Jaunt (10 page)

Louris eyed the rifles a pair of MPs held as the five traversed the corridors of U5. He brought his head forward to Mason and whispered, “Nice accouterments. Had some trouble?”

“You noticed...we had a breach yesterday morning.”

“Thought so. Quite a number of Marines to be pulled from outside, even for this facility.”

“That’s one of the reasons why you’re all here on such a short schedule,” Gilmour said.

“The U Complex is under Threat Level Red-plus.”

U5-29 loomed ahead, denoted by the twin MPs orbiting the door. Gilmour paused at the entrance, long enough for the lead MP to hand a secured holobook. The Marine then slid one of his pass keys through the panel, allowing the group of agents inside.

“Gilmour turned back to Louris, Constantine and McKean before entering. “All right, gentlemen, that was the easy part. What you’ll hear inside is where the real shit begins.”

With that warning, he led them inside to de Lis’ briefing, where the enormous responsibilities they would soon face slowly encompassed not only their minds and bodies, but their souls.

“Congratulations, gentlemen,” Dark Horse announced some time later, “you passed.”

Mason blew a breath from his lips, relieved. Gilmour’s hands remained steepled; he had been stationary, awaiting their formal exoneration since he and Mason had been called into de
 
s’ office.

“Was there ever any doubt?” Gilmour finally asked.

“No, not in my mind. We have had rumors spreading throughout the U Complex of a mole in our midst. Rumors we haven’t been able to corroborate.”

Gilmour sat straight up...a mole? De Lis had said he was loath to discuss their reassignment to the theoretical studies laboratory; was he referring to HADRON? If HADRON

was here, that would understandably make de Lis nervous about discussing the neutronic situation with Mason and him. Was that truly why de Lis had handpicked them? To root out HADRON?

“I’m glad to have that over with,” Mason said, exchanging a knowing glance to Gilmour. “What are you to do now, colonel?”

“Doctor de Lis and I still have to administer questions to the other staff. I received permission from my superiors to clear you two first, so that we could proceed to the retrieval mission ASAP.” Dark Horse stepped out from de Lis’ desk and crossed over to the two agents. “There was a time, not too long ago, when I would have been commanding a mission similar to the one you two are embarking upon.”

Dark Horse paused to stroke his fine, salt-and-pepper mustache. Did Gilmour detect a hint of contrition in the officer?

“Remember this time. This is when you are truly alive.” A fire lit in his eyes, unleashing a flood of memories in his mind. “I’ve made mistakes in my career, many I have never told anyone about, not even my closest of family. But despite that, above everything else, just come home alive.”

The pair listened, wondering what had happened to Benjamin Dark Horse; the lieutenant colonel was quiet, his eyes focused not on some distant object within the laboratory, but on another time, another place, so long ago that Gilmour and Mason would never have heard or seen of it.

He cleared his throat before turning back to the pair. “That will be all, gentlemen. At a thousand hours, your colleagues are to be awaiting you in Hangar Building B, complete with instructions and a holographic briefing from Doctor de Lis and myself. The jumpjet has been fully stocked and equipped to meet all of your mission objectives.”

Dark Horse’s hand was outstretched to shake the agents’ hands. “Good luck, Agent Gilmour.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Good luck, Agent Mason.”

“Thank you.”

The agents exited, speaking no words between themselves. Somehow, it didn’t seem right.

Gilmour’s last shower for the foreseeable future was hot and neat, but much too fleeting. Running his hands through his damp hair after stepping out, he buttoned up his most practical field uniform—a layered, long shirt and coat coupled with black khaki trousers—

plucked his rucksack and equipment case into his hands and dashed out his quarters’ door, meeting the similarly well-disciplined Mason right behind him.

Heading into the down lift, one of a pair of MPs wished him good luck. The courtesy seemed so odd, if only that none of the MPs had ever spoken to the pair without first greeting them. Odd, indeed.

Moments later, the security checkpoint became a haven for frenzied activity; not just from the five waiting special agents, but also with the flight and ground crews bounding in and out of Hangar Building B, busily preparing the patient jumpjet for launch. The agents gained admittance from the Flight Control Officer and rounded the tarmac, weaving between the two crews.

Once on board, a co-pilot took the agents to their seats, which were located aft of the cockpit bulkhead. Politely informing the agents that they would be departing soon, the copilot produced a thick metal tube from his equipment case and unrolled it, revealing a square, ten-by-ten-centimeter plane with tiny, one-centimeter-tall pyramids featured on its top side. The co-pilot plugged the bottom end vertically into a matching ten-by-tencentimeter socket in the bulkhead, then tapped an icon on a touchscreen above the socket. The device shimmered and hummed as the pyramids glowed brightly, emitting a shaft of light into the faces of the agents.

A photon field soon coalesced into a flat, two-dimensional, ten-centimeter-tall version of Doctor de Lis, eliciting the agents’ laughter at the strange dwarfish figure. “Welcome, gentlemen,” de Lis’ simulacrum greeted them.

Constantine leaned over to Gilmour, giggling. “Is he going to sprout wings?”

“If you will please refer to your holobooks,” the holograph prompted.

The five agents sorted through their rucksacks, and once in hand, booted the devices up while the holograph began its briefing.

“Your mission parameters provided by the Department of Defense have been downloaded to each of you for your instruction. Our objective is to penetrate the Sakha Republic, or as the Russians refer to it, Yakutia, a large province of the Russian Far East.”

On the holobooks, a large red outline appeared on the respective cartographs of the Confederation of Independent States, centering on the particular area of Siberia where the Sakha Republic lay, a vaguely heart-shaped region bordering the Laptev and East Siberian Seas, south of the Novosiberskiy Islands. Pages of text materialized, providing facts and statistics about the republic. Scrolling through the text while de Lis narrated, they discovered that the crash site was particularly inhospitable, lying just within the Arctic Circle, and accessible by river only. Permafrost sealed the ground, adding nothing but hard labor to their mission.

“...In order to facilitate our guidelines,” the holograph went on, “it will be necessary to burrow under the Confederation’s lidar. To accomplish this, your jumpjet will take you as far as Ellesmere Island, where a waiting Icebreaker-class submarine will deliver you under the physical North Pole to the East Siberian Sea. The two-hundred-kilometer journey along the Indigirka River and its branch, the Kolymskaja, will take you approximately three weeks, camping under camouflage during the short day hours. You will then proceed across the Ulahan-Sis Mountains to reach the crater site, which is marked on your cartographs.”

A red semicircle, located nowhere near any viable travel path, flashed deep within the over seven-hundred-meter tall Ulahan-Sis Mountains. The range was quite hostile, especially on foot, and infamous for its extreme temperatures, anywhere from forty degrees Celsius in the summers to minus fifty in the winters. They would not have the benefit of a jumpjet to fly them in, nor the guide of any natives to lead them to one of the remotest regions on Earth. Traveling to the crater site was technically feasible, given their training; if they could only survive the frozen river passage without being discovered by the Russians or the natives, or succumbing to the weather, then that was half the battle....

White blindness. The polar ice sheet—large as a continent—loomed under the approaching jumpjet, the arctic at its most welcoming. Ellesmere Island, a jutting landmass less than eight hundred kilometers from the roof of the world, rose from the wastes of this icy sea. Bucking to the force of the angry polar gales, the jumpjet descended from the spacescraping cirrus clouds towards the lands of northernmost Canada. They circled a remote coastal port at the tip of the island, gradually shedding their altitude and momentum. Fresh snow kicked up in the craft’s wash, swirling around the cobbled concrete runway and creating new drifts half-a-meter high.

Once on the ground, the jumpjet was boarded by a USNA Navy chief petty officer, garbed in a heavy white parka. After a brief introduction, the five agents departed, braving the harsh polar desert. Behind them, a Navy crew unloaded and began to haul the IIA equipment and gear to the waiting submarine’s stores, where the cargo would be held for the voyage to the Russian coast.

Under their boots, the powered snow cracked, echoing throughout the pristine wilderness. The wind howled in Gilmour’s hood, inflicting its sad song into him. Nothing could have adequately introduced them to the frozen north more than the seizing, crushing cold.

In the distance, a slate blue conning tower peaked over the low snow bluffs, standing tall against a powdery wind. Five NCOs milled about the runway’s small shelterhouse, smoking and conferring with the two jumpjet pilots. Paying no heed to his crewmates, the chief petty officer led the agents off the last vestiges of civilization and into the snowcapped trail beyond.

A temporary platform bridged the massive conning tower to Ellesmere’s solid shelf. Meters below the narrow walkway a mighty gash had been ripped through the ice by the quadruple-hulled bullet curves of the Icebreaker-class submarine. Their boots clanging harshly as they walked along the graded walkway, each agent took the opportunity to glance down at the particles of snow careening into the deeply plowed shelf; soon they’d be descending into those same depths.

Two more officers—without parkas and visibly shivering—met the group at the open mouth of the submarine, all too ready to shut their mobile city’s hatch. The agents were shuttled inside the mechanical behemoth and summarily sent down a vertical crawl space. A moment later they were in a narrow corridor, lined by horizontal metal pipes over the low ceiling. Stenciled on every conceivable piece of equipment in sight were yellow warnings, indicating either high pressure liquids or merely sensitive, for-eyes-only data. Suspended caution lights and distant monitors provided the only illumination, casting a sickly pall to their faces.

Gilmour’s ears were inundated by the whine of gears near and far, as well as the regular shouts of the crew down the low, tight corridors. Walking single file behind Louris throughout this dark artery, Gilmour was reminded of the U Complex and its dim illumination. Perhaps he could get used to this vessel; after all, it wasn’t much different than what he had been quartered in for two weeks.

Louris looked at the ceiling, just centimeters over his scalp. “We’re breaking through the ice. They’re moving out.”

“How do you know that?” Constantine asked. “I can’t feel a thing.”

Louris gave a cryptic grin. “Experience.”

He said no more. It was widely rumored in IIA circles—but never discussed openly—

that Louris had spent many years with the Agency in mysterious circumstances. This lead to many interesting, if not totally believable, theories about his prior career. It never paid to ask him directly; one rookie dared to prod him about it, and his reward was to be reassigned an entire week’s worth of work from an experienced field agent. At least Mason had benefited from the overeager lad’s mistake, managing to snag a few day’s leave in the process.

They spent the next few minutes loosening their garb and rubbing life back into their extremities as they moved through the sub, which wasn’t much warmer than outside, giving them plenty of incentive to keep the pace quick.

A man soon approached from the opposite direction, dressed in a starched white shirt, blue tie, slacks and epaulets. “Gentlemen, welcome aboard the Hesperus,” he greeted, shaking each of their hands stiffly. “I’m Commander Roger C. D’Avid, at your service. If you’ll follow me.”

Commander D’Avid led them further into the subterranean corridors, passing various stations and monitors. Crewmember after crewmember courteously pushed through the cramped artery, like ants bent on a single purpose. Just another day on the Hesperus, Gilmour imagined.

Their escort finally brought them to a small wardroom, considerably smaller than U5-29 or the D.C. bureau conference room. Unlocking the cabin with a set of pass keys, D’Avid admitted the agents into the darkened room. “Watch your step,” he warned.

The five looked down to clear their feet over the high bulkhead. Bypassing that obstacle, they walked into the relatively spacious room, stretching their arms and backs. D’Avid hit the lights, throwing low, but warm, illumination throughout the cabin. Five cots lay in a row on the floor, with folded, woolen blankets set upon each.

D’Avid locked the door behind them, securing the nearly illegal cargo and himself together. “This will be your home for the next week. Get used to it.”

Gilmour glanced at both Mason and Louris; their executive officer was blunt.

“Their will be no fraternization with the crew,” he continued, “nor will you discuss this mission outside of this cabin. The only two people who know the precise nature of this voyage are myself, and my commanding officer. Please report to the duty officer before lights out.”