Sorry about that, Juan said to the professor. We had hoped it would go a lot smoother. Just bad luck the General showed up when he did.

Mr. Cabrillo

Juan, please.

All right, Juan. Just so long as you got me away from those she paused because the invective she was about to use wasn't for polite company horrible people I wouldn't have cared if we had to crawl our way over hot coals.

They didn't hurt you? he asked.

I was telling Linda that I didn't give them a reason. I answered everything they asked me. What was the point of holding back information about a five-hundred-year-old ship?

Juan's face turned grim. You probably hadn't heard, but Argentina annexed the Antarctic Peninsula, and China is backing them. If they can find that shipwreck it will further solidify their territorial rights. This is also a bid for oil, and I'm guessing the reserves are substantial for such a big risk. Once that starts flowing, they can use the revenue to buy up votes in the United Nations. It'll take some time, but I bet within a couple of years their seizure of the peninsula will be legitimized.

I didn't tell them where the ship sank, Tamara said. Because I don't know. They believed me.

There are other ways. I guarantee they're looking for it as we speak.

What are we going to do?

The question was almost pro forma, asked without really thinking. Just something a person says when faced with an obstacle. But to Juan, it was loaded with meaning. What were they going to do? He'd been wrestling with that since Overholt told him the White House refused to get involved.

This wasn't their fight. As Max would say, This dog don't hunt.

However, there was his sense of right and wrong. He certainly didn't feel a responsibility to help out, that was never his motivator. Instead, he was bound by a code of ethics that he would never compromise, and it was telling him the right thing was to get involved to take the Oregon down into those icy waters and take back what had been stolen.

The rest of his crew was looking at him as expectantly as Tamara Wright. Mark cocked an eyebrow, as if to say So?

I guess we're going to make sure they don't find that ship.

The Silent Sea

Chapter TWENTY-TWO

WELCOME TO THE CRYSTAL PALACE, MAJOR. I'M LUIS Laretta, the director.

Jorge Espinoza stepped off the rear ramp of a big C-130 Hercules cargo plane and grasped the man's outstretched glove. Laretta was so heavily swaddled, it was impossible to see his features or discern his stature.

Espinoza had made the mistake of not lowering his goggles before moving into the frigid air and he could feel the cold trying to solidify his eyeballs. The pain was like the worst migraine imaginable, and he quickly pushed the goggles into place. Behind him his men stood at attention, all of them kitted out for cold-weather combat.

The flight down from Argentina had been monotonous, as most military flights were, and, except for landing on skis on a runway made of ice, there was little to distinguish it from the hundreds he had taken before.

They were here to spearhead security in the wake of the annexation announcement. If the United States or any other power was going to attempt to force the Argentines out of Antarctica, it would happen soon, and most likely be attempted using commandos air-dropped by parachute. With a Chinese Kilo-class submarine recently purchased from Russia patrolling the choke point between the extreme tip of South America and the peninsula, an air assault was the only viable option.

Espinoza and a hundred members of the Ninth Brigade were sent southward on two transports to stop them.

The rationale was simple. When Argentina invaded the Maldives in 1982 the islands the British called the Falklands the English had telegraphed their intentions to retake them with a months-long deployment of ships from their home ports. This time, the Argentine high command believed, there would be no warning. The reprisal would be a lightning-quick attack by Special Forces troops. If they could be met with an equally prepared group of soldiers, the first attempt to retake Antarctica, if repulsed, would most likely be the last.

You have to love the Army, Lieutenant Jimenez said as he strode up to Espinoza's side. A couple days ago, we were sweating our butts off in the jungle, and today they're turning colder than frozen hams.

I was all that I could be, Espinoza replied, a private joke between them referencing an old American Army slogan.

Jimenez called out to a Sergeant to see to the men while he and Major Espinoza followed Laretta on a tour of the installation.

They had timed their landing in the brief period when weak sunlight poured over the horizon. It wasn't much more than twilight, but it was better than absolute darkness. The shadows they cast on the ice and snow were indistinct, more like murky outlines than hard silhouettes.

How many men are down here? Espinoza asked. Laretta had a warmed-up snowcat waiting at the edge of the airfield. The men would have to hike the mile to the facility, though their gear would be transported on towed sledges.

Right now, only four hundred. When we ramp up oil production, there will be better than a thousand here and out on the rigs.

Amazing. And no one knew a thing about it.

Two years of construction, under the worst conditions imaginable, and not a hint of rumor about what we were doing. There was well-deserved pride in Laretta's voice. He had been in charge since the beginning. And we lost only two men the entire time, both from the sorts of accidents you see on any large construction project. Nothing to do with the cold at all.

Laretta peeled down his goggles and pushed back his parka as soon as they were settled in the big-tracked vehicle. He had a wild mane of silvery hair, and a thick beard that spilled onto his chest. His face was pale from so many months without sun, but the deep wrinkles around his dark eyes gave him a rugged quality.

Of course the trick about building down here is fuel, and since we were tapping an offshore natural gas well almost from the beginning we had a steady supply. We were asked early on by the Antarctic Authority about the ship we used. We told them it was for drilling core samples, and they never bothered us again. He chuckled. They neglected to ask why it didn't move for more than two years.

It took just a few minutes to reach the base, and almost as long for Espinoza and Jimenez to grasp the scale of what their countrymen had accomplished. So cleverly camouflaged and so artfully laid out that even the keenest observer wouldn't see it unless they were right on top of it. The only thing out of place was the matte-gray Argentine warship sitting at anchor in the middle of the bay. There was a faint glow from her bridge, but otherwise the cruiser was dark.

Laretta pointed. Under those three big hills right on the edge of the bay are oil storage tanks big enough to fuel every car in Argentina for a week.

How is it the bay is free of ice so early in the summer? Espinoza asked.

Ah, my dear Major, that is my pride and joy. Parts of it actually never freeze. There is a series of pipes strung out along the bottom. It is very shallow, by the way. We pump superheated air through the pipes and let it escape out of millions of tiny holes. The bubbles not only heat the water but when they break the surface they crack any thin ice that's forming. You can't see it because it is too dark, but the bay's entrance is narrow enough for us to run a continuous curtain of hot air to keep the water mixing with the rest of the Bellinghausen Sea.

Incredible, Espinoza breathed.

Like I said, with limitless fuel anything's possible down here. You see where the buildings are set. It looks like ice, yes? It's not. The entire facility sits on a polymer-composite sheet with the same refraction spectrum as ice, so from the satellites it appears that the beach is frozen. It's a petrochemical we actually make here. After getting the natural gas plant up and running, it was our first priority. All the buildings are made of the same material, except for the large geometric tent that shelters our vehicles. That's woven Kevlar. We needed it to withstand the winds.