Robert Williams - Ice Fortress

The colonel was a solid and compact fireplug of a man and he clearly kept himself in shape, despite his age, which Jack guessed was mid-fifties. Old school from his combat ready boots to his high and tight haircut, the colonel had the bearing of an officer with a history of leading men through skirmishes. The white crescent shaped suture scars on his scalp hinted that the man had seen his share of action in his time. Jack was curious as to why a hardened combat veteran would be stationed at a remote intelligence facility. He was even more curious as to why both he and the oversized navy man were standing to attention before him.

“At ease men. I’m Colonel Daniels, Chuck Daniels.” The colonel gestured for them to take a seat before taking his own.

He gave Jack a penetrating stare. “Captain Coulson, your reputation precedes you.”

“Reputation, sir?” An uneasiness stirred within Jack.

“Your reputation for finding trouble, or should I say, for trouble finding you.”

“The rumors are exaggerated, colonel.”

“I’m not talking about the rumors, Coulson.” He again fixed a piercing gaze on Jack.

Sam watched the exchange with interest. The air was thick with tension.

“Let’s begin,” the colonel addressed both men this time, “what we are about to discuss cannot, I repeat cannot go beyond this room. Is that clearly understood?”

“Yes sir,” both men responded.

“One of our Virginia Class submarines has gone dark during a scientific mission under the Antarctic Ice Cap. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency funded mission was a collaboration between civilian scientists and a the Navy,” the colonel looked to Krupsky as if to indicate why he had been summoned, “using a modified sub, the USS Barracuda, the mission was to survey measure the ice shelf and the land masses below it.”

Daniels turned his attention to Coulson.

“I don’t need to tell you the strategic advantage of being able to navigate Boomers directly under the ice cap,” he continued.

Sam leaned slightly closer to Jack. “A Boomer’s a sub full of ballistic nukes.” He nodded authoritatively.

“I know what a Boomer is, thanks Bluey.” Jack was beginning to get a feel for why he had been called in.

“As I was saying… we’ve lost contact with the sub. The protocol was for the captain,” Daniels rifled through the file on his otherwise empty desk, “Jameson, Captain Frank Jameson, to surface at 18:00 hours each day to report and upload via satellite link the data collected during that day’s survey.”

“When did they last report, colonel?” Jack asked.

“Good question. They didn’t. All we know is that they reached the Ronne Ice Shelf and began testing the civilian designed submersible and failed to log even one report after that. We have satellite coverage but it can’t help us see what’s going on below the ice shelf.”

“So what are we doing here, in the middle of the desert? Why didn’t DARPA ship us direct to McMurdo Station?” Krupsky felt it was time he asked a question to let the colonel know that Jack wasn’t the only one who could ask good questions and he knew that McMurdo was the largest U.S. scientific base on the Antarctic continent.

“Gentlemen, leave your cell phones on my desk and come with me. There’s something here you need to see and we couldn’t risk transmitting it, not even through encrypted channels.”

Krupsky and Coulson exchanged curious glances. They’d both been in their respective military branch long enough to recognize an ominous undertone when they heard it. Whatever they were about to be briefed on, they knew it was nothing good.

The cramped elevator plummeted deep into the bowels of the earth, or so it felt to Sam as he hunched to avoid slicing his head on the egg crate grille covering the dim overhead lights. Jack did his best to mask his surprise. Like most, he’d always assume that the Pine Gap base was a ground installation. There had never been any speculation, not even among the tin-foil-hat brigade who protested in favor of its closure, that there was far more to the base than was visible from ground level. If only they knew.

“I won’t insult you both by telling you that you were never here and that this part of the installation is above Top Secret and for good reason. Even the President isn’t aware of this facility and we’d like to keep it that way, as I’m sure you’d understand,” Colonel Daniels advised them as the elevator came to an abrupt halt, causing Sam to hunch even further.

The doors hissed open and revealed a brightly lit and cavernous space almost a football field in length and half as wide again. It was filled with massive wall mounted screens, banks of computer monitors attended by men and women wearing a variety of different uniforms. At first glance, it was plain to see that this was a joint operation between all divisions of the military who appeared to be working in harmony like a well-oiled machine. Again, the two outsiders shared a glanced.

“Follow me,” the colonel ordered, stepping through the doors with Jack and Sam trailing in his wake.

When he reached a glass walled conference room, the colonel paused as the facial recognition camera verified his identity before lighting up the biometric scanner with a pulsing green light, indicating that it was ready for him to present his finger for further corroboration. Security in the facility was second to none, Jack observed but remained silent.

The heavy glass doors sucked open and Jack noted that the doors, like the walls, were glass-clad polycarbonate, the most effective bullet resistant glass available. He couldn’t fathom why such precautions would be necessary in a top secret facility buried deep in the Central Australian desert. Some things were just not adding up the way they should. The covert operative senses in him became heightened when things didn’t feel right. Krupsky, he suspected, had the same misgivings.

As they entered the room, Daniels hit a button on a recessed wall panel and the clear glass of the fishbowl in which they found themselves instantly became opaque, giving them privacy from the eyes in the operations center. As the lights dimmed, a television screen that would leave even the best home theatre system green with envy lowered from the ceiling and the colonel gestured that they be seated.

“As you gentlemen are probably aware, the Antarctic, despite the sprinkling of research bases around its edges, is largely unexplored. The reasons for that are many, but suffice to say that it’s the harshest and most inhospitable place on earth.”

“Present location excepted,” Krupsky whispered to Jack.

Colonel Daniels trained his steely gaze on Sam. He was either not impressed by the interruption or with the reference to what amounted to his base. Most likely both.

Sam folded his arms and stared hard at the screen to avoid the colonel’s icy stare. He looked like a naughty schoolboy in spite of his stature and the fact that be barely fit in the boardroom chair he’d squeezed himself into.

“If I may continue… apart from being a scientific curiosity, there’s little of strategic value down there and the climate is so harsh it doesn’t even support permanent life, save for the odd penguin colony on the coast. No Polar Bears, no Orca’s. Nothing. It’s just too damn cold for anything to survive. That’s why we don’t waste expensive satellite resources monitoring what’s going on down there. Because nothing ever goes on down there.”

“Until now,” Jack politely interjected.

“Correct. Until now,” Daniels confirmed.

Sam glanced askance at Jack, showing his annoyance that he wasn’t given a reprimand for interrupting. But he figured that since the other two were both army and he was navy, he shouldn’t expect the same regard.