Finally, right in the middle of the great wasteland of Antarctica, the searchers picked up signs of metal buried under the ice. Turcotte could see Von Seeckt, the old German and a member of Majestic-12, speaking as he had told Turcotte all this shortly after he joined Nightscape, one of the security forces at Area 51.
The cold air came off the ice around the cage, and Turcotte remembered Von Seeckt describing the unique nature of the seventh continent. The ice layer was three miles thick in places, and so heavy it pressed the land beneath it below sea level. If the ice were removed, relieved of the pressure, the land would rise up!
Despite intermittent attempts, it took nine years before Majestic could get another serious mission launched to recover the bouncers. In 1955 the Navy launched Operation Deep Freeze, under the leadership of Admiral Byrd, the foremost expert on Antarctica. As a cover, the operation established five research stations along the coast and three on the interior.
The first plane to land at this site fixed the position of the metal under the ice, but the crew was killed when a storm blew in and froze them to death.
Scorpion Base was the ninth base established, under a tight veil of secrecy. Von Seeckt himself went there in 1956 after engineers spent all of 1955 drilling the same ice that Turcotte was now going down through. In 1956 they broke through into a large cavern inside the ice.
Inside were seven bouncers lined up. It took Majestic three years to bring the bouncers to the surface. First the engineers had to widen the shaft to forty feet circumference. Then they had to dig out eight intermediate stopping points, in order to bring them up in stages. Then it was necessary to tractor the bouncers to the coast and load them onto a Navy ship for transport back to the States. Actually being here, Turcotte realized what a fantastic engineering job those men had done decades before.
But Von Seeckt had also told him that once the bouncers were recovered, Scorpion Base had been closed. As far as Majestic had been concerned, the base was no longer an issue.
But Majestic had also heard rumors over the years about the existence of another secret government organization called STAAR. And Major Quinn at Area 51 had tracked back communication between STAAR operatives and this isolated location.
“Staging area four,” Miller said as the cage stopped on an ice surface.
Turcotte looked around. The shaft dug out of this staging area was horizontal. About forty meters down the tunnel, a cluster of men were waiting next to several large drills.
Miller led the way. Large lights were rigged, their output reflecting off the cut surface.
As he waited, another cage came down, disgorging the six Special Forces men with their weapons.
Miller watched them approach with a questioning look.
“We don’t know who or what is in there,” Turcotte said as he deployed the men behind the engineers.
“We’re ready whenever you are,” Miller said.
“Go ahead,” Turcotte ordered. The sound of the drills drowned out any possibility of further conversation as Miller gave the order.
After a minute the whine of the drills suddenly went lower. One of the men, covered in ice shards, was waving for Captain Miller. “We’re through!”
Miller ordered his men to pull their gear back, leaving the end of the tunnel open. Turcotte walked forward, the team behind him. He pulled off his right mitten, keeping on the thin glove he wore underneath, and slipped his finger in front of the trigger of his submachine gun.
There was a small opening in the ice, about four feet high by three wide. Darkness beckoned beyond it. Turcotte took a flare out of his backpack, lit it, and tossed it through. The sputtering light was a halo in the darkness.
Turcotte stepped through. As far as he could see in the limited glow of the flare, there was open space.
“Miller!” Turcotte yelled over his shoulder.
“Yes?”
“Can you get some light in here?”
“One second.”
The rest of the Special Forces team stepped through, deploying around Turcotte, the sound of their feet moving on the ice echoing out to some great distance.
A bright light flashed on behind Turcotte, a powerful searchlight spearing through the dark.
“Jesus!” one of the Special Forces men muttered.
The light went for almost a half mile before touching the far wall of the ice cavern. Like a toy town set on the icy floor, a small group of buildings sat in the center of the cavern about two hundred meters ahead.
Turcotte waved the men to follow him as he headed for the nearest building.
Lisa Duncan was slammed back as the catapult pulled the E-2C Hawkeye down the deck. Her stomach flipped as the plane dropped off the front end of the flight deck. The nose of the plane lifted and it began climbing through the rain.
The pilot banked the plane hard as he turned toward the south. Duncan looked over her shoulder at the George Washington, then the carrier was gone in the mist.
She settled back in her seat. She felt slightly guilty. It would have taken only several more hours for Turcotte to return to the John C. Stennis and catch a flight to the Washington, but she didn’t want to wait. According to flight ops, she would land on the Stennis, its battle group in the South Pacific about a thousand miles east of New Zealand, just thirty minutes after Turcotte returned from Antarctica. Once she linked up with him, they could formulate the next step before she left for Russia. The fact that foo fighters were active, although sticking close to Easter Island, was unsettling. It also bothered her that the guardian had been into the Interlink for a day before anyone at the NSA noticed. She found that very hard to believe.
“Can you connect me with the NSA?” she asked the crewman seated next to her. “Yes, ma’am,” he replied.
While she waited, she felt a vibration on her thigh. She pulled her SATPhone out of her pocket and flipped it open.
“Duncan.”
“Dr. Duncan, it is my pleasure to speak with you.”
Duncan tried to place the man’s voice but couldn’t. Her SATPhone number was classified and only a few people had access to it.
“Identify yourself.”
“That is not important, Dr. Duncan. I am unimportant.”
“Then I guess I don’t have a need to speak to you,” Duncan said.
“If it matters to you, for the purpose of this conversation, you can call me Harrison.”
“And what can I do for you, Mr. Harrison?”
“The shuttle launches. Why is UNAOC in a rush to get back to the mothership?”
That was a question Duncan herself had.
“There is danger there,” Harrison said.
“What kind of danger?”
“The same danger there always was,” Harrison said. “The mothership’s drive must not be activated.”
“The ruby sphere was destroyed,” Duncan said.
“Do you think there was only one?”
Again Duncan had no answer.
“Why do you think there is a rush to get to the mothership?” he asked once more.
“I don’t know,” Duncan said. “Why don’t you tell me.”
“There is a plan. It must be stopped.”
“Whose plan?”
“The guardian. Aspasia’s guardian. There is much you don’t know. Majestic did not uncover the guardian computer they brought to Dulce in Temiltepec.”
“How do you know that?”
“Look to the south, Dr. Duncan. Look to the south. If you find where it came from, you can find the history, and history is most important.”