Robert Doherty - The Citadel

There was a long silence. Then finally the High Counsel spoke. "You will remain here at the castle until the head of the Far East Table arrives. We will then coordinate our actions."

Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica

Brothers pulled in the yoke, and the heavily laden Cessna bounced a few times and then was in the air. Reaching sufficient altitude, the plane banked and headed for the search area. Vaughn was crowded in the back with Tai, Logan, Smithers, and Burke. The plane was almost as crowded with people and equipment as it had been on the flight from New Zealand. If they found the area the base was in, Vaughn wanted to be prepared to land and try to find it. He was keeping a close eye on Brothers, not sure the knock on the head hadn't affected the pilot.

Their course followed the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf to the east. Ross Island faded behind them, and after an hour and a half Roosevelt Island appeared below and then slid to the rear. They slowly decreased the distance to the Ford Mountain Range, looming up in front of them. As they approached the first mountains, Brothers increased power, and the wings groped in the thin air for even more altitude until he had sufficient height to clear them.

While the magnificence of the peaks that jutted out of the white impressed Vaughn, what struck him more was the depth of the sea of ice that swept the flanks of those mountains. It was hard to imagine an ice sheet almost two miles thick.

Brothers piloted them over a glacier and through a pass, putting them on the opposite side of the mountain range. Now they turned north, flew along the eastern side of the mountains, looking to their left, searching for the three mountains. Vaughn had taped the photocopy of the picture against the bulkhead above the left side window, and he and Logan were scanning in that direction.

Brothers flew straight up the middle of the mountain chain. The weather was remarkably clear, and the peaks seemed startlingly close to Vaughn. It seemed possible to reach a hand out the window and caress the rock. He glanced right at the map board on Logan's lap. He had their route marked on the plastic cover with grease pencil.

"Everyone look carefully," Logan yelled out over the whine of the engine. "McKinley should be coming up soon." His words disappeared into the rumble of the engine without any reply from the others.

"That's McKinley," Brothers yelled out from the front a short while later. He immediately banked to the left, and the nose of the aircraft settled on a northeasterly route.

Vaughn tapped Logan on the shoulder, gesturing for the map board. Logan passed it back, and Vaughn oriented it, checking the map against what he could see below.

"Can we move to the right a little bit?" he called out to Brothers.

Visibility was unrestricted, and far out to the front through a gap in the range they could even see the ice pack on the coast. To the left and right, isolated mountaintops poked out of the white carpet of ice.

"There. That's it," Vaughn calmly announced.

Three peaks, backdropped against further nunatuks. Tai leaned across Vaughn, her body tight against his as she looked up at the Xerox taped on the fuselage and then out again. She leaned forward and tapped Brothers on the shoulder. "There. We're pretty close on line."

Vaughn looked at their guide and asked, "What do you think, Logan?"

Logan nodded. "Close. You have to consider the fact that the photo was taken from the ground. We're up much higher than that.

"Brothers," he called out, "drop down and let's see how they look."

Brothers did that, and they circled down until they were barely a hundred feet above the ice. Then the pilot pointed the nose straight at the peaks, and all six of the plane's occupants stared ahead.

Tai was the first to break the silence. "That's it. Let's land."

"All right," Brothers said, looking over his shoulder. "Let me find a flat stretch. We don't want to be buckling our landing gear. It's a long walk back to Base."

Brothers flew along and then did a long loop to circle around again. And again. And again, all the time searching the ice-covered ground. Vaughn was almost certain they were in the right area. The three peaks matched, and the basin was surrounded on three sides by mountains. The bowl was about twelve miles long by thirty wide, open to the south. If they could land and get an azimuth on the peaks to exactly match the photo, he believed they could get very close to the Citadel. The passes revealed no sign of any structure, but that didn't surprise him. The ice and blown snow would have covered the above-surface portions of the Citadel long ago.

"All right," Brothers announced. "I've got a stretch that looks like it might work."

"'Might'?" Tai repeated.

Brothers ignored her. "Everyone make sure you're buckled up tight."

Brothers slowly pushed forward on the yoke and reduced throttle. The ice crept closer and closer to the plane as they descended.

"Let's hope there are no crevasses," the pilot said in a cheerful tone.

Then the skis touched and they were down-for the moment.

"Shit," Burke yelled as they became airborne again, bouncing over a small ridge and then slamming back down on the ice once more.

The plane was shuddering, and the right wing tipped down as that ski hit a divot in the ice. They turned right slightly, and then Brothers straightened them out. The plane gradually came to a halt.

"Well, that was fun," he said.

Vaughn looked over his shoulder. "Can you taxi closer to those three nunatuks until we get on the exact right azimuth from the photo?"

"I can do it," Brothers said, but he glanced back at Logan. "The question is: how stable is the ice here?"

Logan licked his lips. "Actually, the ice should be all right here. We're on a pretty solid base. You have to worry about crevasses when you're on a glacier, but we're above solid ground now. Should be all right."

"Let's do it," Vaughn ordered.

"To the right," Tai said. Brothers looked at her questioningly. "If you want to line them up, go to the right."

The pilot increased throttle and worked his pedals. The Cessna slithered along.

"Hold it," Tai called out after three minutes of moving very slowly. "What do you all think?"

Six sets of eyes peered to the north.

"Yes." Vaughn was the first to answer.

"Yes." Logan echoed him. The other three said nothing.

"Let's get skiing." Vaughn unbuckled. He slapped Logan on the shoulder. "Which do you want? North or south?"

Kaesong, North Korea

The headquarters for the North Korean Special Forces is located just twenty-five miles north of the famous border city, Panmunjom. This location puts it in close proximity to the demilitarized zone, where many of its unit's covert activities are conducted. Tonight, however, General Guk Yol, the army Chief of Staff and former commander of the Special Forces Branch, had his eyes focused on a map that had never been unfurled in his operations room before. The fact that his staff had even been able to find the map was quite an accomplishment on such short notice. It was only forty-five minutes since General Yol had been awakened by the duty officer and given Choegu's message from Manila.

Yol pointed a gnarled finger, broken many times in hand-to-hand combat training, at the map. "It is there, sir."

There were only two people in the world that General Yol had ever shown such deference to. One had been Kim Il Sung, the leader of North Korea for forty years. The other was the man who presently stood opposite him looking at the map-Kim's son, Kim Jong Il. "It is very far away."

"Yes, sir, but it is a golden opportunity. It gives us a lever that is the perfect solution to the problem that has kept us from implementing the Orange III plan."