The massive, British-built Westland Sea King helicopter designated Weyland 14 flew through a brewing storm. Outside, leaden clouds roiled and wind gusts intensified, making for a bumpy ride, but the Sea King’s shudders and sudden dips went unnoticed by one passenger.
Alexa Woods slept soundly, sprawled inside the chopper’s main cabin. She was still clad in the cold-weather gear she’d been wearing when she’d been plucked from the Himalayas. A copy of Scientific American lay open across her chest. On the cover there was a recent photograph of the founder and CEO of Weyland Industries, and the headline read “Charles Bishop Weyland, Pioneer of Modern Robotics.”
Standing at the window near Lex was a tall, skinny man with gangly limbs and a prominent Adam’s apple. On his nose was perched a pair of bottle-thick glasses; he gripped a digital camera in his hand. He placed the camera on a seat in an attempt to take his own photograph. On his first try, all he succeeded in doing was blinding himself. On his second, the chopper lurched and he bumped into Lex.
“Sorry,” the man said when Lex woke. She nodded and was about to close her eyes again when he said, “But since you’re awake, would you mind?”
He held up the camera and tried to flash Lex a seductive smile. It only made him look geeky.
Lex took the camera and snapped the photo.
“I’m documenting the trip for my boys so they know that their father wasn’t always boring,” the man explained. He reached into his parka and pulled out a thick wallet of photographs. He presented a picture to Lex.
“That’s Jacob, and that’s Scotty,” the man said proudly.
“They’re cute,” Lex said out of politeness. “Is this your wife?”
“Ex-wife,” he replied. Then the man thrust out his hand. “Graham Miller, chemical engineering.”
They shook.
“Alexa Woods, environmental technician and guide.”
“Do you work for Weyland?”
Lex shook her head.
“I split my time between working for a small environmental foundation and taking scientists on expeditions on the ice. One pays for the other and neither pays very well.”
“The ice?”
“Arctic and subarctic environments, the Himalayas, Antarctica—”
Just then the copilot stuck his head into the cabin. “Lex, you and your friend buckle up. We’re close to the ship now, but we’re going to hit some major turbulence.”
Lex buckled her seat belt. Miller sat down across from her and did the same.
“Friend of yours?” he asked.
“Of my dad’s. He trained most of the pilots down here. During the summer my sister and I tagged along.”
“Does your sister work with you?”
Lex nearly laughed at the notion. “No way. She hates the cold, moved to Florida. If you see her skiing, she’s being pulled by a boat.”
The copilot, back in his seat, turned and yelled from the cockpit.
“Just passed the PSR!”
“Damn,” said Miller, clutching his camera. “I wanted a picture.”
“Of what?”
“The PSR. They should really call it out before they pass it.”
Lex shook her head. Where’d this guy come from? “The PSR is the point of safe return,” she gently explained to him. “It means we’ve used more than half our fuel so we can’t turn back.”
Miller visibly paled.
“We could ditch,” Lex added to the engineer’s relief, "… but the temperature of the water would kill us in three minutes.”
Miller grew a bit paler as the helicopter continued to shake and rattle.
“Antarctica,” Miller said softly as he gazed out of the window.
Captain Leighton stood, legs braced, on the ship’s heaving bridge and squinted through rain-soaked windows. Gray, foam-flecked waves crashed over the bow of the pitching vessel while stinging wind lashed the superstructure. At this time of year, there were long nights and short days this close to Antarctica, with a continuously twilight sky that seemed forever dominated by roiling purple clouds. The storm that battered the ship showed no sign of abating, and powerful gusts sent salt washes across the deck.
Leighton, who’d spent close to forty years at sea, had navigated the Cape of Good Hope many times before, and he didn’t need to check the barometer to know that weather conditions were only going to get worse. The first European to circumnavigate this region in 1488, Bartholomeu Dias had christened these waters Cabo Tormentoso—“The Cape of Storms” in Portuguese. On days like this, Leighton wondered why the cape’s original name hadn’t stuck.
“Weyland 14 to Piper Maru. We are on approach,” announced a voice through the crackling of the ship’s radio.
Captain Leighton slipped on a hands-free communicator and spoke into the microphone. “This is Piper Maru. You’re cleared for landing, but watch yourself, Weyland 14. We have severe wind shear. It’s going to be rough.”
He broke communications with the aircraft and faced his executive officer. “Gordon, I want you to send out a crash team, just in case. Put them on deck, but out of sight. We don’t want to spook the fly boys.”
The bridge crew chuckled.
A few moments later, they watched from the relative comfort of the command deck as the huge helicopter touched down on the storm-tossed icebreaker. Sailors hurried into the rain to lash down the aircraft with hooks and cables.
After the engines powered down, the side hatch slid open, and the passengers disembarked, crossing the steel deck in the pelting rain.
From his command position, Captain Leighton counted the bodies through water-streaked windows. “Two new arrivals. I hope we have enough room.”
Silently Max Stafford appeared at the captain’s shoulder. “This should be the last of them.”
Down on the tossing deck, the final passenger to disembark was Lex Woods. Itchy, stiff, and tired, she’d paused at the chopper’s hatch before finally stepping onto the slick metal deck. After being plucked from her mountain perch, she’d shuffled from helicopter to private jet to helicopter again, crossing entire continents and vast oceans without benefit of clean clothes, a long bath, or adequate REM sleep. Now that she’d reached what she hoped was her final destination, Lex had little patience left. Whatever billionaire industrialist Charles Weyland had in mind for her, she certainly expected to find out sooner rather than later.
A hot meal wouldn’t hurt either, thought Lex. The last thing she’d ingested, other than the caviar canapes and smokehouse almonds on Weyland’s private jet, had been a Ziploc bag of cold yak jerky back on Khumbu.
After disembarking, Lex quickly caught up with her fellow traveler. Miller, the photo-happy Chem. E., was having trouble finding his sea legs.
“Careful!” Lex cried as she deftly caught the lanky, bespectacled man before he fell. Scrambling to retrieve his suitcase, Miller accidentally kicked it. The case hydroplaned like a hockey puck across the deck’s slick surface, and Lex snatched it up before it tumbled over the side.
“My savior! Thank you,” Miller gushed in unembarrassed gratitude. He gazed at Lex through dewy glasses thicker than the windows on a bathysphere. When Lex handed the young man his suitcase, she noticed his sneakers were already sopping wet.
“You need to find some better shoes.”
Miller shrugged. “I came straight from the office.”
So did I, Lex thought.
Fighting wind and rain, they made their way across the ship, Lex striding and Miller stumbling. Ahead, a sailor waved them forward with a red flashlight, toward metal stairs that led below deck, down into the ship’s hold.
From his position on the bridge, Max Stafford watched, amused, as the stunning Lex walked side by side with the awkward Miller.
“Alexa Woods… unusual first name,” he remarked to Captain Leighton.
It was another man who responded. “She’s named after her father, Colonel Alexander Woods, United States Air Force.”
Captain Leighton turned toward the deep voice to find a muscular man swaggering onto the bridge. Max continued to stare out the window.
The newcomer grinned, an unlit Cuban cigar clenched between his white teeth. Quinn radiated a raw, animal power and usually spoke with testosterone-fueled vulgarity, though his brutishness was blunted by quick wit and an innate intelligence. His sinewy frame and leathery skin reflected his life lived at war with the elements. Prickly stubble lined his square chin, and unruly, sandy-blond hair protruded from the sweat-stained rim of a battered cowboy hat.
Quinn touched the brim in a casual salute to the captain, then sauntered over to join Max Stafford at the window.
The two men stood side by side watching the lovely, athletic African-American woman stride across the pitching deck with perfect balance, oblivious to the storm swirling around her.
“Her old man was a tough bastard with a big reputation on the ice. Probably wanted a son,” said Quinn. After a pause, his jaw muscles clenched. “He got one.”
“Nice toys,” murmured Lex in a stunned breath as she moved farther into the cavernous main hold of the Piper Maru.
Tracked vehicles, heavy lifting and earth-moving machinery, prefabricated shelters, electric generators, hydraulic apparatus, harsh-weather gear, oxygen tanks, saws and handheld digging tools crammed the vast area. Thanks to her father, Lex had already experienced more Antarctic expeditions in her twenty-eight years than most scientists saw in their lifetimes, but she’d never before seen this amount of expensive equipment in one place.
Vehicles—including ten Hagglunds—dominated the deck, while mountains of packing crates were secured to the four walls. Most of the crates were branded with Weyland Industries’ ubiquitous W—the same W that Lex had seen on every damned vehicle, jumpsuit and flight attendant uniform during her trip to this icebreaker.
In one corner of the mammoth hold, Lex noticed a makeshift briefing area. Dozens of folding chairs had been arranged in an unbalanced circle around packing crates piled high enough to create an elevated stage.
Lex estimated there were thirty to forty other passengers milling around the hold, ogling the expedition toys. She divided them into two groups—scientists, of which she was one; and roughnecks, the folks who would be operating the heavy machinery. The latter were a different breed, common in Antarctica and one that Lex was, unfortunately, all too familiar with.
Lashed down in the center of the hold was a pair of enormous vehicles, each roughly the size of an eighteen-wheeler. Lex recognized them from her stint as an environmental specialist at the Natural and Accelerated Bioremediation Research Center at the Oak Ridge National Laboratories. They were self-contained mobile drilling rigs equipped with multi-spectrum sampling labs, though the prototypes at ORNL were nowhere near as advanced as these models. She approached the machines to get a better look. A moment later, Miller appeared at her side, sans luggage and wearing dry clothes.
“That’s some pretty fancy gear over there,” she noted, nodding toward the drilling rigs.
Miller nodded. “Wonder what it does?”
Before Lex had a chance to tell him, someone else did.
“Well,” said Sebastian De Rosa, stepping up to them. “That right there”—he pointed to a collection of pipes on the side of the machine—“is a sophisticated thermal exchanger. So my guess would be some kind of drilling device based around heat.”
Miller raised a finger. “Don’t tell me… physicist?”
“Archaeologist, actually,” said Sebastian. “My colleague Thomas and I have an interest in anything that digs or tunnels.”
“The mystery grows,” Miller said, obviously enjoying every minute of this adventure. “We have a chemical engineer, an archaeologist, and an environmentalist. I even met an Egyptologist over there. So what are we all doing on the same boat?”
Sebastian arched an eyebrow. “I presume one of us is the murderer. That is the tradition, isn’t it?”
Lex smiled, her first since her forced departure from Nepal. She could not help being charmed. When Lex noticed an unusual object dangling from a leather thong around his neck, she asked him, point blank, “What’s with the bottle cap?”
“It’s a valuable archaeological find,” he replied without a trace of irony.
Miller, meanwhile, had become so insatiably curious about the drilling rigs that he climbed a metal ladder to investigate without permission. He stood on top of one machine, then climbed down the opposite side. The cab was unlocked, so Miller hopped behind the wheel and began bouncing around like a kid on a hobby horse.
Suddenly, Miller was surrounded by four large, muscular men wearing battle fatigues. They wore tags that read Verheiden, Boris, Mikkel, and Sven. None of the men was smiling. Instead, they were looming. Sitting between them Miller looked like a thread of dental floss. The biggest man—Verheiden—had a long scar running down his cheek. He thrust his head into the cab and leaned into Miller’s face.
“Having fun?”
Miller nodded. “My first real adventure. I can’t wait to tell my kids about all this.”
Verheiden sneered. “This might be an adventure for you, Dad, but for the rest of us it’s a job. Get off the equipment and go back to the suburbs before you walk us all off a cliff.”
When Miller didn’t respond instantly, Verheiden yelled, “Keep your hands off the hardware or you’ll be wearing your ass for a hat!”
Miller quickly scrambled out of the cab as Lex approached.
“Nice team spirit,” she said.
Verheiden looked at Lex, then at Maxwell Stafford.
“Keep the Beakers away from the gear,” he barked.
Max Stafford sighed. A meticulous organizer, he had worked long and hard to put this very expensive expedition together. The last thing he needed was a personality clash, which led to bruised egos and wasted energy. The endeavor they were about to embark upon was too important for either. He stepped between Miller and Verheiden’s team.
Verheiden turned his back on Lex and Miller and contemptuously surveyed the collection of overeducated, underdeveloped brainiacs milling around the hold, examining everything as if they were peering through electron microscopes.
“Just keep the goddamn Beakers away from my gear,” he snarled again.
This time Verheiden’s remark evoked applause, catcalls and derisive laughter from his own men and some of the roughnecks.
“What’s a Beaker?” Miller asked.
Lex crossed her arms. “It’s what they call scientists out here. You know… Beaker? Like in The Muppet Show?
Miller’s face lit up. “Beaker… I kinda like that.”
“The briefing is to start in five minutes,” said Max Stafford. “Please take your seats.”
Sebastian De Rosa found a place in the front row, close to the makeshift podium. As he sat down and crossed his legs, Thomas hurried across the hold to his side.
“Weyland’s check cleared.”
“Good,” said Sebastian. “We’re going to listen to whatever he has to say. We nod, we smile, and then we politely decline whatever offer he makes, take the money and head back to Mexico.”
Five minutes later, everyone in the mammoth hold was seated in folding chairs, grouped together by profession. The muscle—Verheiden, Sven, Mikkel, Boris, and Adele Rousseau—sat together in one clique; Quinn, Connors and the roughnecks in another. The third group was more casual and was comprised of the scientists and researchers from diverse disciplines that Charles Weyland had assembled from the four corners of the world.
Stafford noticed that Lex had aligned herself with them.
As an experienced leader of men, Max Stafford felt the tension rippling through the ship’s hold like charged particles before a lightning strike. Some of the heightened emotion was due to the team’s uncertainty about why they’d been brought here and what was expected of them. But once these people were made aware of the reasons for this voyage, uncertainty would be replaced by other emotions—scientific curiosity and the joy of discovery, perhaps, along with baser instincts like greed and ambition.
Forging such a diverse group into a functional and efficient team would be a challenge, Stafford decided as he stepped onto the makeshift platform. Then again, his job usually was.
“Everybody, please, your attention!” Stafford announced into the microphone. His amplified voice reverberated hollowly in the cavernous space.
“Most of you already know me, and I know all of you, by reputation if not yet personally. My name is Maxwell Stafford and I’ve been authorized by Mr. Weyland to assemble this team—”
Suddenly a pale hand fell on his shoulder. Max turned.
“Mr. Weyland,” he said, surprised.
“Thank you, Max. I’ll take it from here,” Charles Weyland replied. Stafford stepped back, and the billionaire leader of the mysterious expedition took center stage.
Though well into his fourth decade, not a trace of gray could be seen in his thick shock of black hair. With his broad, commanding forehead, wide mouth, piercing, ice-blue eyes, and sinewy frame, Charles Weyland looked more like a sports enthusiast than an industrialist—an illusion he fostered by appearing in public with a golf club slung over his shoulder. Waiting patiently for the murmurs of surprise and recognition to fade, Weyland twirled his nine iron once, then leaned on it with both hands.
“I hope you’ve all had a chance to freshen up, perhaps catch a little sleep,” he began. “I know some of you have just arrived, and all of you traveled a long way to be here, and at very short notice. Let me assure you, however, that your journey has not been in vain.”
The lights in the hold dimmed, and a digital projector illuminated a large square of the peeling metal bulkhead behind the platform. Weyland stood silhouetted in the light.
“Seven days ago one of my satellites over Antarctica was hunting for mineral deposits when a sudden heat bloom beneath the earth outlined this—”
The square of white light was replaced by a hazy, red-and-yellow-hued satellite image. Outlined in blood red on a background of pale yellow and burnt orange, a pattern of interlocking square shapes was clearly visible.
“This is a thermal image,” Weyland continued, gesturing with his nine iron. “The red lines indicate solid walls. The orange, solid rock. My experts tell me it’s a pyramid. What they can’t agree on is who built it and when….”
Sebastian De Rosa found his interest piqued for the first time since he’d arrived on the ship.
“What caused the heat bloom?” Thomas asked.
“We don’t know. But one expert tells me that this feature is reminiscent of the Aztecs….”
The image behind Weyland shifted angles.
“Another tells me that this is probably Cambodian….”
Yet another satellite image of the pyramid silhouette appeared on the wall over Weyland’s shoulder.
“But everyone agrees that the smooth side is definitively Egyptian.”
Thomas, an acclaimed Egyptologist, nodded in agreement.
“Why would anyone build a pyramid out here?” Miller asked.
“Ancient maps show Antarctica free of ice,” said Thomas, echoing his mentor Sebastian’s theories. “It’s likely that the continent was once habitable.”
Sebastian De Rosa rose and stepped closer to the image on the wall. Weyland’s penetrating blue eyes searched him out.
“Mr. De Rosa?”
“I think your experts are right.”
“Which one?”
Sebastian smiled. “All of them. The Egyptians, the Cambodians and the Aztecs all built pyramids. Three separate cultures that lived thousands of miles apart—”
“With no communication between them,” Thomas added.
“Yet what they built was almost identical.” Sebastian stepped right up to the wall and stared at the projection. “This is clearly a temple complex. A series of pyramids, probably, and there is the ceremonial road connecting them.”
Sebastian De Rosa’s words caused a ripple of excitement on the Beaker side of the room. Pausing for effect, Weyland swung his nine iron with one hand, then rested it on his shoulder.
Oblivious to the growing clamor, Sebastian remained focused on the projected image. “Almost identical,” he said again.
“Meaning what, exactly?” Lex asked.
“This might be the first pyramid ever built,” Sebastian replied.
Miller scratched his head. “Built by whom?”
It was Sebastian De Rosa who replied, in a voice that barely contained his growing excitement. “The master culture from which all others are derived,” he announced.
“If it could be the first pyramid, it could also be the last,” Weyland said. “An amalgam of the ones that came before it. There’s no proof of any connection between the cultures you cited.”
Sebastian shook his finger at the image. “This photo is the proof.”
Weyland smiled at Dr. De Rosa, somewhat condescendingly, Lex felt.
“I can’t tell you who built it,” said Miller, speaking up. “But if I could take a sample from it, I could tell you how old it is.”
“Within how many years, Professor?” Max Stafford asked.
“Actually, it’s Doctor,” Miller replied. “And I’ll give you the exact year… I’m that good.”
“Well, Doctor Miller,” said Weyland, “I’m offering to put you right next to the thing.”
Lex stared at the image, clearly puzzled. “Where exactly on the ice is this thing?”
“Bouvetoya Island,” Weyland answered, sending a sickening jolt through Lex. “But it’s not on the ice. It’s two thousand feet under it.”
The thermal image of the pyramid disappeared from the wall, to be replaced with a satellite image of what looked like a Montana ghost town in the winter.
“The pyramid is directly below this abandoned whaling station, which will serve as our base camp.”
A babel of voices erupted from all sides.
Weyland pointed his nine iron at the tall roughneck wearing a cowboy hat. “Mr. Quinn.”
The man rose. When Lex spied him she frowned.
“Mr. Stafford, Mr. Weyland,” Quinn began. “You’re looking at the best drilling team in the world. We’ll chew to that depth in seven days.”
“Add three weeks on top of that to train everyone here,” Lex Woods said.
On the podium, Weyland shook his head.
“We don’t have that kind of time. I’m not the only one with a satellite over Antarctica. Others will be here soon, if they’re not here already.”
“Maybe I wasn’t clear,” said Lex. “No one in this hold is ready for this trip.”
Weyland offered Lex a smile meant to be charming. It reminded her of a hungry shark.
“That’s why I invited you here, Ms. Woods. You’re our expert on snow and ice.”
Lex didn’t like being put on the spot, as was obvious from her expression. But she refused to back down.
“Bouvetoya is one of the most isolated places in the world,” she said. “The nearest land is a thousand miles away. There’s no help for us if we run into trouble.”
Weyland nodded. “You’re right. It’s a no-man’s-land. But the train has left the station. I think I speak for everyone aboard this ship—”
The image behind the billionaire shifted again to show another angle of the mysterious buried pyramid. Weyland pointed to it with his nine iron.
“—This is worth the risk.”
Lex looked around the room. She saw curiosity, interest, and greed etched on the faces all around her. But no fear. Not even the slightest apprehension. And that’s what concerned Lex the most.
The projected image vanished and the lights returned.
“That concludes our briefing, gentlemen—and ladies. Mess call is in ninety minutes. I hope you enjoy it. I had the chef flown in from my hotel in Paris… the filet mignon will be excellent.”
Charles Weyland looked directly at Lex Woods. “Will you be joining us?”
Lex turned her back on the billionaire and strode across the hold.
“Find another guide,” she called over her shoulder.