Eternity Base

Chapter 7

Conner crossed and uncrossed her legs. She was already feeling cramped and they hadn’t even boarded yet. She turned her attention to the portable computer on her lap. She’d spent most of the afternoon packing and checking with Stu and hadn’t had a chance to run through the data Miss Suwon had given her. With twenty hours in the air, she would have plenty of time to examine it all in depth and try to condense the copious amount of information into a usable format. For now, she was fascinated with the history of Antarctica, something that hadn’t been taught in school. A continent without any native population didn’t lend itself to inclusion in standard courses.

The lesson was interrupted as they were called to board. As soon as she’d checked the tickets, Conner had noted that they were traveling economy class. She had a feeling that the long hand of Louise Legere would follow them throughout this journey.

Conner followed the crowd onto the plane, slipping between businessmen hanging their suit bags and grabbing pillows. She claimed the window seat, Keith Vickers the one next to her. After they took off, she reopened her laptop and went back into the history of the seventh continent. By the time they were cruising west at 35,000 feet, she was totally engrossed, and the miles passed below, unnoticed.

Sammy had been regaining consciousness for brief interludes over the past hour, but every time she approached lucidity, a large wave of blackness had again engulfed her. This time, though, as she opened her eyes, she could actually think. Vague memories flitted about her brain, trying to tell her something had happened over the past several hours that she needed to recall, but try as she might, no concrete memory would form. There were disturbing visions that seemed like very bad dreams, but as she took in her surroundings, the present nightmare banished thoughts of the immediate past.

With slow sweeps of her eyes, she checked out the situation. She was lying on the floor in a filth-strewn room. A single light bulb burned in the ceiling, casting long shadows across the room. A wooden door was the only link to the world outside. Her wrists were handcuffed behind her, the steel cutting uncomfortably into her skin.

She was considering sliding her hands down her back and pushing her feet through to at least get her hands in front of her body when the door opened and the man from the van walked in.

Sammy was truly scared now because the man made no attempt to disguise his identity. He had hair cut tight against his skull, his bright blue eyes emanating both intelligence and malice. After staring at her for a few minutes, he finally broke the silence: “Good day, Miss Pintella. You don’t have to worry. I’ve already gotten what I needed from you.” At Sammy’s confused look he smiled. “It’s part of the miracle of modern medicine. The first shot I gave you caused unconsciousness. The second one made you talk.” He squatted down and gazed into her eyes. “You don’t remember talking, do you?”

Sammy didn’t answer. She curled up in a tight ball, her knees to her chest. The man poked her in the shoulder. “There’s no need for you to play dumb. I know quite a bit about you — one of the perks of the job. You told me everything I asked for. I know about your sister, but that’s no longer my problem. You also told me some very interesting personal information.”

Sammy closed her eyes and starting rocking back and forth. He slapped her on the face. “Don’t tune me out.” He smiled, but it was only a moving of muscles in his face that didn’t touch the coldness of his strange eyes. “It’s kind of like looking into someone’s soul. Imagine being able to ask someone any question you want and get an honest answer. Psychologists ought to use my techniques. It would save a lot of time. Of course there’s too high a percentage of adverse side effects to make it feasible in the real world.”

His eyes were flashes of blue, catching the light from the bulb above them. He pulled a pistol with a bulky barrel out of his shoulder holster. He put the muzzle against Sammy’s temple and stared at her with a crooked smile. He stayed like that, his eyes boring into hers, for a very long minute, then put the pistol away. “We need another two hours for the drug to clear your system. Wouldn’t do to have that found by some enterprising coroner. Might make people ask too many questions.” He stood up and looked down at her. “You understand, don’t you?”

Sammy gazed back blankly.

He stood and began pacing about the room. “You didn’t do very well with your life. Couldn’t even keep a husband. Maybe in your next life you’ll do better.”

Sammy whispered to herself.

The man spun about. “What did you say?”

Sammy muttered again. The man knelt down next to her and reached for her shoulders, pulling her to her knees. “Speak up.”

She pressed her chest against his.

“That’s not going to work,” the man said, as she leaned into him.

Sammy kept her eyes on his. She could feel him growing hard against her stomach. Despite his protestations, he was staying close.

“Not in the head,” she said softly.

For the first time the man was confused. “What?”

“Please don’t shoot me in the head. I’ll make it worth your while. Anywhere but the head.”

The man stood up and moved a few feet away. Sammy awkwardly shuffled toward him on her knees until he was against the wall. She pressed her face into his crotch. He was most definitely hard now. Sliding her tongue up the zipper, she flipped out the steel tab and gripped it with her teeth.

Sammy slowly pulled down the zipper. He wasn’t wearing underwear, and she could feel flesh for the first time. She pushed in harder, moving her head until she found the tip of his cock, then she drew it into her mouth.

The man moaned. She took it in as far as she could and then let it pop out. She started licking one of his balls gently and then started sucking him again.

“All right,” the man muttered as he leaned back against the wall. “I knew you liked to do this. The needle made you tell me all about what you like to do.”

Sammy clamped down on the flesh in her mouth with all the power in her jaws, and the man’s scream echoed off the walls as he doubled over. Sammy rolled away to the right, tucking her knees to her chest and sweeping the handcuffed wrists down her back, over her feet, and up in front. Staggering to her feet she ran for the man; he was still doubled over, blood pouring over his hands as he grasped his groin.

Sammy first struck him in the face with her manacled hands, then, looping her hands behind his head and pulling down with all her might, she slammed her left knee into his face, doubling the strength of the blow. His teeth clicked shut and his head rocked back. Blood exploded in a spray from his shattered nose.

Sammy snaked her hands inside his jacket and retrieved the pistol as he belatedly tried to stop her. She dove away as he blindly struck out with a flurry of punches. She held the gun in front of her with her manacled hands and pulled the trigger.

There was no sound of a shot — just a sickening thud as the side of the man’s head exploded in a spray of brains and blood, adding its own gory mark to the wall beyond. His body crumpled to the ground; an arm briefly twitched and then he was still.

Sammy felt her stomach flip, but the nausea quickly passed and a black sense of calm swept over her. After taking a few deep breaths, she went over to the body and searched the pockets until she found the key for the handcuffs. Holding the key in her teeth, she freed herself. She grabbed a thermos the man had brought and washed out her mouth and cleaned the blood from her face. She took his wallet and key ring and strapped on his shoulder holster. Then she retrieved her crumpled leather jacket from a corner of the room and put it on. Without a backward glance, Sammy left the room and headed out of the abandoned tenement.

Two and a half hours out of San Francisco, and Conner was still working on her laptop, summarizing and organizing the data Miss Suwon had drawn out of the SNN computer. All those pages and pages of notes would result in maybe three minutes of airtime in a fifteen-minute spot if she did find something.

“Do you know all you ever wanted to know about Antarctica now?” Vickers interrupted her thoughts.

“Not yet,” Conner answered tersely.

“Want to tell me about it?” Vickers asked with a smile.

Conner looked at him. “Tell you about what?”

Vickers pointed at the computer. “Antarctica.”

“Why?”

Vickers shrugged. “I’ve never been there or really seen or read anything about it. Besides, it will do you good to verbalize all this information. I’ve always found that putting thoughts and ideas into words clarifies them.”

Conner realized this was a chance to show him that she wasn’t just another pretty face, and he would undoubtedly relay that information to the rest of the team. Sometimes she grew very tired of having to prove herself. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, for starters, why is it named Antarctica?”

Conner started tapping keys on the computer, but Vickers interrupted. “How about from memory?”

Conner stopped and looked at him, considering the subtle challenge. “All right.” She turned off the power, shut the lid on the computer, and put it under the seat in front of her. “Arctic comes from arktos, which is the Greek word for bear, referring to the northern constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear, more commonly known as the Big Dipper. As you know, the region surrounding the North Pole is called the Arctic region. Well, the prefix ant means opposite or balance, so basically Antarctica means opposite Arctic or, literally, opposite bear.”

Vickers didn’t seem overly impressed with her mastery of language. “Tell me about the continent.”

Conner mentally sorted through all the numbers and facts she’d been steeped in for the past hours and imagined herself facing the red light of a camera. “Antarctica is the fifth largest continent, encompassing more than five and a half million square miles.”

“Is that land or ice?” Vickers asked.

“Almost the entire place is ice covered,” Conner replied. “The extent of the land underneath is at best a guess. A lot of people don’t realize it, but the North Pole is ice on top of the Arctic Ocean, not a land mass. Antarctica is a true land mass, and it holds ninety percent of the world’s ice and snow. It is the only continent not to have its own native population.”

“How many people are at McMurdo?”

“It’s the middle of the short summer down there, so there will be about seven or eight hundred folks — mostly scientists working on a variety of projects.”

“How about at this Our Earth base?”

Four people are there every winter. How many are there in the summer, I don’t know.”

“How well mapped is Antarctica? I mean how could this Eternity Base, if it’s there, have remained hidden for twenty-five years?”

Conner didn’t appreciate the “if it’s there” qualifier. “If you wanted to hide something, the best place in the world would be Antarctica. Although it’s the size of Europe and the United States combined, less than one percent of it has been seen by man.”

Vickers was skeptical. “Even with overflights?”

“Even with overflights. From 1946 through 1947 the U.S. Navy ran a mission called Operation High Jump, using more than five thousand men, thirteen ships, and numerous helicopters. They took so many pictures that some of them were never developed. Despite all that equipment and manpower, their coverage of the interior was very limited and they managed to photograph only about sixty percent of the coastline.”

“What about satellites?”

Conner nodded. She’d thought about that herself. “Satellites weren’t as significant back in ‘71, but even then it was the same situation as now. Satellites are either in synchronous orbits, which means they move at the same speed as the rotation of the earth, thus staying relatively over the same spot, or they have their own orbits. As far as I know, there are none in a synchronous orbit above Antarctica — no reason for one to be. There are no weapons allowed down there, thus no military presence.

“Some satellites run the north-south route and cross the poles, but two factors work against their picking up much. First, quite simply, no one has been that interested in Antarctica, so the satellites don’t often scan that part of their orbit. Second, the weather is terrible down there and it’s rare that the sky is clear.”

Vickers leaned forward. “Have you factored the weather into our search?”

“Yes.”

Vickers seemed to wait for more, but Conner said nothing. Finally he spoke. “Well, what did you find in your computer about the weather?”

Conner sighed. “It’s usually bad. Very bad. Antarctica is the highest, driest, coldest, windiest continent. Wind gusts of a hundred and fifty miles an hour are not unusual.”

“What do you mean driest?” Vickers asked.

“It hardly ever snows or rains there. But a layer of snow covers the ice, and the snow gets blown about a lot, causing white-outs and blizzards.”

Vickers pointed at her computer. “Lallo said you have all that stuff in hard copy. Would it be possible for me to look at it?”

Conner pulled out her briefcase, retrieved the binder, and handed it over. Anything to keep him quiet. She didn’t want to talk about negative what-ifs. For the next two hours, she worked in silence until she couldn’t stand it anymore. She closed her computer and repositioned her pillow to try and catch some sleep. The last thing she saw before weariness claimed her was Vickers leaned over the binder in the darkened aircraft, slowly turning a page.

“Damn!” Sammy slammed down the pay phone in disgust. SNN had confirmed that Conner had already departed on her trip, but the woman on the other end wouldn’t divulge her sister’s itinerary. Sammy also knew that telling Conner what had just happened wouldn’t deter her in the least; on the contrary, it would whet her appetite for the story.

Sammy leaned against the wall of the Minute Mart as she considered her next move. She knew she was in East St. Louis because she could see the Gateway Arch in the distance against the setting sun. The van that had been used to kidnap her was parked nearby; using the keys taken from the dead man, she’d driven the van to the first phone booth she could find.

The thing that scared Sammy the most was not knowing who the man she had just killed was working for. That fact had kept her from immediately calling the police. Sammy knew she needed help, though, and that gave her the first positive thought of the evening. She pulled out her wallet and searched for a business card she’d been carrying for years. She dialed the home number that had been penciled in below the business number.

“Pike here.”

“It’s Sammy Pintella.”

The gruff voice mellowed. “Sammy, how the hell are you?” Colonel Pike had been her father’s team leader during his first tour in Vietnam. After her dad was reported MIA, Pike had helped the family in every way he could and had stayed in touch over the years.

He had taken a special liking to Sammy and had tried to help make her missing father a peaceful ghost. He was the one who had given her the names of the other Americans on her dad’s team, but he had had no explanation for why the two were listed as lost on separate dates.

Hearing her friend’s warm voice, tears welled up in Sammy’s eyes. She steeled herself, knowing that she couldn’t let her emotions take over. It was difficult enough to think clearly in the aftermath of the drugs she’d been given. “I need help.”

“What’s wrong?”

Sammy gave a quick synopsis of the events of the day, and Pike was quick to agree with her initial assessment. “You’re in deep shit. For all you know he could have been working for the U.S. government, so you did right not calling the police. The spooks would be hooked into them for info. Don’t go back to your apartment either. Is there a place you can wait until I get someone up there?”

“I’ve got a van I can stay in for a while.”

“All right. Go to the airport. Once you get a parking space, call me back with your location. I’ll have my man meet you in the parking lot. He should be there by midnight. Once you two make contact, we can try and figure out our next move.”

“OK.”

“I’ll talk to you soon.”

Sammy hung up the phone and headed for the van.

The ribbon charge blew in the center of the door, leaving the edges still attached at the hinges and lock. Four figures, clad in black, slipped through the seam, splitting left and right into two-man teams. The men wore black balaclavas covering their faces and were armed with M16 rifles.

“Clear left!” the lead figure yelled.

“Clear right!” the second man confirmed.

The right team moved out of the foyer and headed down the hallway, rifles pointing across each other’s front. Reaching the first door on the right, one man used a sledgehammer to break the lock; the other man kicked the door, and they entered. The second team moved up the hallway and did the same thing on the first door on the left. More men were coming in the front now, taking up the vacated positions.

“Clear!” the first team yelled as it came out of the room. The two moved to the next door. Again the lock was slammed out, and they sprinted through the door and froze.

“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” A young woman dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt ran toward them. Another figure was lurking in the shadows near a door on the far side of the room.

“Down!” yelled one of the men, but the women continued to the door. He grabbed her and shoved her behind him. “Freeze!” he screamed at the other figure in the room as he and his partner leveled their Ml6s.

The roar of automatic fire just behind them caused both men to start and turn. The woman stood there, Uzi in hand, a smile on her face. As the brass from the blanks tinkled onto the floor, she said: “Bang. Bang. You’re dead.”

“Everyone down and cuffed. Everyone!” Riley came out of the shadows, shaking his head. There was a look of frustration on his face, visible even beneath a three-day growth of beard. The two policemen lowered their weapons. Their faces were red as he walked up to them.

“Bring everyone in.” Riley slumped down in an armchair to await the gathering of the rest of the members of the Nashville Police Department HRT Team — or what the Nashville police were trying to make into a Hostage Rescue Team. As evidenced by the recent exercise, they had a long way to go.

Riley looked at the woman. “Good job, Luce.” He wearily rubbed his eyes as the ten policemen he and his partner had been training for the past week gathered together in the abandoned building they’d been using for practice.

Riley was hung-over and tired. He’d spent a late night the previous evening in the lounge of the Sheraton Hotel, his temporary home, trying to figure out consecutively better approaches to the female bartender. She’d deflected every attempt while slapping the beers on the mahogany and picking up his money. In the end she and the alcohol had won, and he’d staggered off to his room alone in the early hours of the morning. He wished he could get a drink of water now, but the building had no water.

A day that had not started well wasn’t going any better. Luce had practically kicked the door down this morning to rouse him from his deadened stupor. Then they’d been at it all day long, practicing their entry procedures until they had them down pat in the daylight. Now they were getting in a little night work.

Riley swallowed, trying to draw up a little moisture. His throat hurt like hell: “All right,” he rasped. “First. Luce show them where the gun was.”

The compact woman lifted the back of her sweatshirt and slid the mini-Uzi into the harness strapped around her body. She smiled demurely and swiftly drew the submachine gun back out. Then she put the gun down on the ground and lifted the right leg of her jeans. A small automatic was cinched to her right calf. She lifted the front of her sweatshirt slightly. Unsnapping her belt buckle, she folded out the knife on the reverse side.

Riley bowed in her direction. “I won’t even begin to tell you what she has in her bra.”

The cops laughed nervously, not sure if he was joking.

He walked over and stood next to her. “Just because she’s a woman doesn’t mean she can’t kill you.” He slashed forward with his left hand in a karate strike for her throat. She easily blocked it, grabbed his hand, and then twisted underneath, locking his elbow over her shoulder, the pressure on the joint lifting him up to his toes. Riley tapped her with his free hand and she released him. “In fact, studies have shown that female terrorists are much more ruthless than men. Thanks, Luce.” She turned and left the room.

Riley shook his head. “Rule number one. Everyone gets cuffed. Everyone. Hostages included. The easiest thing for a bad person to do if they want to get out alive is play the victim in this situation. It doesn’t look good on the news to have cuffed hostages, but it beats being dead.” He coughed and cleared his throat. After a brief glance around, he walked over to the window and spit.

“All right. The entry was good. Let’s remember something though. We’ve got to work this up to where you can do it not only at night but wearing gas masks. Your normal crook in a hostage situation is going to be relatively unprepared, so it’s to your advantage to gas your objective. That’s why we’ve designated your blooper man and had him practice putting his tear gas rounds through windows out on the range.

“But let’s also worst-case things. If your intelligence indicates you’re up against professionals, then you have to expect they’re wearing gas masks too.” Riley’s head hurt. Every time he taught this stuff he started getting into this worst-case cycle. “So then you’re back to square one. But that’s what—”

“What have you done?” A burly policeman, his bulk enhanced by the flak vest he wore, had asked the question.

“Excuse me?”

The cop’s gray mustache twitched as he spat the words out. “We’ve been listening to you prattling on for four days now about what we should and shouldn’t do. Well, I’ve spent eighteen years on the streets here. I’ve been in three shoot-outs, and I just want to know what your qualifications are.”

Riley sighed. “I spent three years in the 10th Special Forces Group. Then three years in a classified counterterrorist unit overseas. I’ve been to—”

“Yeah. I heard all that the first day,” the cop interrupted. “But what I want to know is if you’ve ever been shot at or if you ever shot anyone. Eh?”

Riley looked at the man for a long time as he considered his answer. Finally he lied. “No.”

The cop nodded. “I thought so. Well, I have, and you can tell us all this, but it don’t make a bit of difference when the shit hits the fan. You stand there and—”

“Riley.” Luce was in the doorway with the portable phone in her hand. “The colonel’s on the phone for you. He wants to talk to you now.”

“All right. You take over. Do another run through.” Riley could feel the eyes of all the occupants of the room on his back as he took the phone from his partner. He walked down the hallway and stepped out into the brisk fall weather.

“This is Riley, sir.”

Colonel Pike wasted no time on pleasantries. “I want Luce to finish out the contract. I’ve got a friend in trouble and I need your help.”

Riley didn’t hesitate. “Yes, sir.” He knew the colonel was worried about him and that Luce had been assigned as his partner to keep an eye on him, but Riley felt that he did his job well enough. What he did in his off-duty time was his own business. He’d been at this job for a little more than a month now, and although it had kept him busy, there were still times when there was no work and the four walls of the hotel room closed in. Those times were the worst. He wondered what the colonel had conjured up for him now.

“Your tickets will be waiting at the Delta counter at the airport. The flight takes off in forty-five minutes, so get moving. Give me a call when you get on the ground.”

AS the western coastline of the United States disappeared behind them, Conner allowed her mind to drift ahead to the landing in New Zealand and then back in time. She wondered if Devlin would be the same as she remembered him from Chicago more than a year ago.

She’d first seen him chained to the outlet pipe of a factory that poured thousands of gallons of polluted water into Lake Michigan every hour. Devlin and three other members of Our Earth had stayed there for four hours, letting the filth pour over them, while other members of the group held banners and protested nearby. Finally, even the security men for the plant couldn’t take it anymore and they had moved in with bolt cutters to break the chains.

Conner had already gotten enough footage for a good minute-and-a-half spot, but she still followed the police wagon down to the station, where Devlin and his partners were booked for unlawful trespass. She was impressed with the efficiency of the Our Earth organization as the men were bailed out in almost record speed.

Devlin was coming out of the courtroom, still clad in his filthy overalls, when he spotted her standing by the door. He walked over to her and smiled. “The news lady. Channel 4. How much time do we get tonight? Thirty seconds?”

Conner looked up at his grime-streaked face and decided he was worth more than a perfunctory two-to-three-minute chat. She already knew some background and hoped to coax more from him. Randall Simpson Devlin was almost more of a story than the group to which he gave all of his time and the majority of his money. And money was the key to Devlin — his family was loaded, thanks to a hardworking great-grandfather, good family marriages, and efficient tax attorneys.

She knew from her research that Devlin’s childhood had been spent in East Coast mansions surrounded by the best primary caretakers money could buy. His first toy car was large enough for him to ride in; his first pet was a pony. His father had hoped he would enter the family business after the Choate-Ivy League route, but Devlin at eighteen had turned away from his family’s money and connections to make it on his own. Conner’s theory was that in Our Earth he had found a way to assuage his guilt and thereby enjoy the fruits of his ancestor’s labor.

Standing there outside the police station, Conner was impressed that he both knew who she was and had spotted her at the plant. She wanted to know more. There was a great story standing in front of her and she meant to get it. “No, sixty seconds. But I can make it ninety if you let me buy you a drink and then talk to me.”

She wasn’t sure why she had asked him out for the drink. It just seemed like the right thing to do. It was far more than the story. The facts that Devlin was attractive, rich, and would be gone from the city in the morning and out of her life were very enticing.

Devlin smiled at her. “I’m not exactly dressed to go out. How about we go back to my hotel while I get changed. I’ll take that drink and talk when I’m clean.”

Conner was not surprised when the cab dropped them off at the most expensive hotel in downtown Chicago. Devlin smiled at her look, as though he expected some comment about his extravagance. “I figure four hours in that filth is worth this, wouldn’t you agree? As a friend of my father’s used to say—’never complain, never explain.’“

Conner smiled back. “Henry Ford.”

Devlin seemed slightly surprised. His eyes lingered on her face. “You’re no dumb mouthpiece, are you?”

“No, Mr. Devlin, I’m no dummy.”

Devlin remained silent until they were in his suite. He showed her where to make the drinks and left to take the much needed shower. Conner was flipping through a thumbed copy of short stories when he returned to the living room wearing loose khaki pants and a tight polo shirt. He looked very good with all the gunk removed. His blond hair was just beginning to thin but was a nice contrast to his blue eyes. He had a muscular body. Conner was swift to note that it was his natural build and not one he worked on. He had the beginnings of that soft look that comes from an easy life and middling ambition.

She held up the book. “Fitzgerald. So, Mr. Devlin. Is it true? Are the rich really different from me and you? Or should I say me?”

He shot her another dazzling smile and pulled her into his arms. She felt him grow hard beneath the pants. “No, not at all. I’d say the rich aren’t very different. The main luxury is more time to think about things.”

Conner pulled away and sat down on one of the overstuffed damask sofas. “The rich seem to skip a lot of preliminaries.”

Devlin sat across from her and picked up the drink she’d made for him. She noticed the manicured nails before she noticed how fine the hands were. “I’m sorry, Conner. May I call you Conner? I hope I didn’t seem rude, but you are an incredibly beautiful woman and well read on top of that. I guess I got carried away.”

Conner nodded an acceptance to his apology and pulled out a notebook. “Devlin — may I call you Devlin? Or do your friends use your first name?”

He showed a set of perfect teeth. “Devlin is fine.”

“So, Devlin. Tell me about a life of environmental activism after a youth of unparalleled luxury.”

Devlin leaned back, crossing his legs and putting both arms on the back of the sofa. He looked for all the world like the scion of a wealthy family. “The hounds of the press appear to skip a lot of the preliminaries also.”

“I’ve always found a good interview to be an excellent preliminary,” Conner remarked, her eyes meeting his.

Devlin talked for a long time.

Later, when they were lying in a tangle of linen on his king-size bed, he asked her about her newscast that night. She looked down at him, pushing aside the tendrils of dark hair that had fallen across her eyes, and informed him that if she didn’t show up at the station on time they knew she was on a story.

Devlin wrapped his hands around her thin waist, looked up at her, and replied: “Well, I’d definitely say you’re on a story now.”

At the time, Conner had found the comment amusing, and she had silently agreed.

The next day a bouquet of roses was waiting on her desk at work. Conner became irritated when her coworkers looked at her curiously, and the whole incident began to seem like a mistake. She knew that the flowers put the burden on her to get in touch with him, but she didn’t. She had her life planned, and a relationship with Devlin — or anyone — would just get in her way.

Conner sometimes wondered if she’d made the right decision, but then came the offer of the job in Atlanta and she’d thought about nothing but work since then — at least until the other day when she’d picked up the phone and called Devlin.

With the click of the computer screen locking upright, Conner banished that memory and went to work to ensure that her future would be as successful as her past.

“Come in,” Sammy called out, pressing her back against the far wall of the van and pointing the pistol at the back door. The metal door swung open and a figure was standing there, silhouetted against the parking lot lights.

“Whoa!” The man dropped a duffel bag he’d been carrying and held his hands away from his body. “Take it easy. I’m Riley. Colonel Pike sent me.”

“Come in and shut the door,” Sammy ordered.

Riley threw in his duffel bag and then followed it. With the door swung shut, the inside was almost pitch black. “Could you put down the gun, please?” Riley asked.

Sammy slid the pistol back in the shoulder holster. It had been an anxious four hours waiting here in the dark. She’d started doubting reality in that time, not wanting to believe she’d killed a man earlier this evening. Then she’d started getting paranoid, wondering if even Pike was to be trusted. When she’d called him with parking lot information, the colonel had relayed to her Riley’s name and approximate time of arrival. She’d spent the interim trying to figure out what steps to take next. Although she might be relatively safe for the moment, she knew her sister was heading into something much more dangerous than she expected.

“The colonel told me to keep you safe and not much more,” Riley remarked as he sat down on his duffel bag. “Care to fill me in on what’s going on?”

For the second time that evening Sammy related the events that had occurred since leaving the office supply shop. Riley also had her backtrack a bit and give him all she knew on Eternity Base. When she was done he sat silent for a few moments, then spoke. “We need to get rid of this van and the gun. They’re the two things that can link you to the body.”

Sammy shook her head. “Our first priority is to warn my sister.”

Riley shook his head in turn. “No. At least not through SNN — that’s the most likely source of the leak reference Eternity Base. Think about how those places operate. They’ve got more people getting paid off than any South American government. It’s the perfect conduit for intelligence organizations to sink a line to fish for information. If you try getting in touch with her through SNN, you might as well advertise your presence, and from what you told me about your sister, she would probably continue on with the story anyway.”

“Then we catch up with her,” Sammy declared firmly.

“What?” Riley blinked in the dark.

It was the decision she had come to more than an hour ago, and she was determined to follow it through whether Riley agreed or not. “We catch up with her and warn her. You can protect her along with me.” Sammy leaned forward. “The colonel told me not to go to the cops. You’re telling me not to go to SNN. I agree with both of you. Either way we could be putting our heads in the lion’s mouth.”

She continued. “We don’t know who that man worked for, and until we do, we won’t be safe. The only way we’re going to find out who is behind this is by linking up with Conner and helping her find Eternity Base.”

Having said what she’d needed to, Sammy watched Riley in the dim glow from the windshield, waiting to see how he’d react. Pike had only said that Riley was ex-Special Forces and did good work. He was a far cry from the Rambo type so commonly portrayed in films, but Sammy had expected that because her own father had been slight of build and a quiet, thoughtful man.

The one quality Riley had — a quality Sammy noticed in almost every ex-SF man she’d ever met — was a sense of quiet competence and confidence. He looked as though he’d had a rough couple of days, with his growth of beard and his red-rimmed eyes, but then she had no idea what he’d been doing, so that didn’t bother her. Something about him told her that he’d know what to do, and that he’d do it without his ego getting in the way. Underlying that, she also sensed some other deep emotion, but right now she couldn’t put her finger on it. She only hoped that he would be willing to go along with her plan.

“I need to check it with the colonel,” was Riley’s only reply to her words. “Let’s make a call.”

Sammy followed as Riley led the way over to a pay phone in the terminal. She could hear only his side of the conversation and was impressed that Riley gave his boss just the facts with no editorializing. Most men she’d met had seemed to feel that no matter what a woman said, they could think of a better idea.

“He wants to talk to you.” Riley held out the receiver.

“Mike, it’s Sammy.”

The colonel’s voice rumbled in her ear. “You heard what Riley told me?”

“Yes.”

“Is that what you want to do?”

“I think it’s the only thing we can do,” she replied.

The colonel chuckled. “You sure have your daddy’s smarts. He was always a good one for coming up with some harebrained scheme. The amazing thing was that they usually worked. I’m alive today because a few of his ideas worked when mine wouldn’t have.

“I can’t order Riley to go with you. I’m going to tell him I’ll pay him double his usual salary, but that won’t mean much to him. If he decides to go, it’ll be because he wants to — not for money. That’s all I can do. If he decides against it, I suggest you two come here to my safe house and I’ll try using some of my contacts to sort out this shit storm. Is that all right?”

Sammy knew it was the best she was going to get. “Yes.”

“All right. Put him back on.”

She handed the phone to Riley; he listened for a few minutes, not saying a word. His eyes continually scanned the airport and the parking area outside.

“Talk to you later, sir.” Riley hung up the phone and then looked at her. “The colonel says your dad was in Special Forces. MACV-SOG. And he’s MIA.”

Sammy nodded.

Riley looked over her shoulder at the deserted ticket counters. “We won’t be able to get our tickets until they open up in a few hours. I say we get some sleep in the van before then. I also need to get rid of the gun. Can’t take it with us.”

Sammy held up her hand. “Tickets to where?”

Riley gave a hard smile. “Antarctica. Where else?”