The Citadel Read online

  Chong fingered his slung AK-47, took a deep breath, held it, then pulled the trigger. The first round blew the copilot's brains against the right windshield.

  "What are you doing?" Hyun screamed, twisting in his seat, his eyes growing wide as the gaping muzzle of the AK-47 turned in his direction. "If you kill me, there will be no one to fly the plane," he desperately reasoned.

  Chong's finger increased pressure on the trigger.

  "Please!" Hyun begged.

  Chong shot him through the chest three times, disgusted with his pleading. The third round knocked the pilot out of his seat. Without hands on the controls, the plane continued to fly forward smoothly. Chong reached over and pushed down on the yoke. The nose of the plane turned downward.

  When the angle became too steep, the plane plummeted out of control toward the ice-covered water. The nose hit first, and the rest of the plane crumpled and compressed as it punched through the ice into the freezing water below.

  In five minutes a disappearing black smear was all that was left to mark the grave of the IL-8.

  Antarctica

  Min looked at the primed block of old C-4 lying on top of the untouched safe and frowned. Someone in the other party had been smart, but not quick enough.

  "Open that safe, but make sure you don't destroy the contents," he instructed Lieutenant Kim.

  Kim slid his backpack off and pulled out his more modern explosives, molding the plastique with his fingers, shaping the charge to blow the door off.

  Sergeant Jae stuck his head in the door. "They are down a tunnel blocked by a steel door, sir."

  Min nodded. "Blow the door and kill them."

  Jae nodded and sprinted away.

  Min checked his watch. Chong was most likely dead by now, along with Hyun and his copilot. Nam had been killed when they crossed the intersection. Ho had been wounded, although not severely. Song had also been killed moving forward. Yong and Lee had been injured in the jump. That left three wounded and four healthy men. Not good.

  "Clear!" Kim yelled as he finished priming the charge. He unraveled detonating cord as they left the unit. "Firing!" Kim pulled the igniter, and the soft burp of a controlled explosion echoed out the door.

  Min walked in and checked the results. The door of the safe was off its hinges, the contents untouched. He pulled out the paper and leafed through it until he found what he needed.

  Kim gathered his gear. "I will assist Sergeant Jae."

  Min nodded his concurrence, engrossed in translating the documents.

  * * *

  Vaughn stared at the pack full of explosives, wondering if it was worth his time to even try to rig them, given what had happened when he tried to blow the safe.

  "What are you doing?" Logan demanded.

  "I'm thinking of blowing the tunnel," Vaughn said.

  "We'll be trapped then!" Logan exclaimed.

  "If I don't do it," Vaughn said, "we'll be dead."

  The argument was interrupted by the deep rumble of an explosion, reverberating down the tunnel.

  "That's the first door," Vaughn said.

  A second, sharper explosion followed by screams could be faintly heard through the thick steel door.

  "That's the mine," Vaughn said. "At least it worked. That will make them think twice about taking out this door."

  * * *

  Min looked at the mangled remains of Sergeant Jae. The corrugated steel tunnel had intensified the effects of the antipersonnel mine. Jae's body had taken most of the impact, but some had gotten by him, and Yong's right arm and leg were saturated with a load of shrapnel. Sun had given Yong a shot of morphine, and his screaming had stopped.

  Kim came crawling back through the blood. "I can still blow the second door, sir."

  "I know." Min rubbed his chin. He had not expected such a fight. In fact, he had not expected any fight at all. He had been so concerned with simply getting here that he had not war-gamed possible events upon arrival sufficiently. Now was time to cut his losses.

  "Leave the door." Min announced.

  Kim looked up at his team leader in surprise. "But they are still alive in there. Our orders are to leave no trace."

  Min nodded grimly. "I know."

  CHAPTER 12

  Antarctica

  "What the hell is going on?" Logan asked of no one in particular.

  Vaughn was seated on the floor with his rifle near the tunnel entrance to the reactor. He held a fuse initiator in his hand. Tai was seated next to him, a pistol in her lap. Logan was sitting in one of the chairs in the room next to Burke. Brothers had his back up against the thick glass separating them from the reactor core.

  "I'm surprised they haven't blown the second door yet," Vaughn remarked.

  "Maybe they just wanted the bombs and have taken them and left?" Logan offered hopefully.

  "But how did they know the bombs were down here?" Tai wondered aloud.

  "Most likely the same way we did," Vaughn said.

  Tai shook her head. "Royce said that the Abu Sayif received a packet from Lansale. You said they spoke Korean. How could the Koreans have found out about this?"

  "That all doesn't matter now," Logan cut in. "We need to decide what we're going to do."

  Do?" Vaughn laughed bitterly. "There's nothing we can do."

  "If they're stealing the bombs we need to stop them," Logan said.

  Vaughn stood and walked over. He thrust the M-1 out. "Here. You take this and go stop them. Of course, they've probably rigged that door on the other side just like I rigged it on this side. But hey, I'm not going to stop you, if that's what you want to do."

  Logan didn't take the weapon. "What do you suggest?"

  "I suggest we sit tight for now." He pointed at the three bags piled in the corner. "There's food in those. Enough to last us a week or so. We also have sleeping bags. Even if they turn off the power and we lose the heat, we'll be able to survive until they get what they want and leave."

  "Why did you put that food and those sleeping bags in here?" Tai asked. She'd noticed them when they'd first entered and had wondered about it.

  "Contingency planning," Vaughn replied. "Once you found those bombs, I figured there was a chance we might get some visitors. I was trained to what-if and worst case things. Except I didn't think our visitors would come in shooting. I was thinking more in terms of some spooks from our own government coming down and wanting to take us away to little padded cells." Vaughn pointed up. "There's a hatch in the ceiling that probably opens onto an access tunnel to the surface, but there's nothing up there for us either right now."

  "You said they spoke Korean," Tai repeated. "You mean they're from North Korea?"

  Vaughn's answer surprised her. "I don't know. Both North and South speak Han Gul. I was stationed in the South for a little while, so I recognize it. But it's possible that those might be South Korean troops out there for all I know. There's a lot of people in the world who'd like to get their hands on a U.S. made nuclear weapon and the Golden Lily and not be too concerned about who they have to kill to do it."

  "But they'll never get away with it!" Burke said. "I mean, how can they cover this up?"

  Vaughn shrugged. "I don't know. I don't even know how they got here. They couldn't have landed a plane in that weather. Maybe they jumped, but if they did in those winds, they're better men than I. I also don't know how they plan on getting away. But I can tell you one thing. I'm sure whoever is in charge of them has thought of answers to those questions or they wouldn't be out there."

  "Do you think they'll steal my plane?" Brothers asked.

  Vaughn shook his head. "I doubt it. The weather is still crappy up there. We couldn't use it either if we got out. I think they might try to walk out. For all I know they came here on some sort of over-snow vehicle and are going to use that to leave.

  "Whether it's North or South Koreans out there, one thing's for certain. They're hard soldiers, and they're used to operating in cold weather. They've already taken several cas
ualties, mainly because I don't think they expected any opposition. From here on out they'll be ready for us if we make a move. So I say we sit tight."

  Tai was at a loss for words. She felt like they ought to be doing something, but Vaughn's cold logic made sense.

  "So you say we just let them walk away with nuclear weapons?" Logan demanded.

  Vaughn shrugged. "You're free to go and stop them." He looked over and his eyes met Tai's. "We didn't put those bombs down here, so they're really not our problem, are they? Actually, if you get down to it, this is the Organization's problem. They put the bombs and this base here. So maybe this will turn out all for the best."

  Vaughn's words were met with silence.

  * * *

  The MK/B 61 nuclear bomb weighs 772 pounds. Using the same small tractor that Tai had used to clear out the armory, Min's men pulled the first bomb along the hallway to the east ice storage tunnel. There, they placed it on a large sled and secured it with ropes.

  Corporal Sun had started the large bulldozer and was up on the steel grating ramp, cutting away at the ice with the blade, aiming for the surface. As soon as he cut through they would take the large SUSV tractor and head out. The SUSV consisted of a large engine section on treads that could seat three men up front, and a second section on tracks that was pulled along and could fit ten men and all their supplies. Min watched Sun's efforts for a few minutes and then went back to the armory.

  South Pacific

  "Captain James Cook was the first to sail around Antarctica, from 1773 to 1775, yet he never once spotted land, the ice pack keeping him well out of landfall."

  Fatima sipped a cup of coffee as she listened to the captain. She and Araki were on the bridge of the freighter, the heaters going full-blast, fighting against the Antarctic wind that blasted against the glass that separated them from the world outside.

  "The first party ever to land on Antarctic land and spend the winter did not succeed until well over a century later, in 1895. And in the slightly more than a century since, men in ships have been able to accomplish little more in these vicious seas."

  "Your point?" Fatima asked.

  The captain glanced at her, and then returned his focus to the sea ahead. He had a copy of the OPLAN in his hands and had just finished reading it. "These idiots in Pyongyang want us to pick people up off the coast of Antarctica." He laughed. "As if by a simple command such a thing could happen. Let's see what you have to say when we hit the ice pack in the morning. Whoever it was that wanted to get picked up will have to come to us-not the other way around."

  "All right," Fatima said. "Once we make contact with them, I will inform them of this."

  The captain twisted his head and peered into the distance as the lookout phoned in another iceberg off the port bow. "It's going to get worse," he lamented.

  "It always does," Fatima agreed.

  Antarctica

  The way to the surface was clear, and Sergeant Sun had managed to drive the SUSV up the uneven ramp to the surface, where it sat rumbling on the ice cap, the sled hitched behind it. Major Min walked back down the ramp and across the base to the armory, where Sergeant Yong was propped up, back against the wall, his weapon on his knees. His wounded arm and leg were swathed in bandages. The bodies of Jae, Song, and Nam were laid out in the hallway under ponchos.

  Min was uncertain what words would be correct to say good-bye to his soldier, so he simply stood in front of his man and saluted. Yong looked up and returned the gesture with his nonwounded arm. Before he had second thoughts, Min turned and swiftly walked back to the east ice storage room. He climbed up the ramp and crunched across the ice to the cab of the SUSV. He got into the cab and nodded at Sun. The medic threw the vehicle in gear, and the treads slowly started turning. At a crawl of ten miles an hour they headed away from the base. Min directed the driver to their one last stop before heading for the mountains lining the coast. The sled bobbed along in their wake, its cargo securely tied down.

  Geneva

  Dyson's body was strapped to the chair in the middle of the Intelligence Center. His dead eyes stared straight ahead. The man who had been "working" on him packed up his equipment and left the center.

  Then the High Counsel spoke to the Assessors. "I want a Course of Action Projection based on what we just learned about Majestic-12."

  "With what parameters?" the Senior Assessor asked.

  "I want to know what the possible outcomes will be if we exterminate Majestic-12."

  Pine Barrens, New Jersey

  The two men walked down the corridor, the squeak of their shoes echoing off the cinder-block walls. They went into a small room with a secure satellite link to Geneva. "I got everything out of Whitaker," the Tall Man said into the mike. "He put the bomb on the airplane carrying the engineers."

  "Why?" the Senior Assessor asked.

  "To keep the location secret and for $500,000. He also helped wiped out the convoy that accompanied the four MK-17 bombs down there."

  "That was years later, so Lansale kept him on retainer. What about the submarines?"

  "He didn't know about those."

  "Terminate him."

  Pentagon

  As questions bombarded him, the head of the Intelligence Service Agency didn't like the role reversal. The hastily assembled officers and senior administration officials wanted answers, and he, unfortunately, didn't have many. Being the bearer of bad news had a historically poor rating.

  The ranking officer in the room, Army Chief of Staff General Morris, listened to the confusion for five minutes before he cut to the heart of the matter. "Gentlemen, we have to accept the fact that there are bombs down there and there is nothing we can presently do to make that knowledge disappear. Given that, there are two courses of action we have to pursue.

  "Our primary concern must be to secure the bombs. I say that is primary because of the potential physical threat they represent. Our secondary concern is to find out where these bombs came from and how they ended up at this base. Attached to that second concern is to find out why and how this Citadel was built."

  Morris looked about the room to make sure everyone, particularly the President's National Security Advisor, was following him. With the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in the Middle East, this problem was his problem. "In line with the first, I am going to have certain military forces alerted and deployed to the Antarctic to secure the weapons and remove them."

  "Won't that violate the Antarctic accord?" an Air Force general asked.

  Morris bit off a sarcastic reply. "The accord has already been violated. It is now time for damage control, and we have to get those bombs out of there.

  "To help solve the second problem, the various intelligence organizations have all been notified and are investigating the situation." He swung his gaze to the ISA director. "I want your sources to find out everything they have on this. I also want everything you've received from the personnel you've already detained in connection with this incident." Morris fixed a full colonel at the end of the table with his gaze. "What do we have that can get there ASAP to secure those weapons?"

  The colonel looked at the large map at the end of the room. "To be honest, not much, sir. I think the closest ground forces would come from either Panama or Hawaii. Elements of the 7th Fleet are operating off of Australia. The big problem is that we have no way to deploy forces by air there without an in-flight refuel. That's the most isolated place in the world-you have a minimum of a two-thousand-mile flight from the nearest land." "I don't want problems. I want results."

  "Yes, sir."

  Antarctica

  Kim laid the satchel charge in the middle aisle of the Earth First plane. They'd just found it, parked four hundred meters away from the base, and Major Min had directed him to destroy it. He estimated that thirty pounds of explosive would more than do the job. Kim pulled the fuse igniter and hopped out the door. He ran back to the SUSV and clambered into the cab, next to Min. The driver immediately threw it into gear, and they
headed away.

  Three minutes later the dull crack of the explosion sounded through the blowing snow, but the flash was lost in the white fog. Thirty miles directly ahead lay the coast.

  * * *

  "I wonder why they haven't cut off the power?" Brothers asked.

  "Maybe they don't care if we're hiding in here," Vaughn suggested.

  "Maybe they've already left;" Logan added. "Surely they wouldn't want to hang around any longer than they have to."

  The five of them were sitting in a semicircle, facing the hatch. There had been no noise for quite a while. Tai had to admit to herself that she was surprised the power was still on and that the North Koreans hadn't tried to finish them off. The more she thought about it, the more it didn't make much sense.

  She nudged Vaughn. "What do you think?"

  He considered his reply for a few seconds. They were all deferring to him since he was the only one who'd had some sort of plan, which was why they were alive now. "This whole thing doesn't make sense. Skipping the issue of why the Koreans-be they South or North-would want two nuclear bombs, we're left with the question of how they think they can get away with this.

  "Even if they had wiped us all out here and tried to make it look like an accident-say a fire destroying the base and all the bodies-they've got to know that someone else knows about the bombs. The U.S. would then send a team down here to search for the bombs, and when they didn't find them, the heat would be on."

  "Maybe they were hoping there would be enough of a time delay before that was discovered, that they could get away," Tai offered.

  "True," Vaughn agreed. "But then they would have had to kill all of us." He shook his head, which was beginning to throb with a splitting headache. "They've got a long trip back to Korea with those things, and then what are they going to do with them once they get there?"

  "Whatever happens," Logan said, "the United States government is going to look pretty stupid. How could they have put nuclear weapons down here and then just forgotten about them?"