Beneath the Ice (12 page)

“But there was something on board,” Griffin
said. “Knowledge.”

The statement struck Perry
hard. “Someone wanted to kill wit
nesses?”

“Yes,” Griffin said. “Can you extrapolate my
next point?”

“I can,” Jack said. “Whoever did this will
be after us next.”

“You got it,” Griffin said. “You get an A
for the day.”

“That would explain the radios all being out
at one time,” Larimore said.

“What I can’t figure out is how someone
detonated an explosive in flight, unless they were on board
themselves,” Griffin said.

“An altitude switch,” Jack suggested. “When
the craft reached a certain altitude, the bomb would go off.”

Perry shook his head. “The airplane flew
from McMurdo to our base. It would have reached that altitude on
the way over and been destroyed.”

“Maybe it was connected to a timer,” Jack
said.

“Perhaps,” Griffin said, “but that seems a
bit risky, doesn’t it? I mean, the plane was carrying supplies and
would be unloaded as soon as it landed.”

“Maybe it was meant for us,” Larimore said.
“Maybe it was supposed to blow up on-site.”

“That’s possible,” Jack said. “But we’re
left with the same problem: How does the bomb know when to go
off?”

“If the bomb was inside the cabin, which it
seems certain it was,” Griffin said, “then the bomber runs the risk
of someone discovering it beforehand. The loadmaster checks
everything multiple times before takeoff. He knows the inside of
that plane better than the designers. So does the crew. Surely he
would have noticed something out of place. The bomber would know
that.”

Perry’s mind was racing, and he didn’t like
the track. “You’re assuming the explosive was loaded at
McMurdo.”

“Where else?” Griffin asked.

“What I mean is, we’re
assuming someone at McMurdo plant
ed the
bomb. But it might have been done closer at hand.”

“Whoa, wait a minute,” Larimore said. “That
would mean one of the flight crew, one of your men, or one of mine
set the bomb. They were all on the plane. That’d be suicide.”

“That’s not what I’m suggesting,” Perry
said.

“He’s suggesting one of us did it,
Commander,” Griffin said. “And I agree.”

Chapter
9

Eric Enkian stepped
from the limo
without waiting for the
chauffeur to open the door for him. He hated such displays of
arrogance. He could open his own doors. The limo was a business
decoration, something to impress clients—especially foreign
clients.

The drive had been slow through Mexico
City’s clotted traffic and then up the steep road that led to his
hillside home. Enkian not only owned the home but the hillside
itself. There were no neighbors—just the way he liked it. He
dismissed the driver for the evening and walked up a path decorated
in Mexican red pavers, pavers made from material pulled from the
earth by EA Mining. Flowers lined the walk, and trees dotted the
hillside. A gentle breeze pushed leaves around in a chorus of
whispers. The sky overhead was void of clouds and shone a hazy
blue, tinted by Mexico City’s infamous smog.

Enkian paused a moment and looked at the
spacious home before him—eight thousand square feet of simple
luxury blended with the latest technology. Its roof was flat and
its walls a mix of glass and stone. No wood adorned the exterior,
and only minimal wood on the interior. Enkian found the coldness of
stone more comforting than wood. Stone made the single-story
structure secure, and he was certain the building, if left alone,
would stand for a thousand years.

He walked up the five steps that bridged the
vertical distance between grade and porch. The stairs and porch
were made of blue granite and buffed to a glasslike shine. He
entered a code into a keypad to the left of the front door then
placed his thumb on a small, transparent plate. The door unlocked,
and Enkian entered the home he had not seen for the last two
weeks.

It was good to be back from Las Vegas. He
enjoyed mining and building, but he enjoyed being alone more than
anything.

The door opened to a small foyer, which in
turn led to an expansive room. Gold-veined black marble covered the
floors, and the walls boasted limestone from an ancient seabed.
Fossil fish and plants were imbedded in the wall. The roof was
reinforced concrete tinted blue.

It not only looked good to
him, but
felt
good. The stone brought security and a connection with the
past—a past too long forgotten and soon to be
remembered.

He removed his shoes and
felt the smooth marble beneath his feet, and once again he began to
feel grounded to the earth. Leaving his shoes in the foyer, Enkian
crossed the great room and passed the kitchen to his home office.
Stretching the width of the home, the office was roomy and open.
Glass walls formed three sides of the room. The window walls were
equipped with remote-controlled blinds that rose at the touch of a
button. Enkian left them down. He
had
another room to visit.

A decorative metal door
was centered in the one solid wall. He pressed his thumb on a
sensor identical to the one at the front door. The metal door
whispered open, and Enkian stepped in. To the right of the door
were two buttons, one above the other. He pressed the bottom button
and spoke, “Eric Enkian,” and then looked up to a glass panel above
the door where he knew a
camera was
directed his way. It took less than two seconds for the
voice
-and-face-identification system to
verify his identity.

The door closed, and the
elevator began a smooth descent. When
it
stopped, Enkian emerged and motion-activated lights
illuminat
ed a subterranean room that had
been built to his dimensions: sixty-six feet by sixty-six
feet.

Unlike the polished floors of the home
above, this room’s floor was covered in black sand. Enkian felt the
warmth of it on his feet as he walked toward the center of the
room. There were no chairs, no sofa, and no tables, but the room
was filled. At its center was an arrangement of stones, one
carefully set upon another. Enkian set a loving hand on the top
layer. Sixty-six stones from various places in the world: Egypt,
Mexico, Iraq, several African nations, China, Japan, Central
America, Canada, and the United States. Blue stones set upon white
stones shouldered to green and yellow, rising from the sandy
floor.

He patted the stones then looked around the
room. No matter how many times he moved into this microcosm—he had
done so more times than he could count—he felt a sense of pride and
connection to the past. He was proud of this room, but it was just
a container for things more important.

Enkian took a deep breath
as he let his eyes trace the only other structures in the room.
Black onyx pedestals stood like sentinels, each topped by a glass
case. Each case glowed with the light of the small halogen bulbs
hidden in the base. He stepped to the closest one, bent, and peered
in. The red-brown cylinder within—identical
to the cylinders in every case—was adorned with writing that
had
n’t been used for millennia. Sixty-six
cylinders, each one more valuable than gold.

“The prophecies,” he said aloud, his words
echoing off the stone walls. “The time is near.”

He thought of Tia, now somewhere in South
America. Soon he would follow.

He returned to the stone column in the
center of the room then slowly removed his shirt and tossed it
aside. On top of the stones—on top of the altar—lay a flint knife.
He took it in his right hand and studied its sharp edge and lethal
point.

Closing his eyes, Enkian ran his left hand
over his torso, feeling each scar on his chest, then over his
belly, which bore even more scars. He began to hum, then chant in a
language few knew, and then he raised the flint blade to one of the
few unmarked areas of his body, placing the stone blade against his
flesh just above his navel.

With great care, he pressed the blade into
the tender flesh—chanting, chanting, chanting. When he felt blood
begin to ooze be-tween his fingers, he bent forward and laid his
body on the stone altar.

“All of me I give . . . all of me I give . .
.”

Dr. Kenneth Curtis took a seat next to Gwen. She
looked at him briefly but gave no other acknowledgement. She didn’t
want company. She didn’t want conversation. She wanted her brother
back in the safety of the Dome. The structure shuddered under the
wind’s onslaught. The Dome’s shape made the wind roar instead of
shriek as it did around sharp corners. She wished she found some
comfort in that.

“We’ve just finished a second check of the
buildings,” Curtis said. “Everything looks normal. Gleason and
Sarah are trying to cobble together some communications.”

“Good,” Gwen replied. It appeared a
conversation was coming her way whether she wanted it or not. She
considered going to her room.

“Give me your hand,” Curtis said, extending
his own. His fingers were short, his nails trim, and his palm
wide.

“What?”

“Your hand, young lady—give it to me.”

The request took her aback. “Why? I don’t
understand.”

“Indulge me.”

Reluctantly, she complied.
His hand was warm and firm, though
she had
expected the rotund archaeologist to have soft, pudgy flesh. He
closed his fingers, taking her hand in a gentle grasp. “Do you feel
that?”

“Feel what?”

“My hand, of course.” He smiled, and his
eyes brightened.

“Of course I feel it.
Shouldn’t I?”
This is stupid,
she thought and began to pull away. He tightened
his grip. “What are you doing?”

“So you do feel my grasp?”

“I said ‘yes.’ So what?”

“I’m older than you by about twenty years,”
he began. His tone was even and somber. “I’ve seen things. I’ve
experienced things.”

“Are you coming on to me? Because if you
are—”

“A wise person knows when to listen. You
feel my hand because I’m here. That’s what I want you to know. I’m
here. Gleason is here. Sarah is here. You are not alone.”

“I know that.”

“No you don’t, Dr. James . . . Gwen. You’ve
been sitting alone at this table, shutting everyone else out. I can
understand the desire, but not the practice. You’re worried about
your brother.”

“You figured that out all by yourself?” Gwen
was surprised he didn’t react to her words.

“Yes, I figured it all by myself. I am
worried about Perry and Jack. We have a right to be worried, and we
would be fooling ourselves to pretend otherwise. We must believe
the best and pray for the rest.”

Gwen blinked. Had she heard correctly?
“Believe and pray? You’re suggesting we pray? Believe in what? Pray
to whom?”

“Believe that when the wind settles, your
brother, Perry, Jack, and Commander Larimore will all walk back in
here. Pray to God that it will be so.”

“And that will make it happen? I’m a
scientist. Facts are my food, not faith.”

“Isaac Newton was a scientist, and he wrote
more on theological matters than mathematical. You can add to the
list Louis Pasteur and a thousand more. I am a scientist, too; it
is why I am a person of faith.”

“Faith didn’t save the people on the
transport plane.”

“I am not suggesting faith
keeps bad things from happening. I
am
saying faith enables us to deal
with bad times.”

“So that’s it,” Gwen said. “Sarah said Perry
was different in some way. Is he like you?”

“A believer? A Christian? Yes, he
is—unapologetically, I might add.”

“And you think that will keep him warm in
sixty-mile-an-hour winds?”

“Perry is the most resourceful, intelligent,
and determined man I’ve ever met. When he’s on a project—any
project—he takes care of those around him. If your brother were
injured, Perry would carry him back if he had to.”

“My brother is pretty resourceful, too. He
has years of experience on the ice.”

“That, too, gives me comfort,” Curtis said.
He squeezed her hand. “Just know, Gwen, that you are not alone.” He
released her hand, rose from the table, and walked in the direction
of the communications cubicle.

Gwen stared at the blank
wall and tried to process all she had heard.
Prayer couldn’t hurt,
she told
herself, then shook her head. “Ridiculous,” she said to the empty
room. She looked at her hand and admitted that for those few
moments, it had felt good to share her fear.

The men sat huddled in a tight circle, hoping their
exhaled breath would warm the air a degree or two. Jack had engaged
Griffin in a discussion of how many bodies it would take to warm
the temperature ten degrees in their emergency shelter. Griffin had
resisted, but Jack pressed the right button: “You’re right; it’s
the kind of thing an engineer could figure out.” The debate began
with the men batting mathematical formulas back and forth like
shuttlecocks in a badminton game.

Perry followed the discussion for awhile but
left the two men to their folly. He tried to nap, but each time he
drifted off, he was awakened by an image of a burned leg lying on
the ice, or a hunk of identifiable flesh mixed among the wreckage.
Each vision made his heart leap and breath catch.

“So,” Jack asked Griffin, “how bad can these
winds get?”