Chapter 50 - The Nunatak Breach
The descent was a breathless, terrifying plunge through howling clouds of frozen mist.
At eight hundred feet above the jagged ice ridges, the steerable parachute cracked open with a violent jolt that sent a spike of fire through my healing chest. Vance Two flared the canopy with expert precision, guiding us through a narrow crevasse in the glacier.
We slammed into the packed snowbank at forty miles per hour, rolling through a powdery drift until the tension lines went slack.
Miller and the rest of the ghost team landed ten seconds later, collapsing their dark gray canopies and vanishing into the whiteout conditions of the blowing snow.
"Perimeter sensors are blind in this blizzard," Vance Two whispered over the low-power tactical radio. "Ventilation intake shaft is fifty yards ahead. Move."
We crawled through the blinding drift, the sub-zero wind biting through our thermal layers. Ahead, rising out of the snow like a jagged tooth of rusted iron, was the intake housing of Project Deep Freeze.
A heavy hydraulic rotary cutter made short work of the rusted exhaust grating. One by one, we slipped down into the vertical steel conduit, sliding twenty yards into the warm, grease-scented bowels of the facility's lower air handlers.
We dropped into an empty concrete corridor lined with heavy insulated conduits. The hum of industrial diesel generators vibrated through the floorboards.
"Clear," Miller whispered, his suppressed rifle raised.
The corridor led directly toward the central command amphitheater. As we advanced, the sound of raised voices echoed through the steel blast doors ahead.
"I don't care about the domestic network!" a harsh, elderly voice shouted from inside—a voice accustomed to unquestioned supreme command. General Vance Albright. "The courier in Maryland had her transponder cut! The terminal sequence was compromised! We launch the kinetic platform now, or we spend the rest of our lives in a federal supermax!"
"Daddy, look at my arm!" a high-pitched, familiar whine cut through the room. Maya. "The military police threw me against the van! I want those MP bastards killed! I want Hannah found and put in front of a firing squad!"
Miller glanced at me, his eyes narrowing in cold disgust.
We stacked up on the left side of the pneumatic hatch. Vance Two placed a directional breaching charge across the hydraulic lock pins.
He held up three fingers.
Two.
One.
May you like
The door blew inward with a deafening *CRACK*.
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