the fearsome looking man that couldn’t have been more military looking if he were wearing a uniform cut from the stars and stripes.
“Aimee, this is Major Jack Hammerson. Major, would you like to, umm…”
Hammerson met Aimee’s laser-like stare with his own, and held it — this time it was Aimee who dropped her eyes. The Major waited a few more seconds and then began speaking.
“I’ll get right to it. At O-eight hundred hours, Eastern Standard Time Tuesday, we received a final communication from our initial insertion team. The Hendsen team’s brief was to check in every three hours due to the potentially hazardous nature of their mission and the hostile environment.” Hammerson turned to Alfred and nodded, and the chairman pushed a button on the table to raise the far wall panelling. As the room darkened a blank white wall was revealed. Immediately, images flickered onto the screen. Major Hammerson went on, “Every three hours from touchdown at ten hundred hours Monday, until Tuesday eight hundred we received a packet of encrypted image and voice data. Before you now on the screen are some of those images. I don’t need to remind you that everything you see is highly classified, however, until your security ratings have been increased you will need to all sign a non-disclosure prior to leaving the room.”
Aimee felt both nauseous and restless; the knot in her stomach was making its way up into her rib cage and she placed her hand against her chest in an attempt to quieten the thumping of her heart. Tom was missing in a vast continent at the end of the earth where temperatures could drop to less than a hundred below zero and any rescue attempt would be measured in hours not days and all “General Patton” was worried about was their security ratings. She knew Tom was no Grizzly Adams and outdoors for him meant a stroll across the office courtyard to bring back some donuts. The thought of her honorary big brother being trapped — or worse — in some frozen hell almost made her want to throw up; she reacted the only way she knew how.
“Security rating? Listen Major, I don’t give a damn about forms, security ratings or your entire shit-kicking army right now. I just want to know what happened to Tom and what you’re doing to get him back.” Arms folded across her chest, Aimee glared at Major Hammerson, hoping he wouldn’t see that her hands were shaking. Alfred rolled his eyes and, as if conducting an orchestra, tried to make “calm down” motions to her from across the table.
The Major regarded Aimee coolly for a full twenty seconds before responding. “Dr. Weir, I work for the government, that’s no secret. I also work for the United States military machine, that’s also no secret. But we have a lot more in common than you realise.” Hammerson paused, pinning Aimee with his unblinking stare. “You see, Dr. Weir, we own GBR. We fund your research. If we like what we see we extend your grants. We give you what you need; we even put the choc chip cookies in your little blue jar at work.”
Hammerson’s voice went up a level. “We own GBR, we own you, and we own over fifty companies similar to yours across the country and some in other countries as well. Like it or not, Dr. Weir, you also work for the shit- kicking army. And while you’ve lost contact with Dr. Hensen, I’ve lost contact with almost thirty good men and women, some with families, goddammit.”
Aimee opened and closed her mouth, anger morphing back into fear and confusion; she wanted to respond but didn’t know how.
“The known worldwide reserves of gas and oil are estimated at about one hundred and forty-two billion tons, and with current rates of usage will last only another fifty years. But with China and India’s thirst for oil growing exponentially, our prediction is we have reserves for just twenty-five more years,” Hammerson continued. “The fact is your additional funding request is a foregone conclusion. We are thirsty creatures, Dr. Weir, and even if you’d walked into the room with all your clothes on backwards and asked to use the NASA space shuttle for the next round of electromagnetic mapping, we probably would have funded it.”
Aimee felt the Major let her off the hook as his penetrative stare relaxed and his voice lost its hard edge. “We need your help, Dr. Weir, to find out what happened to Dr. Hendsen, and to the other civilian scientists and medical team members that vanished down there with him.”
Aimee sank down in her chair. Not trusting her voice she simply nodded. Hammerson slid the non-disclosure forms across the table and continued with his briefing.
“To continue, the first image you are seeing is the collision point. The plane that struck the ground was a seventy-foot turbofan Challenger jet. Its maintenance records showed it had been fully serviced and was only a few months out of the box. Owned and flown by Mr. John Banyon, who was accompanied by several members of his corporate executive team on a business team-building and sightseeing flight over the Antarctic. For reasons undetermined, it dropped out of the air and collided with the ground at approximately 1907 hours Eastern Standard Time Saturday.” The image displayed on the screen was an aerial shot of a giant hole in the white ice — no debris or engine oil, just a black gash against the blinding white.
“You can see from the entry point that this is no collision crater, what seems to have occurred is the impact has punched straight through the ice and rock crust and opened access to an underground cavern. Next slide please, Mr. Beadman.” Hammerson continued his clinical briefing. “This image shows initial cavern insertion by the Hendsen party and the wreckage of the Challenger jet.” The picture this time showed a large team of men and women inside the mouth of an enormous cave system. Using them as scale this must have been a gigantic hole — it had to be over a hundred feet from where the people were standing to the roof of the cavern. Several members of the rescue team were working among fragments of a completely destroyed plane and holding up pieces of torn and empty clothing. In the background, Aimee could see Tom standing there in his favourite bright orange cold weather parka examining something intently, as was his usual style. Tears sprang into her eyes and she became angry, with both Tom and herself. With Tom for getting himself caught up in this mystery — she wanted to grab him by the collar of that stupid big parka and drag him home like a schoolboy who was late home from the ballpark. But she was even more angry with herself for letting him go alone; she should have pushed harder to go with him. She balled her hand into a fist and punched her thigh under the table.
Major Hammerson picked up the narration once again. “The debris was closely centred with a slightly eastward elliptical spread indicating that the plane came in at an approximate eighty-five degree angle at more than five hundred miles per hour. This accounts for the small fragment sizes. No survivors were expected; what
The next slide appeared, showing some of the rescue team heading further down into one darkened end of the cave. Hammerson continued. “Nothing was found other than several strange semi-liquid residues. This is where you and Dr. Silex come in, Dr. Weir.”
Hearing her name brought Aimee back from the Antarctic ice and once again into the boardroom.
“Sorry, ‘Dr. Silex’?” Aimee asked.
Alfred once more spoke up in his warm and authoritative voice. “I apologise Aimee, we were so rushed and determined to bring you up to speed we failed to provide full and proper introductions. Let me begin with someone you have already met. Going around the table, from my left starting with Major Jack Hammerson, who will be in charge of support, security, medical teams and logistics.” Alfred turned to Jack Hammerson and enquired, “Major, I never asked what your areas of specialisation are?”
Hammerson ignored the chairman and turned to Aimee and smiled. “My specialisation is keeping people alive and safe. My friends call me Jack.” Hammerson smiled and held out his hand across the table. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, and hopefully work with you, Dr. Weir.”
At first Aimee was determined to dislike him but was quickly disarmed by his strong and easygoing nature. She liked him, but in the way you liked an enormous attack dog that was always friendly with you but threatened to rip the throat out of anyone else who looked sideways at you.
“Nice to meet you, Jack, and please, call me Aimee.” With that Aimee turned to look at the next man in line just in time to catch him staring at her breasts.
Dr. Adrian Silex licked his already wet lips and swallowed. “How do you do? I’m Dr. Adrian Silex. I’m disappointed you haven’t heard of me, Dr. Weir. Tom Hendsen and I go way back.”
Adrian Silex was a tall thin man of about forty. His most unusual feature was a long head with a circle of fine hair fringing his ears. It looked like the crown of his skull had actually outgrown his hairdo. His ovoid head had an unpleasant way of bobbing and jerking, giving the impression of some sort of large bird. Most likely a vulture, Aimee thought.
Now it was coming back; Aimee remembered that Tom had mentioned Dr. “Sinex,” naming his colleague after a brand of nasal decongestant spray because he always got up Tom’s nose. Tom and “Sinex” often competed for papers published in the geological or petrobiological scientific community. The problem Tom had with Silex was
