Pandora's Curse - v4 by Jack du Brul Read Free Book Online Page B

group on the Net learned that a farm in Roswell, New Mexico, near where a UFO had supposedly crashed in the 1940s had been owned by a member of the Surveyor’s Society. The inference that the Society possessed hidden evidence of alien contact came immediately afterward and the furor had yet to die down.
    “Even I don’t know half of it,” Bryce admitted. “Our ten-person executive council are the only people who know what’s in the secret part of our vault.”
    There was a knock at the door, and the elderly steward entered holding a tray with two glasses on it. “It is noon, gentlemen. Lunch will be in thirty minutes in the dining room. May I offer you a cocktail?”
    Bryce turned to Mercer. “It’s still gimlets, isn’t it?”
    “Good memory.” Mercer accepted the vodka and sweetened lime juice concoction from the butler. He’d recently switched to Gray Goose, a French vodka, and noted this drink was made with his old standard, Absolut.
    Bryce took a tumbler of iced Macallan Scotch. “I seem to recall a night a few years back where you and I went through quite a few of these in very short order. The only thing I remember from then is the weeklong hangover afterward.”
    The air-conditioning kicked in. Mercer could feel cool air blowing from the brass grill recessed into the wall behind his back. It was as though the chill had changed the mood of the meeting. Bryce went silent for a moment, his eyes focusing on a middle distance only he could see. He almost appeared upset by something they had said or something he was about to say. Mercer braced himself.
    “Our review committee,” Bryce opened, “has already approved you for membership. That was taken care of a couple of weeks ago. As I understand it, this usually takes upward of a year. However, you are a special case.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “Well, people who are invited to join by virtue of their earlier exploits must participate in a Society-sponsored expedition before they can become members. It’s an old bylaw of the club. About three months ago we were approached by the Danish government to see if we were interested in joining an expedition being planned by a German nonprofit group called Geo-Research.”
    “What’s this have to do with Denmark?”
    “The expedition is going to Greenland, which is still a Danish protectorate. I don’t know if you’re aware that Denmark has recently gotten very selective about who receives permits for scientific research on the Greenland ice sheet. During a Japanese expedition last year, a mishap killed eight people and left eleven thousand gallons of spilled fuel on the ice. The bodies were recovered, but no steps were taken to clean up the diesel. Just a month later, four American mountain climbers died in a plane crash. A search-and-rescue helicopter looking for the wreck also crashed, killing three more.
    “Since then the Danes are demanding better oversight of what takes place on Greenland. They’ve closed several foreign-run meteorological stations they feel are unsafe and limited climbing parties to just a small region in the south, well away from the higher mountains as a way to discourage treks. They’ve even started rattling their sabers about closing Thule Air Force Base.
    “Add to this the fact that Germany and Denmark are at odds over oil-exploration rights in the North Sea and it was surprising that Geo-Research didn’t have their permits rescinded altogether. Their expedition is planned to gather global warming data and has been in the works for a year.”
    “Where does the Surveyor’s Society fit in?” Mercer asked. He’d been to Greenland’s tiny neighbor, Iceland, once before, but had never visited earth’s second-largest island. He felt his interest rising.
    “Back in the 1950s, there was an American base on Greenland’s eastern coast called Camp Decade. It had to do with Project Iceworm, something about determining if permanent towns could be sustained under the ice sheet. One of