Read Online The Black Knight by Dean Crawford - Free Book Online Page B

long time since he had heard the Russians described as Ivan , a Cold War moniker that Forrester had likely been raised using.
    ‘I’ll have the team assemble as soon as possible,’ Ethan promised.
    ‘Your quarters are ready,’ Forrester said as he turned to oversee the rest of the crew. ‘Ensign DuPont will show you the way.’
    A young sailor beckoned for Ethan to follow him even as the Polar Star’s crew hauled the boarding ramp up from the icy wasteland below the ship and he heard the sound of the vessel’s powerful engines begin to reverberate through the hull. He followed the Ensign through a hatch beneath the bridge and felt a waft of blessed warm air envelop him as he and Hannah walked through the interior.
    ‘Damn,’ Hannah uttered behind him, ‘I’ve just realized that I couldn’t feel my face.’
    ‘The temperature outside is seventeen degrees below zero,’ Ensign DuPont explained as he strode through the ice breaker’s myriad corridors. ‘You kind of get used to it.’
    ‘I’d rather not,’ Hannah replied, and then looked at Ethan as she pulled the thickly lined hood of her jacket off. ‘You got any idea what this briefing is about? I thought that Jarvis laid it all out back in DC?
    ‘No idea,’ Ethan admitted, ‘but it must be important to have it all set up, and the SEALS didn’t look like they knew what it was about either.’
    DuPont led them to their quarters, little more than a pair of bunks in a room barely larger than a broom cupboard.
    ‘You won’t be staying aboard for long,’ the Ensign informed them, ‘so this is really just a place to store your kit while we cross the sound. The briefing room is just a little further down the corridor, to the right.’
    Ethan thanked the Ensign, dumped his kit and thick polar jacket on his bunk and then headed straight for the briefing room with Hannah close behind.
    The briefing room was located a deck below the bridge and was dominated by a table covered with a sheet of Perspex, beneath which was a map of the southern hemisphere, the Antarctic at its center. Ethan figured that the captain and his officers used this room for detailed navigation and planning.
    The SEALS were already in the room, leaning against the walls and trying to remain inconspicuous despite the air of restrained violence that often enshrouded Special Forces troops. Around the map table were Chandler and Amy, both of them wrapped in winter weather clothing and whispering excitedly as a wall-mounted monitor at the far end of the room glowed into life and Doug Jarvis appeared upon it.
    ‘Ethan,’ Jarvis said, ‘I take it your team is in place?’
    ‘The ship’s already in motion and we should make Ross Island in a few hours,’ Ethan confirmed.
    ‘Good,’ Jarvis replied, ‘because we’ve uncovered more data regarding the Earth-based signals we detected answering those belonging to Black Knight.’
    The SEAL team leader, Lieutenant Riggs, stepped forward. ‘Can we expect any kind of resistance?’
    Jarvis appeared non-committal.
    ‘That’s uncertain at this time, as we simply don’t have enough data. What we do have is evidence that the signals are being emitted from a site that was originally occupied in 1946.’
    Ethan stared at the monitor for a long beat before he could speak. ‘Who the hell was up here in 1946?’
    Jarvis appeared as stunned as the rest of the crew as he replied.
    ‘According to what we’ve managed to uncover, the only country known to have established a base up here in Antarctica in the months following World War Two was Germany. Not only that, but we chased them up here in an attempt to destroy what they created.’
    Hannah Ford spoke up. ‘And what exactly did they create up here?’
    ‘A subterranean base,’ Jarvis replied, ‘and we’ve been trying to locate it for seventy years.’
    ***

IX
    ‘The Nazis had an Antarctic base?’ Ethan asked.
    The briefing room had fallen silent as the soldiers, scientists and Polar Star’s