37

UNDER A SKY CONCEALED by a thick layer of clouds, a NUMA executive jet landed on a frozen airstrip, taxied toward a domed building, and rolled to a stop. Little America V was the fifth in the line of United States ice stations to bear the name since Admiral Byrd had established the first in 1928. Once situated several miles from the edge of the Ross Shelf near Kainan Bay, the sea was now only a short walk away, due to the calving of the ice pack over the years. The base served as a terminus for the 630-mile-long well-traveled ice road to the Byrd Surface Camp on the Rockefeller Plateau.

A man bundled up in a lime-green parka and fur-trimmed hood removed his sungla.s.ses and grinned as Pitt opened the pa.s.sengers door and stepped to the frozen ground.

"You Pitt or Giordino?" he asked in a rumbling voice.

"I'm Pitt. You must be Frank Cash, the ice station chief."

Cash merely nodded. "I didn't expect you for another two hours."

"We hurried."

Pitt turned as Giordino, who had closed down the aircraft, joined them. Giordino introduced himself and said, "Thank you for working with us on such short notice, but it's a matter of extreme urgency."

"I have no reason to doubt you," said Cash astutely, "even though I received no instructions from a higher authority."

Unable to talk their way into joining the special force a.s.sault team that was being formed to raid the Wolf compound and halt the coming cataclysm, they had been told in no uncertain terms by Admiral Sandecker to remain in Buenos Aires out of harm's way. Pitt's reasoning had been that he and Giordino were essential to the raid, because it was they who had discovered the horrifying truth behind the man-induced cataclysm and knew more about the Wolfs and their security tactics than anyone else. And, since they were already in Buenos Aires and five thousand miles closer to the scene of conflict, they could get there before the a.s.sault team and scout the facility.

His plea had fallen on deaf ears. The argument by the high-ranking military had been that they were not professional fighting men who were trained and conditioned for such a strenuous and difficult operation. In Sandecker's case, he was not about to allow his best men to commit suicide in the frigid wastes of the southern polar continent. Pitt and Giordino, however, true to form, had taken a NUMA executive jet, and instead of flying it back to Washington as they had been ordered, they'd filled it to the brim with fuel and taken off for Antarctica, in hopes of entering the Wolf mining plant through the back door, without the slightest plan in their heads of how to cross sixty miles of frozen waste to the Wolf operation once they landed in Little America.

"We'll figure out something when we get there." Pitt was fond of saying this.

Followed by Giordino's "I'll tag along, since I don't have anything better to do."

"Come on inside," said Cash, "before we turn into ice sculptures."

"What's the temperature?" asked Giordino.

"Pretty nice today, with no wind. Last I looked, it was fifteen degrees below zero."

"At least I won't have to send for ice cubes for my tequila," said Pitt.

The domed building, which was 80 percent covered with ice, protruded only five feet above ground. The living and working quarters were a maze of rooms and corridors hacked under the ice. Cash led them into the dining area next to the kitchen and ordered them a hot lunch of lasagna from the station cook before producing a half-gallon bottle of Gallo burgundy. "Not fancy, but it hits the spot," he said, laughing.

"All the comforts of home," mused Giordino.

"Not really," Cash said, with a grim smile. "You have to be mentally deficient to want to live this life."

"Then why not take a job somewhere with a milder climate?" asked Pitt, noticing that all the men he'd seen at the station were bearded and the women had forsaken makeup and coiffures.

"Men and women volunteer to work in polar regions because of the excitement of pursuing a dangerous job exploring the unknown. A few come to escape problems at home, but the majority are scientists who pursue the studies of their chosen expertise regardless of where it takes them. After a year, they're more than ready to return home. By that time, they've either turned into zombies or they've begun to hallucinate."

Pitt looked at Cash. He didn't have a haunted look in his eyes, at least not yet. "It must take strength of character to subsist in such a bleak environment."

"It begins with age," Cash explained. "Men under twenty-five lack reliability, men over forty-five lack the stamina."

After waiting patiently for a few minutes, while Pitt and Giordino ate most of their lasagna, Cash finally asked, "When you contacted me from Argentina, did I hear right when you said you wanted to cross the ice shelf to Ok.u.ma Bay?"

Pitt nodded. "Our destination is the Destiny Enterprises mining operation."

Cash shook his head. "Those people are security fanatics. None of our scientific expeditions ever got within ten miles of the place before being chased off by their security goons."

"We're quite familiar with the goons," said Giordino, relaxing after filling his stomach.

"What did you have in mind for transportation? We have no helicopter here."

"All we'll need is a couple of snowmobiles," Pitt said, looking into Cash's face. The expression in the ice station chief's eyes was not encouraging.

Cash looked pained. "I fear you two have flown a long way for nothing. Two of our snowmobiles are in maintenance, waiting for parts to be flown in. And the other four were taken by scientists to study the ice around Roosevelt Island north of here."

"How soon before your scientists return?" asked Pitt.

"Not for another three days."

"You have no other transportation?" asked Giordino.

"A bulldozer and a ten-ton Sno-cat."

"What about the Sno-cat?"

Cash shrugged. "A section of one track shattered from the cold. We're waiting for a part to be flown in from Auckland."

Giordino looked across the table at his friend. "Then we have no choice but to fly in and hope we find a place to land."

Pitt shook his head. "We can't risk jeopardizing the special force mission by dropping in out of the blue. I had hoped that with snowmobiles we might have covered the distance, parked them a mile or two away from the mining compound, and then crept in un.o.bserved."

"You fellas act like it's a matter of life or death," said Cash.

Pitt and Giordino exchanged glances and then both looked at the station chief, their faces set in grave expressions. "Yes," Pitt said severely, "it's life and death to more people than you can possibly conceive."

"Can you tell me what this is all about?"

"Can't," Giordino answered simply. "Besides, you wouldn't want to know. It might ruin your entire day."

Cash poured a cup of coffee and contemplated the dark liquid for a few moments. Then he said, "There is one other possibility, but it's highly improbable."

Pitt stared at him. "We're listening."

"Admiral Byrd's Snow Cruiser," Cash announced, as if he was launching a lecture, which indeed he was. "A jumbo four-wheel-drive, larger than any vehicle built in her day."

"When was that?" Giordino queried.

"Nineteen thirty-nine." There was a pause. "It was the inspiration of Thomas Poulter, a polar explorer, who designed and built a monstrous machine he hoped could carry five men and his pet dog to the South Pole and back. I guess you might call it the world's first really big recreational vehicle. The tires alone were over three feet wide and more than ten feet in diameter. From front to back, it measured fifty-six feet long by twenty feet wide and weighed thirty-seven tons fully loaded. Believe you me, she's some vehicle."

"She sounds overly elaborate," said Pitt, "for a vehicle designed to travel to the South Pole."