"A world which we then can reshape into our image," said Elsie vaingloriously.
A man in the black uniform of a security guard came rushing out of an office and approached the group. "Sir," he said to Karl, handing him a sheet of paper.
Karl's face darkened for a brief instant, before turning reflective.
"What is it?" Elsie asked.
"A report from Hugo," Karl answered slowly. "It seems an unidentified aircraft is approaching from across the Amundsen Sea, and refuses to answer our signals."
"Probably the supply plane for the ice station at Little America," said Holtz. "Nothing to be concerned about. It flies in and out every ten days."
"Does it always pass over Valhalla?" asked Karl.
"Not directly, but it comes within a few miles as it makes its descent toward the ice station."
Karl turned to the security guard who had carried the message. "Please tell my brother to observe the approaching aircraft closely. If it deviates from its normal flight path to Little America, have him notify me immediately."
"Are you troubled, brother?" asked Elsie.
Karl looked at her, his face showing traces of concern. "Not troubled, my sister, merely cautious. I do not trust the Americans."
"The United States is a long way away," said Elsie. "It would take an American assault force more than twenty-four hours to assemble and fly over ten thousand miles to Okuma Bay."
"Still," Karl said patiently, "it pays to be vigilant" He looked at Holtz. "Should a distraction arise, can the signal to split the ice be sent early?"
"Not if we want absolute success," Holtz replied firmly. "Timing is critical. We must wait until just before the peak of the flood tide to activate the molecular ice-dissolving machines. Then the ebb tide will carry the great mass of the ice shelf out to sea."
"Then it appears we have nothing to fear," said Elsie optimistically.
Karl dropped his voice, speaking slowly, softly. "I hope you're right, dear sister."
At that moment, another security guard approached and passed Karl a message from Hugo. He read it, looked up, and smiled faintly. "Hugo says that the American supply plane is on its normal course ten miles beyond our perimeter and is flying at an altitude of thirty-five thousand feet."
"Hardly the height to drop an assault team," said Holtz.
"No nation on Earth would dare fire missiles into our facility without their intelligence agencies penetrating our operation. And none have. Hugo's security force has diverted and blocked all outside probes into Valhalla."
"Diverted and blocked," Karl repeated. But his mind was not so sure. He recalled one man who had already defied too many of the Wolf family's aims, and Karl could not but wonder where he might be.
37
Under a sky concealed by a thick layer of clouds, a NUMA executive jet landed on a frozen airstrip, taxied toward a domed building, and rolled to a stop. Little America V was the fifth in the line of United States ice stations to bear the name since Admiral Byrd had established the first in 1928. Once situated several miles from the edge of the Ross Shelf near Kainan Bay, the sea was now only a short walk away, due to the calving of the ice pack over the years. The base served as a terminus for the 630-mile-long well-traveled ice road to the Byrd Surface Camp on the Rockefeller Plateau.
A man bundled up in a lime-green parka and fur-trimmed hood removed his sunglasses and grinned as Pitt opened the passenger's door and stepped to the frozen ground.
"You Pitt or Giordino?" he asked in a rumbling voice.
"I'm Pitt. You must be Frank Cash, the ice station chief."
Cash merely nodded. "I didn't expect you for another two hours."
"We hurried."
Pitt turned as Giordino, who had closed the down the aircraft, joined them. Giordino introduced himself and said, "Thank you for working with us on such short notice, but it's a matter of extreme urgency."
"I have no reason to doubt you," said Cash astutely, "even though I received no instructions from a higher authority."
Unable to talk their way into joining the special force assault team that was being formed to raid the Wolf compound and halt the coming cataclysm, they had been told in no uncertain terms by Admiral Sandecker to remain in Buenos Aires out of harm's way. Pitt's reasoning had been that he and Giordino were essential to the raid, because it was they who had discovered the horrifying truth behind the man-induced cataclysm and knew more about the Wolfs and their security tactics than anyone else. And, since they were already in Buenos Aires and five thousand miles closer to the scene of conflict, they could get there before the assault team and scout the facility.
His plea had fallen on deaf ears. The argument by the high-ranking military had been that they were not professional fighting men who were trained and conditioned for such a strenuous and difficult operation. In Sandecker's case, he was not about to allow his best men to commit suicide in the frigid wastes of the southern polar continent. Pitt and Giordino, however, true to form, had taken a NUMA executive jet, and instead of flying it back to Washington as they had been ordered, they'd filled it to the brim with fuel and taken off for Antarctica, in hopes of entering the Wolf mining plant through the back door, without the slightest plan in their heads of how to cross sixty miles of frozen waste to the Wolf operation once they landed in Little America.
"We'll figure out something when we get there." Pitt was fond of saying this.
Followed by Giordino's "I'll tag along, since I don't have anything better to do."
"Come on inside," said Cash, "before we turn into ice sculptures."
"What's the temperature?" asked Giordino.
"Pretty nice today, with no wind. Last I looked, it was fifteen degrees below zero."
"At least I won't have to send for ice cubes for my tequila," said Pitt.
The domed building, which was 80 percent covered with ice, protruded only five feet above ground. The living and working quarters were a maze of rooms and corridors hacked under the ice. Cash led them into the dining area next to the kitchen and ordered them a hot lunch of lasagna from the station cook before producing a half-gallon bottle of Gallo burgundy. "Not fancy, but it hits the spot," he said, laughing.
"All the comforts of home," mused Giordino.
"Not really," Cash said, with a grim smile. "You have to be mentally deficient to want to live this life."
"Then why not take a job somewhere with a milder climate?" asked Pitt, noticing that all the men he'd seen at the station were bearded and the women had forsaken makeup and coiffures.
"Men and women volunteer to work in polar regions because of the excitement of pursuing a dangerous job exploring the unknown. A few come to escape problems at home, but the majority are scientists who pursue the studies of their chosen expertise regardless of where it takes them. After a year, they're more than ready to return home. By that time, they've either turned into zombies or they began to hallucinate."
Pitt looked at Cash. He didn't have a haunted look in his eyes, at least not yet. "It must take strength of character to subsist in such a bleak environment."
"It begins with age," Cash explained. "Men under twenty-five lack reliability, men over forty-five lack the stamina."
After waiting patiently for a few minutes, while Pitt and Giordino ate most of their lasagna, Cash finally asked, "When you contacted me from Argentina, did I hear right when you said you wanted to cross the ice shelf to Okuma Bay?"