by Tom Clancy
Scarborough inhaled sharply, all nerves. He was sweating under his innermost layer of apparel. Sweating torrents in the below-zero cold. The wagons had since been redubbed Light Strike Vehicles and given a bunch of munitions upgrades that made them even deadlier, but call them whatever you wanted, one of those swift automotive killing machines was highballing straight at him. He had no time to wonder who had launched it. The vehicle was fully manned and armed. That was enough for him to know his party was in desperate trouble.
He lowered the binocs, looked urgently around for cover.
Cerberus’s steep grade was banded by a thirty-foot zone of loose, pebbly scree. No protection on that side. A large block of stone heaving up out of the sand near the fractured left slope was their only bet.
Scarborough grabbed Bradley’s elbow. “We have to move, get to that outcrop.”
She eyed the oncoming assault vehicle, emitted a breathless gasp of confusion and horror. The LSV had almost reached them. Long kerchiefs of sand streamed back from its spinning tires. The crewmen wore crash helmets, face masks, snow goggles, and wind-resistant camouflage outfits that melted seamlessly into the terrain. Scarborough made the heavy weapon sandwiched between the antitank tubes on its roof as an M-2 .50-caliber machine gun. The man in the gunner’s station was gripping its black metal handlebar triggers. In front of the passenger seat’s occupant was a pintle-mounted M-60 machine gun—smaller but no less capable of blowing a human being to bits and pieces.
“My God.” Bradley was frantic. “That car . . . Alan . . . the guns on it . . .”
“Just come on!” Scarborough tugged hard on her arm, looked over at Payton. He was still a blank, lock-limbed mannequin. “Both of you, let’s go or we’re dead!”
His shouted warning finally snapped Payton out of his daze. Scarborough motioned him toward the outcrop and then broke for it, clinging to Bradley’s arm, half dragging her along at his side. A slight woman, she weighed about 115 pounds under the bulk of her packs and clothing, and would be unable keep pace without help.
Scarborough and Bradley had almost reached the big protuberance of rock, Payton trailing by a step or two, when their attackers opened fire. The rattle of the machine gun was deafening as its ammunition slapped the ground at their backs. Scarborough shoved Bradley behind the outcrop, dove after her, landed on his belly. He heard another crackle of gunfire on the other side, a grunt, and pushed himself to his knees, dirt spilling from his trouser legs. A hurried glance around the rock’s edge confirmed what he’d feared. Payton was sprawled on the ground, his garments ruptured with bullet holes, steam rising into the air from his wounds. There was blood on him, around him, everywhere.
Warm red blood flowing from his gaudy red coat into the parched-red cold-desert sand.
Scarborough dropped back into cover, looked at Bradley.
“You okay?” he whispered.
She stared at him wordlessly as if the question hadn’t registered. Then a shadow fell over their huddled forms. The LSV had jolted to a halt just beyond the rock, practically on top of them.
He reached out and gripped her arm again. “Are you okay?”
This time she nodded.
“Good,” he said. “Listen, Shevaun. We’ve got to surrender to these people.”
Bradley seemed astonished by the idea. She rejected it with a shake of her head.
“No, no, we can’t,” she said. “We don’t even know what they want.”
“Doesn’t matter. We want to live.”
She hesitated. “Payton . . . did you see . . . is he . . . ?”
“It’s too late for him.” Scarborough heard the LSV’s engine purring with soft, certain threat. “Giving ourselves up is our only chance. But I won’t make the call. We both need to decide this.”
She took a couple of sharp, agitated breaths.
Scarborough waited. He could hear the engine purring. It sounded like an eager jungle cat.
“All right,” she said. “I’m with you.”
He saw her start to tremble, reached out for her hand, held it. “When we stand up, put your arms above your head. And keep them there. Okay?”
Bradley nodded.
“Don’t let go of me,” she said. “I can do this. But don’t let go.”
Scarborough eased his head above the edge of the rock. The vehicle had stopped not five feet away, its crew facing him in impassive silence. Sunlight glinted off the four racked headlamps on its impact bar. He tried to keep his eyes off the machine guns positioned above them, off Payton’s limp body on the ground below. Tried to tunnel his gaze onto the man in the driver’s seat. He wasn’t sure he could continue suspending his panic otherwise.
“We’re American researchers!” he shouted. “We have no weapons!”
More silence except for the steady idling hum of the vehicle’s engine.
Scarborough swallowed past a lump in his throat. “Do you understand? We’re unarmed!”
There was another tick of silence. Then the LSV’s driver turned to the man in the passenger seat, spoke to him in a language Scarborough didn’t understand, turned back toward the outcrop.
“Move away from the rock,” he said. His English was thickly accented. “Now.”
Scarborough looked at Bradley. He could feel her fingers pressing into his hand through its double layer of gloves, and tightened his own grip.
“Ready?” he asked her.
“Ready.”
The two of them rose, slowly, their arms raised high, his right hand still clutching her left. Then they stepped out from behind the outcrop.
“Stop where you are,” the driver said, studying them. “Turn toward me.”
They complied with his orders, hands linked above their heads, sharing their strength, their courage, facing their unknown attackers together.
That was the way they were standing when the man in the passenger seat trained the long black barrel of his machine gun upon them and also did precisely as he’d been ordered.
TWO
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA
MARCH 1, 2002
WITH ITS ARCTIC-BLUE BODY, CORAL SIDE COVES, AND beige vinyl interior, the ’57 Corvette roadster was the car of Pete Nimec’s dreams. A bolt of glorious inspiration captured in streamlined fiberglass and a classy flourish of chrome, delivering decisive 283 dual-four-barrel go without showoff extravagance. Just over six thousand of them had hit showroom floors across the USA, and just under two hundred were pumped with Ramjet fuel injection, a handful out of a scarce, exquisite handful that were still around and running a half century later.
A ’57 Corvette fuelie. Reconditioned to its original Chevrolet standards, including minor production-line imperfections. Probably worth upwards of a hundred, a hundred fifty thou, assuming you could find one for sale or auction.
And it was Nimec’s.
Which is to say, he owned it outright.
Owned it from the crossed-flag badge over its toothy front grille back to the big twin exhaust pipes at its tail. Owned it from the removable hardtop down to the wide whitewall tires. Owned it, his dream car, and by surprise no less, having received it at his condominium with a decorative red bow and handwritten note of appreciation taped to its wraparound windshield, an unexpected present from the man he admired most in all the world.
On any other morning, Nimec would have been in an unsinkable state of bliss. And he had been while driving to UpLink’s Rosita Avenue headquarters with his Wonderbar dash radio tuned to an oldies station, while pulling the ’Vette into his reserved underground parking slot, while riding the elevator to his office on the twenty-fifth floor.
But now that mood was heavy and flat, punctured by a single click of the mouse next to his computer.
He checked his watch as his telephone bleeped. Nine o’clock. Gordian would have already arrived at work.
“Nimec,” he answered.
It was the boss, as anticipated.
“Pete, you’d better come on up here.”
“This
about Megan’s e-mail?”
“Yes.”
“I just read it myself,” Nimec said. “Be right with you.”
He cradled the receiver and whisked out into the corridor.
Minutes later Nimec entered Gordian’s reception room, tipped a brisk salute to Norma, got her nod of admittance, stepped over to the heavy oak inner door that she guarded like a vigilant gryphon, and rapped twice as he shouldered it open.
He stood inside the doorway and waited. Roger Gordian sat at his desk in front of the floor-to-ceiling window with its view of the city skyline and, east of downtown, the solid heave of Mount Hamilton above the Santa Clara foothills. A look at him told two stories. One was about the lingering physical effects of the biological assassination attempt he’d survived last year. The other was about the force of will that had been as vital to his recovery as the gene-blocker codes grabbed during a scalpel raid on the germ factory in Ontario. This was in November, shortly before Thanksgiving. It would always stick in Nimec’s memory, the time of year it happened, because Gordian had revived from his coma precisely on Thanksgiving Day, his awakening a grace that, like so many, had been attained with terrible bloodshed and sacrifice.
Thanksgiving, not quite four months ago. It seemed longer.
Gordian had gained some weight since his illness, but was much thinner than before. Its ravages had left noticeable marks on his features: the pale cheeks, the slight wiriness of his graying hair, the finely veined skin at his temples, the dark hollows under his eyes. But his eyes themselves radiated an undiminished intensity and brightness. He was better, and with time would be better still.
What troubled Nimec on occasion was knowing that few great losses were ever reclaimed in total.
He tried not to let his thoughts slide in that direction right now.
“You knocked,” Gordian said.
“Don’t I always?”
Gordian shook his head. “It started after I got back.”
Nimec sat across the desk from him.
“Really?” Nimec said.
“Really.” Gordian shrugged. “Of course, my observation doesn’t imply an absolute preference.”
Nimec rubbed his chin. “Might just be a passing fad anyway.”
Gordian smiled a little and was quiet. The picture frame in his hands was sized for an 8X10 photograph. Nimec couldn’t see the display side from his chair, but realized Gord had been looking at it when he came in.
“With the bad news from Cold Corners, I’m thinking maybe this isn’t the right time to thank you,” Nimec said. “Except I can’t think of one that would be righter. The car, well . . .”
He paused a moment, at a loss for words.
Gordian regarded him from across the desk. “Do you like it?”
“Yeah,” Nimec said. “It’s . . . choice.”
“And it arrived okay?”
“Last night. A guy rolls it up to my building, has the doorman buzz the intercom, tell me somebody’s dropped off an oversized package. That I might want to come down to the lobby and get it.”
Gordian nodded approvingly.
“He can follow a script,” he said.
Nimec looked at him. “You didn’t have to—”
“—let you know how much I value everything you’ve done for me over the past decade? I’m the person who needs to be grateful, Pete.”
Nimec kept looking at him.
“Hard to believe it’s been ten years,” Nimec said.
“To the day,” Gordian said.
Another pause.
“Still,” Nimec said. “I’ve got a pretty fair idea what that car must have set you back. . . .”
“I can afford it.”
“That isn’t the point. . . .”
“Would you have preferred something more conventional? Say, a jeweled tie clip and cuff link set? You’ve never seemed one for dressing up.”
“I’m security chief,” Nimec said. “You hired me to manage the protection of our employees and corporate facilities. And I do it the best way I know how.” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t deserve the job if I gave less.”
“Enough,” Gordian said. “There aren’t many companies engaged in the sort of high-risk ventures UpLink International tackles. I could mention a dozen offhand that would pay whatever salary you demand, without requiring that you be on standby to zip off around the world in a flash. We both know why you’re here. Why you stay. So ease up and enjoy the car. I was thinking it would complement the old Wurlitzer jukebox and soda bar in that ratty pool hall of yours.”
Nimec raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t realize you’d heard about it.”
“Murmurs and whispers,” Gordian said. “I’d be glad to see it sometime. Test my skill at Fourteen-one Continuous.”
Nimec gave his surprise a chance to wane.
“You’re on,” he said.
Gordian nodded, his face becoming serious. He took a slow, deep breath that worked as a kind of unintentional segue.
“Now,” he said. “We need to talk about Antarctica.”
“Yeah,” Nimec said.
Gordian hesitated. He glanced down at the picture frame again, then back at Nimec.
“The missing search team,” he said. “Do you know any of its members?”
Nimec shook his head. “I’ve read their personnel files. That’s about it.”
“I’ve met them all at one time or another,” Gordian said. “My association with Dave Payton and Shevaun Bradley has been strictly in connection with the rover project. They’re top people in their field. And they’re our people.”
They looked at each other in silence. Our people. Nimec fully grasped the connotations of that short phrase. Nothing meant more to Gordian than the safety of his employees in the far-flung regions where UpLink had established many of its outposts. His Dream, capital D, was to bring greater freedom, prosperity, and stability to the citizens of corrupt and oppressive governments by opening them up to information that otherwise might be blocked by their political leadership. Staking his legacy on the old axiom that knowledge was democracy’s best tool, he’d brainstormed and funded the world’s largest telecommunications network with a fortune earned in military aviation technology. That had involved building and staffing satellite ground station facilities on some very dangerous turf. It had also made him some very serious enemies. Bad guys in places high and low got touchy when their control was threatened. Thus Gordian had spared no cost putting together a global corporate security division superior to the armed forces of many countries. Dubbed Sword, it was conceived as an antidote to their enemies’ rabid impulses. A way of staying a step ahead of them. But the unpredictable was always a factor. Sometimes the enemy had the cunning and stealth to lurk beneath your radar until he was ready to strike. Sometimes his claws were sharper, and his reflexes quicker, than you thought. And sometimes it was just a fluke accident that got you where it hurt.
If experience had taught Nimec anything, it was that there was no guaranteed inoculation against human vulnerability.
“What can you tell me about the guide?” he said. “Scarborough . . . that his name?”
“Alan Scarborough,” Gordian said. “We were introduced at our send-off for the original outfitting crew at Cold Corners. He’s ex-Marine, took officer training at A&M, saw combat as a platoon commander in the Persian Gulf . . . 2nd Division, I think. A strapping, brawny Texan with a personality to match. The type of man that you like right away. And feel you can depend on whatever the circumstances.”
“Understandable why Meg would choose him to head the expedition.”
Gordian nodded.
“If his party was in distress, I’m convinced Scarborough could manage the situation until help arrived. And he wouldn’t need to wait for Cold Corners to launch a rescue effort. There are scattered NSF encampments closer by. Helicopters regularly fly out of McMurdo Station to monitor them and provide emergency aid. Short term, he’d have access to reserve caches of food and medical supplies that have b
een airdropped throughout the valley system.”
“If Scarborough’s as competent as you say, I’d expect him to send out an SOS,” Nimec said. “But he doesn’t. One morning his team starts out from camp. Next thing you know they’re gone.”
Gordian took another deep breath, released it.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s the bottom line.”
Nimec was thoughtful.
“There family members we need to contact?” he asked.
“Payton’s divorced, with a teenaged son. Bradley’s single. The next of kin listed on her employment record is a sister in New Mexico.”
“And Scarborough?”
“No wife. No children. No siblings. Parents deceased.”
Nimec looked at him.
“Sort of makes us his only family.”
“Yes.”
They sat without speaking. Gordian stared at the picture in his hands for a long time, holding its frame by the edges with particular gentleness, almost as if it was fragile to the touch. Then he turned it so the photo behind the glass was facing Nimec.
Nimec recognized the sixtyish couple in it immediately. The man had thick, wavy silver hair, an intelligent face, and wore wireless spectacles perched high on his nose. The woman next to him was a slender, fine-boned beauty that age had transformed without diminution. They wore elegant formal clothing, and stood posed before a shimmery portrait backdrop the color of rose petals.
“The Steiners,” Nimec said. His voice was low. “Jesus, they made a good-looking pair.”
“Yes.”
More silence.
Arthur and Elaine Steiner had been maintenance technicians at the UpLink compound in Russia when it was attacked by hired terrorists some years back. Hours before the strike they drove out into the countryside to investigate a power failure and never returned. Their bloody bodies and wrecked jeep were found once the offensive was repelled, in a blast crater torn into the ground by a rocket grenade. They had come to a bad place at the worst possible time, crossing paths with the hit squad, who’d knocked out the electrical lines as they rolled on toward the compound.