Area 51: The Mission-3 by Robert Doherty Page B

The flyby had also noted that the foo fighter had blasted the surface over the base badly. It had been impossible to determine from that, though, whether Scorpion Base had also been destroyed. The American Navy had airlifted an engineering unit to the site that had confirmed that the entranceway to the base was destroyed. The unit had begun digging, trying to get down the mile and a half of ice to the base.
    As always, Turcotte knew, it was going to require someone on the ground to find out what the situation was. And, as he was used to in his military career, he was the person who got that honor.
    Turcotte checked the map as they continued south and more peaks appeared along the coast. To the right was the Admiralty Range facing to the north; then the shoreline turned and headed south into the Ross Sea.
    A single massive mountain appeared straight ahead, above the clouds, set apart from the others to the right: Mount Erebus, which actually formed an island just off the coast of Antarctica—Ross Island. Turcotte knew that McMurdo Station was on the far side of Ross Island, the largest man-made base in the continent. But where they were heading was far beyond that base, deep inside the continent.
    Looking over his shoulder to the back of the Osprey,

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    Turcotte could see the Special Forces team in the cargo bay. He had no idea what they would find inside the base, so it was best to be prepared. The Osprey was a tilt-wing aircraft, capable of landing like a helicopter. A second Osprey followed them, carrying a HUMMV and a squad of Air Force Engineers to supplement the group already there.
    Turcotte watched the slopes of Erebus come closer and then they punched into a thick cloud layer and all view was blanketed. The nose of the plane tilted up as the pilots made doubly sure they had plenty of sky between them and the mountain.

    "The engineers have a beacon on the spot," the pilot said. He pointed at his control panel. "We're about two hours out." The pilot turned his wheel and the plane headed over the coast and toward the interior of Antarctica.
    They crossed the shoreline mountain range, and as far as they could see in front of them was just a rippling white surface.
    "Hey, Captain," one of the men in cockpit called out from his communications console. "Just got a message for you."
    "Go ahead," Turcotte said.
    "From a Lisa Duncan on board the George Washington. Says there is radio traffic between the guardian on Easter Island and Mars."
    "Both ways?" Turcotte asked.
    "Both ways," the man confirmed. "And also the guardian on Easter Island was into the Interlink and Internet for a while. They've cut off that link."
    "Great," Turcotte muttered.
    Turcotte went back into the rear and sat down on the red web seating along the inside skin of the plane. He was tired. Upon getting back to Earth after destroying

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    the Airlia fleet, he had been whisked to Washington for an in-depth debrief.
    He'd had only the one day off, shared with Lisa Duncan in her mountain home, before starting on this mission.
    Despite his weariness, he was grateful simply to be alive. He knew others who had not been so fortunate.
    He could clearly see Colonel Kostanov from Russia's Section IV of the Interior Ministry—their version of Area 51. He had died on the slopes of Qian-Ling fighting off the advancing Chinese forces. Peter Nabinger was dead, his body unrecovered in the wreckage of the helicopter crash in mainland China. Kelly Reynolds was in the grasp of the guardian computer under Easter Island and had not been heard from since she radioed him to not destroy Aspasia. Von Seeckt was still alive, but barely, in the base hospital at Nellis Air Force Base outside Area 51. Of the original group that had uncovered the secret of that mysterious base, it looked as if only he and Duncan were still in the fight.
    And from Duncan's message it appeared the fight would go on.
    Kincaid threw the imagery down in disgust. Wherever TL-SAT-9-3 was, he wasn't