Pentagon

Secretary of Defense Torreta did not appear to be pleased to be sitting in the situation room at ten at night after a nonstop flight back from the West Coast. General Morris ran a hand along the stubble of his beard as the Secretary gestured for him to continue with his situation update.

"The Combat Talon is three hours out from McMurdo Base. The Osprey has just taken off from the Kitty Hawk. It will arrive at McMurdo in five hours. The Special Forces soldiers will cross-load to the Osprey and fly out to the target site."

"We still have no imagery of what happened there?" Torreta inquired.

"No, sir. The weather is clearing, but the site itself is still cloud covered. We only have a viewing opportunity by satellite every three hours as it passes over."

Torreta glanced at the notes his aide had prepared for him. "What's the problem in Korea?"

Morris frowned at the change in subject. "Intelligence has picked up enough North Korean activity to justify going to a level three alert."

"Yes, yes, I know that." Torreta replied testily. "But what's this message about the Kitty Hawk Carrier Group from the 8th Army commander?"

Morris hated airing conflicts in front of civilians. "General Patterson wants the group to move north in order to be in better position to support him if something occurs in the peninsula."

"Does the man understand we have a nuclear problem?" Torreta demanded.

"No, sir. That information is under a need-to-know basis."

"Well, I don't want to see any more messages like this. One problem at a time. The President is not happy. He's already had to talk to the CIS president about this incident, and that has proved to be somewhat embarrassing as he doesn't have all the answers himself. I want this mess secured and cleaned up. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir." Morris had long ago learned not to argue with his civilian superiors, but he disagreed with the present prioritizing of events. This Korean thing was much more significant than Torreta was giving it credit. Since the war in Iraq he felt people were getting much too focused on the wrong things and complacent about the potential for war in other locations. Korea had been hot for over fifty years, and sooner or later the simmering would break out into flames.

Morris looked over his shoulder at the electronic wall map that represented significant military-U.S. and foreign-deployments throughout the world. He had a feeling he was missing something very important.

Ice Pack, 20 Miles Off the Ruppert Coast, Antarctica

The freighter picked its way through the ice, barely crawling at three knots. Every so often it had to back its way out of a dead end and try to slip left or right. The captain was in constant communication with his shivering lookout eighty feet above the bridge in the crow's nest, trying to find a route through the piles of ice. Occasionally, the captain would use the reinforced bow of the ship to smash through thinner ice, but large chunks, some hundreds of meters in width, were more than a match for his steel ship. Those had to be bypassed.

The horizon far ahead was a mass of clouds, but the captain knew that if the clouds lifted, he would soon be able to see the shore. So far his radio operator had not heard a single transmission on the designated frequency. The captain hoped that the people he was to pick up were ready for him because he did not want to sit in the ice pack waiting for them. Ships had been crushed as the ice froze around them. He wanted to move in and out as quickly as possible and get this mission over with.

Ford Mountain Range, Antarctica

Vaughn opened his eyes and tried to orient himself. He felt strangely warm, which was a very nice feeling. He twitched his fingers and was surprised to find them wrapped around a body. Then it all came back to him-stopping, climbing in the bag with Tai to warm her up, talking. He must have dozed off. The thought of giving up the warmth of the bag was extremely discouraging.

Vaughn unzipped the bag and crawled out. His movements woke Tai, who blearily opened her eyes.

"What's up?"

"Get your boots on before they freeze up," he told her. "They're in the waterproof bag near your stomach. We need to get moving."

He peered up-the sky was clearing. The sun hadn't broken through yet, but the clouds were much higher, and he could see farther along the ice than at any period since the storm had started. The wind had also died down. Vaughn checked his watch. They'd been out for almost two hours. He wasn't happy about losing that time, but he'd had no choice.

He glanced over to the other sleeping bag lying there on the ice. There was no movement from Logan or Burke.

"Wake up!" he called out as he started packing his stuff up.

"Oh my God!" Burke cried out as he scrambled out of the bag.

Vaughn rushed over. Logan wasn't moving. His eyes were staring at him wide-open, and it took Vaughn a second before he realized they were totally unfocused and glassy. The pupils in the center were black orbs looking into the depths of wherever Logan had allowed himself to be dragged.

Vaughn looked up with a grim face. "He's dead."

Burke was shaking, but not from the cold. "You mean he died there right next to me?"

Vaughn zipped up the sleeping bag, closing it over Logan's face. "Yes," he replied, and looked at the inert sleeping bag. There was only one way they could atone for this. "Let's go."

Burke looked at him with wide eyes. "We're just going to leave him here?"

Vaughn finished stuffing his sleeping bag into his backpack. "There's nothing else we can do. We can't haul the body."

The increasing visibility made Min pessimistic about making it to the coast, as it revealed a massive ridge lying directly across their path. There was no way around it. The ice rose in moderately steep waves, up over a thousand feet for the next three kilometers.

He had given his men a one-hour break earlier, but it had done little to restore the energy they were burning pulling the sled and fighting off the cold. He could sense his men looking at him and the ridge, their eyes shifting from one to the other. Not a word was said.

Min leaned forward, the rope around his waist pulling tight, and the other men joined and began to traverse to the right, angling their way uphill.

Airspace, McMurdo Station

The MC-130 Combat Talon leveled out over the Ross Ice Shelf, boring straight in for Mount Erebus, twenty miles away. In the rear, Major Bellamy checked the rigging of the static lines for the two bundles, one hooked to each cable. The bundles were tied down on the back ramp, and Bellamy's men were standing now, parachutes on their back, just short of the edge of the ramp.

They all felt the plane slow down, and the loadmaster looked at Bellamy. "Three minutes out."

A gap appeared up in the top part of the rear of the aircraft, and freezing air swirled in. The back ramp leveled off, while the top part ascended up into the tail, leaving a large open space. Bellamy stared out. The view was spectacular, with the entire Ross Ice Shelf laid out below to the east.

"One minute!" the loadmaster yelled through the scarf wrapped about his face, trying to be heard above the roar of engines and air.

"One minute," Bellamy relayed to his men, all hooked up to the left cable. He edged out, right behind the bundle. The red light glowed up in the darkness of the upper tail structure.

"Stand by!" the loadmaster yelled as he leaned over one of the bundles with a knife in his hand as another Air Force man did the same on the other side.

The light flashed green, and the loadmaster severed the nylon band holding the bundle down. It immediately was sucked out the rear of the plane. The other bundle went out at almost the same time. Bellamy waddled out after it, hands over his reserve, chin tucked into his chest.