Eternity Base

Chapter 29

Pak had been tempted to pile his survivors on board the sled and ride down the glacier, but wisdom had prevailed and they lashed themselves to the rear of the sled as a human brake, keeping the bomb from getting away from them only with great difficulty.

They’d gotten off of the glacier less than ten minutes ago, and now they were on top of the ocean, making their way across the ice pack. In most places the ice was so thick they couldn’t tell the difference between it and the polar cap, but in other places the ice thinned out and, with the snow blown off by the wind, the ocean could be seen below. These areas were dangerous, and Pak had his men skirt around them. He estimated another four to six hours until they arrived at the Am Nok Gang, which was now hidden by the surface ice.

General Morris listened to the intercepted message as he tried to shake the cobwebs of sleep out of his brain. “That language sounds familiar,” he remarked.

“It’s Han Gul — Korean,” Hodges informed him.

Morris felt a chill hand caress his spine. “Where did the Hawkeye say this originated?”

Hodges tapped the map. “Here, along the coast due north of Eternity Base. It was someone on the shore communicating with a ship the Hawkeye has located in the icepack right here, eight miles off the coast.”

“Do you have a translation of the message?” Morris asked.

“Yes, sir.” Hodges pressed a button on a tape player and an unemotional voice spoke in English:

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Morris muttered to himself. He spoke up. “Do you have an ID on the ship?”

“No, sir. The E-2 is more than two hundred miles away and at its fuel limit range. They just have a radar image. They’re launching another E-2 right now to replace it, and that plane will be able to get in a bit closer.”

Morris turned to the duty officer. “Get the SECDEF here ASAP, and also General Kolstov.”

He looked at the situation map. The Kitty Hawk was still 1,100 miles from Eternity Base, more than a thousand from the Korean ship. “What’s the range on your attack aircraft from the carrier?” he asked the naval duty officer. “More specifically, do you have anything you can put on station over that Korean ship?”

The naval officer didn’t even have to consult his notes. “Not yet, sir.”

“When?”

“We’ll be able to launch some Tomcats in about three hours. They won’t have much time on station — less than twenty minutes — and they’ll have to carry a minimum armament load.”

Morris stared at the situation map. The pieces were falling into place, even though he wasn’t sure what they all meant. The North Koreans had one bomb and were making for the ship. Once they made

it on board, it was going to be a very ticklish situation. But it definitely fit in with the alerts they were hearing from the peninsula. Morris wondered what the North Koreans were going to do with one nuclear weapon. There was a variety of answers, none of them good.

If Hodges’s source at SNN hadn’t alerted them, the whole thing might have been overlooked — even the explosion, since no one would have initially thought of a nuclear weapon. The reaction here definitely would have been much slower. Damn, the sons of bitches almost got away with it, he thought. They still might, he reminded himself.

“How about the Osprey with the Special Forces men?” he asked.

“Just lifted from McMurdo. A little less than three hours out.”

“Divert them directly to the coast.”

“Yes, sir.”

Morris looked up as General Kolstov strode in. He idly wondered how the Russian managed to appear so unruffled after being dragged out of bed so early in the morning. The uniform was immaculate. Kolstov’s bald head gleamed under the overhead lights.

“I understand you have something new?” The English was perfect also.

“Yes.” Morris quickly filled him in on the data picked up by the Hawkeye, then played the translation tape. He concluded with his best estimate of the situation: “I think this has something to do with the mobilization intelligence we are picking up in North Korea.”

Kolstov raised an eyebrow. “You did not inform me of the situation in Korea.”

“I didn’t think it was applicable.”

Kolstov nodded. “Yes. Hmm. Well, I was aware of the situation there from my own sources.” Morris knew he meant the coded radio messages that poured in and out of the Russian embassy. He had no doubt that the Russians kept a close eye on their sometime ally the North Koreans.

“What are you going to do?” Kolstov asked.

“From the message it appears that the ship is waiting for a party on foot that has one of the bombs. We’re going to have to stop it.”

“What if the party boards the ship before you can stop it?” Kolstov was looking over Morris’s shoulder at the situation board and could easily see that there were no U.S. forces in the immediate vicinity of the ship.

“Then we stop the ship,” Morris coldly replied.

“Ah, my American friend. You have no right to stop that ship in international seas.”

Morris bristled. “My job is to get that bomb back.” He knew they never should have let the goddamn Russians in on this. The guy was going to give him bullshit arguments about freedom of navigation when a nuclear weapon was involved.

Kolstov appeared not to have heard. “In fact, my friend, you are not even certain that ‘the package’ referred to in the message is your lost bomb. What if you attempt to board that ship and you are wrong?”

Morris bit off his words. “They’ve already detonated one bomb. That proves they are capable of doing it. I have no doubt that they would detonate the second. I will not allow that ship anywhere near a potential target. And I am sure this is tied in to what is presently happening in North Korea.

“We have the potential here for all-out war on the Korean peninsula, and I believe that your government is in agreement with mine that we don’t want war. I am willing to take the chance I am wrong, but I will stop that ship.”

“Ah,” Kolstov said. “But what if your boarding that ship constitutes an act of war in the eyes of the North Koreans? What if they are drawing you into a trap?”

That hadn’t occurred to Morris. This whole thing was so vague he wasn’t sure about anything. “Could be,” he conceded. “But we’re going to make sure.”

Kolstov held up a hand, palm out. “My friend, perhaps in the interest of world peace, I might be able to help you with your little problem.”

Morris thought he would rather crawl naked over broken glass for a mile. But he forced a smile. “What do you have in mind, my friend?”

“How are you feeling?” Riley asked as they collapsed to their knees on the crest of the ridge.

‘Tired,” Sammy replied.

“Ditto,” remarked Conner.

“Are either of you sweating?”

“No,” they answered in turn.

“Good. Drink half your canteen. I’ll melt some more ice in a minute.” Riley pulled his own canteen out of the flap pocket of his parka — the only place it could be carried and not freeze — and took a deep drink of the chilly water.

He peered down to the ocean, scanning in sections. “Look — out there!” The ship lay like a black bug miles out in the ice pack.

“Where are the ones on foot? Have they reached it yet?” Conner asked.

“The ship doesn’t appear to be moving, and I don’t think they could have gotten there that quickly.” Riley brought his gaze in closer. After a minute he spotted them. “There. See that large square iceberg? To the left and in.”

“They’re halfway out there.” Conner’s voice sounded resigned. “We’ll never catch them.”

The walk up the ridge had just about wiped out Riley. A quarter of the way up, Conner had started stumbling from exhaustion, so he’d taken Conner’s pack and strapped it on top of his own. For a little while she’d done better, but he could tell she was at the limit of her resources. Sammy seemed to be doing better than her sister, which for some reason didn’t surprise Riley. When he’d first met Sammy in St. Louis, he’d sensed her strength.

“You two stay here. I’ll go after them alone.” Riley knew if he didn’t catch the Koreans before they got on the ship, the chase was in vain.

Sammy shook her head. “I’ll go with you. If it’s a choice between being tired and being cold, I choose tired. As long as I keep moving I’ll be all right.”

“I’m not staying here alone,” was Conner’s only comment.

Riley was too numb to argue. He took out the stove and got it started. He emptied his canteen into the metal cup and placed it on top of the stove. Once the water was boiling he scooped up ice and melted it, gradually filling their canteens.

“Are you ready?” he asked as he put away the stove.

Sammy stood. “Do you think we can catch them?”

In reply, Riley took two snap links and slipped them through small loops at the end of his twelve-foot length of rope. He reached under Conner’s parka and hooked one end to her belt. He hooked the other to Sammy’s and then himself to the center.

“What’s this for?” Sammy asked.

Riley pointed to the left, where the deceptively smooth surface of the glacier glistened a quarter mile away. “We’re going to make up some time going down.”

The tall man sat in the shadows, watching his partner work Woodson under the glare of the track lighting.

“Who was Peter?”

Woodson blinked, trying to see in the face of the bright lights. The drugs had altered the chemical balance of the old man’s brain; reality was no longer a valid construct for him, nor would it ever be. But the two men wanted answers, and they’d keep on until Woodson could no longer think.

“Peter? Peter?” Woodson muttered.

“Peter,” the short man intoned. They’d been at this one question for two hours now.

The tall man could barely hear the next words. “The keeper of the gate.”

The short man glanced over at his partner and turned down the lights to half power. “The keeper of the gate?”

“The keeper. Yes. The keeper.”

“What gate?”

“To the base.” Something must have clicked in Woodson’s brain, for the information began spilling out. “Peter made up the list of who would come in. There were fourteen. He picked them all.”

Woodson hesitated a few seconds, then continued. “It was his ace in the hole. The base. The last refuge.”

“Why did he put the bombs—” The short man halted as the tall man made a chopping motion with his hand. He mouthed, “Stay with Peter.”

“Who is Peter?”

“The gatekeeper… the builder. The man with the money.”

“A name.”

“Peter.”

“His real name.”

Woodson blinked and his face settled into normalcy for a brief moment. “Bradford P. Kensington.” Woodson gave a dreamy smile. “He uses his middle name for people like me.”

The two interrogators exchanged glances. The tall man stood and headed for the door; this had just gone to the highest echelons, and he wanted nothing further to do with it.

“Ready?”

Sammy looked up at Riley and weakly nodded. Conner had a death grip on Sammy and didn’t say a word. The two women were wrapped in a nylon poncho, lying on their backs inside a sleeping bag, heads cushioned with their backpacks. Riley’s M16 was on Sammy’s chest, her hands wrapped around it.

Riley began walking, the rope tightening around Sammy’s and Conner’s waists, pulling them along on the ice. He accelerated to a jog, the slope helping increase their speed. Satisfied, he flopped down on his stomach, his Gore-tex parka and pants sliding on the ice.

Linked together, the three tobogganed down the glacier, Riley trying to control speed and direction with the point of his entrenching tool. As they rattled over bumps in the ice, Sammy thought to herself that they’d all be very black and blue, if they survived.

They were three-quarters of the way down to the coast, Sammy too numb to feel anything anymore, when Riley broke through the ice into a crevasse. His yell gave Sammy less than a second to react. As her feet slammed against the far side of the break, she did the only thing she could do, raising the M16 up across her body and desperately jamming the muzzle of the weapon into the ice. She and Conner started sliding down. The poncho and sleeping bag fell off and disappeared into the depths. Sammy came to an abrupt halt, bracing herself against the rifle, and then felt a tremendous jar as Conner reached the end of the rope and dangled below.

Suddenly there was no more weight on the rope. Sammy held still, not believing she was alive. Her feet and back were pressed up against the walls, and the rifle, dug into the ice, kept her in a precarious balance across the mouth of the crevasse. Carefully, she looked down.

The crevasse widened and descended into a blue darkness as far as she could see. No sign of Riley. Conner was standing there, her feet on a narrow ledge of ice, looking up, eyes wide with fear. Sammy followed the rope with her gaze until it disappeared under an overhang of ice.

“Riley!” she cried out.

“Yeah. Are you all right?” The voice echoed off the walls.

“I can’t move!” she replied.

“Hold still! I’m on a small ledge down here. Let me try to climb up.”

Sammy wasn’t about to go anywhere. She could hear Riley working with his entrenching tool below her. The minutes passed and she felt her feet shift slightly on the ice, her heart going to her throat. How far would she fall if she slipped? she wondered. Would the fall kill her, or would she lie there broken but alive, waiting in an icy grave for the cold to take its final toll, preserved like the body at the base?

“Hang tough,” Riley called up. She could hear his labored breathing. Finally, out of the corner of her eye, she could see him. He had reached up and was digging out a hold in the ice with the shovel so he could haul himself up. It was a slow process. Sammy wasn’t sure how long she could hold on, her numbed hands wrapped around the rifle, all feeling in her feet already gone. She assumed her feet were still at the end of her legs.

Riley had passed Conner and was almost at Sammy’s level. She carefully turned her head to look at him. He gave her a very forced smile. “Some ride, eh?”

He was now wedged as she was — his back and feet against the ice. She watched as he squirmed his way up to the lip. He disappeared over the side, then his head reappeared. “Okay, I’m anchored up here. Sammy, you come on up first.”

Sammy shook her head. “I can’t feel my feet.”

Riley puffed out a deep breath. “All right. I’ll pull you up. When I yell, you pull your feet out. OK?”

“Can you do it?”

“I’ll do it.” He was gone. Sammy anxiously awaited. “Ready?”

Sammy briefly closed her eyes. “Yes.”

“Let go.”

Sammy tucked her knees in and fell for an interminable split second. Then the rope tightened down on her waist, causing her to exhale sharply. But the rope stopped her fall. She scrabbled at the ice with her dead hands and feet, trying to help Riley as much as she could. Inch by inch, she went up until she could slap an arm down on the surface. The pressure on the rope was maintained, and she continued up until she could get her waist over and roll onto the surface.

She lay there, savoring the sight of the open sky. Riley crawled up next to her and collapsed, throwing an arm over her and pulling her in tight. “You all right?” he asked.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Let’s get your sister up here.” Together the two leaned into the rope and hauled Conner to the surface. When she flopped down on the ice and stared up at the sky, Riley leaned over her.

“Do you want to go on?”

Conner shook herself, and with great effort she managed to stand.

“Yes.”

“What does the president want done?” the bald man at the end of the table asked General Hodges.

“The president wants the matter kept quiet.” Hodges nervously fingered his eel skin briefcase.

A snort of laughter. ‘That’s damn near impossible. What’s his second choice?”

“He needs to satisfy the Russians that this wasn’t a government-sponsored action in Antarctica that malfunctioned and that we’re trying to cover ourselves by this story. We need to pick up Kensington.”

“Kensington is the second richest man in America,” the bald man replied. “He’s supported every Republican president for the past thirty years.” He picked up a file. “Since we uncovered the name, we’ve done some checking. The facts fit. Kensington helped us recover the codes from that Soviet sub off Japan back in ‘68 using his oil exploratory deep-sea minisub. Apparently he used the same minisub to recover the two nuclear bombs on that A-7.

“Kensington has had extensive contact with many government agencies—”

‘To include this one!” Hodges threw in.

The bald man acknowledged that with a tilt of his head. “Yes, including this one. And the CIA. And the FBI. I understand he also paid people to do covert work for the Republican Party. That would make interesting news.

“Kensington had the government contacts, the subsidiary companies, and the money to get Eternity Base built as his own personal bomb shelter. We’ve discovered that his nuclear power plant in Utah had a contingency plan to load rods onto a plane with a three-hour notice. The specifications fit the power plant at Eternity Base.

“Kensington also is the man behind a very large number of defense manufacturing companies in this country. Even with all the cutbacks, he still has his finger in a lot of pies.

“I wonder what names would be on the list of people that Kensington planned to bring down to Eternity Base in case of nuclear war. I’m sure we would not want that to become public record.

“There are other things we’ve discovered, but we won’t go into them right now.” The bald man closed the file with a snap. “Again. What does the president want done?”

“Kensington has gone from an asset to a liability.” Hodges stood. “I’ll inform the president that it will be taken care of.”

The bald man did not seem happy with the decision, but he nodded. “All right.”