Ice Station

But it wasn't over yet.

Suddenly a monstrous black mushroom cloud began to form, shooting up into the air at incredible speed, chasing the Silhouette as it shot skyward.

Schofield went vertical, tried to outrun the burgeoning mushroom cloud. The mushroom cloud rushed upward. The Silhouette screamed into the sky, its engines roaring, and just as the mushroom cloud began to engulf it the cloud peaked and the Silhouette shot up and away to safety.

Schofield banked the plane sharply and headed out to sea.

The Silhouette shot across the ocean, heading north. It was dark, eternal twilight. The gargantuan mushroom cloud had just dipped below the horizon to the south of the big black plane.

Schofield found the autopilot, engaged it, then went back into the missile bay to check on Gant.

"How is she?" he asked Renshaw. Gant was lying on the floor of the missile bay, looking seriously pale. Her skin was clammy, her eyes were closed.

"She's lost a lot of blood," Renshaw said. "We have to get her to a hospital fast."

At that moment, Gant's eyes popped open. "Did we win?" she asked.

Schofield and Renshaw both looked down at her. Schofield smiled. "Yes, Libby, we won. How are you feeling?"

"Terrible." She lay back, shut her eyes again.

Schofield sighed. Where could he take her? A ship would be the best option, but which?

The Wasp. Romeo had said that the USS Wasp was out here somewhere. It was Jack Walsh's ship. A Marine ship. It would be safe.

Schofield was about to hurry back to the cockpit when suddenly he saw the diary sticking out of Gant's breast pocket.

He grabbed it and headed forward into the cockpit.

Once he was seated in the pilot's chair, he keyed the Silhouette's radio. "USS Wasp. USS Wasp. This is Scarecrow. I repeat, this is Scarecrow. Do you copy?"

There was no reply.

He tried again. No reply. He looked down at the diary in his hands. It had some looseleaf sheets of paper folded inside it. Gant must have found some documents and put them in the diary.

Schofield grabbed one of the loose sheets. It read:

Design Parameters for the B-7A Silhouette

The Principal desires an attack aircraft with total electronic and conventional invisibility, STOVL capabilities through a retrograde thruster system, and multiple-launch BVR medium-to-long-range (200 nm) air-to-air/ air-to-ground missile launch capabilities as expressed in the tender lodged by General Aeronautics, Inc., and Entertech Ltd. in response to the Principal's Invitation to Tender No, 456-771-7A, dated 2 January 1977.

Schofield translated the jargon: STOVL was Short-Take-Off/Vertical-Landing; BVR stood for Beyond Visual Range, which meant missiles that could be fired at targets?and be expected to hit those targets?at extremely long range. "Electronic invisibility" meant invisibility to radar, or stealth. But what the hell was "conventional invisibility?"

Schofield flicked to the next sheet. It looked like a page out of Entertech Ltd.'s tender. It read:

The Entertech Edge

The B-7A Silhouette benefits from Entertech Ltd.'s experience in the field of electronic countermeasures. Invisibility to radar?or "stealth"?is accomplished in many ways: with radar absorbent paint, minimal radar cross-sections, or with a sharply angled fuselage design as was done with the F-117A stealth fighter. But conventional invisibility is more difficult to accomplish, and so far, it has remained unattainable. Until now.

Entertech Ltd. has developed a system whereby an electromagnetic field is created around a given aircraft creating conventional invisibility. The electromagnetic field distorts the molecular structure of the air around the aircraft, creating an artificial refraction of light that renders that aircraft totally invisible to radar and even?

Schofield's jaw dropped. His eyes scanned the lines ahead and he found the word he was looking for:

We call it a cloaking device ...

Jesus, he thought.

A cloaking device.

A system that rendered an aircraft invisible not only to radar but to the naked eye as well. Every aviator knew that even if you were invisible to your enemy's radar, you could never escape someone seeing you directly. A billion-dollar stealth bomber can be seen by a spotter out the window of an AWACS plane forty miles away.

Schofield's mind buzzed. This was revolutionary. A cloaking device that distorted the air around an airplane, thus creating an artificial refraction of the light around the plane, making it invisible to the naked eye. The crazy thing was, it just might work.

Schofield knew about refraction. It was most commonly observed when one looked into a fishbowl. Light outside the fishbowl strikes the water?which has a greater density than the air above it. The greater density of the water causes the light to refract at an angle, distorting the size and position of the fish inside the bowl.

But this was refraction of air, Schofield thought. This is artificially altering the density of air with electricity.

There had to be a catch. And there was.

The plutonium.

This revolutionary new system?this system that could alter the refractive density of air?was nuclear.

Schofield searched for the relevant paragraph, found it. As one would expect from someone trying to win a government tender, it was carefully worded:

It must be appreciated that to effect the Silhouette's cloaking system requires an enormous amount of self-generated power. According to tests run by Entertech Ltd. and General Aeronautics, Inc., to disrupt the molecular and electromagnetic structure of the ambient air around a moving aircraft requires a total of 2.71 gigawatts of electromagnetic energy. The only known source of such a quantity of energy is a controlled nuclear reaction?

Schofield whistled softly to himself. General Aeronautics and Entertech had offered the U.S. Air Force a plane with a nuclear reactor on board. No wonder they built it in Antarctica.

He put the documentation down, tried the radio again.

"USS Wasp. USS Wasp. This is Scarecrow. I repeat, USS Wasp, this is Scarecrow. Please re?"

"Unidentified aircraft using the name Scarecrow, this is U.S. Air Force fighter Blue Leader. Identify yourself," a voice said suddenly over Schofield's cockpit radio.

Schofield looked at his radar screen. He was now almost two hundred nautical miles from the coast of Antarctica, safely out over the sea. On his radar screen he saw nothing.

Damn it, Schofield thought. Whoever this is, he's operating under stealth.

"Blue Leader, this is Lieutenant Shane Schofield, United States Marines Corps. I am flying an unmarked US Air Force prototype fighter-bomber. I mean you no harm."

Schofield looked out the canopy to his left.

He saw six tiny dots on the horizon.

"Unidentified aircraft. You are to follow us under escort back to the U.S. Navy carrier Enterprise, where you will he debriefed."

Schofield said, "Blue Leader, I do not wish to be taken under escort?"

"Then you will be fired upon, unidentified aircraft."

Schofield bit his tongue. "Blue Leader, identify yourself."

"What?"

"What is your name, Blue Leader?"

"My name is Captain John F. Yates, United States Air Force, and I want you to surrender to escort formation now!"

Yates, Schofield thought, grabbing another sheet of paper from his own pocket. There it was.

YATES, JOHN F. USAF CPTN

"What is this, an ICG convention?" Schofield said to himself.

At that moment, six F-22s swooped into place around Schofield's plane. Two in front. Two on the sides. Two behind. They all kept their distance, approximately two hundred yards. Their presence never registered on Schofield's radar even though he could see them.

Suddenly a shrill buzzing sound droned out from Schofield's cockpit speakers.

The F-22s had missile lock on him.

Schofield said, "What are your intentions, Captain Yates?"

"Our intention is to get you back to the United States carrier Enterprise and debrief you."

"Do you intend to fire on me?"

"Let's not make this harder than it's already going to be."

"Do you intend to fire on me!"

"Good-bye, Scarecrow."

Oh, fuck!

They were going to fire. Schofield looked frantically around the cockpit for something to?

His eyes fell on a button on his display.

CLOAK MODE.

What the hell, you've got nothing to lose.... Schofield hit the cloak button just as, two hundred yards behind him, the lead F-22 launched one of its missiles.

What happened next was nothing short of incredible.

Captain John Yates?Blue Leader?looked out through the canopy of his F-22. In the dull orange twilight over the ocean Yates saw the black aircraft hovering in the air in front of him, saw the luminescent red glow of its tail thrusters.

Then he saw the white vapor trail of his own missile as it streaked away from his wing and headed in toward the black fighter's thrusters.

As the missile raced toward its target, a shimmering haze suddenly descended upon the black fighter. The sight was absolutely amazing. It looked like a shimmering, rippling heat haze?like the kind that hangs over a highway on a hot summer's day?and it just descended over the black fighter as if someone were lowering a curtain over it.

Suddenly the black plane was gone.

Yates's missile went berserk.

With its initial target lost, the missile immediately began searching for another target.

It found it in one of the F-22s flying in front of Schofield's Silhouette. The missile shot into the tailpipe of the forward F-22 and the stealth fighter exploded bright orange in the dark twilight sky.

Yates was stunned. Voices shouted over his headset.

"?just disappeared?"

"?fucking thing just vanished!?"

Yates checked his scopes. The black fighter didn't appear on his radar. He searched the sky for the black plane with his eyes. He couldn't see it, couldn't see it anywhe?

And then he saw it.

Or at least he thought he saw it.

Overlaid on the orange horizon Yates saw a shimmering body of air. It looked like a warped glass lens, a lens that had been superimposed on the flat horizon, causing one short section of that horizon to ripple continuously.

He couldn't believe his eyes.

Inside the Silhouette, Schofield was already flicking switches.

The missile had missed him and he could hear the comments of the F-22 pilots over his own radio. The F-22s couldn't see him. It was time to fight back.

"Renshaw! Bring Gant up here! Wendy, too!"

Renshaw brought Gant forward, into the back section of the cockpit. Wendy loped into the cockpit behind him.

"Shut the cockpit door," Schofield said.

Renshaw shut the door. They were now cut off from the missile bay in the belly of the Silhouette.

Schofield flicked a final switch and saw a red warning light appear on his computer screen.

MISSILES ARMED. TARGETING...

The screen began to flash.

5 TARGETS ACQUIRED. READY TO FIRE.

Schofield jammed down on his thumb trigger.

At that moment, the missile bay door of the Silhouette opened and the two racks in the missile bay began to rotate.

One after the other, five missiles dropped through the missile bay doors and out into the sky. Schofield watched as the missiles streaked away from him and began searching for their targets like bloodhounds.

The first F-22 exploded in a giant fireball. When it went up in flames, the other F-22 pilots shouted as one.

"?missile just came out of the fucking sky!?"

"?can't see him anywhere?"

"?bastard's using some sort of cloaking device?"

A couple of the F-22 pilots hit their afterburners, but it was no use.

More missiles shot out from the shimmering body of air that was the Silhouette. Three hit their targets right away, blasted them to smithereens.

The sixth and final F-22 tried to make a run for it. It managed to get a mile away before the missile that had acquired it?the last missile to drop from the rotating missile racks inside the Silhouette?slammed into its tailpipe and blew it to hell.

Inside the Silhouette, Schofield breathed a sigh of relief. As he turned north, he keyed his radio again. "USS Wasp. Come in. USS Wasp. Please. Come in."

After several tries, there finally came a reply. "Unidentified aircraft, this is Wasp. Identify yourself." Schofield gave his name and service number. The person at the other end checked it and then said,

"Lieutenant Schofield, it's good to hear from you. The flight deck has been cleared. You have clearance to land. I am sending you our coordinates now."

The Silhouette flew into the night

The USS Wasp, the Marine Corps' aircraft carrier-like vessel, was about eighty nautical miles from Schofield. It would take about fifteen minutes to cruise there.

In the luminescent green glow of his indicator dials Schofield stared out at the orange horizon. He had lifted the cloaking device and was allowing the plane to go on autopilot for a while.

The previous twenty-four hours flitted through his mind.

The French. The British. The ICG. His own men who had died on a mission that was never meant to succeed. Faces flashed across his mind. Hollywood. Samurai. Book. Mother. Soldiers who had died so that their country could lay its greedy hands on some extraterrestrial technology that never was.

A deep sadness fell over Schofield.

He leaned forward and began flicking some switches. The screen in front of him flashed:

MISSILE ARMED. TARGETING ...

Schofield quickly hit another switch.

MANUAL TARGETING SELECTED.

He maneuvered the target selector on the screen until he found the target he was looking for. He pressed the select button on his stick.

Several other option screens appeared and Schofield calmly chose the options he wanted.

SET DELAY PERIOD: 23:00 MINS. SAFETY MEASURES: DEACTIVATED.

Then, when he was done, he hit his thumb trigger.

At that moment, the sixth and final missile inside his missile bay rotated on its rack and dropped down into the sky. Its thrusters kicked in and the missile shot off into the distance, climbing high into the deep black sky.

The USS Wasp lay at rest in the middle of the Southern Ocean.

It was a big ship. With a length of 844 feet, it was as long as two and a half football fields. The enormous five-story superstructure in the middle of the ship?the operations center of the ship known as "the island"?looked down on the flight deck. On a normal day, the flight deck would have been dotted with choppers, Harriers, gunships, and people, but not today.

Today the flight deck was deserted. There was no movement on it at all, no aircraft, no people.

It looked like a ghost town.

The Silhouette slowed perfectly in the air above the non-skid deck of the Wasp, its retros firing thin streams of gas down onto the deck beneath it. The ominous black fighter plane landed softly on the flight deck, near the stern of the ship.

Schofield peered out through the canopy of the Silhouette.

The flight deck in front of him was eerily empty. Schofield sighed. He had expected that.

"All right, everyone, let's get out of here," he said.

Renshaw and Kirsty left the cockpit. Wendy went with them. Schofield said he would take care of Gant.

Before he left the cockpit, however, Schofield pulled a long, thin silver canister from the satchel that he had stretched over his shoulder.

He set the timer on the Tritonal charge for ten minutes and then left it on the pilot's chair. Then he picked up Gant and carried her out of the cockpit and into the missile bay. Then he carried her down the steps and out of the Silhouette.

The flight deck was deserted.

In the orange twilight, Schofield and his motley collection of survivors stood in front of the ominous black plane. The big black Silhouette, with its sharply pointed down-turned nose and its sleek, low-swept wings, looked like a gigantic bird of prey as it sat there on the deserted flight deck of the Wasp in the cold Antarctic twilight.

Schofield led the others across the empty flight deck, toward the five-story superstructure in the middle of the ship. It was a strange sight?Schofield with Gant in his arms, Renshaw and Kirsty, and last of all, loping across the flight deck behind them, staring in awe at the massive metal vessel all around her, Wendy.

As they approached the island, a door opened at the base of the massive structure and a white light glowed from inside it.

Suddenly a man's shadow appeared in the doorway, silhouetted by the light behind him. Schofield came closer and recognized the owner of the shadow, recognized the weathered features of a man he knew well.

It was Jack Walsh.

The Captain of the Wasp. The man who, four years ago, had defied the White House and sent a team of his Marines into Bosnia to get Shane Schofield out.

Walsh smiled at Schofield, his blue eyes shining.

"You've been getting a lot of noses out of joint today, Scarecrow," he said evenly. "Lot of people talking about you."

Schofield frowned. He had kind of expected a warmer reception from Jack Walsh.

"Why have you cleared the deck, sir?" Schofield said.

"I didn't?" Walsh began, cutting himself off as suddenly another man brushed rudely past him and stepped out onto the flight deck and just stood there in front of Schofield.

Schofield had never seen this man before. He had carefully groomed white hair, a white mustache, and a barrel-like torso.

And he wore a blue uniform. Navy. The number of medals on his breast pocket was staggering. Schofield guessed he must have been about sixty.

"So this is the Scarecrow," the man said, looking Schofield up and down. Schofield just stood there on the flight deck, holding Gant in his arms.

"Scarecrow," Jack Walsh said tightly, "this is Admiral Thomas Clayton, the Navy's representative to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He assumed command of the Wasp about four hours ago."

Schofield sighed inwardly.

An Admiral from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Jesus.

If what he had heard about the ICG was correct, the Joint Chiefs were its head, its brain. Schofield was looking at one of the heads of the ICG.

"All right!" Admiral Clayton yelled loudly to someone standing in the doorway behind Walsh. "Get out there!"

At that moment, a stream of men?all of them dressed in blue coveralls?poured out of the doorway in front of Schofield and headed across the deck toward the Silhouette.

Admiral Clayton turned to Schofield. "Seems this mission is not going to be a complete waste of time after all. We heard the commentary of your dogfight with the F-22s. A cloaking device, huh? Who would have thought it."

Schofield looked back out at the deck, saw the men in blue coveralls reach the stern end of the flight deck, saw them begin to swarm all over the Silhouette. A couple of them went up the steps and inside the big black plane.

"Captain Walsh," Schofield said, indicating Gant. "This Marine needs medical attention."

Walsh nodded. "Let's get her to the infirmary. Deckhand!"

A deckhand appeared, took Gant from Schofield, carried her inside.

Schofield turned to Kirsty and Renshaw. "Go with her. Take Wendy, too." Kirsty and Renshaw obeyed, went inside the island. Wendy hopped in through the doorway after them. Schofield made to follow them, but as he did, there came a shout from over by the Silhouette.

"Admiral!" one of the men in blue coveralls called out from underneath the pointed nose of the Silhouette.

"What is it?" Admiral Clayton said, walking over to the plane.

The man held up the Tritonal 80/20 charge that Schofield had left inside the cockpit. Clayton saw it. He didn't seem at all perturbed by its presence.

Admiral Clayton turned to Schofield from fifty yards away. "Attempting to destroy the evidence, Lieutenant?"

The Admiral took the charge from the man, turned the pressurized lid, and calmly flicked the disarm switch.

Clayton smiled at Schofield. "Really, Scarecrow," he called. "You'll have to do better than that to beat me."

Schofield just stared at Clayton, standing over by the Silhouette. "I'm sorry about the deck, sir," Schofield said quietly.

Behind him, Jack Walsh said, "What?"

"I said, I'm sorry about the deck, sir," Schofield repeated.

At that moment, there came a sudden high-pitched whining sound. And then before anyone knew what was happening, the whine became a scream and then, like a thunderbolt sent from God himself, the sixth and final missile from the Silhouette came shooting down out of the sky and slammed into the Silhouette at nearly three hundred miles per hour.

The big black fighter plane shattered in an instant, exploded into a thousand pieces. Every man inside or near it was killed instantly. The fuel tanks of the big black plane exploded next, causing a red-hot fireball of liquid fire to flare out from the destroyed plane. The fireball billowed out across the deck and engulfed Admiral Clayton. It was so hot, it wiped the skin from his face.

Admiral Thomas Clayton was dead before he hit the ground.

Shane Schofield stood on the bridge of the Wasp as it sailed east across the Southern Ocean, into the morning sun. He took a sip from a coffee mug with the words CAPTAINS MUG written on it. The coffee was hot.

Jack Walsh came out onto the bridge and offered him a new pair of silver antiflash glasses. Schofield took them, put them on.

It had been three hours now since the Silhouette had been destroyed by one of its own missiles.

Gant had been taken to the infirmary, where her condition had worsened. Her blood loss had been severe. She had lapsed into a coma about half an hour ago.

Renshaw and Kirsty were in Walsh's stateroom, sleeping soundly. Wendy was playing in a dive preparation pool belowdecks.

Schofield himself had had a hot shower and changed into a tracksuit. A corpsman had attended to his wounds, reset his broken rib. He had said that Schofield would need further treatment when he got back home, but with a few painkillers he would be OK for now. When the corpsman had finished, Schofield had returned to Gant's bedside. He had only come up to the bridge when Walsh had called for him.

When he'd got there, Walsh had told him that the Wasp had just received a call from McMurdo Station. Apparently, a battered Marine hovercraft had just arrived at McMurdo. In it were five people?one Marine and four scientists?claiming that they had come from Wilkes Ice Station.

Schofield shook his head and smiled. Rebound had made it to McMurdo.

It was then that Walsh demanded a rundown of the events of the preceding twenty-four hours. Schofield told him everything?about the French and the British, the ICG, and the Silhouette. He even told Walsh about the help he had received from a dead Marine named Andrew Trent.

When Schofield had finished recounting his story, Walsh just stood there for a moment in stunned silence. Schofield took another sip from his mug and looked aft, through the slanted panoramic windows of the bridge. He saw the gaping hole at the stern end of the flight deck where the missile had hit the Silhouette. Jagged lengths of metal stuck out into the hole; wires and cables hung loosely from it.

Of course, Walsh had accepted Schofield's apology for the damage to the deck. He hadn't much liked Admiral Clayton anyway; the asshole had assumed command of Walsh's ship, and no skipper appreciated that. And then when Walsh heard about Schofield's experiences with the ICG down at Wilkes Ice Station, he had no pity for Clayton and his ICG men at all.

As he stood there gazing down at the hole in the flight deck, Schofield began to think about the mission again, in particular about the Marines he had lost, the friends he had lost, on this foolish crusade.

"Uh, Captain," a young Ensign said. Walsh and Schofield turned together. The young Ensign was sitting at an illuminated table inside the communications room that adjoined the bridge. "I'm picking up something very peculiar here...."

"What is it?" Walsh said. He and Schofield came over.

The Ensign said, "It appears to be some kind of GPS transponder signal, coming from just off the coast of Antarctica. It's emitting a valid Marine code signal."

Schofield peered at the illuminated table in front of the Ensign. It had a computer-generated map drawn on it. Down on the coast of Antarctica?just off the coast, actually?there was a small, blinking red dot, with a blinking red number alongside it: 05.

Schofield frowned. He remembered pressing his own Navistar Global Positioning System transponder when he and Renshaw had been marooned on the iceberg. His GPS transponder code was "01" since he was the unit commander. Snake was 02; Book was 03. The numbers then ascended in order of seniority.

Schofield tried to remember who "05" was.

"Holy shit," he said, realizing. "It's Mother!"

The Wasp sailed toward the rising sun.

As soon as Schofield realized who the GPS signal represented, Jack Walsh had sent a call to McMurdo. The Marines there?trusted Marines?sent a patrol boat out along the coast to pick up Mother.

A whole day later, as the Wasp entered the Pacific Ocean, Schofield got a call from the patrol boat. It had found Mother, on an iceberg just off the destroyed coastline. Apparently, the crew of the patrol boat?all of them dressed in airtight radiation suits?had found her inside an old station of some sort, a station buried within the iceberg.

The skipper of the patrol boat said that Mother was suffering from severe hypothermia and radiation sickness from the fallout and that they were about to put her under sedation.

It was then that Schofield heard a voice at the other end of the line. A woman's voice, shouting wildly, "Is that him? Is that Scarecrow?"

Mother came on the line.

After some obscene pleasantries, she told Schofield how she had hidden inside the elevator shaft and how she had lapsed into unconsciousness. Then she told him how she had been woken by the sound of the Navy SEALs' gunfire as they had entered Wilkes Ice Station. Minutes later, she had heard every word of Schofield's conversation with Romeo, heard about the nuclear-tipped cruise missile heading toward Wilkes.

And so she had crawled out of the dumbwaiter shaft? while the SEALs were still in the station?and headed for the pool deck, grabbing a couple of fluid bags from the storeroom on the way. When she got to the pool deck, she saw Renshaw's thirty-year-old scuba gear, lying on the deck, with a cable attached to it.

A steel cable that had led?with the help of the last remaining British sea sled?all the way back to Little America IV, one mile off the coast.

Schofield was amazed. He congratulated Mother and said his good-byes, said he would see her back at Pearl. And as they took Mother away at the other end to sedate her, Schofield heard her shout, "And I remember you kissed me! You hot dog!"

Schofield just laughed.

Five days later, the USS Wasp sailed into Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

A cluster of TV cameras was waiting on the dock when it arrived. Two days earlier, a charter plane flying over the South Pacific had spotted the Wasp and seen its damaged flight deck. One of the pilots had captured the damage on video camera. The TV news stations had eaten it up, and now they were keen to find out what had happened to the great ship.

At the top of the gangway, Schofield watched as two midshipmen carried Gant off the ship on a stretcher. She was still in a coma. They were taking her to the nearby military hospital.

Renshaw and Kirsty met Schofield at the top of the gangway.

"Hey there," Schofield said.

"Hi," Kirsty said. She was holding onto Renshaw's hand.

Renshaw put on a bad Marlon Brando accent. "Who'd have thought it? I'm the Godfather."

Schofield laughed.

Kirsty spun around. "Say, where's?"

At that moment, Wendy slid out from a nearby doorway. She loped straight up to Schofield and began nuzzling his hand. From tip to tail, the little fur seal was dripping wet.

"She's, ah, taken a bit of a liking to the ship's dive preparation pool," Renshaw said.

"So I see," Schofield said as he gave Wendy a gentle pat behind the ears. Wendy preened; then she dropped to the deck and rolled onto her back. Schofield shook his head as he dropped to his haunches and gave her a quick pat on her belly.

"The captain even said she could stay here until we found somewhere else for her to live," Kirsty said.

"Good," Schofield said. "I think it's the least we can do." He gave Wendy a final pat and the little seal leaped to her feet and dashed away, heading back downstairs toward her favorite pool.

Schofield stood up again and turned to face Renshaw. "Mr. Renshaw, I have a question for you."

"What?"

"What time did the people from your station dive down to the cave?"

"What time?"

"Yes, the time," Schofield said. "Was it day or night?"

"Uh," Renshaw said. "Night, I believe. I think it was somewhere around nine o'clock."

Schofield began to nod to himself.

"Why?" Renshaw said.

"I think I know why the elephant seals attacked us."

"Why?"

"Remember I said that the only group of divers to have approached that cave unharmed was Gant's group?"

"Yeah."

"And I said that it was because her group had used low-audibility breathing gear."

Renshaw said, "Yeah. So did we. And as I recall it, the seals attacked us anyway."

Schofield smiled a crooked smile. "Yeah. I know. But I think I figured out why. We dived at night."

"At night?"

"Yes. And so did your people, and so did Barnaby's men. Your people dived at nine o'clock. Barnaby's at around 8:00 p.m. Gant's team, however, went down at two in the afternoon. They were the only dive team to go down to that cavern in the daytime."

Renshaw picked up what Schofield was saying. "You think those elephant seals are diurnal?"

"I think that's a good possibility," Schofield said.

Renshaw nodded slowly. It was quite common among unusually aggressive or poisonous animals to operate on what is known as a diurnal cycle. A diurnal cycle is essentially a twelve-hour passive-aggressive cycle?the animal is passive by day, aggressive by night.

"I'm glad you figured that out," Renshaw said. "I'll keep it in mind for the next time I stumble onto a nest of radiation-infected elephant seals who want to defend their territory."

Schofield smiled. The three of them descended the gangway. At the bottom, they were met by a middle-aged Marine Sergeant.

"Lieutenant Schofield," the Sergeant saluted Schofield. "There's a car waiting for you, sir."

"Sergeant. I'm going nowhere but the hospital, to check on Lance Corporal Gant. If anybody wants me to go anywhere else, I ain't going."

"That's OK with me, sir," the Sergeant smiled. "My orders are to take you, Mr. Renshaw, and Miss Hensleigh to wherever you want to go."

Schofield nodded, looked to Renshaw and Kirsty. They shrugged, sure.

"Sounds good to me," he said. "Lead the way."

The sergeant led them to a navy blue Buick with dark tinted windows. He held the car door open and Schofield got in.

A man was already sitting in the backseat when Schofield sat down.

Schofield froze when he saw the gun in the man's hand.

"Have a seat, Scarecrow," Sergeant Major Charles "Chuck" Kozlowski said as Schofleld sat down in the backseat of the Buick. Renshaw and Kirsty got in behind Schofield. Kirsty inhaled sharply when she saw Kozlowski's gun.

Kozlowski was a short man, with a clean-shaven face and thick black eyebrows. He was wearing a khaki Marine day uniform.

The sergeant got into the driver's seat and started the car.

"I'm terribly sorry, Scarecrow," the highest-ranking noncommissioned officer in the Marine Corps said. "But you and your friends here represent a loose end that cannot be allowed to stand."

"And what's that?" Schofield said, exasperated.

"You know about the ICG."

Schofield said, "I told Jack Walsh about the ICG. Are you going to kill him, too?"

"Maybe not immediately," Kozlowski said. "But in good time, yes. You, on the other hand, represent a more immediate threat. We wouldn't want you going to the press, now, would we? No doubt, they will find out about what went on down at Wilkes Ice Station, but the media will get what the ICG tells them, not what you tell them."

"How can you kill your own men?" Schofield said.

Kozlowski said, "You still don't get it, do you, Scarecrow."

"I don't get how you can kill your own men and think you're doing the country a favor."

"Jesus, Scarecrow, you weren't even supposed to be there in the first place."

That stopped Schofield. "What?"

"Think about it," Kozlowski said. "How did you come to get to Wilkes Ice Station before anybody else?"

Schofield thought back, right to the very beginning. He had been on the Shreveport, in Sydney. The rest of the fleet had gone back to Pearl, but the Shreveport had stayed down there for repairs. It was then that the distress signal had come through.

"That's right," Kozlowski said, reading Schofield's thoughts. "You were in for repairs in Sydney when the Shreveport received the distress signal from Wilkes. And then some dumb-fuck civilian sent you down there right away."

Schofield remembered the voice of the Undersecretary of Defense coming in over the speakers of the briefing room on board the Shreveport, instructing him to go down to Wilkes and protect the spacecraft.

Kozlowski said, "Scarecrow, the Intelligence Convergence Group doesn't set out to kill American units. It exists to protect Americans?"

"From what? The truth?" Schofield retorted.

"We could have had an Army Ranger unit filled with ICG men down at that station six hours after you got there. They could have taken that station?even if the French had already got there?and held it and no American soldiers would have had to have been killed."

Kozlowski shook his head. "But no, you just happened to be in the area. And that's why we stack units like yours with ICG men?for this very eventuality. In a perfect world, the ICG would get there first every time. But if the ICG can't get there first, then we make sure that Reconnaissance Units like yours are properly constituted so as to ensure that whatever information is found at the site stays at the site. For the sake of national security, of course."

"You kill your own countrymen," Schofield said.

"Scarecrow. This didn't have to happen. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. If anything, you got to Wilkes Ice Station too fast. If this had all been done as it should have been done, I wouldn't have to kill you now."

The Buick came to the guard station at the outer fence of the dockyard. A boom gate was lowered in front of it. The driver wound down his window and had a short conversation with the boom gate guard.

And then suddenly the door next to Kozlowski was yanked open from the outside and an armed Naval Policeman appeared in the open doorway with his gun aimed squarely at Kozlowski's head.

"Sir, would you please get out of the car?" Kozlowski's face darkened. "Son, do you have any idea who you are talking to?" he growled.

"No, he doesn't," a voice said from outside the car. "But I do," Jack Walsh said as he appeared outside the open car door.

Schofield, Kirsty, and Renshaw all got out of the car, totally confused. The navy blue Buick was surrounded by a swarm of Naval Police, all with their guns out.

Schofield turned to Walsh. "What's going on? How did you know?"

Walsh nodded over Schofield's shoulder. "Looks to me like you got yourself a guardian angel."

Schofield spun, looked for a familiar face amid the crowd. At first he didn't see a single face that he knew.

And then suddenly he did. But it wasn't a face he expected to see.

There, standing ten yards behind the ring of Naval Police surrounding the Buick, with his hands in his pockets, was Andrew Trent.

As Kozlowski and his driver were taken away in handcuffs, Schofield walked over to Trent.

Standing with Trent were a man and a woman whom Schofield had never met before. Trent introduced them as Pete and Alison Cameron. They were reporters with the Washington Post.

Schofield asked Trent what had happened. How had the Naval Police?backed up by Jack Walsh?known to stop Kozlowski's car?

Trent explained. A couple of days ago, he had seen the amateur footage of the Wasp's damaged flight deck on TV. Trent knew missile damage when he saw it. Then, when he learned that the Wasp was heading back to Pearl?"from a training exercise in the Southern Ocean".?he jumped on a plane to Hawaii.

The Camerons had come along with him. For if, by some chance, Shane Schofield or, indeed, any survivors from Wilkes Ice Station were on board the Wasp, then it would be the story?and the scoop?of a lifetime. Other reporters saw a damaged flight deck. The Camerons saw the inside running on the Wilkes Ice Station story.

But when they had got to the dockyard at Pearl, Trent had seen Chuck Kozlowski standing next to a navy blue Buick, waiting for the Wasp to dock.

Trent had felt a sudden chill. Why was Kozlowski here? Had the ICG won?as it had in Peru?and was Kozlowski here to congratulate the traitors? Or was he here for some other reason? For if Schofield had survived, then the ICG would almost certainly want to eliminate him.

And so Trent and the two reporters had just watched and waited. And then, when they saw Schofield emerge from the ship and get escorted to Kozlowski's Buick, Trent had called the only person he could think of who could?and would? pull rank on Chuck Kozlowski.

Jack Walsh.

"Who'd have thought it?" Walsh said, coming over. "There I am, on the bridge of my wrecked boat, minding my own business, when my comtech comes running in and says he's got some guy on the external switch who says he has to talk to me. Says it's an emergency regarding Lieutenant Schofield. Says his name is Andrew Trent." Walsh smiled. "I figured I oughta take the call."

Schofield just shook his head, amazed.

"You've been through a lot," Trent said, putting his arm around Schofield's shoulder.

"You should talk," Schofield said. "I'd like to hear about Peru sometime."

"You will, Shane, you will. But first, I have a proposition for you. How would you like to be on the front page of the Washington Post?"

Schofield just smiled.

On June 23?two days after Schofield and the Wasp docked at Pearl?the Washington Post ran a front-page story containing a photo of Shane Schofield and Andrew Trent holding a copy of the previous day's Post between them. Beneath the photo were displayed copies of their official United States Marine Corps death certificates. Schofield's death certificate was several days old. Trent's was over a year old. The headline read:

ACCORDING TO THE U.S. MILITARY, THESE TWO MEN ARE OFFICIALLY DEAD.

The accompanying story about the events that transpired at Wilkes Ice Station?a feature that ran for three pages? was written by Peter and Alison Cameron.

Later stories that ran about the events at Wilkes Ice Station told of the ICG and the systematic infiltration by it of elite military units, universities, and private corporations. Flashbulbs popped across the country for the next six weeks as ICG moles were expunged from various regiments, institutions, and companies and charged under various statutes with espionage.

No mention, however, was made in any of the newspaper and TV reports about the presence of French and British troops at Wilkes Ice Station.

Rumors abounded in the tabloids about which other countries had sent troops to Wilkes Ice Station. Iraq. China. Even Brazil had rated a mention.

It was claimed in some quarters that the Washington Post knew exactly who else had been down there. One rival newspaper even went so far as to say that the President himself had paid a surprise visit to Katharine Graham?the legendary owner of the Post?and asked her, in the name of America's diplomatic relations, not to publish the names of the countries that had a presence at Wilkes Ice Station. This rumor was never confirmed.

The Post, however, never mentioned Britain or France.

It reported that a battle had taken place down in Antarctica, but it steadfastly maintained that it did not know the identity of the opposing force or forces. Every article that appeared in the Post simply said that the conflict had been against "enemies unknown,"

In any case, the Wilkes Ice Station story ran for six whole weeks before it was forgotten.

A few days after the Wasp returned, the NATO conference in Washington, D.C. concluded.

Every TV and newspaper article on the event showed the smiling faces of the American, British, and French delegates standing on the steps of the Capitol Building, shaking hands in front of their interwoven flags, smiling for the cameras, and proclaiming that the NATO alliance would continue for another twenty years.

The French representative, Monsieur Pierre Dufresne, was quoted as saying, "This is the strongest treaty on earth." When asked where this strength emanated from, Dufresne said, "Our genuine friendship is our bond."

In a private room at the Naval Hospital at Pearl Harbor, Libby Gant lay in a bed with her eyes closed. A soft beam of sunlight filtered in through the room's window and draped itself across her bed. Gant was still in a coma.

"Libby? Libby?" a woman's voice said, invading her consciousness.

Slowly, Gant's eyes opened, and she saw her sister, Denise, standing above her.

Denise smiled. "Well, hey there, sleepyhead."

Gant struggled to open her eyes. When she did, she just said, "Hey."

Denise offered Gant a crooked smile. "You have a visitor."

"What?" Gant said.

Denise cocked her head to the left. Gant looked over that way and saw Schofield, slumped in the guest's chair by the window, fast asleep.

He had a pair of silver Oakley sunglasses perched on top of his head. His eyes?and the two scars that cut down across them?were there for all the world to see.

Denise whispered, "He's been here ever since they fixed his rib. Wouldn't leave until you woke up. He gave one interview to the Washington Post and told the rest of them to come back after you woke up."

Gant just looked at Schofield, asleep under the window. And she smiled.

EPILOGUE

Near Isla Santa Ines, Chile

30 November

It was a small island, one of the many hundreds to the south of the Straits of Magellan, at the bottom of Chile, at the bottom of South America, at the bottom of the world.

Barely five hundred miles south of the island lay the South Shetland Islands and Antarctica. This small island was the closest one got to Antarctica without actually being there.

The boy's name was José and he lived in a small fishing village on the west coast of the island. The village lay on the edge of the bay that the old women called La Bahia de la Aguila Plata, "the Bay of the Silver Eagle."

Local lore said that many years ago, a great big silver bird, with a tail of fire trailing behind it, flew into the sea just outside the bay. The bird, the women said, had offended God with its speed and its beauty, and so God had set it alight and cast it into the sea.

José didn't believe such stories. He was ten now, and he knew better. For instance, he knew that the great silver bird that the women spoke of was in all likelihood an airplane of some sort that had crashed into the sea.

In any case, today was diving day and José planned to dive for oysters and hopefully sell them to his father for pocket money.

The small boy dived into the sea and swam downward. At this time of the afternoon, the ocean currents were coming in toward the island. José hoped they would bring the oysters with them.

He came to the bottom and quickly found his first oyster of the day, but he also found something else.

A small piece of plastic.

Jose grabbed the piece of plastic and headed back up to the surface. When he broke the surface, he peered at the strange object in his hand. It was rectangular in shape and quite small. It was heavily faded, but José could read the name engraved on it:

NIEMEYER.

José frowned at the name badge. Then he threw the worthless piece of plastic away and resumed his search for oysters.

The End