He handed it to her. "It's not much good beyond 300 yards. It's meant for close combat. Let's get you set up at a hundred and we'll try it out."
He showed her the attachments, scope adjustments, stock configurations. They began shooting. After two hours they packed up and headed back to Ronnie's Hummer. He took a detector from his bag and walked around the car. He reached down and found a tiny device the size of a grain of rice, covered with grease. He made walking movements with his fingers.
Selena nodded. A bug.
Ronnie put the bug back where he'd found it. He completed the sweep outside, then covered the inside of the car.
"Hop in," he said.
They drove out through the main gate and headed toward the city.
Ronnie said, "Let's get something to eat. There's a joint along here that's pretty good. Slow service, but we're done for the day. Let's grab a beer and a steak."
"Sounds good."
Ten minutes later they pulled into the restaurant parking lot. Ronnie got out and removed the bug. A green BMW with Virginia plates was parked two cars down. Ronnie sauntered near, stooped down and planted the bug underneath.
They headed for Washington.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The DC-3 turbo prop conversion came in low in the dark Antarctic night. The plane's landing lights glared bright white on the hard packed ice and snow of the runway. The throaty growl of modified Pratt & Whitney engines shook the room as the plane passed over the research station.
Hans had been unable to sleep, his mind filled with thoughts of the Nazi bunker. Now he was charting observations made during the last month. He heard the plane. He put down his pen and went to a window.
He watched the DC-3 make a smooth landing, turn at the end of the runway and taxi to a stop a hundred feet away. A large cargo hatch in the port side of the plane opened. Armed men in black spilled from the aircraft and ran toward the station. Hans thought for a second. Then he reached out and hit the fire alarm.
A hundred and twenty decibel klaxon began blaring. Lights came on all over the station. Doors slammed as people roused themselves and made for the assembly area near the main stairs leading down to the outside.
The station rested six meters above the ground on hydraulic legs. It looked almost exactly like a large ferry perched on narrow piers, a wide rectangle two hundred feet long with two levels and two long rows of windows along the angled sides. Entrance was through an enclosure that reached down to the ice from the middle of the structure.
Hard boots pounded up from below. Nervous voices called out as people streamed from all over the station to the central area near the stairs.
"Where's the fire?" It was Otto Bremen. He was flushed and annoyed, wearing unlaced boots and a thick jacket over his pajamas.
"No fire. Soldiers coming toward us. They look like a SWAT team."
Hans cut the blaring klaxon. The door burst open. Helmeted men dressed in black fanned out through the room. They pointed assault rifles at the confused scientists. An officer wearing embroidered silver oak leaves on his collar entered the room. Hans thought the insignia looked familiar. Where had he seen it?
The officer barked orders in perfect German and sent men into the maze of station passages to find any stragglers still in their rooms or laboratories. Then he looked over the assembled scientists. He was tall, his hair the color of bleached sun under his helmet, his face chiseled from stone. His blue eyes were empty, as if no one lived behind them.
"Who is in charge?"
Bremen stepped forward. "I am. I'm the chief geophysicist. Who are you? How dare you break in here?"
"If you cooperate, no one will be harmed. I will ask the questions, chief geophysicist. You discovered something today. We are here to examine your find. Where, exactly, is it?"
Hans remembered where he'd seen an insignia like the one the man was wearing. In pictures of Nazi SS officers from the war. This was like something out of the American television series, "The Twilight Zone".
Except for the fact that the guns were real.
"I won't tell you," Bremen said.
The officer pointed his rifle at Otto and shot him. The burst nearly cut him in half. It drove Bremen back against a table and spun him to the floor, splashing blood over the table and Hans's careful notes. A stunned silence filled the room. The station personnel stared at their chief's broken body.
"You." He turned toward Hans. "The one with the beard. Where is it?"
Hans looked at the blood pooling under his dead friend. Let them have the damn stuff. Old paintings weren't worth more lives.
"An hour and a half from here. You can follow the tracks we made. In the Fenriskjeften. Follow the tracks to the range, turn right and not long after, you'll see it on the left."
"In the Jaw of the Wolf. How fitting. Where are the Sno-Cats?"
"In a cavern under the station. You'll see the doors outside. That end. The keys are in the ignitions." Hans gestured toward the south end of the station.
The officer gave his orders. Most of the soldiers left the station, leaving three behind to stand guard. The man who had shot Bremen in cold blood walked over to Hans. He took his black-gloved hand and grabbed Hans by the jaw, pulled him close. Hans could smell his breath, foul like overripe cheese. Looking into his eyes, Hans thought it was like looking into a lightless pit.
"If you have lied to me, you will die. If there is any trouble while I am gone, you will die. So will all the others. Understand?"
Hans nodded, fighting the pain of the grip.
"Good."
He gave a final squeeze, patted Hans hard on the cheek, then turned and left after the others.
One of the soldiers ordered everyone to sit on the floor, hands over their heads. When one of the biologists protested, the soldier clubbed him to the floor with the butt of his rifle. After that there was no more talking.
Four hours later, the officer returned. He smiled a cold smile at Hans.
"Thank you. Your directions were accurate."
He stepped back and gestured. "Kill them."
Like a well oiled machine, the guards raised their weapons in one smooth motion and began firing at the helpless people on the floor. It's not fair, Hans thought. I'm going to be married. Then his thoughts were gone.
The officer walked among the bodies, rifle in hand. Twice, he fired.
"All right. Let's go."
At the top of the stairs, the last man out tossed two incendiary grenades into the station. He pulled the door closed and ran down the steps. Orange and yellow flame exploded through the windows and shot skyward.
Someone pulled the cargo hatch closed. The engines of the DC-3 rose to a full-throttled roar. A thousand feet later, the plane lifted away and disappeared into the night. On the desolate, frozen ice shelf below, the flames from the burning station soared skyward like a beacon of warning from some dark and ancient Nordic myth.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Elizabeth wanted the latest NSA information on President Rice's trip. She had full access to the NSA database. The kind of details NSA had on the trip were highly classified, but Elizabeth's clearance was UMBRA, as high as it got. She entered her password.
Except the computer screen displayed a curt message.
Access Denied.
She tried again, with the same result. An unpleasant thought occurred to her. She entered a different search, unrelated to the President but still restricted.