At the Outpost of Fate

CHAPTER 15 — LORD OF DESTRUCTION

The man whom Jocasta called Schadel, made only one detour as he fled the Outpost. He turned down the siding where the now defunct Float Car had been stashed and retrieved his thrall Burton, otherwise known as Captain Elliot Berlitz, formerly of Pan American Airlines. He directed the metallic sphere down and snatched up the bound pilot without even stopping, engulfing him the way a macrophage consumes an invading bacterium. He then steered back into the main passage and shot like a bullet over the heads of the soldiers that were cautiously advancing into the ice tunnel. Only when he was clear of the Outpost, with the vast expanse of Antarctica flashing beneath him, did he untie Berlitz.

"Get your map out," he directed the pilot, "and show me where we are."

Berlitz, a living automaton, complied without hesitation or enthusiasm. As soon as he got a fix on their position from the stars overhead, he pointed to a spot on the map and then lapsed into a waiting silence. Schadel scanned the chart, locating a specific set of latitude and longitude coordinates that he had memorized and then showed it to Berlitz. "What's the most direct route to this point?"

The pilot gazed through the semi-transparent surface of the sphere, then turned to the right and pointed out across the dark ice. "That way."

Although he had not anticipated having to make his egress from the Outpost using such a ponderous mode of transport, Schadel had planned ahead. Because he didn't know the exact location of the secret Antarctic facility, he had arranged for several rendezvous points ringing the continent. It was a huge undertaking, involving almost half of the Third Reich's clandestine submarine fleet, but with the very fate of the world in the balance, no expenditure of effort or money was too much.

Content with his victory, Schadel commenced removing the theatrical make-up that had given him the face of a recently deceased FBI Agent named Thomas Fuller. His name was not Schadel, any more than it was Fuller, but the German word was the equivalent of his chosen nom de guerre: The Skull. He barely remembered his real name; it was a forgotten relic of his half-forgotten past. Everyone who knew him by that name believed he was dead and he was content to let the name remain where it was, adorning his cenotaph in the cemetery of his family manor in the English countryside.

One upon a time, he had thought to call himself "the Great Beast." In his youth, he had dallied with the occult. Following a disturbing encounter with a gypsy fortune teller, he had sworn allegiance to the powers of darkness and set out upon the Left-hand path. In hindsight, it had been a rather juvenile thing to do, but then he had been little more than a boy at the time; a rebellious, spoiled young man, seeking an antidote to interminable boredom of his privileged upbringing. Yet, what had begun as mere thrill seeking had led to discoveries beyond his wildest imaginings.

He had trekked across the Himalayas, learning the secret of astral projection from yogis in high mountain monasteries. He spent a fantastic night in the Pyramid of Cheops, on the Giza Plateau in Egypt and nearly died in an ill-begotten quest to find a lost city in the Amazon Basin. But all of that was merely prelude to what he discovered when he gained access to the archives of the Trevayne Society in London and read the prophecy of the Child of Skulls.

At first, he did not grasp its full import. He took it to be symbolic, like the Book of the Apocalypse. He did not seriously entertain the notion that the Child of Skulls might be an actual person, much less imagine that it might actually refer to him. But all that changed with the coming of the Great War.

There were many in those days who believed the End of Days had come; that the Four Horseman had been set loose upon the world, as first the war and then the pandemic Spanish Influenza, cut a bloody swath across the world. At the time however, the young man's attention had been focused elsewhere.

Because he was the son of a Lord of the Realm, his commission as an officer was obligatory and while he had little interest in pleasing his father, death in No Man's Land was preferable to being cut off from his family's wealth. Not that he had to worry about being sent to the trenches. A polyglot and an experienced world traveler, he spent hardly any time at all in uniform and was instead tapped to work in military intelligence; he was to be a spy. The assignment suited him well, for he had spent his entire life deceiving those closest to him. Then, one summer day in 1915, everything changed forever.

He had been sent to Ludwigshafen, to sabotage and if possible, destroy one of the major facilities being used to produce chlorine gas weapon cylinders. So successful was he in the craft of espionage that no one suspected that he was responsible for the gas explosion that killed half-a-score of chemical plant workers and released a toxic gray-green cloud that rolled across the Rhine and made everyone in the nearby town of Manheim sick for several days thereafter. No one suspected him because he was one of the victims.

He had come to the plant posing as a textiles merchant, intent on purchasing a quantity of dye. Chlorine was a by-product of dye manufacture, so the plant served dual purposes. During his visit and tour of the facilities, he had excused himself just long enough to plant several small explosive devices, all set to detonate many hours later, when he was well away. But something had gone wrong. Perhaps one of the timing clocks had malfunctioned or perhaps a curious plant worker had discovered one of the charges and inadvertently set it off. Whatever the cause, he had been caught in the ensuing death cloud.

The training he had once received from Indian yogis saved his life. When he heard the blast and saw the miasma rolling toward him, he put himself in a trance state, where he could survive for more than an hour on a single lungful of air. He woke from the trance when they came to retrieve the bodies, glimpsing the gas-masked face of the firemen in that single lucid moment before the pain consumed him.

It was eight weeks before the hospital staff finally let him see his reflection. While he had escaped the kind of internal damage most often associated with poison gas exposure, the chlorine had left him horribly disfigured. His hair was gone, the follicles permanently destroyed and not so much as an eyelash remained. His skin had been bleached bone white and the flesh beneath and even the relatively soft cartilage of his nose and ears had wasted away.

Those who would later have occasion to deal with him would believe that he hid his true face beneath a skull mask; in truth, the skull was his true face.

Yet, even as he feigned despair at the changes wrought upon his flesh, what he saw in the mirror was not the tragic outcome of misfortune, but a vision of what was to come… of what he was prophesized to become.

He was content to remain in Germany. His time was divided between learning how to use theatrical cosmetics to hide his damaged appearance and researching ancient lore in the libraries of Nurnberg. In less than a decade he had become both a master of disguise and a master of occult lore. And as his adopted country was ground under the heel of the Treaty of Versailles, he discovered fertile ground in which to sow the seeds of the coming destruction of which he was destined to be the chief architect.

He worked always through proxies, identifying men whose frustration — either at the current state of affairs or simply at their own impotence — had led them to the brink of taking radical action. It required only a gentle nudge to set such men in motion and only a few whispered suggestions to guide them. He found his most willing acolytes in the membership of the Thule Society, a group of pampered dilettantes playing at being magicians; he understood such men very well and knew exactly what was required to start them down the path. But manipulating men who were already given to the pursuit of mysteries and mysticism could only take him so far. Fulfillment of the prophecy would require controlling minds on a massive scale and that could only be accomplished by seizing political power. This too proved far easier than he would have imagined thanks to the dire economic circumstances and smoldering fires of resentment resulting from Germany's defeat in the Great War, as well as an ancient and abiding tribal hatred of the Jewish race.

In all that he set out to do, he was successful; all of the pieces were in place and yet something was missing. It was within his power to unleash Hell on earth, but his ultimate goal was to become the Lord of Hell itself. His occult studies spoke of ancient civilizations that possessed the means to open the door between worlds and he sent forth his acolytes into the far-flung corners of the world in order to possess their secret. Much to his dismay, while his archaeologists returned empty-handed, his spies in the U.S. government revealed that the key was there… or rather, in the hands of Dodge Dalton.

He regarded the length of metal in hands. Though he had possessed it only a short time, he intimately understood how to unleash its energies, but now a new obstacle had arisen in his path. While he at last possessed the key, he was unsure of where to find the lock. The untimely arrival of soldiers at the Outpost had prevented him from delving into its secrets, but he did not doubt the answer could be found elsewhere.

In fact, he knew exactly where to look.

The first thing General Vaughn did after entering the chamber was to have Dodge and the others tied up. He fixed Dodge in his stare even as he finished the command. "Sergeant Baughman, if one of them so much as opens his mouth to cough, you will beat him senseless with your rifle butt."

Dodge glanced at the column and the growing puddle of melt water and remembered what Newcombe had said, Three hours until the Outpost is destroyed and then more ominously, It might be heating up faster than that.

For his part, Newcombe showed no hesitation in drawing the general's attention to the unfolding crisis. "General Vaughn, you've got to listen. We're all in great danger."

As soon as he started talking, Dodge saw something flash in the eyes of the soldier tasked with keeping them quiet. With barely concealed glee, the sergeant hefted his Garand and drew back to carry out his standing orders.

"As you were, Sergeant," barked Vaughn. The eager light in the sergeant's eyes turned to a flicker of disappointment, but he relaxed stepped back. The general strode forward until he was face to face with the scientist. "Well, well, Newcombe. For an educated man, you've made some pretty stupid decisions."

A perplexed expression crossed the scientist's countenance. "Actually General, given the circumstances, my decisions were sound. If you'd just take the time to listen, you would see that."

Vaughn rolled his eyes. "Gag him."

Newcombe did not seem to understand that his direct manner had been interpreted as impertinence, but he quickly continued. "General, please. You need to hear what I have to say."

The officer glanced from Newcombe to Dodge and back again. "Sergeant, take these two topside and secure them. I'm going to give Dr. Newcombe another chance to explain to me why he shouldn't be shot for treason."

Dodge sensed that Vaughn's indulgence would not extend to him and held his tongue as he and Amelia — or rather Jocasta — were escorted by a squad of riflemen toward the tunnel mouth.

As soon as they left the domed chamber behind, Dodge felt his sense of urgency begin to erode. Without the constant reminder that the strange metal column was heating up, it was hard to believe that they could be mere hours from the catastrophic destruction of the Outpost.

"May I ask a question, Sergeant…Baughman, was it?" Jocasta's accent seemed more pronounced and her tone that was almost seductive in its innocence.

Dodge held his breath in anticipation of a violent reprisal, but instead the burly soldier leading their procession flashed a flirtatious smile. "Fire away, sweetheart."

"I was just wondering how you found us here. I thought that this location was being kept secret from the Army."

The sergeant chuckled. "We've been tailing you since you left the States. The general committed dozens of airplanes to following you."

"It's always been my understanding that aeroplanes don't function terribly well in this environment." She flashed a sly wink at Dodge. "Ours certainly didn't."

"Well, the general knew you'd be coming this way. He whistled up a couple of Tin Gooses…Geese?" The sergeant puzzled over this for a moment, then continued. "Trimotors that were already specially outfitted for polar conditions and he sent them ahead to Little America with the advance party. We‘ve been following you the whole way."

Despite his conflicted emotions at learning the true identity of the woman posing as a reporter, coming on the heels of Fuller/Schadel's treachery, Dodge felt an unexpected surge of hope as he listened to the exchange. If the real Jocasta was anything like the woman who had outwitted Captain Falcon in his semi-fictional account, then what he was witnessing now was the beginning of her escape attempt.

Jocasta did not press her advantage too hard. To avoid suspicion, she hid the salient questions in the flow of conversation. She teased and flirted with the sergeant and as they progressed into the main network of tunnels, she gradually engaged the other soldiers. Dodge stayed out of the conversation and only listened half-heartedly. His thoughts were consumed by the ticking of his wristwatch — which he was unable to see since his hands were tied together with parachute cord behind his back — or perhaps more accurately, the rising mercury in an invisible thermometer. How hot was the metal pillar now? How much time remained before the hypothesized explosion shattered the Outpost? How long until it was hot enough to melt through the earth's crust?

The journey to the surface seemed to take forever. Dodge had never made this traverse on foot and had no real concept of how many miles of ice lay between the center of the Outpost and its entrance. The walls were still glowing blue, but tunnels that seemed familiar when whooshing by at fifty miles an hour looked completely alien at a walking pace. The soldiers followed guide marks chiseled in the ice at junctions, a course evidently worked out by trial and error.

Jocasta was still fully engaged in friendly conversation with their captors when they passed through the unnaturally perfect opening in the ice that was the threshold of the Outpost. Surprisingly, the tunnel no longer let out onto the vast Antarctic wilderness, but instead was completely covered by an enormous structure. It was a huge tent, as vast as a circus big top, with heavy olive drab canvas panels that whipped and popped as the wind outside battered the exterior. The canopy covered an area at least the size of a football field. Dozens of battery powered electric lamps had been hung on the upright wooden support poles that were interspersed throughout the enclosure and at the far end of the tent, two Ford Trimotor airplanes were parked, wingtips almost touching and noses pointing inward.

Dodge let out a low whistle and broke his silence. "You fellows have been busy."

Sergeant Baughman looked at him sideways, as if trying to decide whether or not to butt-stroke him. "Amazing what you can do with enough manpower."

"How many of you are there?"

"Enough questions." The scowling sergeant directed his subordinates to settle the captives on the edge of a pallet that still held a three fuel drums. "Private Jessup, you stay here and keep an eye them."

One of the young riflemen croaked, "Just me, Sergeant? I mean, by myself?"

"General Vaughn wants us to get back to the search. Why? This too big a job for you?"

"Sergeant, you know that's Dodge Dalton."

"Who?" It was difficult to tell whether Baughman was being sarcastic.

"He writes the Captain Falcon stories."

Dodge felt a glimmer of hope. If the young soldier knew who he was, then it might be possibly to gain his trust. He kept his head down, careful not to do anything to validate the young private's concerns.

Baughman rolled his eyes. "You can ask for his autograph if you want. Just don't untie his hands."

As the squad marched back into the Outpost, the lone warden glared down at Dodge. "I like your stories, Mister Dalton, but I've got my orders. You try anything, an' I'll shoot you sure as the sky is blue."

Jessup's faint accent reminded Dodge of Hurricane Hurley's Appalachian drawl; it was a bittersweet association. As he pondered how to make his play, he felt Jocasta lean against him. "You write stories about Zane?"

"I assumed you knew already." The words were out of his mouth before he registered the familiarity of her question. Zane, not Captain Falcon. Of course, she knew him. They were romantically involved…but that was just a story, wasn't it?

"I have a confession," she continued. "Before I followed you to Washington, when I was in New York, I… well, you might say that I visited with Brian and Nathan."

Dodge's heart skipped a beat. "They're alive? Hurricane and the Padre? And Molly?"

"A red-haired girl? Yes, she was with them. They're all quite safe."

For the first time in days, Dodge felt something like joy crack the ice around his heart. He wanted to ask for more detail, but the words couldn't get past the lump in his throat. Jocasta appeared not to notice. "Nathan spoke of a prophecy; something about a 'child of skulls.' Apparently Schadel believes he's some sort of apocalyptic Messiah. That's what this is all about."

Questions deluged his brain, each fighting to be the next words on his lips. Finally, one slipped through. "Are they coming?"

Jocasta sighed. "Dodge, you must realize that I wasn't working with Nathan and Brian. I took the Staff from them. They had no idea where I was going with it and until I followed Schadel's men to you, I didn't either."

A few steps away, Private Jessup tapped a Lucky Strike out of a pack as he followed the exchange with rapt attention. Dodge didn't know what to say.

"I overheard Nathan taking about a fraternal society in London," continued Jocasta. "Trevayne, I think it was. Never heard of them, but Nathan seemed to think that they had some insight into what Schadel was on about. I believe it was their plan to fly there."

"You said you thought Schadel might be working with the Nazis; do you think he'll take the Staff there? To Germany?"

Jocasta shrugged and then directed her gaze to Jessup. "Spare a fag, love?"

The rifleman's brow furrowed in confusion, prompting Jocasta to paraphrase her request with exaggerated enunciation. "May I have one of your cigarettes?"

Jessup grinned and knelt close enough to hold out the pack with his left hand, his right never leaving the rifle stock. He shook the packet until one of the cigarettes poked out a couple inches, then extended it so that Jocasta could take it in her lips. He then stashed the pack and brought out a Zippo lighter, which he managed to light one-handed with only a little difficulty.

She smiled around the cigarette, which caused it to bob away from the dancing flame. Jessup frowned and chased the tip for a few seconds before finally surrendering his grip on the Garand and bringing his right hand to better control the lighter. Then Jocasta reached up and put her hands around his.

The soldier's eyes widened in surprise, but that was all he had time for. Jocasta thrust the lighter toward his face, which caused him to instinctively recoil. As he sprawled backward, arms flailing, Jocasta sprang into motion. Like a circus acrobat, she rolled forward onto her hands and exploded into a handspring that thrust her high into the air above the stunned rifleman and then brought her down like a hammer on his chest, driving the breath from his lungs. Though he must have outweighed her by a good eighty pounds, Jessup was completely immobilized. Her knees closed like a vise on either side of his neck, while her feet hooked under his armpits, forcing his arms away and preventing him from throwing her off. His face went purple as the oxygen supply to his brain was cut off and then about thirty seconds later, his bulging eyes rolled back in his head and his struggles ceased.

Jocasta spat the unlit cigarette out. "Filthy habit. You really should give these things up, soldier boy."

It wasn't until she glanced back at him, smiling triumphantly, that Dodge realized his jaw had dropped. "That was impressive," he finally managed to say. "Did you…uh, is he going to be okay?"

"He'll live to smoke another day." She held out one of her hands, allowing the length of parachute cord to dangle freely and then used it to lash the supine man's wrists together.

"How long did it take you to untie your hands?"

She laughed and then took Jessup's bayonet from its sheath on his belt. "Not long. They were rather dainty knots."

Dodge tested his own bonds, which were so tight that his fingertips had gone numb. Even after Jocasta sliced them apart with the bayonet, it was several minutes before the feeling returned.

"So, now what?"

Her question was even more surprising than the abrupt actions which had secured their release. The jewel thief he had written about in "The Caviar Caper" would never have asked anyone for direction, much less do anything that wasn't entirely self-serving. On the other hand, intentionally or not, she had brought the Staff to Schadel. And I brought Schadel to the Outpost.

He massaged his wrists, trying to rub sensation back into his hands as he pondered her question. There were two answers; two paths to take, two choices to make. Go after Schadel and possibly sacrifice Newcombe, Vaughn and all of his soldiers. Or, try to rescue the people presently in the Outpost, at the risk of letting Schadel destroy the world. When you put it that way…"We've got to get that Staff back."

A faint smile, like a nod of approval, touched Jocasta's lips. "Lead on."

"This is how it's going to work, Dr. Newcombe." Vaughn had not permitted the scientist to do much more than raise his hands in protest. "I know that you think of Mr. Dalton as a friend, but your loyalty is misplaced. He's been holding you back. He restricted your access to this technology and his decisions not only prevented you from utilizing it for national security, but have also led us to this sorry state of affairs. I know about the theft of the device from New York. It's probably in the hands of a foreign power now."

Newcombe nodded, but before he could say anything the general continued. "What's important is that we're here now and the army is in control. Not…" He paused for emphasis, "Mr. Dalton. Now, if you're loyalty to him is such that you'd like to share a prison cell with him, let me know. Otherwise, I suggest you get to work doing the job the taxpayers hired you to do. Figure out how this technology works and show us how to use it."

Newcombe kept shaking his head and finally managed to get a word out. "General, you don't understand. This place is about to be destroyed and if we don't leave very soon, we'll be destroyed with it."

"Destroyed?"

The scientist pointed to the metal column. "That is the power source for all the technology and it's starting to heat up. Put your hand out. Feel it?"

The general held his hand out close to, but not touching the pillar. "So?"

"The temperature is rising. It should be ice cold, but it's at least body temperature." His forehead drew into an anxious crease. "It is heating up much faster than I thought. It's like a self-destruct mechanism, heating up and melting into the ice. It's gone from freezing — thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit — to almost one hundred degrees in the space of about twenty minutes. That's about three degrees a minute. When it reaches the boiling point, two hundred-and-twelve degrees, which will happen in about forty more minutes, this whole place will either melt away or blow up."

Vaughn searched for some hint of deception in the other man's face. "Forty minutes you say? That should be time enough for you to figure out how to shut it off."

"General, the only power that can shut it off just left here. It's probably on its way to Germany now."

Vaughn set his jaw. "I did not move heaven and earth to find this place, just to run away at the first sign of trouble. Now you're the expert on this technology. Find a way to get control of it."

"Well…" Newcombe scratched his frizzy head. "Maybe there's another set of keys here somewhere."

"That's the spirit. I've got my soldiers searching every inch of this place. If there's—" The sound of shouts from the tunnel interrupted Vaughn's assurance. He turned his aide de camp and made no effort to hide his annoyance. "Find out what's going on."

The young lieutenant hurried toward the exit, but even before he reached it, he could hear the message being yelled out by a runner. "Sir! They've stolen a plane!"

"Who—?" Vaughn's eyes widened as he realized the answer to his own question and when he said it aloud, it sounded like a curse. "Dalton!"

Newcombe glanced at the out of breath soldier — the messenger who had brought news of the theft of one of the planes. Vaughn had instructed him to remain behind, guarding the scientist, before rushing off to deal with the latest crisis. "Keep him here. Make sure he figures out what makes this place tick."

"Easier said than done," Newcombe muttered. But that was the military for you. Everything was an engineering problem to them; figure out how it works, take it apart and then figure out how to make more.

He held a hand out to the pillar again. Was it warmer now than it had been a few moments ago? He couldn't tell. It certainly felt hot to the touch, the way a person with a high fever might feel. "A thermometer would be useful,” he muttered. “I really should put some kind of field kit together.”

The ring of melt water surrounding the base of the pillar was getting larger and the drip from the high dome above was turning into a steady shower. Worse yet, the pillar now appeared to be actively sinking. It was hot enough now to melt the ice on contact and since it wasn't being cooled by the water, its weight was forcing it deeper.

The research he had done back at his laboratory at Fort George Meade had given him only a glimpse into the workings of the exoskeleton device Dodge had supplied, but as he had told Fuller — or whatever that fellow's name was — everything had a rational explanation. The exoskeleton did not operate in defiance of the laws of physics, but rather in concert with them. The same was true of the pillar; it had to be.

Of course, it hadn't seemed that way when he'd touched it. He had seen things in that moment; things which didn't exactly smack of science and rational thought. The very fact of the experience itself — of being transported into a sort of waking dream and seeing the memories of people who had been dead for thousands of years — was the stuff of fiction, not science. But such was his faith in science that he knew there was an explanation for it.

He shook his head, trying to remove the memory and tried to focus on the more immediate problem. He didn't doubt that the pillar would continue to heat up at least to the boiling point. What we weren’t so sure about was where it would stop.

In order for the pillar to continue to heat up, surrounded as it was by icy cold water, it had to be drawing an enormous amount of energy. He had long theorized that the flying device utilized the earth's own electromagnetic field as an energy source. That field was not well understood by scientists, but one thing was certain. It was not an infinite source of energy. As the pillar's temperature increased, its energy requirements would become exponential in nature. That meant that at some point, the energy required to raise the temperature one more degree would be more than the planet could supply. It was difficult to calculate exactly what that point would be. "I'll need a slide rule for that field kit," he murmured.

Of course, if the pillar was drawing its energy from the earth's magnetic field and continued to do so until it reached that critical threshold, then there would probably be dire consequences to that field. The north and south poles might flip. There was evidence to suggest such a thing had happened before in prehistoric times, with possibly catastrophic consequences. Or the earth might demagnetize altogether.

"Mustn't let that happen."

He was beginning to understand why Dodge had been so reluctant to entrust the secrets of the Outpost to the government. Vaughn had more than once made it clear that he was interested in the military application of the technology; what would the army do if given a weapon that could potentially destroy all life on earth? And once Pandora's Box was opened, there would be no putting the evils back in.

Then again, if he didn't figure out some way to stop what was happening here, none of that would matter.

"I think we're clear now," the guard announced, pulling the scarf away from his face and raising his goggles. "Well Doc, can you turn it off?"

Newcombe glanced over at the man, surprised at his familiarity and the familiarity of his voice, then did a double take. "Dodge!"

Dodge grinned back at him. "Couldn't very well leave you behind."

"So it was Jocasta that stole the plane?"

"No one stole the plane. I just said that to get Vaughn moving. With any luck, he'll call his troops back to the surface." He held a hand out to the pillar and winced as if it had burned him. "We're running out of time, aren't we?"

Newcombe nodded sadly. "My original estimates weren't even close. We've got less than hour until this reaches the boiling point. Very soon, we should see it start to sink quickly into the ice."

"Is there anything you can do to stop it?"

"Without the Staff?" He shrugged. "If we can find another one like it, maybe."

Dodge shook his head. "That's not going to happen. Not in the time we have left. We need to go, Doc."

Newcombe hesitated, gesturing to the pillar. He wasn't sure what exactly he was protesting; part of him wanted to continue observing this unique phenomenon. There was so much to be learned.

Dodge grabbed his elbow and started gently pulling. "Doc, unless you want to run all the way, we'd better get moving. Now!"

Dodge's sharp tone jolted him into motion. He tore his gaze away from the column and followed Dodge into the tunnel. By the time they reached it, the column had sunk another six inches into the ice.

As they moved through the ice tunnels at a jogging pace, Dodge told every group of soldiers he encountered that Vaughn had given the order to rally at the planes. "Spread the word," Dodge said. "The general wants everyone topside, in the next ten minutes."

With his face mostly concealed by his scarf and goggles and the hood of the parka he had liberated from Private Jessup, no one questioned his statement. By the time they reached the tent covering the entrance, Dodge and Newcombe were accompanied by ten other soldiers. He just hoped it was everyone.

As they passed through into the tent, Dodge removed his disguise. He needed the general to take him seriously; there was nothing to be gained by trying to fool him a second time. As it was, Vaughn was waiting, standing in front of the two Ford Trimotors with another group of soldiers. Although he picked Dodge out of the arriving group, Vaughn did nothing; he simply stood, rooted in place and smoldering with rage.

"How much time left, Doc?"

Newcombe checked his wristwatch. "Five minutes; maybe more, maybe not."

Five minutes. Barely even time to get the planes running and off the ground.

"You should have just taken the plane, Dalton." Vaughn's taunt was accompanied by a gesture that sent the waiting soldiers swarming toward Dodge and Newcombe. The troops that had followed them to the surface quickly overcame their own confusion and added their guns to the effort.

Dodge did not resist as his arms were seized. "I couldn't just leave you all to die here, General."

"Where's the woman?"

Dodge affected surprise. "You mean she's not here?"

"General, we have to leave," Newcombe broke in. "We've got a few minutes at best."

Vaughn's jaw began moving as if he were trying to chew up the humiliation of admitting that it might be time to retreat. "I suppose she's here somewhere with a rifle aimed at my head."

"Not quite." Dodge broke the staring match with Vaughn to cast a glance up to the wing of one of the Trimotors.

Jocasta Palmer sat there, like a spectator at a ball game, but in one hand she something that looked like a strange fruit — an oblong ball of crenelated metal. A metal ring, with a long pin attached, dangled from a finger of her other hand. A collective gasp went up from the assembled troops as they recognized the object: a Mark II hand-grenade with its safety pin removed. She waved to the crowd, displaying the pin like a charm. Vaughn, to his credit, did not even flinch.

"General, you've won. The Outpost is yours." Dodge spread his hands in a gesture of surrender. "If we're wrong, you can come back and take whatever you please. But if we're right, everyone here is going to die."

Vaughn was not about to accept anyone dictating terms. "Tell your lady friend to make that grenade safe, then we'll talk. And you're still in custody."

Dodge nodded to Jocasta who, with an almost disappointed expression, proceeded to thread the pin back into place. He wanted to tell Vaughn that the grenade was the least of his worries, but before he could say anything, the ice heaved under his feet and his world dissolved into chaos.