and assembled before anyone turned and noticed us.'
'It was touch and go, but Major Cleary and I managed to keep everyone's attention focused away from your end of the tunnel until you took up your battle position.'
'Is this all of them?' asked Wittenberg.
Pitt nodded. 'Except for several of their wounded back at the control center.'
Cleary approached, and the two warriors saluted before shaking hands warmly. Cleary's smile was tired, but the teeth showed. 'Bob, you don't know how happy I am to see your ugly old face.'
'How many times does this make that I saved your tail?' Wittenberg said, humor in his eyes.
'Twice, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.'
'You didn't leave much for me to do.'
'True, but if you and your men hadn't shown up when you did, you'd have found half an acre of dead bodies.'
Wittenberg stared at Cleary's men, who stood gaunt and weary but still vigilant, watching every move made by the Wolf personnel as they dropped their rifles on the ice floor and gathered in hushed groups near the wrecked aircraft. 'It looks like they whittled you down some.'
'I lost too many good men,' Cleary admitted grimly.
Pitt gestured to the Wolfs. 'Colonel Wittenberg, may I introduce Karl Wolf and his sisters Elsie and…' Not knowing Blondi, he paused.
'My sister Blondi,' Karl intervened. He was a man in the middle of a nightmare. 'What do you intend to do with us, Colonel?'
'If it was up to me,' growled Cleary, 'I'd shoot the whole lot of you.
'Were you given orders concerning the Wolfs after you captured them?' Pitt asked Wittenberg.
The colonel shook his head. 'There was no time to discuss political policy regarding prisoners.'
'In that case, may I ask a favor?'
'After all you and your friend have done,' replied Cleary, 'you have but to name it.'
'I'd like temporary custody of the Wolfs.'
Wittenberg gazed into Pitt's eyes, as if trying to read the mind behind. 'I don't quite understand.'
But Cleary did. 'Since you were given no orders concerning the disposition of prisoners,' he said to the colonel, 'I think it only fitting and proper that the man who saved us from unimaginable horror have his request honored.'
Wittenberg thought a moment before nodding. 'I quite agree. The spoils of war. You have custody of the Wolfs until such time as they can be transported under guard to Washington.'
'No one government has legal jurisdiction over any individual in Antarctica,' said Karl arrogantly. 'It is unlawful for you to hold us as hostages.'
'I'm only a simple soldier,' said Wittenberg, with an indifferent shrug. 'I'll leave it for the lawyers and politicians to decide your fate after you're in their hands.'
While the newly combined Special Force teams secured the mining facility and rounded up the captives, eventually placing them in confinement in a workers' dormitory, Pitt and Giordino unobtrusively herded Karl, Elsie, and Blondi Wolf along the huge doors that covered one wall of the hangar. Seemingly unnoticed, they suddenly forced the three Wolfs through a small maintenance door that opened onto the aircraft runway outside. The sudden surge of cold air came as a shock after the sixty-degree temperature inside the hangar.
Karl Wolf turned and smiled bleakly at Pitt and Giordino. 'Is this where you execute us?'
Blondi seemed as if she were in a trance, but Elsie stared at Pitt scathingly. 'Shoot us, if you dare!' she spat savagely.
Pitt's face was masked by disgust. 'By all that is holy in this world, you all deserve to die. Your whole despicable family deserves to die. But it won't be me or my friend here who will do the honors. I'll leave that to natural causes.'
The revelation suddenly struck Wolf. 'You're allowing us to escape?'
Pitt nodded. 'Yes.'
'Then you don't see my sisters and me standing trial and going to jail.'
'A family of your wealth and power will never step into a courtroom. You will use every means at your command to cheat the gallows or a life behind bars and go free in the end.'
'What you say is true,' said Karl contemptuously. 'No head of government would dare risk the consequences of indicting the Wolf family.'
'Nor incur our wrath,' added Elsie. 'There isn't a high official or national leader who doesn't owe our family. Our exposure will be their exposure.'
'We cannot be imprisoned like common rabble,' said Blondi, her voice having regained a measure of insolence. 'The family is too spirited, too strong-willed. We will rise again, and next time we will not fail.'
'I, for one,' said Giordino, his black eyes filled with scorn, 'think that is a bad idea.'
'We'll all rest easier knowing you won't be around to have a hand in it,' said Pitt coldly.
Karl Wolf's eyes narrowed, and then he stared out over the icy landscape. 'I believe I see your motive,' he murmured in subdued tones. 'You are turning us loose to die out on the ice floe.'
'Yes.' Pitt nodded his head slightly.
'Not dressed for frigid temperatures, we won't last an hour.'
'My guess is twenty minutes.'
'It seems I underestimated you as an opponent, Mr. Pitt.'
'I have this theory that the world can get along just fine without the chief director of Destiny Enterprises and the family empire.'
'Why don't you simply shoot us and get it over with?'
Pitt gazed at Wolf with the briefest of pleasure in his green eyes. 'That would be too quick. This way you'll have time to reflect on the horror you attempted to inflict on billions of innocent people.'
There was a slight flush on Wolf's temples. In a supportive gesture, he put his arms around his sister's shoulders. 'Your lecture bores me, Mr. Pitt. I'd rather meet death by freezing than listen to more of your philosophic drivel.'
Pitt looked thoughtfully at Karl Wolf and his sisters. He wondered if it was possible to make a dent in this incorrigible family. The loss of their empire shook them, but the threat of death didn't unnerve them in the least. If anything, it maddened them. He looked from one face to the other. 'A word of warning. Don't bother attempting to double back into the tunnels or the mining facility. All entrances and exits will be guarded.' Then he made a gesture with his old Colt. 'Start walking.'
Blondi looked resigned to her fate, as did Karl. Already she was shivering violently from the biting cold. Not Elsie. She lunged at Pitt, only to receive a backhand from Giordino that knocked her to her knees. As she struggled to her feet, helped by Karl, Pitt had rarely seen such a look of pure malevolence on a woman's face. 'I swear, I'll kill you,' she snarled through bloody lips. Pitt smiled ruthlessly. 'Goodbye, Elsie, have a nice day.' 'If you walk fast,' said Giordino cynically, 'you'll stay warmer.' Then he slammed and locked the door.
47
Forty-eight hours later, the mining facility was crawling with scientists and engineers, who began studying the Wolfs' nanotechnology systems while making dead certain the network to break off the ice shelf could not be reactivated. They were followed by an army of anthropologists and archaeologists, who descended on the ancient city of the Amenes. Almost all were former skeptics who denied the existence of an Atlantis-type culture before 4000 B.C. Now they stood and walked amid the ancient ruins in reverent awe, gazing at the grotesque shape of the pillars under ice, unable to believe what they were truly encountering. Soon they were cataloging the artifacts found in the damaged aircraft and the storage rooms in the tunnels spreading from the hangar. After being carefully crated, the artifacts were flown to the United States for conservation and in-depth study before being placed on public display.
Every university in every country with a dedicated archaeology department sent teams to study the city and
