Operation Antarctica

- 6 -

He thought it was a bombshell that would cause a ruction back in Whitehall and was prepared for a sense of urgency, or even official denial and an immediate cover-up. But when he went back to the dinghy for his checkpoint call after four hours, the voice at the other end listened to his report and answered only in the same calm, measured, voice.

“Secure and sanitize the base,” the man said after Banks had told him everything. “We’re sending a team down to relieve you, but it might be a day until we can round them all up and deliver them. In the meantime, find out everything you can that you think might be relevant. Hold out there and keep your heads down.”

Secure and sanitize. The squad’s not going to like that.

“What do you mean, they flew it?” Wiggins said. Banks had the team assembled, standing in a line in the hut, and had just brought them up to speed on his reading. “Surely somebody would have spotted a big shiny bugger of a thing like that in orbit?”

“It was 1942, lad,” Banks replied. “Everybody was a wee bit busy either shooting or getting shot at.”

“It’s not that big a stretch though,” Hynd added. “Von Braun was a fucking genius by all accounts. And there’s long been rumors about other stuff the Yanks have hidden away in their desert bunkers.”

“Aye,” McCally said. “But yon was wee green alien buddies from Roswell. Not fucking demons from the North Sea.”

Banks put a hand up to stop the conjecture.

“We’ve got our orders, and that’s all we need to know. Secure and sanitize.”

“Aye, about that, Cap,” Wiggins said. “You mean moving the bodies, don’t you? Do we get time and a half for that shite?”

“You get a skelp on the arse for cheek,” Hynd butted in, but Banks just smiled.

“I’ll stand for a couple of rounds once we get back to the boat. But for now, we’ve got our orders. It’s cleaning up time, so let’s get to it.”

Wiggins took point going up the slope toward the concealed base entrance.

“We’ll drag them all up into the open and stack them in the huts,” Banks said. “I’d prefer to burn them, but the team that’s coming in will want to see them close up. We’ll start with the one in the stairwell to clear the passageway. Parker, you’re with Wiggins. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can get back for a heat and a brew.”

The two men opened up the metal hatch, sending a shrieking squeal across the bay, then went down into the darkness. Banks expected them to return with a body, but Wiggins came back alone, and only had his rifle in his hands.

“You need to see this, Cap,”

“Is there a problem with the body?”

“You could say that,” Wiggins replied. “The bastard thing has buggered off.”

Banks went down into the dark. The first thing he saw was Parker’s too-pale face staring back up at him. The man stood on the landing where they’d found the first body, but the private was the only person now in sight. The floor underfoot was too messed with the squad’s footprints to make anything out in the frost — the only thing that was obvious was that the body no long lay there.

“Okay, lads, you’ve had your fun. Where the fuck’s the Jerry?”

But he knew as soon as he said it that this was no joke — he saw the confusion in Parker’s face, and not a little fear.

“Well, the fucker didn’t get up and walk,” Banks said. “He was about the stiffest stiff I’ve ever seen. And he didn’t get brought out the hatch — we’d have heard the squeal, even above Wiggins’ bloody snoring. So he has to be down there in the hole somewhere. Somebody’s yanking our chains here, lads. Let’s go and sort them out.”

Banks led the team back into the bowels of the base. He didn’t have to reach the foot of the stairwell to the first chamber to know that something had changed. He felt it, a subtle feeling that someone had been moving around in their absence. What had been dead and empty before was now somehow alive, and the feeling of being watched, measured, was impossible to ignore. It became even more so when they stepped off the bottom rung into the central living chamber of the base.

“What the fuck, Cap?” Hynd said at his side.

The chamber was empty. Where before there had been bodies lying everywhere, now there was only open floor space. It was still impossible to tell anything from the mass of footprints and scrapes they’d left in the frost earlier, but Banks thought there were more prints now, as if the dead had got up and walked away.

Away to where?

The squad assembled at the foot of the stairs, none of them wanting to venture any farther into the large empty chamber.

Get them moving. Get yourself moving.

“Same teams as before,” he said, and was pleased there was no tremor in his voice. “Cally, take your lads right, we’ll go left, and meet at the double doors. Any trouble, shoot first and we’ll sort it out later. Any questions?”

Of course there were questions, but the squad kept them all to themselves. All banter was forgotten now; without needing to be told they’d, as one, gone to battle readiness. Banks felt the same steel firm inside him. He’d faced trouble before and was ready for anything that came his way.

He led Hynd, Parker, and Wiggins to the leftward semi-circle of rooms and sleeping quarters.

The rooms were now empty and devoid even of the corpses of the frozen dead. And now it really was noticeable that they’d moved, or been moved, for there were two rooms they hadn’t bothered entering on their last visit, and both now had fresh footprints on the floor, leading from the bunk beds to the door and out into the chamber.

“I don’t like this shite, Cap,” Wiggins said.

“Nor me, lad. But we’ve still got a job to do here. And I’m not ready to believe they got up and walked, not unless we’ve missed the Second Coming. They’re around here somewhere. They have to be.”

But there were no bodies to be found in any of the rooms, nor in the kitchen and mess area, which was as quiet as the first time they’d looked inside. The generator room was likewise empty, but when Banks put a hand on the metal cube of the generator itself he thought, just for a moment, that he felt a faint vibration. He couldn’t repeat it though — the next time he put out a hand, he felt only cold metal. In the oberst’s office, the chair in which the man had sat was overturned, as if the occupant had stood too hastily to leave.

They met McCally and the other team at the double doors. McCally spoke first.

“Nothing doing, Cap. It looks like they all just got up and walked away.”

“Aye, same over here,” Banks replied. “This is some fucked up shite right enough. If it’s a joke, I’m not laughing.”

He looked at the double door ahead of them.

“There’s only one place they can be. Heads up, lads, we’re going in hard and fast.”