“Whoa.” Cooper shrunk back. “Easy Ms. Olivia, mind your words.”
When they raised their heads again, Miller had vanished. Ted Cooper left the camp shortly too, letting in a draft so strong it shook the tent. Some snow blew in too.
“You shouldn’t have said that, Olivia,” Peter said.
Olivia ignored him; she watched Itay Friedman. The bodyguard had finished packing the map stand and was putting away the case containing the maps.
Olivia shot a look at Peter. “Why did Miller not tell the crew Harald was dead?”
“He needs us.”
“Sure.”
Olivia started recording.
Itay Friedman watched her from the corner of his eye.
The Combat Exercise Protocol required a segmented conclusion. The ship with the lowest ranking officer took the lead, followed by the next in line. Each ship would lead approximately five nautical miles.
That was almost ten thousand miles between one ship and another. And that puts him in the rear.
It was enough for Admiral Anton Huebner.
“Set course to twenty knots,” Admiral Huebner commanded.
His exec transmitted the order. The ship dropped to half its former speed. Soon the officers ahead will wonder why the admiral had dropped speed. They’d call in to inquire if there was a problem.
His was a plan with crucial stages and this was just the beginning. His exec beside him observed with grim attention. The ship hummed with half power, the crew went about in wonder. Should he provide an explanation? Will they still follow him? The officers were trained patriots; like their admiral, they would go down with the flag.
But today, what he did, he did for himself and his name, not country.
“Vasquez?” the admiral barked.
The man rarely called his officers by their names. He was an officer first, human second. But for the first time since he could recall, the exec heard the man call his name. Instinctively, the young man knew his admiral was about to ask him to do something out of the ordinary.
“Yes sir.”
“New course,” Huebner said.
The exec did what he was trained to do — receive an order and relay it down the line.
Admiral Anton Huebner dipped his hand in his pocket. When he removed it a piece of paper followed it. With set jaws like concrete and eyes like black hot coals, he gave the order that would change his life forever, and those of his officers.
“Set course to 55569– 09257, 653478– 973–539.”
Vasquez made the call with shaking hands and a steady voice.
“All coms down, make a hard turn, left port. Now!”
It had begun, and no one was asking where they were headed.
Sunlight streamed in through a small patch in the window. The tent was covered with a heavy layer of snow, making the ordinarily 24.5 weigh more than 30 kilos. Now that everyone shared a common objective, noted Olivia, a better disposition had descended on the camp.
Frank Miller had come in sometime in the night. Olivia had fallen asleep waiting to note his arrival. Now she felt that there was a gap in her chronicle. Frank Miller was a principal character in her narrative.
In the middle of it all, Olivia had battled her urge for alcohol all night, waking up several times, dry-mouthed and jittery. Like a junkie in need of a fix. She had eyed Nicolai's flask stuck in his hand while he snored. Olivia had only managed then to catch a little sleep.
A male voice sang a raucous rendition of a Russian folk song. The noise filtered into the tent through the open door. Olivia awoke to find Peter’s face inches from his. She roused him.
Cold, dry air hit her face outside. They were standing in a meter of snow. When she turned back the only sign that there was a tent there was when someone opened the door. The tent was covered in snow.
“Guys,” someone called from behind the tent. “Guys, come on. You all need to see this.”
It was Anabia Nassif. Olivia followed the rest of the men around the tent. Nassif was standing before a satellite dish half-buried in the snow. Only the dish wasn’t its spherical shape anymore. Now it was a mangled cauliflower.
“Aw shit,” said Liam Murphy.
The singing voice approached the group. It was Nicolai. He carried two boxes with him. “What is the matter?” he asked as he joined the ponderous group.
Victor Borodin pointed at the banged satellite. “Communication is shot down.”
Frank Miller pushed by Olivia and stopped short. His mouth opened slowly but no words came.
“Do you think the storm..?” Liam Murphy suggested.
“We can’t say,” Miller answered, “but it seems…”
He bent down to examine the device, turning it around. He shook his head. When he rose up again there was a distant look in his eyes that Olivia couldn’t read. He gazed out over the group at the surrounding snow. The hill behind the camp was almost invisible as it was covered as well.
“We have to move now,” the billionaire said finally.
Within an hour, the tent had collapsed into foldable components behind Nicolai. Miller’s hovercraft took the lead. The coast lay on the right and sprawled in front of the expedition was endless whiteness.
“Don’t be deceived by the snow,” Miller hollered. “We are much closer to the site than it seems. The whiteness is the snow's optical illusion, like it is in the desert.”
On they forged, the crafts making deep furrows in the snow, leaving behind luminous ice below.
A quarter of a mile later, Miller spread Harald Kruger’s map before him. It flapped as the wind tried to snatch it. Itay Friedman checked his compass, slowly raised his hand.
“Here!” Friedman yelled.
Frank Miller yelled, “Halt! Halt!”
The hovercrafts all screeched to a stop. Right in front of the group was a flat terrain of ice. With Friedman’s compass before him and a magnetic device he had picked up from the station in Novolazarevskaya, Miller stumbled out ahead. Steam and vapor spurt from his mouth as he puffed on. His heart beat fast, expectant eyes followed his progress.
He stopped suddenly.
He turned around slowly. Pointing at the spot where he stood he said, “Here, there’s something here.”
Itay Friedman jumped off the hovercraft with a snow spade. “Come on, everyone. Get a spade if you can, let’s dig that spot. Now, now, now!”
“With all due respect, sir. Either you tell us what is going on, or we—”
“Or what!?” Vasquez spat.
He knew this would happen. Someone would grow balls and ask questions, and that person was the first lieutenant, a sharp Sicilian soldier from a navy family. His name was Juelz. A few officers had already gathered behind him.
“We have radioed command, Vasquez,” he said. “The admiral is mad.”
“Yes, I am.”
Vasquez turned to see Admiral Anton Huebner behind him. He had changed his uniform to dress grey. He had a pistol in his hand.
“My exec here has tried to speak for me. I shall do the talking by myself. As of this moment this ship is on a mission. My mission.” Huebner’s eyes sparked. “If any officer is not in support, you have three options: jump off the side of this ship, take a bullet, or just do your job.”
Uncertain eyes wavered from the admiral to the exec and back. Juelz trembled.
“What do you say, Juelz?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Sir.”
“Good. Now, arm yourselves. We are going for a little walk on the ice soon.” To Vasquez the admiral said, “We are not going to be alone, I have friends in the army joining us.”
On the gangway, as they made their way back up to their stations, Vasquez asked, “Where are we going, Admiral?”