“Yeah, bitter wind. Let’s get there shall we? It’s up the shoreline, I think?”
“Yeah, come on.” Anupa moved off, keeping the bay to her right. After half an hour she pulled up and took out the GPS. She waited, then there it was, the satellite signal.
“We’re near, another few hundred yards.” They moved off. She wrapped her arms around her, tried as best she could to shield herself from the biting, bitter cold wind. What a fearsome place they’d come to. A white purgatory on Earth.
Suddenly there it was. She’d been expecting a search but underfoot were long hewn timbers. Anupa looked at them and wondered. Yes, that was it, they were parts of a demolished jetty, she could see rope wrapped around in places to form protection for the ship’s hull. Some had been chaffed. She moved by them and onward, then there out of the white blowing snowfield was a large open dark void in the cliff. It was part natural and part man made. A large cave entered the cliff, it had been worked in places. A large wooden door hung to one side. Walls had been built. This was what they’d come all this way to see, to investigate. A dark maw in the Antarctic cliff face drew her in. Drew her into what?
“PINT OF SUSSEX BEST please?”
The barman pulled a fresh pint of amber brown beer.
“There you go, Sir.” He paid, turned, chose a free table and sat down. He’d met her before here it must have been a favourite pub. The Royal Oak, Borough; he sipped it, they did serve a good pint. He’d been posted to London just over a year now and was developing a taste for the “real ales.” It was a step up from the post posting Brasilia. Langley had decided it was time to rotate him to Europe; he’d expected Lisbon as he could now speak Portuguese, but they’d picked London.
He looked around at the place. Regular British pub style, dark woods a few horse brasses. A poster of West Ham soccer team. The door opened and she walked in. She ordered a pint and sat next to him.
“Afternoon George.”
“Afternoon Silky.” The MI6 nickname culture was getting familiar. What would his nickname be if the CIA had the same habit?
“I hear you’ve been away, back over to home. Am I right?”
“Yes, I was back in Cleveland for a week. Good to see the folks.”
“I’m due to go back to Norfolk in a few weeks. Same deal really, chill out see the family. Anyway, down to business, I’ve got something for you.” Silk Purse passed over an A4 envelope with several papers inside.
“Read them first George and then we’ll talk.” He started on the first sheet. He spent ten or more minutes reading them, trying not to show any reaction. He’d learned that that’s the way things were done over here. He replaced them in the envelope, she took them and slid them back into her jacket.
“I’m going for another pint Silky. You want one?”
“Yes, get me a Sussex. A pint of, not a bloody half.” He got the drinks and sat.
“Well, George?”
“Bit of a bloody rumpus.” He said in a mock British accent.
“And your guy, what’s her name? Crutch, got this from the Tel Aviv boys?
You have a handle on why?”
“Not really. We did them a few favours recently, it might be payback.”
“Oh, MI6 helping the Mossad? Where?” She waited as though trying to decide if he should know the information.
“Pakistan.”
He nodded. “Yeah, you’re not short of assets there. Was it regarding…” She held her hand up.
“Don’t push it George, let’s stick to the info you’ve read. Nice try though.”
“Seems a long way away for them, if you’re right that is. Iran; it sort of makes sense, but doesn’t.”
“Yes, have you any leads on that type of thing?”
“I’ll do some digging. I promise I’ll share it with you. But we don’t have any info, not to my knowledge.” He took a drink.
“Nice pint Silky.” He placed the heavy barrel glass down.
“What the hell does Iran want down in Antarctica. Come on Silky, what?”
“We’ve no bloody idea. We’ve sent Crutch down to take a look, she’ll be there now. She’s on a Frigate.” George grinned.
“From hot and sunny Riyadh to the frozen south, I bet she loves that?” George laughed.
“You’ll let us know Silky?”
“Yes, and see what you can dig up on your side. You might try leaning on Tel Aviv. Here, it’s all on there.” She pushed over a RAM stick.
“See you soon George.” Silk Purse got up and left.
HE SHOOK HIS HEAD. What do the ragheads want down in that frozen hellhole?
The Mossad had discovered that something was going on. Mossad. What the hell where the Iranians up to? Israel and its intelligence arm Mossad considered Iran a mortal foe.
Whatever it was, it must be something they couldn’t or didn’t want to handle themselves.
So, the Mossad has reached out to the CIA and MI6? Some heavy shit must be going down. George frowned and wondered. Iran was playing around all the way down there, and whatever it was, the Mossad didn’t like it.
“You ok Sir,” asked the barman, “you look troubled?”
Troubled, yeah you could say that. “I’ve just had some news, that’s all. Some surprising news.” The barman smiled.
“Nothing a pint of Sussex can’t fix. Another Sir?”
“Go on,” he nodded.
He’d have to get Paulis off his ass in Langley and onto this one.
He wished that was all it would take. Whatever was going on it would likely be bad news. George sighed.
Chapter 3
Anupa turned her back against the biting icy wind. Powder snow blew along the shoreline forming wispy eddies.
“So that’s it Tosser. I suppose we’ll have to take a look inside, it’s what we’re here for.” She didn’t like the look of the place at all, it was beyond uninviting. It was forbidding, dark and so unwelcoming.
“Get the NBC suits out. You saw the briefing, we take no chances.” Tosser opened her backpack and started to pull out the suits, along with the gloves and over-boots.
The Mk4 suit and its S10 respirator protects against chemical and biological agents by filtering air through a charcoal filter. They’d be good for a few hours at the most, it would just have to be enough. The pair of them suited up in the biting wind, after several minutes of struggle they were ready. Anupa led the way inside, she’d taken out her torch and looked around the place. It had been hurriedly evacuated, there were personal effects, packaging and discarded filters laying around. Crutch and Tosser took out their cameras and photographed anything that may be of interest. To the left were metal racks for storage, they were empty now but dividers lay on the racks suggesting that they held rows of objects. Towards the rear of the room was a vessel, large and plastic, frozen liquid had seeped out.
Crutch took out a sample bag and placed some of the frozen liquid into it. Next, she opened her backpack and took out two instruments, a Geiger counter and an ION-chamber survey meter. These two would cover low and high levels of Gamma and Beta radiation. The ION-chamber would sense high levels of radiation such as those present after a nuclear explosion.
She switched them both on. The buzzing of the Geiger counter sent chills through her.
“We need some samples Tosser. Get the sample bags out.” Tosser took out the bags and held them open. Anupa took samples of materials and scrapings from walls, various objects and steelwork. The two of them worked for over an hour.
“Come on, through here.” Anupa indicated a back room. It was a long room, totally man-made and running further into the rock. Bolts protruded from the concrete floor, it was clear that large pieces of machinery had been removed from here. Two long rows by the look of it. They took more samples, still, the Gigger counter buzzed. It was all the more active here. Crutch noticed some papers, she picked them up. There were notes in an Arabic script, these were placed in a sample bag. A few filing cabinets had been left, she opened them, but they were empty. Then she spotted more papers. They must have fallen down the back of the cabinets.