Vaughn's words were met with silence.
The MK/B 61 nuclear bomb weighs 772 pounds. Using the same small tractor that Tai had used to clear out the armory, Min's men pulled the first bomb along the hallway to the east ice storage tunnel. There, they placed it on a large sled and secured it with ropes.
Corporal Sun had started the large bulldozer and was up on the steel grating ramp, cutting away at the ice with the blade, aiming for the surface. As soon as he cut through they would take the large SUSV tractor and head out. The SUSV consisted of a large engine section on treads that could seat three men up front, and a second section on tracks that was pulled along and could fit ten men and all their supplies. Min watched Sun's efforts for a few minutes and then went back to the armory.
South Pacific
"Captain James Cook was the first to sail around Antarctica, from 1773 to 1775, yet he never once spotted land, the ice pack keeping him well out of landfall."
Fatima sipped a cup of coffee as she listened to the captain. She and Araki were on the bridge of the freighter, the heaters going full-blast, fighting against the Antarctic wind that blasted against the glass that separated them from the world outside.
"The first party ever to land on Antarctic land and spend the winter did not succeed until well over a century later, in 1895. And in the slightly more than a century since, men in ships have been able to accomplish little more in these vicious seas."
"Your point?" Fatima asked.
The captain glanced at her, and then returned his focus to the sea ahead. He had a copy of the OPLAN in his hands and had just finished reading it. "These idiots in Pyongyang want us to pick people up off the coast of Antarctica." He laughed. "As if by a simple command such a thing could happen. Let's see what you have to say when we hit the ice pack in the morning. Whoever it was that wanted to get picked up will have to come to us-not the other way around."
"All right," Fatima said. "Once we make contact with them, I will inform them of this."
The captain twisted his head and peered into the distance as the lookout phoned in another iceberg off the port bow. "It's going to get worse," he lamented.
"It always does," Fatima agreed.
Antarctica
The way to the surface was clear, and Sergeant Sun had managed to drive the SUSV up the uneven ramp to the surface, where it sat rumbling on the ice cap, the sled hitched behind it. Major Min walked back down the ramp and across the base to the armory, where Sergeant Yong was propped up, back against the wall, his weapon on his knees. His wounded arm and leg were swathed in bandages. The bodies of Jae, Song, and Nam were laid out in the hallway under ponchos.
Min was uncertain what words would be correct to say good-bye to his soldier, so he simply stood in front of his man and saluted. Yong looked up and returned the gesture with his nonwounded arm. Before he had second thoughts, Min turned and swiftly walked back to the east ice storage room. He climbed up the ramp and crunched across the ice to the cab of the SUSV. He got into the cab and nodded at Sun. The medic threw the vehicle in gear, and the treads slowly started turning. At a crawl of ten miles an hour they headed away from the base. Min directed the driver to their one last stop before heading for the mountains lining the coast. The sled bobbed along in their wake, its cargo securely tied down.
Geneva
Dyson's body was strapped to the chair in the middle of the Intelligence Center. His dead eyes stared straight ahead. The man who had been "working" on him packed up his equipment and left the center.
Then the High Counsel spoke to the Assessors. "I want a Course of Action Projection based on what we just learned about Majestic-12."
"With what parameters?" the Senior Assessor asked.
"I want to know what the possible outcomes will be if we exterminate Majestic-12."
Pine Barrens, New Jersey
The two men walked down the corridor, the squeak of their shoes echoing off the cinder-block walls. They went into a small room with a secure satellite link to Geneva. "I got everything out of Whitaker," the Tall Man said into the mike. "He put the bomb on the airplane carrying the engineers."
"Why?" the Senior Assessor asked.
"To keep the location secret and for $500,000. He also helped wiped out the convoy that accompanied the four MK-17 bombs down there."
"That was years later, so Lansale kept him on retainer. What about the submarines?"
"He didn't know about those."
"Terminate him."
Pentagon
As questions bombarded him, the head of the Intelligence Service Agency didn't like the role reversal. The hastily assembled officers and senior administration officials wanted answers, and he, unfortunately, didn't have many. Being the bearer of bad news had a historically poor rating.
The ranking officer in the room, Army Chief of Staff General Morris, listened to the confusion for five minutes before he cut to the heart of the matter. "Gentlemen, we have to accept the fact that there are bombs down there and there is nothing we can presently do to make that knowledge disappear. Given that, there are two courses of action we have to pursue.
"Our primary concern must be to secure the bombs. I say that is primary because of the potential physical threat they represent. Our secondary concern is to find out where these bombs came from and how they ended up at this base. Attached to that second concern is to find out why and how this Citadel was built."
Morris looked about the room to make sure everyone, particularly the President's National Security Advisor, was following him. With the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in the Middle East, this problem was his problem. "In line with the first, I am going to have certain military forces alerted and deployed to the Antarctic to secure the weapons and remove them."
"Won't that violate the Antarctic accord?" an Air Force general asked.
Morris bit off a sarcastic reply. "The accord has already been violated. It is now time for damage control, and we have to get those bombs out of there.
"To help solve the second problem, the various intelligence organizations have all been notified and are investigating the situation." He swung his gaze to the ISA director. "I want your sources to find out everything they have on this. I also want everything you've received from the personnel you've already detained in connection with this incident." Morris fixed a full colonel at the end of the table with his gaze. "What do we have that can get there ASAP to secure those weapons?"
The colonel looked at the large map at the end of the room. "To be honest, not much, sir. I think the closest ground forces would come from either Panama or Hawaii. Elements of the 7th Fleet are operating off of Australia. The big problem is that we have no way to deploy forces by air there without an in-flight refuel. That's the most isolated place in the world-you have a minimum of a two-thousand-mile flight from the nearest land." "I don't want problems. I want results."
"Yes, sir."
Antarctica
Kim laid the satchel charge in the middle aisle of the Earth First plane. They'd just found it, parked four hundred meters away from the base, and Major Min had directed him to destroy it. He estimated that thirty pounds of explosive would more than do the job. Kim pulled the fuse igniter and hopped out the door. He ran back to the SUSV and clambered into the cab, next to Min. The driver immediately threw it into gear, and they headed away.
Three minutes later the dull crack of the explosion sounded through the blowing snow, but the flash was lost in the white fog. Thirty miles directly ahead lay the coast.