Robert Doherty - The Citadel

Vaughn unzipped the bag and crawled out. His movements woke Tai, who blearily opened her eyes.

"What's up?"

"Get your boots on before they freeze up," he told her. "They're in the waterproof bag near your stomach. We need to get moving."

He peered up-the sky was clearing. The sun hadn't broken through yet, but the clouds were much higher, and he could see farther along the ice than at any period since the storm had started. The wind had also died down. Vaughn checked his watch. They'd been out for almost two hours. He wasn't happy about losing that time, but he'd had no choice.

He glanced over to the other sleeping bag lying there on the ice. There was no movement from Logan or Burke.

"Wake up!" he called out as he started packing his stuff up.

"Oh my God!" Burke cried out as he scrambled out of the bag.

Vaughn rushed over. Logan wasn't moving. His eyes were staring at him wide-open, and it took Vaughn a second before he realized they were totally unfocused and glassy. The pupils in the center were black orbs looking into the depths of wherever Logan had allowed himself to be dragged.

Vaughn looked up with a grim face. "He's dead."

Burke was shaking, but not from the cold. "You mean he died there right next to me?"

Vaughn zipped up the sleeping bag, closing it over Logan's face. "Yes," he replied, and looked at the inert sleeping bag. There was only one way they could atone for this. "Let's go."

Burke looked at him with wide eyes. "We're just going to leave him here?"

Vaughn finished stuffing his sleeping bag into his backpack. "There's nothing else we can do. We can't haul the body."

The increasing visibility made Min pessimistic about making it to the coast, as it revealed a massive ridge lying directly across their path. There was no way around it. The ice rose in moderately steep waves, up over a thousand feet for the next three kilometers.

He had given his men a one-hour break earlier, but it had done little to restore the energy they were burning pulling the sled and fighting off the cold. He could sense his men looking at him and the ridge, their eyes shifting from one to the other. Not a word was said.

Min leaned forward, the rope around his waist pulling tight, and the other men joined and began to traverse to the right, angling their way uphill.

Airspace, McMurdo Station

The MC-130 Combat Talon leveled out over the Ross Ice Shelf, boring straight in for Mount Erebus, twenty miles away. In the rear, Major Bellamy checked the rigging of the static lines for the two bundles, one hooked to each cable. The bundles were tied down on the back ramp, and Bellamy's men were standing now, parachutes on their back, just short of the edge of the ramp.

They all felt the plane slow down, and the loadmaster looked at Bellamy. "Three minutes out."

A gap appeared up in the top part of the rear of the aircraft, and freezing air swirled in. The back ramp leveled off, while the top part ascended up into the tail, leaving a large open space. Bellamy stared out. The view was spectacular, with the entire Ross Ice Shelf laid out below to the east.

"One minute!" the loadmaster yelled through the scarf wrapped about his face, trying to be heard above the roar of engines and air.

"One minute," Bellamy relayed to his men, all hooked up to the left cable. He edged out, right behind the bundle. The red light glowed up in the darkness of the upper tail structure.

"Stand by!" the loadmaster yelled as he leaned over one of the bundles with a knife in his hand as another Air Force man did the same on the other side.

The light flashed green, and the loadmaster severed the nylon band holding the bundle down. It immediately was sucked out the rear of the plane. The other bundle went out at almost the same time. Bellamy waddled out after it, hands over his reserve, chin tucked into his chest.

He felt like he was passing straight through the static line and deployment bag of the bundle as he stepped off the edge of the ramp. Three seconds of free fall were followed by the snap of the chute deploying.

Bellamy guided himself by the two bright red parachutes of the bundles as he descended. As the ice rushed up, he stared straight out at the horizon and bent his knees. With a grunt he hit the ice.

Gathering in his chute, Bellamy watched as the rest of his men hit in a long line of white parachutes along the track of the aircraft. He could also see a large snow tractor rumbling toward him, pulling a sled. The tractor pulled up, and two men hopped off, one wearing an Air Force parka and the other in civilian garb, sporting a large beard.

The military man introduced himself first. "I'm Lieutenant Colonel Larkin, and this is Dr. O'Shaugnesy, McMurdo Station leader. We-"

"What is your purpose here?" O'Shaugnesy interrupted.

Bellamy blinked and looked at the civilian, then at Colonel Larkin. "Didn't you brief him?"

Larkin wearily nodded. "I briefed him."

"If you expect me to believe you and your men are conducting rescue practice, then you must take me for a fool," O'Shaugnesy snorted. "Do you have any weapons with you?"

Bellamy spread his empty hands wide. "Of course not." Asshole, he thought. O'Shaugnesy and the entire scientific community at McMurdo were almost totally dependent on support from the U.S. military, yet they acted as if they owned the place. Bellamy had not been thrilled about putting all his weapons in the bundles, but had followed his orders. One of these days public relations was going to destroy a mission.

Larkin interposed himself between the two. "Your other aircraft is en route, Major. It should arrive in about four hours. In the meanwhile, we'll put you up in the airstrip control tower." He turned to O'Shaugnesy. "Doctor, I did you a courtesy by obliging your request and bringing you out here. I ask that you not harass Major Bellamy and his men. They will be out of your station as soon as possible."

Under the distrusting eye of O'Shaugnesy, Bellamy's team gathered together and loaded the two bundles on the sled. The men jumped on board, and then they all moved out for the main base, three miles away.

Ice Pack, 8 Miles off the Ruppert Coast, Antarctica

"This is as far as we can go," the captain informed Fatima. The bow of the freighter was securely wedged in ice, and less than a hundred meters to the front a large block of ice that had broken off a glacier last season and slowly made its way out into the ocean blocked the way.

The captain knew he could probably do some more maneuvering-trying to find the thin ice-but he also had to be able to get back out, and he felt he was as far in as he could go and still be able turn around.

Fatima stood next to him, peering out the glass of the bridge at the mountains that now loomed in the near distance. They looked less than a mile away, but the captain knew they were farther-he just didn't tell Fatima that. A large glacier, probably the same one that had spawned the block just in front of them, split the mountains to the right front.

"All right. We wait." Fatima turned and went back to his cabin.

Far South Pacific Ocean

With the assistance of the hydraulic catapult, the E-2 Hawkeye roared off the deck of the Kitty Hawk and dipped down below deck level, then rapidly gained altitude as it headed southeast. Upon reaching 10,000 feet altitude, the twenty-four-foot diameter radome that sat on the top of the fuselage began turning, at a rate of six revolutions per minute. Inside the fuselage, the three controllers watched their screens as an area three hundred miles out in all directions from the aircraft was displayed before them. In three hours the Citadel would be in range.