Robert Doherty - The Citadel

Kim joined him. "What now, sir?"

Min's reply was short. "We walk."

Kim didn't question. He rapped on the door to the rear cargo compartment and yelled in his instructions. Ho and Sun threw gear out. Lee came out of the driver's seat and joined them around the sled. They unhooked the tow rope and rigged it to be pulled by men.

Kim used his last satchel on the SUSV. The party moved out to the north, all men straining in the harness. Twenty minutes out a sharp crack from behind told of the destruction of the vehicle.

Vaughn's anger had started, low in his gut, from the minute he'd watched Smithers get shot. He'd been on the other side of the kind of ruthlessness the Koreans were displaying, but it had been for a better cause then. Or at least he'd thought it had been a better cause.

He was channeling his anger into his legs, pumping them as the miles passed beneath them. He was more than willing to go on without rest, but he knew that wasn't smart. His plan was to halt the party every fifty minutes for ten minutes of rest. Every other hour he would break out his small stove and cook up something hot-soup or coffee. Initially they would go slower that way, but in the long run they would cover more miles. Years of bitter experience in Special Forces with the merciless weight of a rucksack on his back had taught him that. It was the long haul that was important here.

They'd continued to follow the trace of tracks in the snow: two treads and a deep impression in the middle. Occasionally the trail would disappear as blown snow obscured the ice, but it was easy to pick up again. The Koreans were heading due north as quickly as the terrain would allow. Vaughn didn't allow himself to dwell on the fact that they were probably moving two to three times faster than he was.

"Does the sun shine all the time?" Kim asked as the five men huddled together next to the large sled, trying to share some warmth during the short break Min gave them every so often.

Min looked up. The storm had lessened two hours ago, and visibility had increased to almost a mile. "We will have no night." Min's best estimate was that they were less than five miles from the coast. The only map he had was one he'd torn out of a world atlas stolen from a schoolroom prior to their departure from Indonesia. It was totally useless for navigating. He was offsetting his compass based on where the map said magnetic south was, but wasn't totally confident that he was taking the quickest possible route.

His main goal was to head north-as best he could tell-and also stay on the lowest possible ground, skirting around mountains. Despite the bomb's weight, the sled pulled easily behind the five men-as long as they were on level ground. They'd just spent the past forty-five minutes traversing back and forth, getting the sled up and over a large foothill-making only two hundred horizontal meters in the process.

Min directed them to the left, along the edge of a massive wall of ice that shot up into the sky, where the polar ice cap had ruptured itself against rock. He hoped they could continue bypassing such formations and make it to the coast. They'd already lost quite a bit of time hauling the sled.

"Let's move," he ordered.

The five men staggered to their feet and placed themselves in harness.

Airspace, Pacific Ocean

"I'm awfully thirsty down here, big brother."

"Roger. I've got what you need."

The KC-10 stratotanker dwarfed the MC-130 Combat Talon as it jockeyed into position, closing in, less than forty feet above and to the front of the smaller aircraft. In the rear of the tanker, seated in a glass bubble, the boom operator toyed with his controls, directing the drogue boom toward the refuel probe on the nose of the Combat Talon. As the cup fit, he flicked a button on his yoke, locking the seal.

"We're in," he said into his mike, verbally confirming what the pilot 120 feet in front in the cockpit could already see on his control panel. "Pumping."

The two planes were at 25,000 feet, cruising at 350 miles per hour, yet maintaining their relative relationship with less than a two-foot variance at any moment. Jet fuel surged through the hose, filling up the almost dry tanks of the Combat Talon. The umbilical cord stayed in place for two minutes.

"I'm full down here, big brother."

"Roger. That'll be fourteen ninety-five." The drogue separated, and the KC-10 started gaining altitude, pulling away.

"Roger. Do you take checks?"

The stratotanker banked hard right, turning back toward home. "Your credit is good. Good luck and good hunting."

Surprised, the pilots in the cockpit of the MC-130 looked at each other. "Good hunting" was the traditional Air Force war cry for fighter pilots, not transport aircraft. But they realized the pilot of the KC-10 knew the same thing they did: their weapons were the men in the back half of the cargo hold. The 130 pilot keyed his mike. "I'll pass that on. Out."

Ford Mountain Range, Antarctica

Vaughn worked the bolt of the M-1, checking that it hadn't frozen. He pushed down on the top bullet, making sure the spring was still functioning correctly. Looking up, he noticed Tai watching him, her eyes framed by the frosted edge of her hood.

"Do you think we'll catch them?" she asked. He could see that she was shivering. That was bad-he needed to balance the rests with the loss of heat better. It was hard for him to factor in the others' needs with his desire to catch the Koreans. Logan and Burke were wrapped together in a sleeping bag, trying to conserve their warmth.

"Not unless we get lucky."

"Then why do you want to go after them?" The words puffed out.

Vaughn laid the rifle across his knees. His face hurt from the cold, and the skin on his cheek felt like crinkled paper as he spoke. "Several reasons. I didn't see much sense in doing anything before-I figured we'd get out alive if we did nothing, and I also figured these guys would get caught. I was wrong on both counts: we're lucky to be alive, and these people are getting away. That's two mistakes, and I don't want to go for number three."

"But what can we do if we catch them?"

"I'll figure that out when we get there," Vaughn replied, which quite frankly was the truth. "We have to catch them first." He got to his feet. "All right. Let's move out."

"We're never going to catch them," Logan said, peering out from his bag. "I say we stay still-we're losing too much energy walking."

Vaughn held back his anger. "Listen. If you want to, you can head back to the Citadel and camp out in the reactor room. Or you can head for the Russian base. Or you can stay here. I don't care. You do whatever you want to." He stood. "Time to move out." Tai stood and started putting her gear in her backpack. Burke slid out of the sleeping bag.

Surprisingly, it was Burke who talked to Logan. "We can't split up now. It would be too dangerous. Come on, Logan, let's go."

"We should have gone after them at the base like I wanted to," Logan complained. "We'll never catch them here. We need a break. We've been moving for over eight hours now."

Vaughn started walking along the track, and Tai moved with him. After twenty meters he looked over his shoulder. Burke was talking to Logan, his head bent close next to him. Vaughn went another twenty meters and looked again. They were following.

Airspace, South Pacific Ocean

Major Bellamy listened through the headset as the pilot updated him on the situation. "The weather over the target is still too rough for you all to jump in. We're going to head to McMurdo Station and let you all jump there-the winds are much lower. We've received word that there will be a platform there that you will load onto, and that will take you out to the target."