I looked away. Shifted in my seat. But no matter what I did, I couldn't get comfortable.
"Seventy-one and a half degrees south. Six and a half degrees east." Graham traced the latitude and longitude across a section of folded map. The two lines met near the Mühlig-Hofmann Mountains, roughly two hundred miles from Antarctica's northern shore. Satisfied, he drew a small circle on the map. "That's where we'll find it."
"Let's do this later when we have room to spread out." I lowered my voice, hoping he'd get the point. "You know, so we're not bothering all these people."
"I've got plenty of room." He picked up the map and shook it hard. The paper, reluctant to release its folds, cracked like a whip.
Dozens of eyes swiveled in our direction. The temperature inside the cabin climbed a couple of degrees. "Are you sure you're being loud enough?" I asked sarcastically. "I don't think everyone can hear you."
"Why would I want that?" He studied the map closely. "In case you haven't noticed, some of these people are trying to sleep."
I clamped my jaw shut. It was typical Dutch Graham, buckets of charm tempered by a severe case of obliviousness.
His behavior, more often than not, left me cringing. But I gave him a wide degree of latitude. Graham was a living legend and these days, the closest thing I had to a father. He served as Chairman of the Explorer's Society. He'd been a member most of his life. So had I.
Until recently.
Graham was also a relic, a holdover from an earlier generation when the adventure mattered more than the science. His battle scars were the stuff of myth and included a patch over his right eye as well as a mechanical left leg. But despite everything, he remained young at heart. While his expeditions were increasingly rare, he still found plenty of time to embrace his other passions, namely women, booze, and poker. His colleagues called him El Diablo behind his back. They meant it as an insult. But Graham considered it a compliment of the highest order.
"Unfortunately, the coordinates only go out to one decimal point. Even if we assume accurate rounding, we're still dealing with a margin of error of five and a half kilometers in all directions." Carefully, he marked out an area around the circle. "That works out to a search grid of roughly forty-eight square miles. Of course, that only accounts for precision. We can't be certain the measurements are one hundred percent accurate."
"They'd better be accurate," I replied. "Or we'll never find Werwolfsschanze."
"Forty-eight square miles." He rubbed his temples. "That's a lot of ground to cover."
I lifted my head as the C-17 Globemaster III jolted. It was originally developed as a military transport plane. So, the cabin was gigantic. A single section of seats, five to a row, ran the length of the space. Separate chairs lined the walls, facing inward.
Most of the seats were occupied. Those who weren't sleeping had their eyes locked on journals, carefully recording every second of the trip.
The airplane jolted again. Cargo shifted in the rear. The sea of apple red parkas, issued prior to the flight, rippled gently up and down the rows. Heavy thermal boots scraped against the floor. A soft air current chilled my burning cheeks.
"It won't take long." I glanced at Graham. "Don't forget. We've got the KORCS image."
KORCS was an Earth-observation satellite. Thanks to one of my contacts, we'd managed to secure access to some of its images. One of them showed a large rectangular anomaly, roughly the size of a small apartment building, well within the search zone.
"You shouldn't put too much faith in technology."
"And you shouldn't discount it completely either."
"Even if it is Werwolfsschanze, getting to it won't be easy. Below-freezing temperatures. Falling snow reaching down, miles of ice reaching up. Crevasses the size of canyons." He shook his head. "Antarctica is no winter wonderland, that's for damn sure."
"We can handle it."
"I'd feel better if the search zone was closer to shore."
I shrugged. "At least it's near Kirby Station."
"Yeah. If you consider twenty miles of frozen tundra close." Graham folded up the map and stuffed it into his bag. "Have you figured out how to transport the Amber Room once we locate it?"
The Amber Room was once considered the Eighth Wonder of the World. It was one of the greatest treasures of all time and a work of exceptional beauty. It covered more than fifty-five square meters and contained a priceless fortune of amber and gold leaves.
"I need to see its condition first. Cold temperatures are hell on amber." I stifled a yawn. "I wish I knew why the Nazis took it to Antarctica."
"For storage. Why else?"
"They could've sent it to South America via the ratlines. Hell, they could've just left it with the rest of the treasure we found."
"Good point."
The Amber Room lingered in my mind. It had a long, curious history. Initial construction began in 1701 and finished in 1711. But renovations and restorations had continued for centuries.
In 1941, Nazi soldiers seized it from Leningrad. They disassembled the massive sculpture and moved it to Königsberg Castle in East Prussia. It stayed there until 1945. Then it vanished.
The Amber Room was many things to many people. Historians viewed it as an unsolved mystery. Art experts considered it an irreplaceable sculpture. Most of my competitors saw it as a quick payday. But it meant something entirely different to me. It was the key to my future.
The key to my immortality.
Chapter 2
"You done with that?" Trotter nodded at the pen. "I'd like to pack up my stuff before we land."
Graham capped the pen and flipped it into the air.
Trotter caught it and stuffed it into a blue backpack. "Did I hear you fellows say you're going to Kirby?"
"Maybe." Graham narrowed his one good eye. "What's it to you?"
"Looks like we'll be neighbors." Trotter elbowed the man next to him. "Hey Ted. These guys are going to Kirby too."
A man, pale and droopy, leaned forward. Large bags hung from under his eyes. His scraggily cheeks were in desperate need of a shave. A thick odor of mustard and grease emanated from his husky frame.
He scanned us. Then his face tightened. Without saying a word, he twisted away.
"I guess he doesn't like to fly," Trotter said sheepishly. "What are your names again?"
"I'm Cy." I jabbed my thumb at Graham. "That's Dutch."
"Staff or scientists?"
I waited for Graham to respond. But he was too busy pretending to pack up his things.
"Scientists." It sounded awkward to my ears. Then again I didn't have a lot of practice with lying.
"First time here?"
I nodded.
"Where are you from?"
"Manhattan. New York University to be specific. We're meeting up with a third team member. Her name is Beverly Ginger." At best, this was a partial truth. While we lived in Manhattan, New York University certainly didn’t employ us. And we weren't exactly working with Beverly either. Instead, we'd adopted her cover as our own after tracking her down.
"How long has she been in Antarctica?" Trotter asked.
"A week at a remote field camp."
"That's a long time to be alone."
"She hired a local guide named Jeff Morin. He's helping her set up a climate station."
"You're climatologists?"
"Actually, we're geomorphologists." Sweat beaded up on my forehead. His questions were coming faster than I could think. "What do you do?"
"We're climatologists."
"What's your research about?"
"Ice coring. We're going to bore holes into the ice sheet near the Mühlig-Hofmann Mountains. The deeper we drill, the older the ice. Then we'll analyze the material to get a better read on the history of climate change in the region."