Armen Gharabegian - Protocol 7

Forever secret, Blackburn thought, and smiled.

As he walked back toward the adjacent building to meet with his advisors, he wondered how he could have missed the possibility of a connection between Weiss and the intruder. In fact, he realized, it was quite possible that Simon Fitzpatrick himself, and maybe some or all of the scientists recently reported missing from Oxford, could be part of this-even on board the mysterious vessel. Certainly their whereabouts were unknown; Ryan’s fiancee had been interrogated until they had killed her and knew nothing-or gave them nothing-concerning his whereabouts.

Deep down, something told Blackburn that he had hit on something. This intruder was the team he had been looking for. “It’s them,” he said to himself.

One of his assistants looked up quizzically. “Sir?” he said.

“Never mind,” Blackburn said. His complement of eight officers and advisors followed him to the meeting room to start the debrief.

* * *

It was a long-standing custom: when Blackburn returned to Antarctica, his commanders met with him immediately and brought him up to date. Nothing was ignored, nothing was held back, or that would be the commander’s last meeting. In fact, the debrief itself was more of a checksum for Blackburn than a necessity. He could access any information he needed wherever he was on the planet, any time he chose; he prided himself on knowing every important detail of the vast covert operation at any given moment. But the debriefing did give him valuable insight into just how well-informed and in control his commanders were-and how forthcoming.

At home back in North America, Blackburn led a very deceptive life. He played at being an average mid-level Pentagon official, currently assigned to UNED. No one at either organization knew exactly what his roles and responsibilities were, and no one was privy to his existance in Antarctica. Nobody needed to know. It was Blackburn’s operation-his, and the Committee he answered to, the men he had actually never met.

He leaned back in his well-padded leather chair and studied his command team with deep, piercing eyes. Very little affected Blackburn. He believed in himself with a strength, a ferocity that was intimidating to most. He was rarely questioned, and always, always deferred to.

But today was different. This was the first breach of Antarctica’s security in over twenty years. Someone somehow had managed to enter the ice continent and penetrate the network-his network. And his job-his life-depended on getting to the bottom of it.

Vector5 called a security breach an “incision” for a reason: it was a violation of the body; it was a threat to the operation’s continued health. It was dangerous, and it was expected to cause some pain-to someone.

Just not to Blackburn.

“Commander Roland is on his way down,” were the first words out of his mouth. Everyone in the room knew what that meant. The relief they shared-that this time, at least, it wasn’t them-was palpable.

One of the Ops advisors straightened in his chair. “Sir,” he said, “We believe we can-”

Blackburn cut him off with a gesture.

“Don’t. It’s pathetic. You have no solutions; you-all of you-are responsible for this happening in the first place.” He leaned back again and stared at the blank white walls. “This is what we will do. We will wait for the intruder-the intruders, plural, as it happens-to come to us.”

“But sir,” one of the defense commanders protested, “If they were to somehow penetrate-”

“They will penetrate nothing. There’s no way they can send any signals beyond the continent, and the farther they run from the Spiders, the deeper they go-and the closer they get to us.” He shook his head briefly and tapped the grey tabletop. “No, we will meet them at Shelf 3…if they manage to survive until then.”

“But sir, if I may,” said one of the officers. He tried to stand, saw the expression on Blackburn’s face, and gave it up as a bad idea. He cleared his throat nervously as he retook his seat. “Sir,” he said again, “We still have not been able to locate the eighteen scientists that escaped a few weeks ago. What if…?”

“What if what, Lucas?” he asked the officer very quietly. “Your inability to hold on to operational assets that were in your care is hardly the accomplishment you want to mention at this meeting, is it? It was a failure to begin with…but, I am quite sure, not terribly dangerous. They will run out of rations and freeze to death in the next few days, if they haven’t already.”

Another advisor-my, they’re feeling bold today, Blackburn thought, almost amused-half-raised his hand in a timid bid for attention. “Sir,” he said, “We have reports that several pieces of our old MCs have been dug out of the ice and are probably in the hands of those scientists. The tracker-bugs on them started to fire-for a while, until someone disabled them. So we know-”

Blackburn shrugged it off. The intruders are not the only ones who keep digging themselves in deeper, he thought. “Fine,” he said, dismissing it. “I couldn’t care less. Where the hell do they think they’re going to get the hydro-fuel?”

“They are the scientists who created the machines,” the advisor said. “If anybody can-”

“But nobody can,” Blackburn said. He looked closely at the advisor, his dark eyes drilling deep. Well, at least this one has some balls, he thought. Throw him a bone.

“All right,” Blackburn said. “I’ll go out on a limb for you. I’ll authorize the use of special armament to find and deal with the renegades, as long as it doesn’t raise our profile.” He cast a glance at one of the tech officers. “What’s the probability of vibration being picked up above ground by UNED or civilians if we unleash the hounds?”

“Nil, sir,” replied the specialist. He was sitting across the room, behind some of the officers. “Thanks to your efforts, the continent is clear of significant sensor arrays. UNED is constantly monitoring the total quarantine, but their ears are nothing compared to ours.”

“Excellent,” Blackburn replied. Then he gave a gentle smile-almost merry. “So let’s not waste the opportunity. Let’s try explosives on the defectors.”

A sense of panic filled the room as many of the officers cleared their throats. It almost made Blackburn laugh-all the shifting and throat-clearing, all the sudden tiny beads of sweat. The foolish defense officer raised his hand again. Fool, Blackburn told himself. You’re next.

“Sir, if I may, we have never used explosives in the network before. We have no idea what its impact will be. At this point, it’s all theoretical.”

Blackburn stood up suddenly and turned his back on his men. He couldn’t stand looking at them anymore. Instead he stared at the silver-blue hologram of the entire Antarctica complex that filled the black well near the end of the room. It was a beautiful thing. Beautiful and strange.

“So you’re telling me,” he said without turning around, “that after ten full years, millions of man-hours, and billions of dollars spent on investigation and development…we still can’t put this stuff to use?”

“Not yet, sir,” one of the I amp;D advisors said. “It’s too…unpredictable. Just last week, some of our vehicles started to levitate, and we still cannot understand how this is possible.”

Blackburn closed his eyes and tried to will the man away. It didn’t quite work.

“Our estimate still holds, sir. Eighteen months until we can safely build a prototype.”

“Safely,” Blackburn said acidly. “Maybe that’s the problem-too goddamn many people concerned with their safety rather than changing history.”

He gave it up. Maybe it wasn’t the time, but at least he’d made his point: keep moving or get run over. Now, back to the crisis at hand…