Stafford shook his head. "I wouldn't want to go up against those guys that just jumped. I'll bet their attack will be a walk in the park."

Stafford had no idea how dead wrong he was.

THE radar operator in the security building headquarters next to the control center picked up a phone as he studied the line sweep around his radar screen. "Mr. Wolf. Do you have a moment?"

A few minutes later, Hugo Wolf walked briskly into the small darkened room filled with electronic units. "Yes, what is it?"

"Sir, the American supply aircraft suddenly reduced its speed."

"Yes, I'm aware of that. Our radio intercepted a message from them saying they were having engine trouble."

"Do you think it might be a ruse?"

"Has it strayed from its normal flight path?" asked Hugo.

The radar operator shook his head. "No, sir. The plane is ten miles out."

"You see nothing else on the screen?"

"Only the usual interference during and immediately after an ice storm."

Hugo put a hand on the operator's shoulder. "Follow her course to make sure she doesn't double back, and keep a sharp eye for a hostile intrusion from the sea or air."

"And behind us, sir?"

"Now, who do you think would have the powers to cross the mountains or trek over the ice shelf in the middle of an ice storm?"

The operator shrugged. "No one. Certainly no one who is human."

Hugo grinned. "Exactly."

AIR Force General Jeffry Coburn laid the phone back in its receiver and looked across the long table in the war room deep beneath the Pentagon. "Mr. President, Major Cleary and his unified command have exited the aircraft."

The Joint Chiefs and their aides were seated in a theater-like section of a long room whose ma.s.sive walls were covered with huge monitors and screens showing scenes of Army bases, Navy ships, and Air Force fields around the globe. The current status of ships at sea and military aircraft in the air were constantly monitored, especially the big transports carrying the hastily a.s.sembled Special Forces from the United States.

One huge screen that lay against the far wall held a montage of telephoto images taken of the Destiny Enterprises mining facility at Ok.u.ma Bay. The photos in the montage were not from an overhead view, but appeared to be pieced together and conceptualized after being shot from an aircraft several miles off to one side of the facility. There were no overhead images because the military had no spy reconnaissance satellites...o...b..ting over the South Pole. The only direct radio contact with Cleary's a.s.sault force came from a civilian communications satellite used by United States ice research stations on the Ross Ice Shelf that was linked to the Pentagon.

Another screen revealed President Dean Cooper Wallace, six members of his cabinet, and a team of his close advisers, who were seated around a table in the secure room deep beneath the White House. The directors of the CIA and FBI, and Ron Little and Ken Helm, were also present on a direct link with the war room, along with Congresswoman Loren Smith, who had been invited because of her intimate knowledge of Destiny Enterprises. While they acted as advisers to the President on what had been given the code name Apocalypse Project, Admiral Sandecker sat with the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon and acted as consultant on their end.

"What is the countdown, General?" asked the President.

"One hour and forty-two minutes, sir," General Amos South, head of the Joint Chiefs, answered. "That is the time our scientists tell us when tidal currents are at their height to separate the ice shelf and carry it out to sea."

"Just how accurate is this intelligence?"

"You might say it comes from the horse's mouth," Loren replied. "The timetable was revealed by Karl Wolf himself and was confirmed by the nation's top glaciologists and experts on nanotechnology."

"Since Admiral Sandecker's people penetrated Wolf's organization," explained Ron Little, "we have acc.u.mulated considerably more intelligence on what the Wolfs call the Valhalla Project. It all adds up to them doing exactly what they threaten, cutting off the Ross Ice Shelf and upsetting Earth's rotational balance in order to cause a polar shift."

"Triggering a cataclysm of unimaginable destruction," added Loren.

"We've come to the same conclusion at the FBI," said Helm, backing up Little. "We've asked experts in the field of nanotechnology to study the facts, and all agree. The Wolfs have the scientific and engineering capability to execute such an unthinkable act."

The President stared into the monitor at General South. "I still say, send in a missile and stop this insanity before it can get off the ground."

"Only as a last resort, Mr. President. The Joint Chiefs and I strongly agree that it is too risky."

Admiral Morton Eldridge, Chief of the Navy, entered the discussion. "One of our aircraft equipped with radar intercept systems has arrived on site. They've already reported that the Wolf mining facility has superior radar equipment that could detect an incoming missile from an aircraft or nearby submarine with a warning time of three minutes. That's more than enough time to alert and panic them into throwing the doomsday switch early, a situation that may or may not break off the ice shelf. Again, a risk that is a poor gamble at best."

"If, as you say," said Wallace, "their radar equipment is rated as superior, haven't they already been alerted by your aircraft and the signals it sends out?"

Admiral Eldridge and General Coburn exchanged bemused glances before Eldridge replied. "Because it is highly cla.s.sified, it is known only by a select few that our new radar warning systems are virtually undetectable. Our radar interception aircraft is below the horizon. We can bend our signals to read theirs, but they cannot find or read ours."

"Should our ground force be unable to penetrate the Wolf security defenses," said South, "then, of course, as a last resort, we'll send in a missile from our nuclear attack sub Tucson."

"She's already on station in the Antarctic?" asked Wallace incredulously.

"Yes, sir," answered Eldridge. "A fortunate coincidence. She was on an ice data-gathering patrol when she successfully destroyed the Wolfs' U-boat that was firing on the NUMA research ship Polar Storm. Admiral Sandecker alerted me in time to send her to Ok.u.ma Bay before the final countdown."

"What about aircraft?"

"Two Stealth bombers are in the air and will begin a holding pattern ninety miles from the facility in another hour and ten minutes," answered Coburn.

"So we're covered from air and sea," said Wallace.

"That is correct," General South acknowledged.

"How soon before Major Cleary and his force begin their a.s.sault?"

South glanced up at a huge digital clock on one wall. "Depending on wind and overcast conditions, they should be gliding toward their target and landing in a few minutes."

"Will we receive a blow-by-blow account of the a.s.sault?"

"We have a direct link to Major Cleary's ground communications through the satellite that's servicing our ice stations at the Pole and McMurdo Sound. But since he and his men will be extremely busy for the next hour, and possibly coming under hostile fire, we do not think it wise to interfere or interrupt their field communications."

"Then we have nothing to do but wait and listen." Wallace spoke mechanically.

Silence greeted his words. No one in either war room offered him a reply.

After a long moment, he murmured, "G.o.d, how did we ever get in this mess?"