Rogue Angel - Polar Quest Part 17

"When did you say the colonel asked for you to come down here again?" Annja asked. "Last week?"

Garin shook his head. "The colonel didn't request me. I was a.s.signed to come down here and offer my services."

So that explained part of it. Annja knew that Garin had a pile of money and acquiring proper paperwork, ident.i.ty and security clearances were something he could pull together in no time. He'd apparently heard something about the dig site and come down to see what was going on. But did he know what this was all about? And if he did, why was he interested in it?

"Well, that was astute of your superiors to see you might be needed down here," Annja said.

"They're always looking out for the best interests of the country," Garin replied.

Annja smiled. The country, in this case, being the nation of Garin. "I'm sure they are."

They reached a fork in the tunnel. Zach pointed in one direction. "Workers are over there digging into a separate part of the mountain. One of the things they've found already is a huge deposit of copper. I'm not sure what their plans are, but I think it's a safe bet that if the mountain doesn't yield any more surprises, they may turn this over to a big mining company and get them to haul the copper out of here."

"That would turn this part of Antarctica into a huge eyesore," Annja said. "I thought mining was prohibited down here."

"It's a touchy subject," Dave said. "A lot of private companies have their eyes on this land. It's completely unspoiled and ripe for destroying. Some scientists in the employ of these companies have speculated that there might be untold reserves of petroleum, chromium and a bunch of other highly valuable things down here. You can imagine how many dollar signs that would represent."

Annja frowned. "I would hope they wouldn't cave in to the pressure from the companies."

"Of course they would," Garin snapped. "Since when has the government ever been able to withstand the influence exerted upon it by the private sector?"

Annja raised her eyebrows. Dave turned and looked at Garin. Zach had stopped, as well.

Garin recovered himself. "Which is to say, the government does exist for the needs of the people, so I'm sure that whatever they decide will be in its best interest."

Dave's eyebrows jumped once or twice and he glanced at Annja with a quick roll of the eyes. She smiled at him and they kept moving.

Zach pointed out veins running through the rock walls. "See that? It's all copper. This entire mountain seems to have an incredible amount of metal in it."

"Not the least of which is the unmined copper," Dave said.

"Is it possible," Annja said, "that there might be a new metal that has been previously undiscovered? Something stronger than what we know about now?"

Zach shrugged. "Anything's possible. Whether or not we'll find evidence of it is another thing entirely."

"But we do have evidence," Annja said. "The necklace is made of something we can't even recognize."

Zach nodded. "True enough. But whether that was mined here or indigenous to this place is what remains unknown." He stopped and Annja realized they were at a dead end in the tunnel.

"We're here," Zach said.

17.

The hollowed-out part of the cave spread before them like the concave side of a saucer. Streaks of bright rock, veins of copper and tints of various colors all converged at a single point almost directly in front of them.

Annja ran her hand along the wall, feeling the jagged rocks bite into the palm of her hand. "It's warm to the touch."

Dave removed his bag of gear and set it down. "The mountain seems to conduct thermal energy up into the various caverns we've dug."

Garin leaned against one of the walls. "I thought I read one time about a large thermal flue of sorts that ran under this entire continent. Was that a mistake or is it true?"

Zach shrugged. "Given all the active volcanoes, it seems logical to imagine there's a pipeline of molten core and that the thermals work their way up to the surface. But I don't know that anyone's ever mapped such currents out to any degree."

"So we could be sitting right over one," Garin said.

"Sure. Anything's possible."

Garin nodded and busied himself with studying the walls of the tunnel. "Where will you dig?"

Zach pointed at the soil beneath them. "Right here."

"You didn't think we were going to bore into the rock, did you?" Annja asked.

"Of course not." Garin looked at the cave. "Although you did dig straight into the mountain. I was just curious."

Zach pointed at the wall. "If we went into the rock, we wouldn't get very far. What we're trying to do is get to the dirt. We've caused deliberate cave-ins where we know there's dirt above that can't be reached through the layers of snow and ice on top of it. So we come at it from below."

Dave smiled. "It's a lot of fun standing in a cave-in."

"You didn't," Annja said.

"I'm only kidding." Dave handed a shovel to Zach and then one to Annja. "Well, here's to getting filthy stinking dirty for the next few hours."

"And finding something worth our time," Zach added. "I'd really like to figure out whose artifacts we're in the process of digging up here."

Garin smiled. "I thought they were aliens."

Dave frowned. "We don't know anything right now. It could be some prehistoric race of humans who created that stuff."

"Using a metal alloy that is unidentifiable?" Garin smiled. "Something tells me that unless these people were the inhabitants of Atlantis, there's no way they could have forged the metal I've seen in that necklace. Heavy and lightweight at the same time? With such interesting properties? Even the simple serpent design defies what conventional scientists think possible for that time."

"We don't know everything about what happened back then," Zach said. "And we've been mistaken in the past."

"The carbon dating alone puts those pieces well out of the range of even the most advanced life-forms on the planet at that time," Garin said.

"That we know about," Dave replied. "You just said yourself they could have come from Atlantis. Or maybe even some other long-lost continent. Or h.e.l.l, maybe this was Atlantis."

Annja could tell that in the close confines of the cave, personalities were beginning to grate on each other. And Garin had never been one to be patient with the thought processes of mere mortals. He was getting disgusted with the limits of their logic, and she could sense it.

"Look, fellas, why don't we all just get digging. Get our minds on that and forget about where this might have come from. We can maybe figure that out later, okay?" she said.

Zach nodded. "Annja's right, we've got work to do."

"Fine," Garin said. "But just so you know, Atlantis is generally believed to have been located off the coast of Spain. Not so far down as this."

Dave smirked. "Well, there are plenty of theories about that, I'm sure. You could probably dig up someone who will tell you the entire landma.s.s was a big mobile alien ship, capable of moving through the oceans to wherever it wanted to go. How about that?"

Garin sighed and glanced at Zach. "Have you got another shovel?"

"Sure thing-here."

"Thank you." Garin settled himself into the far corner of the cavern and started digging.

For a time, the only sound was the rhythmic clangs of shovel blades sinking into the hard earth. Piles of loose gravel, dirt and small stones grew around them, like the walls of a great fortress.

Annja sweated now, aware that her snow pants restricted her movements terribly. She was feeling sore and hoped that she'd be able to have a long shower when this was over for the day.

Dave came by and tossed her a water bottle. "Make sure you keep your fluid intake up. You'll dehydrate quickly down here without even knowing it."

"Thanks." She swallowed down most of the water and then paused. Dave made the rounds, handing bottles to Zach and Garin. Garin glanced at it as if it were dredged from the sewer.

Annja grinned. "Not your usual vintage?"

Garin swallowed some and blanched. "Not by the longest stretch of the imagination."

Dave frowned. "Yeah, well, it'll keep you from dehydrating and dying, so there's got to be something said for that."

Garin took another swig. "Indeed."

Annja finished her water and stowed the bottle in the loose pile of dirt nearby. She'd refill it later.

Dave was still hunched over by where Garin was digging. "Where were you a.s.signed before you came down to these parts, anyway?" he asked.

Garin smiled. "I believe I told Annja earlier a little something about things being cla.s.sified. Need-to-know, and all that good stuff. It's not really necessary information, anyway, is it?"

Dave shrugged. "Probably not. You just seem a little odd to me, that's all. You know, like when my gut keeps nudging me, it's almost like I've got to listen to it."

Garin frowned. "Does that happen often?"

Annja swallowed. "You should have seen him at dinner last night."

Dave glanced over and smiled. Then he got to his feet. "Well, whatever, Major. You just keep on digging and we'll see what we see."

Garin watched him walk away. For her part, Annja was amazed that Dave would have the courage to speak to Garin like that. Garin wasn't exactly the least intimidating guy on the planet. He was huge by comparison to Dave, but Dave showed absolutely no signs that it made any difference in the world to him.

It presented a problem. If Garin thought that Dave was too much of a bother, there was every chance he would simply kill him and be done with it. Of course, it would have to look like an accident to allay suspicion.

Annja didn't want anyone killing anyone. All she wanted to do was find more artifacts and try to piece together what had made them. The chances of that happening, however, seemed to be getting smaller and smaller with each pa.s.sing minute.

Sooner or later, things were going to come to a head and Annja just hoped the damage wasn't too profound.

They dug for three more hours before taking a break for lunch. Dave had once again gone back up to get them the cardboard-boxed Meals Ready to Eat that soldiers ate in the field. He handed them out to everyone and then plopped himself down in the nearest pile of dirt and tore into it.

Annja glimpsed the ham stew and frowned. "This is going to be nothing like dinner last night, is it?"

Dave chuckled. "Not even close."

Garin held his up. "I abhor spaghetti and meatb.a.l.l.s. Anyone willing to trade theirs?"

"Here," Annja said. She pitched her box to Garin, who threw his to her. Annja grabbed it and ate the spaghetti and meatb.a.l.l.s in silence.

For a while, no one said anything. The ambiance of the cavern was relegated to the sounds of eating, drinking and the occasional belch.

Annja finished her pouch and then took out the peanut-b.u.t.ter package and a cracker. The protein tasted great and she knew it would help her get through the day. She took another swig of water and settled back against the dirt.

Zach looked at her. "How are you feeling, Annja?"

"Fine," she said with a shrug.

"Ribs?"

"A-okay."

Garin looked interested. "Ribs? What happened? Was there an accident of some sort?"

Annja leaned forward. "Yeah. There was. Back in McMurdo, I was attacked walking back to my dorm room. Someone drove their pointy little elbow into my side and cracked a rib or two. Hurt like h.e.l.l. Then they tried to run me over with a Sno-Cat."

Garin smirked. "They tried to run you over with a horribly slow vehicle? That makes no sense at all."

"I was trapped on my back and couldn't move."

"Ah. The proverbial beetle with its legs up."

"Exactly."

Garin shrugged. "Still, it was an awful lot of effort. Why not just put a bullet in your head if you'd p.i.s.sed someone off that much?"

"I don't know. That's what has me wondering who it might have been. Obviously they wanted to make it look like an accident."

Garin shrugged. "An autopsy would have revealed the fractured rib. There would have been questions."

"I could have gotten the fractured rib slipping and falling on the ground."

"True. But they might determine the angle of impact as being inconsistent with a fall."

Dave held up his hand. "The important thing is she's okay. And she seems better every day. h.e.l.l, yesterday, I didn't think she was going to last twenty minutes in the Sno-Cat driving out here, but she weathered it like a trooper. I wouldn't have even guessed you had a busted bone in your body, Annja."

Garin's eyes gleamed. "Really? What did you do? Heal yourself overnight so that by morning you were perfectly fine?"

Annja smiled. "The power of positive thinking, I guess."

"Fascinating," Garin said. He tipped a small bottle of hot sauce from his meal into his mouth and swallowed it with a grin. "Lovely."