Eternity Base

Chapter 19

They’d managed to clear not only the west tunnel of ice, but also the entryway into the west ice storage area. That room was as large as the east one, but there was no ramp at the end. It was also stocked full of supplies and food. Conner’s team had taken footage of the entire event.

Right now, Sammy was lying behind Devlin and Riley in the power access tunnel, which was made of corrugated steel tubing approximately three feet in diameter. They’d been digging here by hand for two hours. Removing the ice was slow work, because it had to be put on a blanket and dragged the length of the tunnel, then Sammy would dispose of it along the south ice wall.

It probably would have been easier to go up to the surface and use the sonar to find the reactor, then try to dig out its access shaft. The only problem with that plan was the weather. Sammy had gone up the main surface shaft several hours ago with Riley and Devlin to take a look outside. Visibility was close to zero as the wind lashed the countryside with a wall of white. Ten feet from the doorway, a person would be lost and would find his way back only with a lot of luck. It was hard to believe Vickers’s latest radio message that the storm was actually lessening in intensity.

Remembering the blowing snow and the icy talons of cold ripping at her clothes through the open door, and thinking about the frozen body lying at the foot of the stairs, brought to mind something Sammy had read in Conner’s binder during her two-hour guard shift: the fate of Capt. Lawrence Oates, a member of Scott’s ill-fated 1911-12 South Pole expedition. Scott’s party had arrived at the South Pole after man-hauling their sleds most of the way, only to discover a tent and note that Norwegian Roald Amundsen had left behind, proving that he had beaten Scott there by a month. On their return trip, the party was running out of food and was in the middle of a blizzard. Oates, who was suffering from severe frostbite, walked out of the campsite into the blowing snow, sacrificing himself so the party could continue on more quickly. His noble gesture was all for naught, though, because the rest of Scott’s party died only eleven miles from a supply depot. Eight months later their bodies were discovered along with Scott’s journal relating the sad tale.

“I’ve got an opening.” Riley broke Sammy out of her snowy reverie. He was poking his shovel through the ice. Together, Riley and Devlin scratched away to widen the opening. The tunnel continued on ahead for another ten feet before angling off to the right.

“Let’s see what we have,” Riley said, as he led the way.

Sammy crawled along on her hands and knees behind Riley and Devlin, her Gore-tex pants sliding on the steel. Fifty more feet and they reached a thick hatch. Riley turned the wheel and the door slowly opened. Another two hundred feet. Then another hatch. They squeezed out the second one and could finally stand. A small shielded room opened out onto the reactor’s core. Radiation warning signs were plastered all over the walls. Sammy looked through the thick glass at the slots where the rods were to be inserted in the reactor core itself. In front of the glass was a small control panel with a few seats.

“Unbelievable.” Devlin shook his head. “They really thought something this poorly constructed could work. No wonder the one at McMurdo had to be taken apart.”

“You have to remember this was twenty-five years ago,” Riley reminded him.

“Hell, even twenty-five years ago someone should have had more common sense.” Devlin ran his hands over the thick glass separating them from the core. “Why are people so stupid?”

“Let’s get Conner. She’ll want to get this on tape.” Devlin reentered the access tunnel and headed back. Riley and Sammy stayed a few seconds, checking out the room, and then followed.

Pak watched as Sergeant Chong finished securing the steel cable that would hold their static lines to the roof of the airplane, just in front of the aft passenger door. Pak had never jumped out of an IL-18, but he had heard that it had been done. The IL-18 was not specifically designed for paratroop operations, but the team was making the best of the situation, which seemed to be the overriding concept for this whole mission. Everything about the operation was being improvised due to the time constraint, and Pak didn’t like that.

He looked out a small porthole at the polar ice cap glistening below. They were flying at the plane’s maximum altitude. Pushing up against the glass and looking forward, Pak could make out a dark line indicating the storm blanketing Lesser Antarctica. The OPLAN had told him about it. Jumping into the high winds was going to be extremely dangerous, a factor the bureaucrats at Special Forces Command seemed to have overlooked.

Pak checked his watch. They were less than an hour and a half from the target. ‘Time to rig!” he yelled.

Splitting into buddy teams, the nine men who would be jumping began to put on their parachutes, Sergeant Chong helping the odd man. Pak threw his main parachute on his back and buckled the leg and chest straps, securing the chute to his body and making sure it was cinched down tight. The reserve was hooked onto the front. Rucksacks were clipped on below the reserve, and automatic weapons were tied down on top of the reserve.

After Sergeant Chong inspected all the men, they took their seats, each man lost in his own thoughts, contemplating the jump and the mission ahead.

Pak pulled the OPLAN out of his carry-on bag and checked the numbers in the communications section. With those in mind, he waddled his way up the aisle toward the cockpit.

The wind had actually diminished, although it was still kicking along with gusts up to thirty-five miles an hour. Visibility was increasing to almost fifty feet at times. The slight break in the storm could last for minutes or hours.

Below the surface, in the base itself, the party was taking turns sleeping. Vickers, Kerns, and Lallo were seated at the doors to unit B2, standing guard on the sleepers and each other.

In the communications unit, A3, all was quiet. The lights had been turned off since Conner finished videotaping hours earlier. There was no one in the room to notice the small red light that suddenly flickered and came alive on the transponder. Someone had initiated the beacon using a radio on the proper frequency, and it was now pulsing out the location of Eternity Base to any receiver within a three-hundred-miles radius in all directions.