The Sixth Seal полностью

They used the compacted embankment to hike around the remodeled shoreline of Lake Untersee. The only familiar things were the shapes of the mountain peaks and the Sno-Cat. Yes, the lake was still present, but it didn’t look like their lake anymore.

Lake Untersee had been given a fresh start. So had Ritscher Peak, for that matter. The evil within the mountain had been destroyed; an evil that had unknowingly been plaguing Antarctica had been snuffed out.

They made it around to their Sno-Cat in complete silence. Once they climbed inside and got out of the bitter cold, they relaxed and took a moment to savor being alive. Hammet had beelined straight for the driver’s seat. Neither Zahra nor Yana argued. Zahra, once more, manned the other front seat. Yana had gladly taken the back bench seat again, only this time, instead of going over the team’s gear, she laid down and covered her face with the crook of her right elbow.

Zahra needed to do something, and she knew it would be cheesy as all hell. But it felt right.

She turned in her seat and faced her partners. “Hey.” Then she held out her right hand, palm down.

Hammet looked down at it and nodded. He placed his hand on top of hers.

Yana peeked around her arm and sighed. Then she flopped her hand over theirs.

“Yes,” she said, “go, team.”

Zahra smiled. “Thank you, both.”

Yana softly patted their hands, then removed them from the stack. Hammet did, too, though he dragged it across Zahra’s first. Her body broke out in another fit of goosebumps, and she quickly turned and looked the other way. She hoped he hadn’t seen her cheeks flush.

Stop embarrassing yourself, Zahra.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Where else?” Yana asked. “Back to the LC-130.”

Zahra agreed, but not just yet. “Make a stop at the Russian camp.”

Yana peeked around her arm again and looked at her. Zahra turned and smiled. “I want more guns first.” She winked. “Just in case.” They had lost their rifles, pistols, chest rigs, and ammo down in the hangar.

Yana ginned. “That’s my girl.”

“But in the meantime,” Zahra continued, “I need to call the office.” She snorted. “Well, shit.”

“What’s wrong?” Hammet asked.

Zahra closed her eyes and laid her head back. “We don’t have our sat phones.” She chuckled again. “They were in our packs.”

Yana sighed. “Which are now somewhere in the center of the earth by now.”

Hammet floored the Sno-Cat. “Let’s hope the Russians had a spare.”

Thankfully, the Russians did, in fact, have a spare satellite phone. There were several to choose from, actually. It took a couple of tries over the span of an hour, but Zahra was finally able to connect with TAC HQ. She was stunned when Solomon Raegor answered the phone instead of Eddy, though the other woman did announce her presence somewhere offscreen.

“Wow, that’s something,” he said. “I’m sorry I got you into this mess.”

Zahra laughed. “I’m not. You should have seen it, sir. Words don’t do it justice.”

“I’m sure they don’t. It’s not every day that one of my agents confirms the existence of extraterrestrial life.”

Zahra’s enthusiasm quickly deteriorated. “But it happens… some days?”

There was a pause. “Okay, this was a first.”

“Then why don’t you sound excited about it?”

“Because, Zahra, things like this tend to eventually bring about more problems. The Sixth Seal bothers me more than the, uh, aliens. Secret Nazi groups aren’t a new thing, mind you, but ones with these kinds of connections are.” He grumbled. “The fact that no one could pick up on Kyle Ford being a spy proves that much.” He sighed. “Looks like we have some digging to do on our end.”

“Careful digging,” Eddy added. “This is big, sir.”

“That it is. That it is…”

“What about the site, Zahra?” Eddy asked.

“Wiped clean,” she replied. “There’s currently a mountain sitting on top of it.”

“You sure?”

“Yep. The ship is gone too, though I have no idea where it went.”

Raegor softly chuckled. “Hopefully, very far away from Earth.”

Zahra couldn’t agree more. She didn’t care who the beings really were or why they were here. All that mattered was that they were now gone.

“How’s your fuel, Zahra?” Raegor asked.

“Fine. We raided the Russian camp and stocked up. We shouldn’t have any problems unless our transportation dies.”