Robert pulled his parka tight and walked from the massive drilling platform toward his field tent. He passed a second man on his way. He wanted to say something, but he couldn’t remember his name. The two men they had given him were quiet; no one said much about themselves, but they were hard-working and they didn’t drink — the best you could hope for in drill operators in extreme conditions. They were both dumb as a sack of hammers, but it likely wouldn’t matter.
His employer would probably give up soon. Hole number five looked like the four before it: nothing but ice. The whole continent was a giant ice cube. He remembered reading that Antarctica had 90% of the world’s ice and 70% of its freshwater. If you took all the water in the world, in every lake, pond, stream and even water in the clouds, it wouldn’t come out to even half of the frozen water in Antarctica. When all that ice melted, the world would be a very different place. The sea would rise 200 feet, nations would fall, or more accurately, drown. Low-lying countries like Indonesia would disappear from the map. New York City, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and most of Florida — also gone.
Ice seemed to be the only thing Antarctica had in abundance. What could they be looking for down here? Oil was the logical answer. Robert was, after all, an oil rig operator. But the equipment was all wrong for oil. The bore diameter was wrong. For oil, you wanted a pipe line. These bits were making holes big enough to drive a truck through. Or lower a truck. What could be down there? Minerals? Something scientific, maybe fossils? Maybe some ploy to stake a claim on the land? Antarctica was massive — 17.5 million square kilometers. If it was a country, it would be the second largest in the world — Antarctica was just 20,000 square kilometers smaller than Russia, another hell-hole he had drilled — with much more success. Antarctica had once been a lush paradise around two million years ago. It stood to reason that there would be an unimaginable oil reserve under the surface and who knows what else—
Behind him, Robert heard a loud boom.
The pylon sticking out of the ground was spinning wildly — the bit was hitting no resistance. They must have hit a pocket. He had expected this — research teams had recently found large caverns and gaps in the ice, possibly underwater fjords where the ice ran over the mountains below.
“Shut it down!” Robert yelled. The man on the platform couldn’t hear him. He ran a hand across his throat, but the man just looked dumbfounded. He grabbed his radio, and shouted, “Full stop!”
On the platform, the long pipe sticking out of the ground was starting to wobble, like a top starting to lose its balance.
Robert threw the radio down and ran toward the platform. He pushed the man out of the way and entered commands to stop the bit.
He grabbed the man, and they ran from the platform. They had made it almost to the housing pods when they heard the platform shudder, buckle, and capsize. The drilling column had broken off and spun wildly in the air. Even 200 feet away, the noise was deafening, like a jet engine roaring at full speed. The platform sank into the snow and the bit came forward, digging into the ice like a twister on the Kansas plains in Tornado Alley.
Robert and the other man lay face-down, enduring the shards of ice and snow raining down until the bit finally came to a stop.
Robert looked up at the scene. His employer wouldn’t be pleased. “Don’t touch anything,” he said to the man.
Inside the living pod, Robert picked up the radio. “Bounty, this is Snow King. I have a status update.” Robert wondered what to report. They hadn’t hit a pocket. It was something else. The bit would have chewed through any kind of rock or ground, even frozen. Whatever they had hit had taken the bit clean off. It was the only possibility.
“Copy, Snow King. Report status.”
Less is more. He wouldn’t speculate. “We’ve hit something,” Robert said.
CHAPTER 83
When Kate arrived the next morning, David was awake. And angry.
“You have to go. The boy told me we’ve been here for three days.”
“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Kate said in a cheerful tone.
She retrieved his antibiotics, pain pills, and a cup of water. He looked even more gaunt than the day before; she would have to get him something to eat as well. She wanted to touch his face, his protruding cheek bones, but he was much more intimidating now — awake.
“Don’t ignore me,” David said.
“We’ll talk once you take your pills.” She held out her hand with the two pills.
“What are they?”
Kate pointed. “Antibiotic. Pain pill.”
David took the antibiotic and washed it down with water.
Kate moved the hand with the pain pill closer to his face. “You need to—”
“I’m not taking it.”
“You were a better patient when you were asleep.”
“I’ve slept enough.” David leaned back in the bed. “You’ve got to get out of here, Kate.”
“I’m not going anywhere—”
“Don’t. Don’t do that. Remember what you promised me? In the cottage by the sea. You said you would follow my orders. That was my only condition. Now I’m telling you to get out of here.”
“Well… Well… This is a medical decision, not a… whatever you call it, ‘command decision.’”
“Don’t play with words. Look at me. You know I can’t walk out of here, and I know how long that walk is. I’ve made it before—”
“About that, who is Andrew Reed?”
David shook his head. “Not important. He’s dead.”
“But they called y—”
“Killed in the mountains of Pakistan, not far from here, fighting the Immari. They’re good at killing people in these mountains. This is not a game, Kate.” He took her arm, dragging her down onto the bed. “Listen. You hear that, the low buzzing, like a bee in the distance?”
Kate nodded.
“Those are drones — predator drones. They’re looking for us, and when they find us, there’s nowhere we can run. You have to go.”
“I know. But not today.”
“I’m not—”
“I’ll go tomorrow, I promise.” Kate grabbed his hand and squeezed. “Just give me one day.”
“You leave at first light or I’ll go over the side of that mountain—”
“Don’t threaten me.”
“It’s only a threat if you don’t intend to do it.”