Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [143]
‘Yeah,’ Cameron said. ‘Otto Niemeyer. Know him?’
‘Know of him,’ Trent said. ‘He was Air Force. Full colonel. Got on a plane in ’79 and never came back.’
‘That’s the one,’ Alison said, over the phone. ‘Hey, who is that?’
‘Andrew Wilcox,’ Cameron said, looking at Trent.
‘Oh, hey, Andrew, nice to meet you,’ Alison said. ‘And yes, you’re right. Niemeyer got on a silver Air Force Boeing 727 at Andrews Air Force base on the night of 30 December 1979, heading for destination unknown. He never returned.’
‘Aren’t there any records about where he went?’ Pete asked.
‘That’s classified, baby,’ Alison said. ‘Classified. I was able to get a history on him, though. Niemeyer flew Phantoms in Vietnam. Got shot down over the Mekong Delta in ’65. POW for a year. Both legs broken. Rescued in ’66. Drove a desk at the Pentagon after that. Headed the USAF’s Procurement Division for six years from ’68 to ’74. Appointed to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1972 by Nixon, continued there under Carter.
‘Apparently, Niemeyer was a player on the stealth project in ’77. He was on the Air Force selection committee that chose the B-2 stealth bomber, made by Northrop-Boeing. The official record, however, shows that Niemeyer voted for the loser in the tender, a consortium made up of General Aeronautics and a small electronics company from California called Entertech Ltd.’
Pete Cameron said, ‘So why would he steal a preliminary land survey about some university research station in Antarctica?’
‘See, that’s the thing,’ Alison said. ‘I don’t think it’s the same station.’
‘What?’
Alison said, ‘Listen, I was looking in this book I bought by one of those Antarctic guys, a guy named Brian Hensleigh. According to him, Wilkes Ice Station was built in 1991.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘But Niemeyer disappeared in 1979.’
‘So what are you saying?’ Pete said.
‘What I’m saying is that Niemeyer was looking up a station at that location twelve years before Wilkes Ice Station was ever even thought of.’
Alison paused. ‘Pete, I think there were two stations. Two stations built on the same piece of land. One in 1978 – the one for which a land survey by C.M. Waitzkin was drawn up – and another in 1991.’
Pete Cameron leaned forward, spoke into the phone. ‘What do you mean, you think they built the second station on top of the first one?’
‘I don’t think the people who built the second station – Wilkes Ice Station – even knew about the first one,’ Alison said. ‘Brian Hensleigh doesn’t mention it at all in his book.’
‘So what was it?’ Pete said. ‘Niemeyer’s station, I mean.’
‘Who knows,’ Alison said.
At that moment, Andrew Trent saw the sheet of note-paper in Pete’s hand, took it, and began examining it.
Alison said, ‘So, what about you? Get anything newsworthy on your travels?’
‘You could say that,’ Cameron said, as he recalled in his mind everything Trent had told him about his unit’s slaughter, his official ‘death’ and the Intelligence Convergence Group.
‘Hey,’ Trent said suddenly from across the room. He held up Cameron’s SETI notes. ‘Where did you get these?’
Pete broke off from Alison and looked at the notes he had made at SETI.
COPY 134625
CONTACT LOST – > IONOSPHERIC DISTURB.
FORWARD TEAM
SCARECROW
– 66.5
SOLAR FLARE DISRUPT. RADIO
115, 20 MINS, 12 SECS EAST
HOW GET THERE SO – SECONDARY TEAM EN ROUTE
Pete told Trent about his visit to SETI, told him that those notes were his record of what had been caught on the airwaves by SETI’s radio telescopes.
‘And these co-ordinates,’ Trent said, pointing to the words ‘-66.5’ and ‘115, 20 MINS, 12 SECS EAST’, ‘they refer to a research station in Antarctica?’
‘That’s right,’ Pete said.
Trent looked hard at Pete Cameron. ‘Do you know anything about Marine Force Reconnaissance Units, Mr Cameron?’
‘Only what you’ve told me.’
‘They’re a forward team,’ Trent said.
‘Okay,’ Pete said, seeing the words ‘FORWARD TEAM’ on his notes.
‘Scarecrow . . .’ Trent said, staring down at the notes.
Pete looked from the notes to Trent. ‘What’s a Scarecrow? An operation?’