as well take me down with you.”
Conrad stared at her incredulously. The only reason he was here was because he was the world’s leading authority on megalithic architecture and the son of the general leading the expedition. Serena didn’t have a prayer. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“What happens when you come across some inscription down there?” she asked simply. “Who’s going to figure it out?
You?”
Not only had he failed to extract any meaningful information from her, Conrad thought with a sinking feeling, but she also had directed their conversation to precisely this point. The point that Yeats had just predicted this would all come to. And somehow, Serena knew as much.
“Granted, I’m no linguist, but here and there I’ve picked up a thing or two.”
“Like a venereal disease?” she shot back. “For all you know, Conrad, the only reason you’re here is because they thought they couldn’t get me.”
The thing that bothered Conrad the most was that she said it with absolute humility. It wasn’t a boast, but a plausible probability. Then Conrad realized she was playing to the security camera near the ceiling. She had been talking to Yeats all along.
“You’re unbelievable, you know that?” he told her.
“Absolutely unbelievable.”
She flashed him a warm smile that could melt the ice caps. “Would you have me any other way?”
9
Discovery
Plus Twenty-Four Days,
Sixteen Hours
U.S.S.Constellation,
Southern Ocean
“DAMNYEATS,”cursed Admiral Hank Warren.
The short, powerfully built Warren scanned the blacked-out silhouettes of his carrier group’s battle formation with his binoculars from the bridge of the aircraft carrier U.S.S.Constellation. They were twenty miles off the coast of East Antarctica, and Warren’s mission was to keep his battle group undetected until further orders.
To that end, all radars and satellite sets were turned off. Only line-of-sight radios capable of millisecond-burst transmissions were allowed. Extra lookouts with binoculars were posted on deck to sweep the dawn’s horizon for enemy surface ship silhouettes and submarine periscope feathers.
The idea was to get the battle force in close to the coast without betraying their position and then strike at the enemy without warning. A nuclear-powered carrier was good at that. But who the hell was the enemy down here? He and his battle force were freezing their asses trying to avoid detection, and the only enemy they were intimidating was the penguins.
Meanwhile, an unidentified aircraft using a U.S. Navy military frequency had placed a distress call before disappearing from radar. And if the crew of theConstellation heard it, then others had heard it too.
All he knew was that this had something to do with that crazy bastard Griffin Yeats, and that made him even more uneasy.
Way back when, Warren had done some time with the U.S.
Naval Support Task Force, Antarctica. It was his rescue team that found Yeats wandering in a stupor back in ’69 after forty-three days in the snow deserts, the sole survivor of a training mission for a Mars launch that never happened. The nut insisted on dragging three NASA supply containers with him even though the navy had its own. Not a care about the three bodies he left behind. Only later did Warren’s team learn that the containers Yeats dragged out with him were radioactive. But that’s the kind of man Yeats was, unconcerned with the havoc he wreaked in other people’s lives if they got in the way of his own agenda. When Warren filed a complaint, all he got was the “classified” and “need to know”
bullshit.
Now, more than thirty-five years later and bearing the rank of admiral, Warren was still in the dark when it came to Yeats. And it frustrated him to no end. His crew had just picked up a short-burst distress call from what appeared to be some black ops flight calling itself 696, which apparently crashed on approach to some phantom landing strip.
Conrad stared at her incredulously. The only reason he was here was because he was the world’s leading authority on megalithic architecture and the son of the general leading the expedition. Serena didn’t have a prayer. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“What happens when you come across some inscription down there?” she asked simply. “Who’s going to figure it out?
You?”
Not only had he failed to extract any meaningful information from her, Conrad thought with a sinking feeling, but she also had directed their conversation to precisely this point. The point that Yeats had just predicted this would all come to. And somehow, Serena knew as much.
“Granted, I’m no linguist, but here and there I’ve picked up a thing or two.”
“Like a venereal disease?” she shot back. “For all you know, Conrad, the only reason you’re here is because they thought they couldn’t get me.”
The thing that bothered Conrad the most was that she said it with absolute humility. It wasn’t a boast, but a plausible probability. Then Conrad realized she was playing to the security camera near the ceiling. She had been talking to Yeats all along.
“You’re unbelievable, you know that?” he told her.
“Absolutely unbelievable.”
She flashed him a warm smile that could melt the ice caps. “Would you have me any other way?”
9
Discovery
Plus Twenty-Four Days,
Sixteen Hours
U.S.S.Constellation,
Southern Ocean
“DAMNYEATS,”cursed Admiral Hank Warren.
The short, powerfully built Warren scanned the blacked-out silhouettes of his carrier group’s battle formation with his binoculars from the bridge of the aircraft carrier U.S.S.Constellation. They were twenty miles off the coast of East Antarctica, and Warren’s mission was to keep his battle group undetected until further orders.
To that end, all radars and satellite sets were turned off. Only line-of-sight radios capable of millisecond-burst transmissions were allowed. Extra lookouts with binoculars were posted on deck to sweep the dawn’s horizon for enemy surface ship silhouettes and submarine periscope feathers.
The idea was to get the battle force in close to the coast without betraying their position and then strike at the enemy without warning. A nuclear-powered carrier was good at that. But who the hell was the enemy down here? He and his battle force were freezing their asses trying to avoid detection, and the only enemy they were intimidating was the penguins.
Meanwhile, an unidentified aircraft using a U.S. Navy military frequency had placed a distress call before disappearing from radar. And if the crew of theConstellation heard it, then others had heard it too.
All he knew was that this had something to do with that crazy bastard Griffin Yeats, and that made him even more uneasy.
Way back when, Warren had done some time with the U.S.
Naval Support Task Force, Antarctica. It was his rescue team that found Yeats wandering in a stupor back in ’69 after forty-three days in the snow deserts, the sole survivor of a training mission for a Mars launch that never happened. The nut insisted on dragging three NASA supply containers with him even though the navy had its own. Not a care about the three bodies he left behind. Only later did Warren’s team learn that the containers Yeats dragged out with him were radioactive. But that’s the kind of man Yeats was, unconcerned with the havoc he wreaked in other people’s lives if they got in the way of his own agenda. When Warren filed a complaint, all he got was the “classified” and “need to know”
bullshit.
Now, more than thirty-five years later and bearing the rank of admiral, Warren was still in the dark when it came to Yeats. And it frustrated him to no end. His crew had just picked up a short-burst distress call from what appeared to be some black ops flight calling itself 696, which apparently crashed on approach to some phantom landing strip.
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