Polar Quest

Kilkenny opened the canopy and eased his body out of the cockpit. The throb of engines filled the frigid air. The temperature display on Kilkenny’s helmet read-48 degrees Fahrenheit. He crouched behind the bow of the iceboat, set the brake, and took a careful look at the station.

Two men on patrol walked around to the back side of the station. Both were dressed in thick white fatigues and cradled a submachine gun. Kilkenny waited for one of the men to spot the white iceboat parked in the distance, but the glare made it almost impossible for either to pick it out from the landscape. The sentries continued their circuit and disappeared around the opposite side of the station.

He unsheathed his k-bar knife and silently crept forward, keeping the station between him and the planes. Each step was a deliberate movement designed to avoid the barking sound made by a careless footstep on dry, tightly packed snow.

Kilkenny reached the end of the windowless storage module and waited. No alarm sounded. No footsteps rushed in his direction. He had crossed the open field undetected.

He carefully rounded the end of the storage module and slipped into the next triangular quadrant of the cruciform station. The low angle of the sun cast a long shadow off the storage module, darkening the area in front of him. Staying in the shadow, he moved up to the next module, crouching beside its thick steel supports. Peering from beneath the elevated module, Kilkenny saw two LC-130s with markings identifying them as Skier-98 and Skier-99 of the New York Air National Guard’s 109th Airlift Wing.

That one sure as hell is false-flagged, Kilkenny thought, knowing all that remained of the real Skier-98 was a wide-strewn field of charred debris.

Several men busied themselves loading crates into the hold of Skier-98. The tail door of the other plane was already closed. Two men with side arms stood between the aircraft. Kilkenny studied the placement of men and equipment around LV Station, looking for anything he could use to his advantage.

The sentries walked around the far side of the aircraft and turned back toward the station. Both men held a hand in front of his eyes as they faced the low sun. Kilkenny braced himself against the station module and waited.

As they passed his hiding place, Kilkenny attacked. From behind, he grabbed the closest of the two, hooking his right arm over the sentry’s shoulder. The man expelled a lungful of air as Kilkenny’s arm clamped down and jammed the man’s submachine gun into his abdomen. Kilkenny coiled at the waist like a spring, then unwound with a swift turn and drove the k-bar through layers of protective clothing into the soldier’s back. The black stainless-steel blade severed the man’s aorta and plunged into his heart.

‘Que?’ the other sentry blurted out, his attention drawn by the sudden movements to his left.

As he drove his knife into the back of the one sentry, Kilkenny shifted his weight onto his left foot and snapped a side kick with his right into the throat of the other. The heel of Kilkenny’s boot flattened the man’s windpipe. He staggered back, his eyes bulging behind yellow-lens goggles as he vainly gasped for air. Acting more on reflex than thought, he squeezed the trigger of his Heckler-Koch MP-5. Kilkenny held the dying sentry up as a shield and several rounds struck the man’s body. One grazed across Kilkenny’s upper arm and steam slowly rose from the wound as the groove filled with warm blood.

Rushing forward, Kilkenny rammed the choking sentry with his bullet-riddled partner. The man fell onto his back and Kilkenny landed on top of him. He thrust his knife into the side of the sentry’s neck, the blade disappearing up to the hilt. The man looked up only to see his own horrified expression reflected in Kilkenny’s face shield. As Kilkenny withdrew his knife, a great rush of blood followed it out, staining the white hood of the man’s parka and the ice beneath him.

The men loading cargo and servicing the planes dove for cover when they heard the short burst of submachine gunfire. Those armed readied their weapons, scanned the area for threats, and awaited orders. Duroc crouched beside one of the planes with his pistol drawn, searching vainly for some sign of trouble.

‘Albret,’ Duroc barked out to his executive officer. ‘What the hell is going on?’

‘All units report!’ Albret shouted angrily into his lip mike.

One after another, Duroc’s soldiers responded with their status.

‘Sir, only the perimeter team has failed to report in,’ Albret said. ‘The rest of the men are in position and weapons are secure.’

‘Idiots! They probably slipped on the ice. Finish loading the plane while I see what the problem is.’ Duroc motioned to a pair of soldiers. ‘You two, come with me.’

Kilkenny rolled the one sentry off the other, grabbed an MP-5, then searched the bodies for additional ammunition. His arm stung, the blood congealing into an icy scab. For the first time he felt the bone-chilling cold of Antarctica.

After finding two more clips for the MP-5, he stuffed the two bodies, one atop the other, beneath the curved aluminum belly of the elevated module. He then dropped onto his stomach, using the bodies as protective cover. Between the station and the planes, Kilkenny saw men racing about in response to hastily issued orders.

French, Kilkenny thought, or maybe Spanish. Impossible to tell with those engines running.

The commander stepped away from one of the planes, yelled something at two soldiers, then all three began moving toward his position. With no clear shot at the commander, Kilkenny tracked the closest of the three with the barrel of his MP-5. At twenty feet, Kilkenny fired a three-round burst that pulverized the man’s face.

Duroc saw the muzzle flash in the dark space beneath the station module. The soldier to his left suddenly jerked around, his head thrown back, his face exploding. Blood and torn bits of flesh and bone splattered against Duroc’s face, covering his goggles and balaclava. The remaining soldier opened fire on Kilkenny’s position.

Duroc could feel blood seeping through the fabric that covered his face, and his goggles were smeared with the rapidly freezing fluid. He flipped back his hood and stripped everything off his head. The frigid air stung his exposed skin.

A fusillade of bullets bore down on Kilkenny’s position as the second soldier fired his weapon on full automatic. The two bodies stacked in front of him absorbed several rounds; the rest either punched holes in the module’s aluminum skin or chiseled into the ice.

From beneath the module, Kilkenny had a protected field of fire to the front and side, but was vulnerable to a wide sweep around the rear. The instant the soldier emptied his weapon, Kilkenny popped up, found his target, and fired. The man spun and dropped to the ice.

‘Merde!’ Albret cursed. ‘You two, cover the commander. The rest of you, get this plane closed up and ready to leave.’

Search, aquire, fire. The words played in Kilkenny’s mind like a mantra. Once he was sure the second soldier wasn’t going to get back up, he sought out another target. The commander was lying on his stomach, facing Kilkenny with a pistol. The man had stripped off all the protective gear from his head, and Kilkenny got a clear look at his face. As he lined up the MP-5′s site, the commander fired. Kilkenny saw the muzzle flash at the same instant as the bullet struck his helmet an inch above his left eye.

The impact snapped Kilkenny’s head back so fast his neck hurt. He dropped behind his barricade, gripping the MP-5 tightly, waiting for his vision to clear.

The two soldiers sent by Albret were more selective with their fire, squeezing off rounds individually to keep Kilkenny pinned down. Duroc and one of the soldiers grabbed hold of the two bodies and dragged them back toward the aircraft while the other man covered their withdrawal.

‘Albret, I hit him,’ Duroc said. ‘Head shot, but he’s wearing a helmet. I don’t know if it got through.’

Three shots flew out from beneath the module and struck the fuselage of the plane nearby.

‘There’s your answer,’ Albret said.

‘Where did this sniper come from?’ Duroc demanded.

‘Unknown. Except for the transport, the radar has been clear since we arrived. The rest of the perimeter is secure, no sign of any additional threats.’

‘He’s not one of our men. How did he get here? How did he know?’

‘We won’t learn that unless we capture him, sir, but we have a more important problem – the aircraft. They are in the open and, as you can see, very difficult to protect from weapons fire. Both are ready to go, and I think we should get them airborne before either is damaged too greatly.’

Duroc considered his executive officer’s suggestion. ‘See to it. Position the men to protect the first plane. We will depart on the second.’

‘I think it would be wise for you to be on board the first plane.’ Albret could see the rebuke forming on his superior’s lips. ‘Hear me out, sir: Our primary objective is to acquire the probe. As commander, you should see that task through to delivery, as if nothing has changed. The men and I will kill this bastard and follow you out on the second plane.’