The Project 02 - The Lance

grease. He made walking movements with his fingers.
    Selena nodded. A bug.
    Ronnie put the bug back where he'd found it. He completed the sweep outside, then covered the inside of the car.
    " Hop in," he said.
    They drove out through the main gate and headed toward the city.
    Ronnie said , "Let's get something to eat. There's a joint along here that's pretty good. Slow service, but we're done for the day. Let's grab a beer and a steak."
    "Sounds good."
    Ten minutes later they pulled into the restaurant parking lot. Ronnie got out and removed the bug. A green BMW with Virginia plates was parked two cars down. Ronnie sauntered near, stooped down and planted the bug underneath.
    They headed for Washington.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

    The DC-3 turbo prop conversion came in low in the dark Antarctic night. The plane's landing lights glared bright white on the hard packed ice and snow of the runway. The throaty growl of modified Pratt & Whitney engines shook the room as the plane passed over the research station.
    Hans had been unable to sleep , his mind filled with thoughts of the Nazi bunker. Now he was charting observations made during the last month. He heard the plane. He put down his pen and went to a window.
    He watched the DC-3 make a smooth landing, turn at the end of the runway and taxi to a stop a hundred feet away. A large cargo hatch in the port side of the plane opened. Armed men in black spilled from the aircraft and ran toward the station. Hans thought for a second. Then he reached out and hit the fire alarm.
    A hundred and twenty decibel klaxon began blaring . Lights came on all over the station. Doors slammed as people roused themselves and made for the assembly area near the main stairs leading down to the outside.
    The station rested six meters above the ground on hydraulic legs. It looked almost exactly like a large ferry perched on narrow piers, a wide rectangle two hundred feet long with two levels and two long rows of windows along the angled sides. Entrance was through an enclosure that reached down to the ice from the middle of the structure.
    Hard boots p ounded up from below. Nervous voices called out as people streamed from all over the station to the central area near the stairs.
    " Where's the fire?" It was Otto Bremen. He was flushed and annoyed, wearing unlaced boots and a thick jacket over his pajamas.
    " No fire. Soldiers coming toward us. They look like a SWAT team."
    Hans cut the blaring klaxon. The door burst open. Helmeted men dressed in black fanned out through the room. They pointed assault rifles at the confused scientists. An officer wearing embroidered silver oak leaves on his collar entered the room. Hans thought the insignia looked familiar. Where had he seen it?
    The officer barked orders in perfect German and sent men into the maze of station passages to find any stragglers still in their rooms or laboratories. Then he looked over the assembled scientists. He was tall, his hair the color of bleached sun under his helmet, his face chiseled from stone. His blue eyes were empty, as if no one lived behind them.
    " Who is in charge?"
    Bremen stepped forward. "I am. I'm the chief geophysicist. Who are you? How dare you break in here?"
    " If you cooperate, no one will be harmed. I will ask the questions, chief geophysicist . You discovered something today. We are here to examine your find. Where, exactly, is it?"
    Hans remembered where he 'd seen an insignia like the one the man was wearing. In pictures of Nazi SS officers from the war. This was like something out of the American television series, "The Twilight Zone".
    Except for the fact that the guns were real.
    "I won't tell you," Bremen said.
    The officer pointed his rifle at Otto and shot him. The burst nearly cut him in half. It drove Bremen back against a table and spun him to the floor, splashing blood over the table and Hans's careful notes. A stunned silence filled the room. The station personnel stared at their chief's broken body.
    " You." He turned toward Hans. "The one with the beard. Where is it?"
    Hans looked at the blood pooling under his dead friend. Let them have the damn stuff. Old paintings weren 't worth more lives.
    "A n hour and a half from here. You can follow the tracks we made. In the Fenriskjeften . Follow the tracks to the range, turn right and not long after, you'll see it on the left."
    "In t he Jaw of the Wolf. How fitting. Where are the Sno-Cats?"
    " In a cavern under the station. You'll see the doors