‘Belay that,’ Jarvis snapped.
Lopez shot the old man a sharp glance. ‘That wasn’t part of the agreement.’
‘The agreement’s changed,’ Jarvis replied without looking at her. ‘The president himself wants the satellite placed in a new orbit, parallel to one of our new Keyhole satellites.’
‘So you can monitor targets and be ready to hit them at a moment’s notice,’ Lopez guessed easily. ‘Damn it Doug, I should’ve known better. This satellite is dangerous and there could be more of them.’
‘We have the control codes now,’ Jarvis replied. ‘Majestic Twelve won’t be able to use this system as leverage against other countries, nor our own for that matter.’
Vaughn was frowning at the screen. ‘Oh, no.’
‘What?’ Lopez asked.
‘We’re too late,’ Vaughn replied. ‘Look, the data for the satellite says that it holds four weapons, those tungsten projectiles. There are only two on board now.’
Hellerman rattled off a line of code and then examined the results. ‘Damn, he’s right.’
Jarvis leaned closer.
‘One would account for the Vela Incident,’ he said, ‘but the other?’
Hellerman accessed more code, his hands flying over the keys, and Lopez heard his sigh of regret as he looked up at her.
‘We missed it,’ he said. ‘The satellite launched a second projectile three minutes ago.’
Lopez felt her stomach flip inside her. She already knew the answer to her next question, but she felt compelled to ask anyway: ‘What was the target?’
Hellerman rattled off another code command and looked up to the main screen. Lopez looked up and saw an image of the Southern oceans, and there upon it an arc with a red icon upon it that was following a line of descent toward a spot in the Eastern Antarctic.
‘It’s already on its way down,’ Hellerman said in a quiet voice, the rest of the Watch Center silent now as they observed the tiny icon. ‘Velocity is approximately one mile per second and increasing.’
Lopez walked away from the desk, as though having a clearer view of the screen would somehow allow her to influence the outcome of the strike.
‘Can we intercept it?’ Jarvis asked hopefully.
‘No allied aircraft in the vicinity,’ Hellerman replied, ‘and no way that our ballistic defenses could be launched in time to intercept that missile now. Two minutes to impact, it’s already entering the atmosphere.’
Lopez looked across at Vaughn. ‘No word from Ethan?’
‘Nothing.’
Lopez looked at the screen and saw the missile accelerating rapidly, a small digital read-out reaching three miles per second already.
‘Oh my God, that’s going to create one hell of a bang when it hits,’ Hellerman said unhelpfully as he gazed at the icon.
Lopez looked at the phone on Jarvis’s desk, hoped against hope that it would ring. To her amazement, it suddenly buzzed urgently and Jarvis hit the speaker button.
‘Jarvis, tell me something good!’
The line crackled with distortion as a voice reported in.
‘The SEAL team made it out and the artifact has been secured,’ the voice replied. ‘The team is clear but not everybody made it back.’
‘Where’s Ethan Warner?’ Lopez demanded.
‘And Hannah Ford?’ Vaughn added.
‘Stand by.’
There was a painfully long wait on the line as the caller checked with the crew of the submarine and the SEAL team.
‘I’m sorry, but Agents Warner and Ford are both unaccounted for and were last seen inside the base below the glacier, which has since collapsed.’
Lopez stared up at the main screen just as the digital read-out alongside the missile icon reached five miles per second and the weapon arced down onto Antarctica in its hypersonic terminal descent.
‘It’s over,’ Jarvis said softly.
Ethan gripped Hannah’s hand tightly in his own as he heard the roar of the missile plunging down toward them from the heavens and he flinched, ducked down and closed his eyes as the roar became deafeningly loud and thundered directly overhead.
The snow on the ridge was blasted aside and Ethan thought that his eardrums were going to burst as something rocketed directly overhead their position and barely above the ridge line. Ethan waited for the intense heat of the impact, the unimaginable moment when their bodies would be assaulted by the million-degree heat of a nuclear blast.
Suddenly, the great roar of noise rushed by and faded to the south, and Ethan peered from the corner of his eye in time to see a great wake of wind-blown snow left behind by the wings of a twin-engine aircraft that thumped down on the ice alongside the ridgeline.
Ethan was not an expert on aircraft but he could recognize some of the more classically shaped airframes and the one before him now was a fugitive from the golden age of aviation. The Consolidated PBY Catalina was painted white and looked like a giant dove as it turned on the ice. A veteran of World War II, the amphibious Catalina had a long hull with an equally wide wingspan atop it, two large piston engines set into the high wing either side of an angular glass cockpit with multiple windows. On her rear fuselage, two bulbous Perspex viewing bubbles that had once held cannons glinted in the sunlight. Capable of landing both on the water and on land, the Catalina had been renowned during the war for its reliability, durability and extremely long range.
All at once, Ethan smiled and said a single name.
‘Lopez.’
Ethan could barely speak as he jumped up and saw the Catalina seaplane braking on the snow as it began to turn back toward the ridge line, its pilot swinging the big aircraft around like a pivot on one main wheel as he powered up the starboard engine to help turn the aircraft about.
‘Come on!’ Ethan yelled at Hannah. ‘Our ride’s here!’
Hannah’s weary expression livened as she saw the airplane travelling back toward them and Ethan helped her to her feet, the former FBI agent holding the handle of the blade in her side as together they staggered out onto the ice.
The PBY Catalina taxied across to them and the side door opened up to reveal the rugged features of Arnie Hackett shouting at them above the engine noise as his wife, Yin-Lee, guided the aircraft.
‘You wanna hurry the hell up?!’
Ethan almost carried Hannah the last few steps and Arnie hauled her on board the aircraft as Ethan jumped up into the fuselage and hauled the door shut.
‘What the hell are you doing out here? How did you find us?!’ Ethan asked in amazement.
‘Got a text from a friend!’ Arnie shouted. ‘The smoke from those wrecked skidoos guided us in! Now strap in and shut up!’
Arnie dashed for the cockpit, shouting as he went. ‘Yin, get us the hell out of here!’
The Catalina’s engines roared as the aircraft thundered along the ice, her huge flaps, powerful engines and broad wings providing enormous lift as she rushed along the Antarctic ice and rotated, her nose pointing for the sky. The fuselage shuddered and vibrated as the aircraft thundered along the ice and then suddenly the shaking vanished as the aircraft lifted off and Ethan heard the undercarriage retracting as the aircraft climbed away into the frigid sky.
‘Did we make it?’
Hannah’s voice was weak, and Ethan crouched down alongside her as he squeezed her hand and applied pressure once more to her wound.
‘Yeah,’ he replied, ‘you’re gonna be fine now. We made it.’
Ethan heard Arnie’s voice from up in the cockpit bellow back down at him. ‘We’re not done yet, asshole. Brace for impact!’
Ethan looked down at Hannah and managed a smile. ‘Just a formality.’
Hannah almost laughed, but her mirth was choked off with pain and she winced as Ethan held on to her.