his eyes never leaving Jack and the others. Several of his armed men stood behind him.

  Jack raised a hand radio to his mouth. It had been given to him by Enkian, something Jack knew he wouldn’t have done if Perry wasn’t hanging on to something he wanted. “Radio check,” Jack said.

  “I’ve got you,” the pilot’s voice came back.

  Jack walked to the open door and looked out into the dim light. The Casa 212 airplane Tia and her crew had used sat a short

  distance away. His first thought had been to take power off the plane’s electrical system, but Enkian refused to let him dismantle anything. The next best thing was to attach a cable to the back skid and run it to the steel ring around the support cable that was hooked to Perry’s suit.

  “This is a lousy way to do business,” he grumbled to himself. He raised the radio again. “Slowly. Please make it slow.”

  The props began to roar, and the aircraft moved forward a few inches, then a few feet.

  Gleason joined Jack. “Now all we have to do is hope the tow cable holds.”

  “And that the pilot doesn’t taxi too fast, or too far, or that Perry doesn�
�t hit the hole at an angle . . .”

  “Okay, I got it.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been this frightened,” Jack admitted.

  “Me either.”

  The plane moved forward, and slowly the support line began to feed over the gantry pulleys. The feed drum was locked down so only the cable that was strung over the support frame moved. The ring slid smoothly along the line as the plane taxied forward.

  Jack returned to the shaft and watched as the line began to feed upward. “Hang on, my friend,” he whispered. “Hang on.”

  Chapter 30

  The darkness around him thickened, pressing in on his dive suit. Perry’s chest expanded as he struggled to pull oxygen from the air. He had reduced the oxygen flow as much as he thought he could stand and remain conscious. Consciousness was proving to be the problem. Several times he had drifted into the darkness of his mind only to pull himself out by a sheer act of will. He raised the control panel and elevated the airflow. His head was pounding as if a demolition ball were swinging in his skull.

  The fish was still there with its running lights of color streaming along its side. The creature hovered just above his face shield, lit by its own light and the meager illumination from the heads-up display projected on the edges of the plastic. Scripture came to mind. Before leaving on the mission, Perry had been studying the book of Job. It was fascinating, puzzling, and profound, the story of undeserved suffering. “ ‘Speak to the earth, and let it teach you; and let the fish of the sea declare to you.’ ” He smiled. “Is that what you’re doing, little buddy? Declaring the power of God?”

  A spasm quaked through him, making his aching muscles pro-test and his joints scream in pain. His jaw shook uncontrollably. The cold was winning.

  The batteries were dying faster than expected. Maybe it was the depth, or the cold, or bad design; Perry didn’t know. Nor did it matter. Death was coming in the blackness, its arms stretched out like tentacles. Perry didn’t fear it. He had no desire to die, but he knew that all men faced it. It was just that he never expected to die this way, alone under miles of ice. Another thing bothered him: Death would free him, but his friends were still in danger. That truth ate at him like acid.