Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [131]
Alison felt a sudden rush of excitement as something occurred to her.
‘If it’s not there, wouldn’t that mean that someone is reading it right now?’ she asked.
Cindy shook her head. ‘No, the computer says that the last time it was loaned out to anybody was in November 1979.’
‘November 1979,’ Alison said.
‘Yeah, spooky huh?’ Cindy looked about twenty years old, a college student no doubt. ‘I took down the name of the borrower if you’re interested. Here,’ she handed Alison a slip of paper.
It was a photocopy of a Request Form, similar to the one Alison herself had filled out to get the survey. The Library of Congress obviously kept every form on file – probably for exactly this situation.
On the Request Form, in the box marked ‘Name of Person Requesting Item’ was a name:
O. NIEMEYER.
‘It happens,’ Cindy the attendant was saying. ‘This Niemeyer guy probably liked it so much that he just walked out with it. We didn’t have magnetic tags on our books back then, so he probably just slipped out past the guards.’
Alison ignored her.
She just stood there, entranced by the Request Form in her hand, by this twenty-year-old piece of evidence that had been sitting in a filing cabinet somewhere in the depths of the Library of Congress, waiting for this day.
Alison’s eyes glowed as they stared at the words:
O. NIEMEYER.
Brigadier-General Trevor Barnaby walked across the pool deck of Wilkes Ice Station. He’d been in control of Wilkes Ice Station for a little over an hour now and he was feeling confident.
Only twenty minutes ago he had sent a team of fully armed divers down in the station’s diving bell. But it would be at least ninety minutes before they reached the underground cave. Indeed, the diving bell’s cable was still plunging into the pool at the base of the station right now.
Barnaby himself was dressed in a black thermal wetsuit. He planned to go down to the underground cave with the second team – to see for himself what was really down there.
‘Well, now,’ Barnaby said as he saw Snake and the two French scientists handcuffed to the pole. ‘What have we here? Why, if it isn’t Sergeant Kaplan.’ By the look on his face, Snake was obviously surprised that Barnaby knew who he was.
‘Gunnery Sergeant Scott Michael Kaplan,’ Barnaby said. ‘Born: Dallas, 1953; enlisted in the United States Marine Corps at age eighteen in 1971; small arms expert; hand-to-hand combat expert; sniper. And as of 1992, under suspicion by British Intelligence as a member of the American spy agency known as the Intelligence Convergence Group.
‘I’m sorry, what is it that they call you? Snake, isn’t it. Tell me, Snake, is this a common occurrence for you? Does your commanding officer often chain you to poles, leaving you at the mercy of the incoming enemy?’
Snake didn’t say anything.
Barnaby said, ‘I would hardly have thought that Shane Schofield would be the kind of master to chain up his loyal squad members. Which means there must be some other reason why he chained you up, n’estce pas?’ Barnaby smiled. ‘Now, whatever could that reason be?’
Snake still said nothing. Every now and then, his eyes would steal a look at the diving bell’s cable as it plunged into the pool behind Barnaby.
Barnaby turned his attention to the two French scientists. ‘And who might you be?’ he asked.
Luc Champion blurted out indignantly, ‘We are French scientists from the research station Dumont d’Urville. We have been detained here against our will by American forces. We demand that we be released in accordance with international –’
‘Mr Nero,’ Barnaby said flatly.
A mountain of a man stepped out from behind Barnaby and stood next to him. He was at least six-foot-five, with broad shoulders and impassive eyes. He had a scar that ran down from the corner of his mouth to his chin.
Barnaby said, ‘Mr Nero, if you please.’
At that moment, the big man named Nero calmly raised his pistol and fired at Champion from point-blank range.
Champion’s head exploded. Blood and brains instantly splattered against the side of Snake’s face.
Henri Rae,