Robert Doherty - The Citadel

She lay there, savoring the sight of the open sky. Vaughn crawled up next to her and collapsed, throwing an arm over her and pulling her in tight. "You all right?" he asked.

"Yes," she whispered.

Vaughn leaned over her. "Do you want to go on?"

She got to her feet with great effort. "Yes."

Geneva

"We have the other eleven names," the Senior Assessor informed the High Counsel.

The names were projected on one of the large screens and on the High Counsel's own office screen. All eleven were either very high in the United States government or very rich men.

"They went international," the High Counsel noted as he read one of the names.

"Pablo Escovan," the Senior Assessor noted. "The head of the Mexican drug cartel. The richest man in Mexico."

"This is a mess," the High Counsel said. "Only three of those names are ours. Have you projected courses of action?"

"Yes, sir. With a sixty-four percent recommendation: wipe out Majestic-12."

The High Counsel sighed. "CARVE?" he asked, using an acronym they had developed.

"Criticality," the Senior Assessor began, reciting from the first letter of the acronym. "These men are the members of the group that established the Citadel and kept it secret from us all these years. They have been pursuing their own course of action for over fifty years. If they are gone, Majestic-12 is gone.

"Accessibility. It will be difficult to attack the remaining eleven at the same time under normal circumstances. Some of them are the most heavily guarded people on the planet. However, these are not normal circumstances. Our sources report that at least four that we know of are either en route or already at Area 51. The other seven we don't know about, but we should assume they also will be there shortly. An emergency meeting.

"Recuperability. These are not men who share with underlings. And since they have managed to keep the existence of Majestic-12 from us for this long, we have to assume they have extensive cutouts in place. Thus, if we cut off the head, it is a very high probability there will be no one to take their places.

"Vulnerability. Area 51 is a hard site. Their meeting place is deep underground. However, it is a United States military base. We have access to resources. We can do it.

"Effect. Extensive. Economic turmoil. Political fallout in Washington. We have already alerted our public relations people to prepare for it. The presence of Escovan certainly helps. It will be costly but manageable."

The Senior Assessor fell silent.

"Action is authorized," the High Counsel finally said.

Ruppert Coast, Antarctica

"Come on!" Min exhorted his three exhausted partners. "There is the ship."

The four leaned into the rope, and the sled creaked along the ice, making its way toward the ship, now less than two miles away.

"How close-do you-have to-get?" Tai asked in between puffs of breath as they crossed a high point where two sheets of ice had buckled together.

"A quarter mile at maximum. I'd like to get closer than that," Vaughn replied. They were at least three-quarters of a mile behind the Koreans, and his best estimate was that it was going to be close, very close.

There was also the additional problem of whether the ship, which lay ahead, had weapons on board. If it did, Vaughn had to assume that once he fired on the party pulling the sled, the ship would return fire. He didn't fancy the idea of being caught out on this ice in a running gun battle. That had only one foreseeable conclusion, which wasn't favorable for them.

As they went along, he noticed black spots on the ice, about three hundred meters to the left. He dropped and pulled Tai and Burke down with him, out of sight. An ambush? He peered at the figures until he realized what he was looking at: seals, lying on the ice, near a water hole they'd broken in the ice. It was the first sign of animal life they'd seen.

"There they are!" Fatima exclaimed, pointing off the starboard bow.

The captain trained his telescope in that direction. "There are four men, and they are pulling a sled with something on it."

"I want you to get together a party of men to go out there and help them."

The captain wasn't thrilled with that idea. His men were civilians, and he didn't want to risk them on the ice. As he turned to his executive officer to reluctantly relay the order, his eyes widened.

Seven hundred meters off the port side the ice was erupting, three long black shafts pushing through. The shafts abruptly widened, and a massive black conning tower appeared, tossing the ice aside like child's blocks. It continued to emerge, and the ice behind the tower split to reveal a long black deck that sloped down 150 feet behind the tower. The exposed portion of the vessel was almost as long as the freighter.

"What is that?" Fatima demanded.

"A submarine," the captain replied.

"I know that, you fool," she snapped. "Whose submarine? American?"

"I don't know."

"What should we do?"

The captain turned to look at her. "There is nothing we can do. We wait to see what they"-he nodded at the black hull-"do."

Min and his men halted, staring past the ship at the submarine. He knew in his heart it was all over. Even if they made it to the ship, the Americans would never let them sail away. He wondered how the plan had failed.

"Sir?" Kim turned to look at him for instructions.

Min turned to look back at his executive officer. "We go to the ship. Quickly."

Four men strained for the ship in a direct line as quickly as they could go.

Vaughn had started sprinting as soon as the submarine began to surface, leaving Tai and Burke behind, yelling at them to stay put. He passed four seals around a small circle of open water, and the distance was now down to five hundred meters. Another two hundred and he could fire.

The present Hawkeye on station was the third one rotated in, as the earlier ones had exhausted their fuel supplies down to what was needed to get back to the Kitty Hawk. The radar operator had picked up the sub as soon as the mast breached the ice. Now he was busy guiding in the two F-14 Tomcats from the Kitty Hawk and the Osprey, matching the glowing green dots representing the planes with those of the ship and submarine.

"Eagle One, this is Eye One. Assume heading eight-seven degrees, range 150 kilometers and closing. You've got a sub on the surface, about seven hundred meters to the east of the ship. Over."

"Roger. Out," the pilot of the lead Tomcat acknowledged in the operator's left ear. In his right ear was the tactical center of the Kitty Hawk, demanding information.

"Eye One, this is Big Boot. Do you have an ID on the submarine yet? Over."

"Negative. Over."

"Eye One, what is Eagle's ETA? Over."

"ETA five minutes. Over."

Min was pulling at the front end of the rope when he felt the ice crackle beneath him. He halted and looked down in surprise. In his haste, he'd run onto a thinner portion. There was no way it would support the weight of the bomb, twenty feet behind him.

"To the left," he ordered Kim, Sun, and Ho.

As they turned, the thin ice exploded upward, and Min caught a glimpse of a massive black snout rising up into the air. The snout split in two, revealing two rows of glistening white teeth. Min could swear he saw a tiny black eye staring at him as the front half of the creature slammed down onto the ice, half out of the water, and the teeth closed on Kim.

The XO's scream was cut short as the killer whale slid back with its meal into the hole it had just made in the ice. Min pulled out his knife and desperately slashed at the rope around his waist as he was pulled toward the hole. He succeeded inches short of the freezing water. Ho and Sun weren't so fortunate. The men slid in, and Min had a last glimpse of Ho's pleading eyes as the rope that was still attached to Kim and Sun pulled him under the ice to a freezing death. Min slashed down with his knife and cut the rope from the sled, then scrambled away from the thin ice to the far side of the sled and its precious cargo.