“Why did he think that?”
“He mentions that some of the maps he reviewed in Constantinople had notations that suggested an Egyptian origin. And according to archaeologists, the ancient Egyptians were plying the seas as far back as 3500 B.C.”
“So close to six thousand years ago,” Gray said. “When the coasts may have been free of ice. But what do these charts have to do with Darwin?”
“After returning to England, Darwin grew obsessed with discovering more about what he had encountered at the place he named Hell’s Cape. He collated ancient maps and searched records of great antiquity, looking for any other mention of this place. He also tried to understand its unique geology.”
“What’s unique about it?” Kowalski asked. “Looks like a big cave.”
“It’s much bigger than you can imagine. All of it warmed by geothermal activity. In fact, when Darwin found the mouth of this cavern, it was stained bloodred with iron oxides that steamed forth out of the opening, rising from a boiling sea of iron-rich salt water found deep below. On the other side of the continent you can find a similar geological formation—called Blood Falls—in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, near your American base.”
Gray could only imagine what that ominous sight must have looked like to those Victorian-era men aboard the Beagle.
“Darwin’s obsession overtook his life, so much so that it delayed the publication of his famous treatise on evolution, On the Origin of Species. Did you know it took him almost twenty years after his voyage aboard the Beagle to publish his groundbreaking work? We know it wasn’t fear of controversy that delayed the publication. It was something else.”
Harrington waved his hands over the set of maps. “It was this obsession. Additionally, what he discovered in these caves, I believe, may have even been instrumental in helping him formulate his theory: of species evolving to fit an environmental niche, of survival of the fittest being the driving force of nature. Such a theory is certainly proven out here.”
Gray’s curiosity piqued even stronger.
What is hidden here?
“How large is this cavern system?” Jason asked.
“We can’t say for sure. Ground-penetrating radar is useless due to the miles of ice that cover the continent farther inland. Any such surveys are further complicated by the fact that this system extends beneath the coastal mountains.”
Gray pictured the fanged ridge of the Fenriskjeften crags.
The professor continued. “But we’ve sent drones with radar equipment as far as we could into the system. I estimate that the tunnels and caves could span much of the continent, maybe reaching as far as Lake Vostok, or even the Wilkes Land crater, which opens up some intriguing possibilities about the origins of what we found. And we may have some corroboration of its massive size from historical sources.”
“What historical sources?” Jason asked.
“The Nazis . . . specifically the head of the German navy at the time.”
“Admiral Dönitz.” Jason cringed as soon as the name left his mouth, inadvertently revealing that they had previous access to some of these D.A.R.W.I.N. files.
But Harrington never responded. Maybe he assumed such knowledge was commonplace. Though Stella did cast the young man a curious glance.
Harrington continued. “Dönitz claimed the Nazis had discovered an underwater trench that tunneled through the heart of this continent, formed by an interconnecting series of lakes, rivers, caves, and ice tunnels.”
Gray recalled Jason sharing the German admiral’s words from the Nuremberg trials, of the Nazis’ discovery of a paradise-like oasis in the middle of eternal ice.
Jason spoke again, more slowly, plainly cautious after his slip-up. “You think the Nazis discovered this cavern system during the war?”
“They weren’t the only ones. Did you know the U.S. government set off nuclear bombs in this area? They claimed they were merely doing atomic testing, but it makes me wonder if perhaps they were trying to clean up a mess, trying to kill something they had inadvertently let loose. It was in that same area that a unique virus was discovered in 1999, one that seemed universally pathogenic.”
Gray remembered how that discovery had intrigued both Hess and Harringon, who described it as the key to Hell’s gate.
“It was Dr. Hess who recognized the unique genetic code found in that virus, something very different from our own. It was a marker that led us to eventually discover this place, though it still took another eight long years to find the mouth of this cavern system.”
“Until the continent melted enough to reveal its secrets,” Gray said.
“Precisely.”
Jason cleared his throat. “But how are you so sure the Germans and Americans were ever here?”
“Because—”
A loud boom shook the world, rattling the windows in their frames. Everyone initially ducked, expecting the worst, but as the superstructure held, Gray ran low toward the row of windows overlooking the giant hangar. He reached it in time to see one of the giant steel doors fall free of its track and crash into the space, flattening one of the parked floatplanes.
Black smoke billowed into the hangar. Shapes in snow-white polar armor rushed through the cover of that cloud.
It had to be Major Wright’s team.
Gunfire erupted.
A couple of British soldiers dropped, but one reached a machine-gun mount and began firing at the enemy. The chugging of the weapon was loud enough to reach the top of the superstructure—until a rocket struck the man’s position with a thunderous explosion.
“Let’s go!” Harrington said, tugging on Gray’s sleeve. “We can’t let them unleash hell upon the world!”
Gray allowed himself to be led to the opposite side of the bridge, chased by the sounds of the ongoing battle below. At the back wall, the professor ducked through the same set of drapes through which he had entered.
Gray followed, drawing everyone with him.
Beyond the drapes, a long passageway extended toward the rear of the superstructure. Their boots pounded along the steel floor. The tunnel ended at a glass-enclosed observation deck on the back of the station. It was attached to the cavern roof. From the gondola parked beside it, this glass-and-steel perch also served as a trolley stop for the overhead track system.
Gray reached the deck at Harrington’s heels.
As the view opened up before him, he drew to a stop, too stunned to move, to speak.
The same could not be said of everyone.