Tom Clancy's Power Plays 5 - 8

by Tom Clancy

  Waylon shook his head.

  “MacTown has a fella who tours during the holiday season,” he said. “That’s about all.” He was thoughtful. “A lot of us on the ice, we get to feel religious without observing a particular religion. I don’t know why that is. Or maybe I do and can’t express it just right. But being here kind of shaves the differences between people. You step outside the buildings and tunnels, look at what’s around you, what nature’s really about, and you realize nobody’s any bigger or smaller in the big picture than anyone else.”

  Waylon swallowed, then looked down the white spun-bonded bag containing his deceased comrade.

  “We want a service, but don’t know what the hell kind we’re supposed to give him.”

  Nimec was thoughtful in the cold silence of the utilidor chamber.

  “We’ll figure something out,” he said.

  Nimec was in Megan Breen’s office minutes after arising from the utilidor, his ECW outer garments doffed and stashed in a clothing locker.

  “You get a callback from Gord yet?” he said.

  Megan regarded him across her desk.

  “Yes,” she said. “And he’s heard from the Secretary of State.”

  “What’s Bowen’s reaction to what happened to us?”

  “I suppose it falls somewhere between worry and utter astonishment,” she said. “But he’s conceded that we’re best able to deal with it ourselves for now.”

  “Conceded?”

  Megan nodded.

  “He isn’t happy about it,” she said. “In the view of the United States we’re a commissioned government outpost that has come under enemy attack. At the same time, Article 1 of the Antarctic Treaty bars, and I quote, ‘all military activities, including weapons testing’ from the continent. It goes on to make an exception for military personnel and equipment used for scientific purposes, but that’s not pertinent. What is, is that the treaty was reinforced by the ’91 Madrid Protocol on Environmental Protection . . . and that they combine to put DoS in a logistic and political quandary. The U.S. doesn’t have a ready force anywhere close to us that could launch an effective search and counterstrike. And this is so off the board, no one’s ever contemplated a straightforward mechanism that would allow America to launch an armed venture.”

  Nimec grunted.

  “Not knowing who came at us makes it more complicated,” he said. “You have to wonder whether it’s a foreign government or an independent operator. Maybe even the same sons of bitches who put out a hit on the boss.”

  “Agreed,” Megan said. “But let’s not jump ahead of ourselves. The outcome of Gord’s conversation with State is that we got what we wanted. They’re staying out of our way on this. Sword has been given an endorsement to act with broad discretion safeguarding Cold Corners against further threat, and it’s come from the highest level of government.”

  Nimec looked at her.

  “Deputy Pete,” he said.

  Megan smiled thinly. “Something like that.”

  Nimec nodded.

  “I’m going to snag Russ Granger right away,” he said. “He had the snow-movers digging out his helicopter even before the wheels-down order was lifted this morning. Looks like he intends on flapping back to McMurdo, but there’s no chance he leaves base without taking me out over the Valleys like we planned before the storm.”

  “However you choose to play it,” Megan said. “Under the circumstances—now that there’s no question we have enemies here—I thought you might elect to use one of our own pilots.”

  Nimec shook his head.

  “Not for the overflight,” he said. “You told me yourself that Granger knows the lay of the land better than anybody. And when I think about where those men in white came from, a big arrow pointing straight to Bull Pass flashes in my brain. If they’re down there and a bird with UpLink markings passes, you can bet they’re ducking for cover. Better they see one whose feathers they recognize and figure is harmless.”

  “Which makes Russ’s NSF chopper perfect, since he does Dry Valley runs all the time.”

  “Yeah,” Nimec said. “I wouldn’t have to tell him anything’s changed as far as the reason for our flyby. And it hasn’t really changed. How it looks to me now, I find the opening to a wolf den out there, I find where Scarborough’s team got dragged.”

  Megan mulled that a bit, then gave him a nod.

  “All right,” she said. “What’s next on our discussion list?”

  Nimec hesitated.

  “Before I came up here, I was in the utilidor with Waylon. Where we brought the bodies,” he said. “Waylon reminded me that we don’t have a clergyman to say anything for our man who was killed in the attack. When we send him off on the plane.”

  Megan looked at him.

  “Bill Sprague,” she said.

  Nimec nodded.

  “I promised we’d take care of it,” he said. “But I’m no good at words. And I don’t know that I’ll be back from the Valleys before the flights leave.”

  Megan sat in quiet thought.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll preside. That’s how it should be.”

  They fell into momentary silence again. Then Nimec gave her a nod.

  “I’d better suit up and get hold of the whirlybird man,” he said, pushing back his chair.

  Megan was watching him as he rose to leave. He noticed her steady attention and paused in front of her desk.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Just thinking,” Megan said.

  “Uh-huh. I kind of figured.”

  They looked at each other.

  “Well?” he said.

  “It’s something that’s probably none of my business,” Megan said.

  “Oh,” Nimec said. “So whose business is it?”

  Megan took a breath, released it.

  “Yours,” she said. “And Annie Caulfield’s.”

  Nimec stood there without saying anything.

  “Pete, I’m sure it isn’t news to you that Annie’s flying out with the Senators,” Megan said. “Good with words or not, you should talk to her before you leave. Or you’ll miss your chance.”

  They were both silent, their eyes in solid contact across opposite sides of the desk.

  “My chance,” Nimec said finally.

  “Yes.”

  “To talk.”

  “Yes.”

  “To Annie.”

  “Yes.”

  Nimec stared at her, his throat going dry all at once.

  “About?” he said.

  Megan waited to answer, looking at his nervous face, the barest suggestion of a smile on her lips.

  “That’s up to you, Deputy,” she said.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to help you,” Granger said. “I’m wishing like hell I still could help. But with the herbie slamming us as bad as it did, and our field camps trying to get their heads up above the snow, MacTown’s depending on me to check up on them.”

  “You can do it when we’re out,” Nimec said. “Seems to me that was almost exactly our original plan. I ride peter pilot while you make your rounds. And you detour us into the valley south of the notch.”

  Granger regarded him briefly, and then turned to watch a large rumbling dozer clear the chopper pad where his Bell remained half immersed in snow. Somnolent and dusky with winter’s near onset, the cloudless sky under which they stood seemed entirely incapable of spewing the fury it had heaped upon the coast for the past three days.

  “Flying isn’t the problem,” Granger said. “It’s ground conditions that won’t be the same now. Depending on what the camp teams need in the way of assistance, we could be stuck for hours every time I put her down.”

  “I can wait, give you a hand,” Nimec said. “Our side trip won’t take that much time.”

  Granger stood thinking his thoughts, his gaze following the bulldozer as it made a slow rolling circuit of the pad.

  Nimec tried to understand his sudden hedging.

  �
�Listen,” Nimec said. “I realize you’ve got bosses with their own priorities. And that they must be edgier than usual because of the storm. But we can send them one of our own pilots if that’s what it’ll take for you to be available.” He paused. “If Megan calls them, makes an official request, I guarantee they’ll listen.”

  Granger watched the dozer’s lowered scoop fill with snow and push it up high into one of several building mounds.

  Nimec didn’t press, giving him a chance to think things over.

  About a minute later Granger faced him again.

  “It’s better she doesn’t talk to the top dogs . . . you know how even the easiest solutions can get picked apart,” he said. “We ought to stick to how we already worked things out.”

  Nimec looked at him.

  “You saying we’re on again?” he said.

  “On,” Granger said. “And keeping it between ourselves.”

  Nimec nodded. He didn’t care how they did it, just as long as they were going.

  “Whatever works for you,” he said.

  Bull Pass

  Burkhart listened to Granger over their black phone line—and when Granger stopped talking, did not waste a moment telling him what needed to be done.

  Granger wasn’t surprised. In fact, he seemed quite ready.

  “I set this up, take care of this thing, it’ll be dangerous for me afterward,” he said. “You’ll have to get me away from here. Off the continent . . . maybe to South America. And I’m going to need money. Geld. Plenty of it. We can decide on a figure later. What’s important is that everything has to move very fast. Sehr schnell. That’s how you say it in your language, right?”

  Burkhart rubbed a fingertip over the mark on his cheek. The pilot was a low creature of venality and deceit. But then, where was his own claim to gallantry?

  “Execute your task,” he said. “I will see to the rest of the arrangements myself.”

  He terminated their call, put down the phone, and sat exceedingly still in his heated metal booth, the sounds of the subterranean mine loud around him.

  The machines were grinding.

  Sehr schnell.

  EIGHTEEN

  COLD CORNERS BASE, ANTARCTICA

  MARCH 16, 2002

  HIS PISTOL WAS A BERETTA 92 NINE-MILLIMETER, TOP of the line, with a stainless-steel barrel, black-matte finish, low recoil, and open-slide action. The same side arm used by the U.S. armed services, it couldn’t be beat for accuracy and reliability.

  A handsome weapon.

  Granger had never fired it except on practice ranges, never killed anything bigger than a rabbit in his life. He guessed that he was decent enough with a handgun, a better shot than your average person, although popping holes in a cardboard target that came gliding toward you down the lane was a far cry from taking out a human being. Or most likely was. The peculiar thing was that Granger had found himself without any moral or emotional constraints about the ruse he’d worked out, a setup that would have completely unstrung him once upon a time.

  Sure, he’d hoped it wouldn’t be necessary. Granger liked the money he was making hand over fist from the Consortium. He liked being where he was, and the freedom of living on the ice—liked his freedom, period—and got a little bothered knowing he would have to lose his income stream, jeopardize his personal safety, and go on the run. But he’d banked plenty over the last few years, heaped up a nice financial cushion in numbered Swiss and Cayman Island accounts.

  His concern was whether the snare would work. Conscience, guilt . . . he just didn’t harbor those feelings. In fact, he’d discovered that part of him, a strong part, actually enjoyed running all the way home with the devil.

  Peculiar thing.

  Seated in the cockpit of his Bell chopper, Granger carefully adjusted his parka, tugging and smoothing it until he was confident the side-arm holster underneath made no visible bulge. An hour had passed since he’d agreed to give Pete Nimec his ride in the sky, a bit less since he’d phoned Burkhart on his secure mobile phone, and Granger was about ready to charge up the bird. He had laddered through all the routine steps of a preflight systems check, looking over the gauges, video displays, and digital readouts on his control panel, inputting coordinates into his onboard GPS unit, testing his navigation and communications equipment. Outside, the cleanup crews were still making a racket with their bucket loaders, but most of the storm’s dumping of snow around the pad had been hauled off. Now Granger was only waiting for Nimec to return from Cold Corners One, where he’d gone to wrap up some unspecified last-minute affairs.

  Granger had tried to figure out what it was about the UpLink crew that had irritated him from the day they broke ground in Antarctica and that now gave an undeniable appeal to the proposition of his sticking it sharply into their gut. Whenever he thought it over, his mind would turn back to something one of the old VXE-6 Ice Pirates he’d known had told him right around the time their unit was being dissolved. What the guy claimed was that he and a couple of his flyboy buddies had decided their ceremonial good-bye to the continent would be to stroll off a ski way on their final Herc run, squat down, and empty their bowels right there on a patch of ice, leaving behind freeze-dried commemorative monuments that would last longer than any footprints they could make. In fact, they would probably last forever.

  Granger wasn’t sure if the crewmen had ever gone ahead with their distinctive hail-and-farewells, or if it was the sort of notion that would have occurred to them after too many beers in a Cheech watering hole and been forgotten once they sobered up the morning after. And he supposed that wasn’t important. It was the idea itself that had stayed with him. Granger remembered finding it funny in a crude sort of way. But there was also something more than a little bitter about it, something almost contemptuous, that had caused Granger to believe those flyboys had been eager for a parting shot. He hadn’t known at whom or what. Maybe the cold hell they were vacating. Maybe their superiors and Air Guard replacements for making them feel expendable. Maybe all three. He’d really never cared enough to wonder or ask.

  What Granger did know was that thinking about UpLink always left a comparably bitter taste in his mouth. He resented the fawning treatment they received from the Base Commander and NSF Directors at McMurdo, resented their instant prestige on the continent, especially resented how everybody jumped when their redheaded bitch-in-charge clicked her fingers, as if her entire perfect flock, hatched and delivered straight from the mother nest in San Jose, deserved whatever favors and assistance they wanted. He’d seen women like Megan Breen in action before, and they were very good at that—getting what they wanted by being nice but not too nice. Try taking it to a personal level, though, and they’d be all business, as Granger had told Chuck Trewillen that day at Marble Point. Breen wouldn’t even catch a hint that a guy was interested in her unless he rated as a notable. It hadn’t taken Granger long to see that he could never come into her radar . . . but he would have staked anything she was keeping her champion Pete Nimec from getting frostbitten at night during his visit to Cold Corners.

  Granger reached toward his controls, hit a switch to fire the Bell’s APU, and then settled back to let it warm. The auxiliary power unit would start his hydraulics, and it was important to be certain their line fluids were clear and circulating before he cranked the main turbines.

  It occurred to Granger now that UpLink’s closed-door, closed-mouth policy after the sabotage of their water-treatment facility had been what turned him onto his own drastic course. Nimec’s reasons for wanting to go ahead with the Dry Valley overflight plainly weren’t the same as they had been a little more than seventy-two hours ago. Couldn’t be. At that stage there had been no apparent space between the hero’s real and stated aims—he had wanted to begin looking for Alan Scarborough and the two beakers, who’d been thought to be victims of some kind of accident. But after the dome attack, the whole thrust of his search would have shifted. Breen and Nimec had learned they had enemies on the continent with a s
erious desire to shut down their operation, and would be figuring the lost S&R team had either fallen or been drawn into their hands. They would also figure those enemies were hidden somewhere in the rocks of Bull Pass. Yet Nimec had given Granger no tip-off that anything was different from before.

  In asking himself why, Granger had decided it didn’t mean he was under immediate suspicion, but was just further evidence of how UpLink would huddle up in secrecy when they were under fire. And when they were preparing to move. Even if he managed to steer Nimec away from the notch this time around, Granger knew the princely hero would return to investigate, probably with a Cold Corners pilot at the sticks, maybe going in with a whole damn squad of his own men.

  No, he thought, Nimec wouldn’t stop coming at it. Not unless he was stopped in his tracks. And that would itself barely postpone the inevitable.

  UpLink, goddamn them . . .

  UpLink International wouldn’t stop coming.

  Granger could read the writing on the wall, and intended to remove himself from the scene before his connection to Albedo was exposed. But he wanted to gain a lead, deal UpLink a blow that would send a major shock through its system, and convince Burkhart to provide him with money and an avenue of escape. But with or without those arrangements, he’d still do what he had to, and couldn’t say that he had any scruples about it.

  Aware of the Beretta’s encouraging pressure against his side, Granger listened as the whir of the spinning APU filled his cabin. He was only a little anxious, and not in a particular hurry.

  Nimec could take his time at Cold Corners One, squeeze in a final ounce of the redhead’s exclusive hospitality.

  His warm and cozy stay there was about to get cut short.

  Annie Caulfield shut down her laptop, detached its modem cord from the telephone jack near her room’s tiny desk, and sleeved the computer into her Timberland carry bag. Then she went across the room, put the Timberland on her bed, considered gathering her toiletries from the night stand, and instead sat thinking at the edge of her mattress.