[MISSION DAY 2, FEBRUARY 17, 2033]
[1900 hours local time]
[Pentagon, Virginia]
The man with the olive-green briefcase walked casually along the Pentagon’s C-ring toward the sloping ramps that had been a part of the design of the building since its origins during World Wars One and Two. There were elevators in one of the newer parts of the Pentagon and one of those led down to a heavily guarded underground level. Here the security was not handled by the PFPA but by military police, and the weapons were not pistols but snub-nosed submachine guns.
Again, the man’s credentials were checked and passed scrutiny.
When the elevator doors opened on the lower level, he entered casually and nodded to a few people inside the room as if he knew them. Most of them nodded back, certain that they had met him before somewhere, in a meeting perhaps or at a barbecue.
No one doubted his credentials. If he had made it past all the layers of security that surrounded this room, then he had the right to be there.
He moved to one of the workstations on the outside wall and sat down, placing the briefcase beneath the table. The man dialed a short number on his phone and let it ring six times. He was rewarded by an almost inaudible click from the briefcase. He dialed another number and hung up immediately.
A moment later his phone rang. He answered it, speaking the first words he had spoken since arriving at the Pentagon.
“Certainly, sir,” he said. “I will be there immediately.”
No one could know that the other end of the line was completely silent.
The man rose and walked toward the exit. He did not make eye contact with anyone. A naval officer, adjutant to Admiral Hooper, noticed that the man had left his briefcase but thought nothing of it.
The door to the bunker slid shut behind the man. He was gone, as if he had never existed.
[1510 HOURS LOCAL TIME]
[Big Diomede Island, Bering Strait]
They gathered in the main control room. Fierce gusts of wind hurled snow at the narrow windows. Monster had come down from the roof; there was no longer any point in being up there. He couldn’t see past the end of his rifle. Able was still outside, somewhere, with Big Billy hunting him.
“We’re out of here,” Price said. “Mission’s over.”
“How do they figure that?” Barnard asked.
“We came here to recon this station, and we’ve done it,” Price said. “Time to go home.”
“Thank God,” the Tsar said.
“So we can relax in comfort while the Pukes take over the world?” Barnard said. “I can’t get behind that.”
“There’s nothing we can do,” Wall said.
Barnard stared at him. “Or is that what you’d like us to think?”
“He’s right, Barnard,” Price said. “There’re only five of us left. We’re a recon unit. It’s not up to us anymore.”
Instead of replying, Barnard twisted around and punched a button on the control panel. Monster’s video began playing on a screen above their heads.
“See these,” Barnard said. “Bzadian bridgers. If we could take those out somehow, we could stop the whole Bzadian advance in its tracks.”
“Only if they run into another crevasse,” Wall said.
“They will,” Barnard said. “Our last line of defense is a minefield that stretches for kilometers around the western tip of Alaska. Pukes get within spitting distance of the coast and ACOG will blow it, leaving a dirty great channel of water right in their path. The way the currents are around the tip of Alaska, it could be days before it refreezes strongly enough to take tanks.”
“Wouldn’t they just bring up reserves from Chukchi?” Price asked.
“Probably,” Barnard said. “But that would mean a big delay while they bring them forward. All that time their invasion would be stalled and vulnerable. The weather could change, and who knows what could happen?”
“These bridges are very huge,” Monster said. “Heavily armor also. What can we do?”
“The bigger they are, the harder they fall,” Barnard said.
“Meaning?” the Tsar asked.
“Monster and Nukilik stopped a Russian transporter with a handful of de-icing crystals,” Barnard said. “Who’s to say we couldn’t do the same for these bridgers? Melt the ice in front of them.”
“You’d need a truck-full of the stuff,” Price said.
“We have a truck-full of the stuff,” Bowden said.
Everybody stared at her.
“We have a small airstrip,” Bowden said. “There’s a pickup truck in the hangar with a tank of it on the back. We use it for de-icing the runway.”
“It’s suicide,” Wall said. “You’re going to drive a truck out on the ice floe? Even if you did, the Puke’s would pick it off before it got twenty meters. There’re six hundred tanks out there, or had you forgotten that bit?” He saw the looks of the others and protested, “There’s no point in committing suicide.”
“Are you with us, Wall?” the Tsar asked. “One hundred percent? Now’s the time we gotta know. There can’t be any doubt.”
“I always have been,” Wall said.
Price gazed at him, thinking. She turned to Barnard, who nodded.
“I believe him,” Barnard said.
She was seldom wrong, Price thought. And that was as good as she was going to get.
“Wall’s right,” Bowden said. “You’d never make it in the truck. But you could use the hovercraft.”
“Is it large enough?” Price asked.
Bowden nodded. “Easily. It’s an LCAC troop carrier,” Bowden said. “It’s rigged for stealth, and it’s armed with two heavy machine guns. We have a small forklift tractor too. I’m sure you could find a way to rig the de-icing tank onto the hovercraft.”
“In these conditions, we should be able to creep right up to their back door before they even know we’re there,” Barnard said. “A surprise attack.”
“Everybody just slow down,” Price said.
As Barnard had been talking, she had felt a familiar feeling. The thrill of the chase, the excitement of the hunt. The thirst for danger. But that was what had got Emile killed. Was she now really thinking about possibly sending the whole team to their deaths?
“You okay, Price?” the Tsar asked.
“We’ve been ordered home,” Price said. “We should go.”
“Are you crazy?” Barnard asked. “We have a real chance of doing some damage here.”
“And a real chance of all dying and achieving nothing,” Price said.
“But—” Barnard began, before Monster cut her off.
“It was not your fault,” he said.
As always, he seemed to know what she was thinking.
“Yes, it was,” Price said. “I am the one who gave the order. I should have waited.”
“And I should have tried harder out on the ice,” Monster said. “And the Pukes should not have invaded. It is war. We take our chances. You make impossible decisions in impossible circumstances. You go with gut instinct, and sometimes people die.”
“It’s not fair,” Price said, struggling to restrain her emotions.
“It is not fair,” Monster agreed. “It is war.”
“I…don’t know,” Price said. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what Ryan would have done.”
Monster put his hand on her shoulder.
“Is not up to Ryan,” he said. “What is gut instinct telling you?”
Price waited, aware of all the faces watching her.
“That if we don’t try, and the Bzadians win, we will always be wondering what would have happened if we did try.”
“Then there is answer,” Monster said. “I know you guys all thinking I am loopy, but I believe we are here, in this place, right now, for reason. Maybe this is reason.”
“We could die doing this,” Price said. “Anybody want to opt out, just walk away now.”
Nobody moved.
“We could die any day,” the Tsar said. “At least today we’ll know why.”