Robert Doherty - The Citadel

He hit the End button and dialed another number of a contact in the Philippines. He ordered the man who answered to check the warehouse where the first agent had been interrogating Fatima.

Then he sat back in the chair and considered the situation. He was in the observation post of a rather unique bunker complex built on Fort Shafter on the outskirts of Honolulu. Built during World War II, when the fear of Japanese invasion of the island was very real, it had housed an air defense coordination center, tunneled deep in a lava ridge line. Now it housed the WestCom Sim-Center, which stood for Western Command, Simulation Center. It was the place where the major commands of the United States military in the Pacific theater played their war games using sophisticated computer simulations. It was currently empty, as no war games were being conducted, the military being more occupied with the real wars going on in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Royce typed on his laptop keyboard, which he had linked by Firewire into the Sim-Center's mainframe. On the large video display in the war room below him, a map of Antarctica was displayed. For the first time, Royce felt irritation with his friend David Lansale. What the hell had David done down there? And why was Lansale, even after death, playing him off against Fatima and the Abu Sayif about the Citadel?

He typed in another command and the map shifted, showing the Korean peninsula. One of the most critical military spots in the world that had the potential to go hot very quickly.

Royce sighed. He knew that Vaughn and Tai would be landing in New Zealand soon, but this was growing much faster and much more dangerous than he had anticipated. His desire for knowledge about the Organization had to be balanced against external threats, and now those threats were growing larger.

Royce cleared the front screen. Then he began typing in a message to his contact in North America.

Auckland, New Zealand

Vaughn threw their bags into the back of the pickup truck, while Tai handed them to him. It was hard to believe their seemingly never-ending flight from Hawaii was finally over.

Vaughn didn't know what to make of Logan. About six-foot-two, tanned, with blond hair that Vaughn was sure the man spent quite a few dollars getting worked on, he had those rugged good looks that would have made him perfect for one of those beer commercials kayaking down white-water rapids while several beautiful women awaited him at the other end. Vaughn didn't like him in the slightest. There was a curious intensity about him that was offset by a very congenial, perfect smile that he shined on Tai as often as he could.

He did have to give Royce credit for one thing: he got them around customs and their gear into the back of the pickup without being checked. And he noted the hard cases already under a tarp in the back that held the weapons and other illegal equipment he had requested.

Tai slid in to sit in the middle, and Vaughn sat on the passenger side as Logan took the wheel. He drove them around the perimeter of the airfield until they came to an old, weather-beaten hangar.

"This is it," Logan said as he pulled up to the hangar. He glanced across Tai at Vaughn. "Mind opening it up?"

Vaughn got out of the truck and slid the large doors open, wide enough for Logan to drive through, then he stepped inside and slid them shut again. As Logan parked the truck, Vaughn looked around. Two planes were parked inside, and a man dressed in greasy overalls was working on one of them. Logan and Tai got out of the pickup.

"This is our aircraft," Logan announced, standing in front of the sleek two-engine plane the man was working on. Vaughn noted the skis bolted on over the wheels of the plane and extra fuel tanks hung under each wing. The man stopped working on the engine and looked at them.

"This is our pilot, Mike Brothers," Logan said.

Brothers acknowledged them with a grimy wave and went back to work, intent on whatever he was doing. Vaughn had no desire to interrupt a man working on an engine he was going to be counting on. Brothers looked like he had done more than his fair share of hard living, with his weather-beaten skin and pure white, thinning hair. Vaughn hoped he knew what he was doing.

"Brothers spent a couple of decades flying the bush in Australia," Logan said. "He's spent the last three years doing runs to Antarctica. The pay is better."

A man with simple motivations, Vaughn thought, reflecting back on the conversation he'd had with Tai on the plane.

"Over here," Logan said, leading them to a plywood board screwed to the hangar wall, which had maps tacked up on it.

Vaughn and Tai sat in the metal folding chairs in front of the maps while Logan stood next to the board.

"We're taking off first thing in the morning tomorrow," Logan announced.

"How long a flight?" Tai asked.

"Eight hours," Logan answered. "Earth First's base, which is where I've always gone before, is located here on Ross Island, about fifteen miles from McMurdo, so we use the runway there and then tractor over. There are eleven people down there right now, but seven are out on the ice shelf doing core tappings, so we'll be able to squeeze in with no problem."

Logan picked up a manila envelope and slid out several photos. "I got the copies of the pictures you sent me. I've tried to figure out where this Citadel can be using them. The Citadel appears to be set in a sort of basin, surrounded on three sides by mountains. Based on the flying time from High Jump Station-now McMurdo-and aircraft type, the JRM Mars, I've estimated it to be between five and six hundred miles from McMurdo straight-line distance. I'm assuming they flew straight because you do not want to dick around in the air down there. The weather can change on you in a heartbeat."

Logan turned to the map. "Combing that with the mountains in the background, that places it in one of three spots: to the south, here at the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf in the Transarctic Mountains; to the east, at the edge of Marie Byrd Land, where King Edward the VII Land juts out into the Ross Sea; or to the north west, here along the Adelie Coast.

"The order I just gave you is also the order in which I think we should look. Let me explain. Six hundred miles from McMurdo along the Adelie Coast puts you almost right smack on top of the French station, Dumont d'Urville. I doubt very much that the Citadel is in this area for several reasons. First, I think the French would have come across something if it was there. The Russians also established a base there in '71 farther east along that coastline, here-Leningradskaya. And they haven't come across anything.

"Additionally, I, and many of my colleagues from Earth First, have been in this area several times conducting protests over the airstrip the French have been trying to build there the last four years. We have made numerous overflights of the area and spotted nothing. I know that the Russians have done extensive electromagnetic sensing missions around that area, trying to determine if there are any mineral deposits. I assume a lot of metal was used in the construction of the Citadel, so I think they would have uncovered it."

Logan tapped the map. "It's possible the base is here along the coast to the east, but I like the location in the Transarctic Mountains. I prefer it because if the purpose was to hide this base, putting it there would locate it much farther south than all bases established afterward, except for Amundsen-Scott Base, which sits right on top of the geographic South Pole itself. Also, this area is along the original route explorers used to reach the South Pole. Both Amundsen and Scott traversed the Ross Ice Shelf and traveled up glaciers into that mountain range. Nowadays, though, expeditions bypass the mountains, going around, either to the east or west. The area has not been extensively explored. Therefore it is my recommendation that we look first in this region."