“Wait!” Kensington shouted. “You can’t do this!” He grabbed his chest and struggled for air.
“It is already done.”
Epilogue
Riley looked over at Sammy and Conner and gave them a weak smile. “Are we having fun yet?” The three were alone for the first time since being flown from the Kitty Hawk by military plane and escorted to this hotel. The government was obviously satisfied that the three had acceded to the demands of its agent. Riley was lying on the bed, his right side swathed in bandages.
The phone rang and they all turned and looked at it. There was only one person who knew they were here — besides the government. Riley picked up the receiver, spoke briefly, then put it back down.
“Colonel Pike is here,” he announced. Conner and Sammy relaxed. A few minutes later there was a knock on the door and Sammy let Pike in, giving him a big hug as soon as the door was closed.
After Sammy let him go, Pike walked over to Riley. “Thanks for helping me when I asked you, Dave.”
“No problem, sir.”
“How’s the wound?”
“Healing,” Riley said. He knew Pike had information for them, and he waited as the colonel introduced himself to Conner and talked for a few minutes.
Finally, Pike looked at all three of them. “Well, what now?”
Conner rubbed a hand through the tangle of her dark hair. “Do you think we have any options?”
Pike shrugged. “Not really. The government’s covered it’s tracks. Not only that, they hold a few hammers over your heads. If you say anything, Sammy will lose her job. I checked in Atlanta — SNN doesn’t have any tapes. So you don’t have any evidence. You’ll probably be fired too,” he nodded at Conner, “if you make waves.”
“Sammy and Riley were there,” Conner said. “They’ll back me up.”
Riley coughed, which made him wince. He shifted position very slowly. “My word isn’t worth much. They also have a thing or two they can hold over my head.”
Sammy sat in the chair next to the bed and studied Riley with her green eyes. “What about Kerns and Vickers and Lallo and Swenson and Devlin? Are we going to write them off?”
“The government has already issued a cover story to explain their disappearance,” Pike said.
Sammy didn’t seem to hear the colonel. She continued talking, her voice cracking with emotion. “I didn’t ask what the powers-that-be are doing. I asked what we are going to do.” She looked at Riley. “Are we — you and I and Conner — going to forget about them?”
“You need to drop this and get on with your life,” Riley said. “You need to forget about the dead.”
Sammy poked her finger at him. “That’s pretty good advice from a man who can’t erase his own ghosts.”
Riley regarded her for a long time without saying a word.
Pike cleared his throat, regaining their attention. “I have some more information that will interest you.” He reached into the small briefcase he’d carried with him and pulled out a folder. “Do you recognize any of these men?” He laid out a half-dozen photos on the bed next to Riley. They were all black and white pictures of young men in uniform.
“That one,” Riley immediately said, tapping a photo. “He’s the body we found in Eternity Base.”
Sammy and Conner nodded their agreement.
Pike picked up the photo and looked at the back. “Sergeant Michael Palmer. A member of Command and Control, Military Assistance Command, Studies and Observation Group.”
“MACV-SOG,” Sammy said. “Same as dad.”
“Same as your dad,” Pike confirmed. He paused, and his lined face seemed to grow even older. “I did some arm twisting in DC before I left, using what you’d told me over the phone. There’s lots of butts on the line because of this Eternity Base incident, so I got some of my contacts to talk more than they normally would have — people are trying to cover their ass.
“This whole operation in Antarctica was started by a civilian — my sources wouldn’t give me a name — but it was supported by the forerunner of the present Intelligence Support Agency, a secret group with a large budget that runs most of the covert operations for the Pentagon.
“Because this organization could cut orders and use the resources of the military, they often used personnel and units without those people being aware they were participating in a covert operation or knowing what the mission was. A good example is the engineer company that was diverted from Vietnam to construct Eternity Base.”
Pike held up the picture. “Another example is Sergeant Palmer, here. He was used to escort the nuclear weapons down to Eternity Base. For maintaining the security of the base and the fact that the bombs were there, he was killed.”
“So we have another of the piece of the puzzle,” Sammy said. “We can find more.”
“That’s not why I’m telling you this,” Pike cut in. “I’m telling you this because through the same source I also received another photo.” He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a small picture, and handed it to Sammy.
“Dad” was her only comment as she cradled the photo in her hands.
“What happened to him?” Conner asked, tenderly taking the picture from her sister and looking at it.
“Killed in a plane crash in South Korea on 5 January 1972,” Pike replied.
“South Korea?” Sammy said. “But he was MIA in Vietnam.”
“He was in Vietnam,” Pike confirmed, “but he got sent on a mission to Korea, and that’s where he died. Since they couldn’t report that, they made up the MIA story.”
“What mission?” Sammy demanded.
Pike looked at her and shook his head. “I don’t know, and we aren’t going to find out. Trust me on that. I cared about your father too — and many other men who disappeared — but. .” Pike paused. “It was a dark world we were all in back then, and your father knew the risks of what he did for a living. I was given this information so that you would know that he’s dead. That’s it.”
“But what about Michael Palmer?” Sammy asked. “Does his family know how he died? Helping build Eternity Base for somebody who could pull the strings to get it built? And getting shot in the back for doing his duty?”
Pike had no answer to that.
Riley suddenly spoke. “All right, Sammy. I’m with you. What are you going to do?”
Sammy blinked to hold back the tears as she looked at the photo of her dad one more time. “I’m going to fight them.”
Riley winced again as he adjusted his position slightly. “They have all the cards. They’ll crush you. But I’m with you regardless.”
Sammy turned from him and looked at her sister. “Are you with me, or are you going to play by the rules?”
It surprised her when Conner smiled. “They won’t crush us, sis. I can play the game better than they can and make my own damn rules.” She reached under her shirt and pulled a 3.5-inch diskette out of her waistband. “I have the original video of the base — including the body, which we can now indentify, as well as pictures of the bombs and their serial numbers — digitized on this.” She glanced at Riley. “You weren’t the only one who prepared just in case someone showed up.”
A faint smile of respect crossed Riley’s face, but his words were wary. “You know what’s going to happen. Even if you get someone other than SNN to run that, they’re going to come down on you hard.”
Conner replaced the diskette. “I know.” She stood up and went over to the bed and sat down next to her sister. Taking Riley’s free hand and one of her sister’s, she squeezed them between her two hands. “But I think we can do it. We have to if we’re going to live with ourselves.”