Orlando stopped when he saw Phoebe’s questioning eyes.
“Anyway, maybe we should all try to sleep until we get to Antarctica.’
Phoebe was about to protest that she’d never be able to sleep — all while issuing the biggest yawn Orlando had ever seen her take, when she did just that.
Dozed off to the murmuring voices and the gentle humming of the engines.
And stayed asleep, mercifully without dreams for almost six hours, until someone screamed or shouted and woke her up.
Jacob sat bolt upright, along with Nina. She had been absently reaching over to touch his hand, and it had sparked something, triggering a vision.
“Dad!” he yelled, hands gripping the seat rests as if the plane had dropped from the sky. “In trouble!”
Nina flung off the eye mask and glared at everyone with annoyance. “Damn that impulsive idiot! He’s going in alone.”
29
On the USS Marcos, a mile off the ice shelf at Ross Bay, Caleb stood inside at the portside promontory. He had just come up from his temporary quarters, where he had managed a quick lukewarm shower. He changed into thermals, wind-breaker khakis, boots and a cotton navy turtleneck that made him feel like he should be on the prow of a Nantucket whaler vessel smoking a corn pipe.
Arctic gear was prepped and ready: heated parkas and climbing boots, gloves and hats, goggles and flashlight head-beams. Edgerrin finished a call behind him, conversed with the Navy captain and two others, then came to stand beside Caleb.
“How are you holding up?” Caleb asked. He never took his eyes off the distant peak past the bluffs and the crashing surf, beyond the jagged glacier ridge and the steep ascent to where he’d seen the satellite imagery of the pyramid-shaped mountain. They’d mapped the best route in, and were just waiting for dusk, after noting some defenses and patrols along the way.
Edgerrin’s reflection was resolute, almost as if painted in transparent greys and whites upon the glass. “Would be better if I could take those blasted meds. The visions are insane. But I’m focusing. Like you taught me.”
“Hone your mind,” Caleb said. “Shut out the temptations, focus on the mission. Might even get a glimpse of something that could help us out here.”
“It’s working. Weird being on the other side of all this.”
“’Weird’ is a good word for it, I imagine. Feeling a bit of that myself”
“That and having the weight of the world on my shoulders. Trying to keep to the day to day. President… clinging to life. VP and the cabinet… dead or incapacitated. Others out of their minds. NORAD prepped and defense satellites all on high alert in case someone else gets possessed and launches on us — or our allies or anyone else we can protect.”
He let out a long sigh. “It’s a lot to juggle. And then Montross and Ms. Montgomery. Gave then full access to NASA systems and the HAARP facility. Praying they can figure this out and shut this shit down. Get us all back to normal. You on this side of crazy, me back on the other, normal, side.”
“In time,” Caleb said. “And I hate to say this, but we may want to wait and time it right.”
“What do you mean?”
“I sense that many members of that army waiting for us may be incapacitated themselves. Or at least, not playing their A game.”
“Great, so they’ve probably sensed us coming.”
“That’s a safe assumption.”
Edgerrin massaged the back of his neck. “Bring it all down too soon, and the filter’s off, and our advantage gone. And—”
Edgerrin suddenly groaned and dropped to a knee. The captain shouted something.
“Saw it, sawit, sawit, runrunrunRUN!”
Edgerrin shoved Caleb to the side room with the arctic gear, and as he stumbled, at a loss for what was happening, he saw it:
Streaks of light arcing from that mountaintop, from concealed turrets under the ice.
Missiles.
Heading for them.
The next few minutes were a complete blur of violence, explosions, frozen water and counterfire. Somehow Caleb got to the boat, still struggling into his parka. He threw on the hood and vehemently refused the heavy gun thrust into his hands.
Despite the explosions, the ringing in his ears, the ice and water and flaming wreckage raining down around him, all he could think was: how would I even pull the trigger wearing these heavy gloves?
The destroyer returned fire, missiles streaking from the side bay and deck port, but the Marcos was in grave shape. Flames raged over half the deck, gaping holes were torn in the near hull. Still, she struck back just as hard. The glacier plateau erupted in several locations, and as Caleb looked through the spray and the smoke, the wall of ice seemed to be sliding down into the sea, a graceful but terrifying avalanche. Tiny forms tumbled amidst the white: defenders, guns and vehicles spilling into the icy waves.
Edgerrin gripped Caleb’s shoulder and pulled him back. Took his spot at the prow, aiming with a scoped rifle of some kind. Caleb couldn’t see anything clearly. Heard his name, and more shouting. Other soldiers were in the rescue craft with him, and two more boats roared to life beside them. They skipped over the tumultuous waves and raced toward shore.
More explosions and chunks of ice—
An image of something in his mind: blurry at first, then resolving. Pyramidal, ice-covered. Ancient. Beyond ancient. Hazy with a blue screen around it — a screen that became more and transparent.
Splashes of icy water, and he was tipping with the boat. A deafening scream in his ear, spearing past the echoes of explosions and then — he was submerged into a world of utter cold, like nothing he had ever experienced.
A shock of frozen agony, it sliced through the thin blue veneer in his mind — the last vestige of the shield blocking the sight of what lay ahead, calling for him.
And he saw it: not one pyramid jutting out from the ice, looming immensely over tiny human forms at its base, but two more — misaligned in a row, not unlike the familiar precision at Giza, reflecting the belt of Orion in the night sky.
As he descended, mouth open but not breathing in the icy waters, and before the hand grasped his hood and hauled him up, his mind reeled under the flood of warm, sunlit images:
A jungle world. Lush, developed with roads and spires, appearing like a cross-architectural menagerie: turrets and spires alongside open-air temples; Greek-style pillars beside gothic archways; hanging gardens, wide canals and immense waterfalls gracing every hill… and the Pyramid he had just seen, looming over it all, dazzling and golden, shimmering in the sun while thousands basked in its rays and went about their lives.
Beyond this pyramid, a trail up the side of a steep cliff to a plateau where shade drapes the land, cast by the gargantuan branches of a tree so huge, so thick, majestic and almost godlike in its grace. Its leaves dazzle, its branches ripple with a fluorescent energy and its trunk seems so vast it can hold all the world’s temples and churches side by side and stacked high, housing their bricks and mortar — and their very scripture, verse and belief…
The branches creak, and something slithers in the foliage, knocking down bark and leaves. Something with hungry eyes.
Eyes searching for him…
On his back, staring at the blinding sky where a dim sun burned somewhere. Forms bustled around him. His chest heaved — coughing, he realized, hacking up mouthfuls of icy liquid.
He heard a rumbling somewhere, like an engine peppered with sputtering bangs. Focusing, he saw Edgerrin crouching beside him, firing with precision bursts here and there at what must have been waves of enemies bearing down on them.