Eternity Base

Chapter 8

Bob Weaver was a third of the way through his in box when he came upon the encrypted fax from Falcon. He quickly decoded it and then stared at the resulting message for a few seconds before turning to his computer:

Weaver accessed military records and quickly searched the database. After twenty minutes of fruitless effort, he was convinced of one thing: there was no record in the ISA’s classified database of an Eternity Base.

The Intelligence Support Agency was the military’s secret version of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Lavishly funded by the Pentagon’s multibillion dollar black budget and accountable to no one but the National Security Council, it had tentacles in every domestic and foreign source of information. The ISA was more than a gathering agency, though. It also acted on the information it received, implementing numerous covert actions both in the United States and overseas in the name of national security.

The ISA had contacts throughout the business world, men and women in critical places who worked with the ISA to forward the interests of the military and, concurrently, the massive industrial complex that supported the military. The ISA was the covert arm of the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower had so feared, and its power was far greater than even those briefed on its existence dared believe.

Weaver encoded a message and electronically dispatched it to Falcon’s handler, stationed in Atlanta. He had no idea when it would be relayed to Falcon, or even who Falcon was, but that wasn’t his responsibility. He picked up the next piece of paper in his in box and went to work on that.

The hand on her shoulder woke Sammy out of a deep sleep, and she was momentarily disoriented as she took in her surroundings.

“We’re boarding,” Riley said quietly. His eyes were red rimmed from not having slept at all, either in the van or in the terminal.

Sammy stood up and stretched. She had nothing but her wallet and the rumpled and stained clothes on her back. She’d managed to wash off most of the blood on her shirt and jeans in the airport ladies’ room, and since both garments were dark, what remained wasn’t noticeable.

Riley held out a newspaper and cup of coffee. “Not a thing in here about a body being found, so that’s good.”

Sammy accepted the paper and watched as the herd moved toward the boarding gate. “The colonel said you’d been in Special Forces.”

Riley nodded as he sipped his coffee. “I had almost twenty years in.”

“Officer or enlisted?”

“Enlisted, then warrant officer.”

“Why’d you get out?”

Riley looked at her for a second before replying brusquely. “I retired. Is that OK?” He didn’t know what Pike had told her and he didn’t want to talk.

“So you think I shouldn’t ask questions?”

Riley was surprised at her directness. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by what I said. I mean, you asked me why I got out and I told you.”

Sammy relaxed. The loudspeaker in the waiting area announced final call for boarding. Riley pulled out the tickets. “Window or aisle?”

Sammy blindly grabbed one and looked at it. “Aisle.”

Conner threw bags into the back of the pickup truck while Vickers, Kerns, and Lallo carefully stowed the cases containing their electronic gear. It was hard to believe their seemingly never-ending flight from Hawaii was finally over.

Conner didn’t know what to make of Devlin. For some reason she’d remembered him differently. About six foot four, tanned, with blond hair cut in a carefully casual style and rugged good looks, he would have been perfect for one of those beer commercials — kayaking down whitewater rapids while several beautiful women awaited him at the other end. Perhaps that’s what bothered her. He looked as though he came from central casting. She hoped there was more to him than that.

There was a curious intensity about Devlin that was offset by a congenial, perfect smile. Conner had not remembered that smile, and it made her slightly uneasy. She had to give him credit for one thing, though — he ran a very smooth operation. Within forty-five minutes of landing, they had all their gear gathered together, were through customs, and were ready to move.

Conner slid in the passenger side of the pickup while Vickers and Lallo joined Kerns for the ride in the van. They rolled around the perimeter road of the runway until they came to a small hangar.

“Here we go,” Devlin announced, getting out and sliding the hangar doors open. They drove in and parked. Two planes were sheltered inside. Conner got out and joined the rest of her party.

“This is our bird,” Devlin announced, standing in front of the nose of a sleek-looking twin-engine plane. Conner noted the skis bolted on over the three wheels and the extra fuel tanks hanging under the wings. “And this is our pilot, Peter Swenson.”

The pilot, who was toiling over the left engine, acknowledged his introduction with a grimy wave. Swenson looked as though he’d done more than his share of hard living, his graying hair and lined face indicating a life spent in the outdoors. “Swenson was originally a bush pilot from Australia, but he’s done quite a few Antarctic runs for us,” Devlin added. “We’ll leave the gear here. Let’s move into the ready room and get coordinated.”

Conner was trying to get over her jet lag while at the same time trying to sort out her feelings. Her greeting with Devlin after getting off the plane had been awkward, somewhere between a lover’s hug and the polite handshake two professionals would bestow on each other. There was no doubt now, though, as the team settled into metal folding chairs in front of a tacked-up map of Antarctica, that Devlin was all business.

Conner stood in front of the group to lead things off. “Devlin and I have decided to depart tomorrow first thing in the morning.”

“How long a flight is it to where we’re going?” Lallo asked.

“We’ll be in the air almost ten hours,” Devlin answered. Ignoring the groans, he turned to the map. “By the way, the base that Our Earth runs down there is called Aurora Glacier Station. It’s located here, on Ross Island, about fifteen miles from McMurdo Station, right next to — what else? — Aurora Glacier. Right now we’ve got eleven people down there, but seven are out on the ice shelf doing research and won’t be back for a while, so we’ll be able to squeeze in without much trouble.”

Conner stood back up. “The plan is to fly down there and start the search immediately. I faxed Devlin some xeroxed photos of the base when it was built, and he has some ideas about where to look.”

As Conner sat back down, she felt a little disoriented. The sun was setting in the west, yet her body felt it was time to be getting out of bed.

Devlin used his finger to point on the map. “Eternity Base appears to be set in a sort of basin, surrounded on three sides by mountains. Based on the flying time I was given — two hours — I’ve estimated it to be about five hundred to six hundred miles from McMurdo, straight line distance. That places it in one of three locations: to the south here at the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf in the Transantarctic Mountains; to the east at the edge of Marie Byrd Land where King Edward the VII Land juts out into the Ross Sea; or to the northwest here along the Adelie Coast.

“The order in which I’ve just shown you these possible sites is also the order in which I think we should look. Six hundred miles from

McMurdo along the Adelie Coast puts you almost right smack on top of the French Station, Dumont d’Urville. I doubt very much that Eternity Base is in this area for several reasons. First is simply that it would have been built too close to an already established base — d’Urville. And the Russians also had a base in ‘71 farther east along that coastline, here — Leningradskaya.

“Additionally, I and many of my colleagues from Our Earth have been in this area several times conducting protests over the airstrip the French have been trying to build there for the last four years. We have made numerous overflights of the area and spotted nothing. Also, there’s no doubt the French themselves have extensively searched that area.

“It’s possible the base is here along the coast to the east, but I like the location in the Transantarctic Mountains, because if the purpose was to hide this base, putting it there would locate it much farther south than any known existing bases except for Amundsen-Scott Base, which sits right on top of the geographic South Pole itself. This area is along the original route explorers used to reach the South Pole. Both Amundsen and Scott traversed the Ross Ice Shelf and traveled up glaciers into that mountain range. Nowadays, though, expeditions bypass the mountains, going around either to the east or west. The area has not been extensively explored. Therefore it is my recommendation that we look first in this region.

“What I’ve done is make a montage of the silhouettes of the mountains around Eternity Base along with azimuths at which the pictures were taken. Fortunately we were able to determine this from the shadows. Then, as we fly along the mountains, we’ll try to match the outlines.”

Devlin held up a piece of paper with an outline of three jagged peaks poking above a sea of ice. “This is the view we should see along a due north azimuth. Mountains whose peaks manage to make it above the ice are called nunataks. As you can see in this picture, we have three very distinctive nunataks — two large pointed ones on the flanks of this rounded one. This three-mountain setup is what we should be looking for.”

“How common are nunataks?” Vickers asked.

“Not as common as this map would make you believe with all these mountain ranges drawn on it,” Devlin replied. “The Antarctic ice sheet averages more than twenty-five hundred meters thick. That’s more than eight thousand feet. So a mountain has to be very high to clear the ice sheet.

“If we can find these three — and they are rather unique — and line up exactly on azimuth, then we will be along the line that Eternity Base lies on. In fact, I think there might be someone from our organization at Aurora Glacier who might even be able to identify these mountains and save us a lot of time.”

“This may be a stupid question,” Vickers said, “but wouldn’t this place be totally covered up by now? After twenty-five years it would seem like there’d be quite a bit of snow on top.”

“Good question.” Devlin rubbed his chin. “I do think Eternity Base is most likely totally covered over by now, but not from snowfall. There isn’t much accumulation down there, but the wind would pile ice and snow up against any exposed structure. However, we do have a plan for that.

“As I explained, we can get pretty close if we find these mountains. Once we do that, we land and use sonar to try and find the base. It’s similar to the way fishermen look for schools of fish. We have two backpack sonar sets at the base, which are used for research on the ice cap. We can use those to shoot down into the ice as we ski along the azimuth. The metal and different density of the base ought to show up clearly. According to our information, Eternity Base covers a large area underground.”

Conner wondered what contingency the builders had designed to find the place if it was covered up. She doubted very much that they had overlooked that major problem when they’d built it. “What’s the weather like?” she asked.

Devlin walked over to a table and switched on a radio set. “Let’s find out. We have high-frequency contact with our base, and just last month we finally got the people over at McMurdo to give Aurora Glacier the weather reports. Before that we were on our own.” He glanced at Conner as he fiddled with the radio. “We’re not quite rich enough yet to have satellite communications.”

Conner returned the look, trying to determine what he meant by that. This trip was going to be even more intriguing than she had thought.

Conner thought it was interesting that McMurdo hadn’t been giving weather reports to the Our Earth people. Typical government mentality. Our Earth represented a potential threat, so the party line was probably to ignore them, or to make their life as miserable as possible. On the other hand, she imagined that the Our Earth people wouldn’t exactly ingratiate themselves to the various government personnel down there.

Devlin fiddled with the dials and then picked up the microphone. “Aurora Glacier, this is Auckland. Over.”

There was no answer, and he repeated the message. Finally the radio crackled with a woman’s voice. “Auckland, this is Aurora Glacier. Over.”

“What’s the weather look like? Over.”

“The latest from McMurdo at 1900 Greenwich mean: present readings. Temperature minus 29 degrees Fahrenheit. Winds north, northwest at 23 knots. Barometric pressure 29.4 rising. Ceiling 1,200 feet, overcast. Visibility 4 miles with some blowing snow.

“Forecast is for the temperature to rise to minus 21 degrees Fahrenheit and the winds to continue at the same. Ceiling is expected to go up to around 1,500 feet with continued broken clouds. Visibility to extend to almost 5 miles. Over.”

“Great. We’ll give you a call once we’re in the air and tell you when to expect us. Over.”

“Roger. See you then. Out.”

Lallo was looking worried. “That sounds like pretty bad weather to me.”

Devlin smiled. “Actually that’s good weather. The forecast is for eight hours, plus two on the far side for a safety margin for the military’s C-130 flights, which are a little faster than we go. That report is a combination of inputs from d’Urville, the Russians at Minsk Station, the Aussies at Wilkes, and several others. McMurdo collates them and then broadcasts every thirty minutes. Five hours out from McMurdo is our point of no return. That’s when we get the latest weather relayed from Aurora Glacier and the pilot makes the decision whether to continue on or turn around and head back.”

The door leading to the hangar slammed open and Swenson stood there, wiping off his hands with a grimy towel. He spoke with a strong Australian accent. “We’re topped off and I’ve got all your gear loaded. We’ll be ready to roll at first light as long as the weather holds.”

He stomped up to the front of the room. “I’ve got extra fuel tanks on the wings and two bladders in the back all hooked up. We should have enough petrol to make it there.”

“Should have?” Vickers echoed.

Swenson smiled. “Just a phrase. It’s a good airplane — a Cessna 411, if that means anything to you — but Antarctica is a bit out of its normal range, so we have to pack on all that extra fuel.

“I assume Devlin has told you about the point of no return. It’s not only because of weather but also because of the fuel situation. Once we go past that point, we’ve got to make it to Aurora Glacier Station because we won’t have enough fuel to turn around and come back.” The burly man shrugged.

“All right. Here’s your safety briefing. We run into trouble, you do what I say without asking any questions. We go down in the ocean, the raft is under the copilot’s seat. That’s the one up front that I’m not sitting in. You’d better hope we stay afloat long enough to get the raft inflated and out the window because if you get dunked, the cold water will kill you in less than a minute.

“We go down on land and I don’t make it to give you advice, then my advice now is stay with the plane. It’s got an emergency transponder on board, and even if that gets busted, the plane is going to be the biggest thing rescuers could find. You go wandering around on the ice, you’ll last a little longer than if you’d gone in the water, but not by much. The end result will be the same.

“There are first aid and emergency kits on board the plane. They’re marked in red and you can’t miss ‘em.” Swenson smiled. “Any questions?” The other five people just stared at him. “All right then. See you in the morning.”

Devlin pointed at some boxes lined up against the wall. “I’ve got some cold weather gear here. Let’s get your equipment squared away before I show you where you’ll spend the night.”

Falcon read the brief reply from ISA headquarters that he’d picked up at the dead drop. His initial feeling was one of relief. Since the ISA had no record of Eternity Base, there was nothing to this mission. He’d, been worried about it for the past several days. If the place did exist, the potential embarrassment was great. That was not something Falcon wanted to get involved in. He had no idea why the army would have built something in Antarctica, but he’d worked with the government for more than twenty years now and learned long ago not to apply logic and common sense to anything he came across.

Falcon got up and looked out his high office window, down onto the streets, slowly rolling his head to stretch his neck. “No,” he said to himself, the bad feeling returning. Complacency was bad. Just because the computer held no record didn’t mean there was nothing to the story. Conner had too much information. Too many pieces. The most chilling piece was the MIA aircrew.

Falcon felt the uneasy knot tie together in his stomach. If the U.S. Army built Eternity Base, then the ISA had to have some record of it. Since there was no record, logic said that it didn’t exist. Falcon threw out logic and went with the opposite supposition. Suppose it did exist? What did that mean? If Eternity Base was real, then someone had built this place using government resources yet had also managed to keep it a secret from the government.

Falcon sat down at his desk and wrote out another message to ISA headquarters for immediate transmission.