The Citadel by Robert Doherty Read Free Book Online

You can look the mission up. It was well-documented. However, what no one seemed to wonder was why the government was so interested in Antarctica. And why did they dispatch dozens of ships and airplanes to the southernmost continent so quickly after the end of the war?"

"To hide things," Tai said. "So much of what was plundered by the Japanese and the Germans during the war has still never been found. Maybe that's where some of it went."

"It's likely," Royce said. "High Jump was a very extensive operation. The largest exploration operation launched in the history of mankind up to that point. The official expedition took so many pictures of Antarctica that they all haven't even been looked at to this date. Like I said before, the expedition surveyed over sixty percent of the coastline and looked at over half a million square miles of land that had never before been seen by man. I found boxes and boxes of reports and pictures from High Jump in the archives.

"Antarctica is a pretty amazing place. The ice cap is three miles thick in places. The current altitude of the land underneath the ice is actually below sea level in many places, but that's only because the weight of the ice on top depresses the continent. If the ice were removed, the land would rise up. Even today with all the subsequent explorations, only about one percent of the surface area of Antarctica has been traversed by man."

"What about satellites?" Vaughn asked. "They should have complete coverage."

Royce shook his head. "Satellites are either in synchronous orbits, which means they move at the same speed as the rotation of the earth, thus staying relative over the same spot, or they have their own orbits. As far as I know, there are none in a synchronous orbit above Antarctica—no reason for one to be. There are no weapons allowed down there by international treaty, thus no military presence."

"No weapons at all?" Vaughn asked.

"None," Royce said. "Some satellites run the north-south route and cross the poles, but two factors work against their picking up much. First, quite simply, no one has been that interested in Antarctica, so they simply aren't looking as they pass over that part of their orbit. Secondly, the weather is terrible down there, and it's rare that the sky is clear enough to get a good shot of the ground."

"You just said there are no weapons allowed down there," Tai noted. "So, I assume four big nukes would be a bit of a violation?"

"A bit," Royce allowed.

Vaughn had some experience working in cold weather climates during his time in Special Forces. He was beginning to get a strong sense of where this was heading. "What's the weather like down there, besides cold?"

"Bad," Royce said. "Usually very bad. Antarctica is the highest, driest, coldest, windiest continent. Wind gusts of a hundred and fifty miles an hour are not unusual."

"What do you mean driest?" Tai asked. "It's covered in snow."

"That's a misconception," Royce said. "It hardly ever snows or rains there. But you do have a layer of snow covering the ice that gets blown about a lot, causing whiteouts and blizzards. But there's very little actual precipitation."

"All this is fine and well," Vaughn said, "but as you've made abundantly clear, Antarctica is a large place. How do you propose we find this Citadel down there?"

Royce held up the picture of the men holding the sign. "You ask the man who took this picture."
    Manila, Philippines
    As she got closer to the designated place, Fatima felt more and more as if she were back in Japan. Very strange, considering she was less than two miles from her new headquarters hidden in the heart of the Filipino capital city.

It was a section of Manila, approximately ten blocks, with a concentration of Japanese who lived there, along with all the trappings for tourists to get a taste of the Asian homeland. It was bordered on the south by a five-acre mall that contained various shops, restaurants, galleries, and Japanese gardens. At this