Read Subterranean for Free Online Page B

silent.
    She tried to extract more from him. “How did you get hitched with such a dull assignment? Guarding a bunch of scientists.”
    â€œI volunteered,” he mumbled.
    She crinkled her nose. Not exactly the expected decision of a career military man. No prestige, no glory, stationed at the ass-end of the world. “Why?”
    He shrugged his shoulders. “I have my reasons.” He unbuckled his seat belt and climbed out of the seat, grumbling about using the restroom.
    Alone, she went back to studying the landscape passing below the skis of the aircraft. Sun reflected off the ice. The more she got to know her teammates, the less she seemed to understand them. But what else was new? She never understood people. Look at her marriage. A honeymoon that lasted eight years until one day she came home early from a dig—nauseated by morning sickness—and discovered her husband in their bed with his secretary. No warning signs. No lipstick on a collar. No blond hair on his jacket. Nothing. A mystery to her.
    Ashley placed a hand on her belly. Scott’s infidelity was not the worst of it. She remembered the cramping pain and the rush of blood. The emotional overload from his betrayal had triggered a miscarriage. Losing the child had almost destroyed her. Only Jason, then seven years old, had kept her sane.
    Even though years had passed, a part of her ached when she remembered how much she had lost. Not just the baby, but her faith in people. She refused to let herself be so gullible, so vulnerable again.
    Slumping into her seat, she stared out the frosted window. Just at the edge of the horizon, a tower of smoke rose into the air, a dark signature against the blue sky. She sat up straighter. As the plane droned on, the source of the gray plume appeared, rising from the flat surface like some awakening giant. Mount Erebus.
    The interior of the Dodge van reeked of cigarette smoke and bounced in rough sync with the bass beat of a Pearl Jam cassette. A tired midday sun protruded wanly over the summit of Mount Erebus. The driver, a young Navy ensign, bobbed his head to the music. “Almost home,” he called over his shoulder. “Just around the next ridge of ice.” The road from Williams Field to McMurdo Base was a rough-hewn stretch of carved ice. With a final molar-jarring bump as they circled the ridge, Ashley viewed their destination.
    She swiped a glove over the steamed passenger window. The other team members were doing the same. Beside the blue ice shelf encasing the Ross Sea, McMurdo Base was a black smudge. An industrial complex of gray buildings dwarfed by a huge junkyard to the south. The van trundled past an ignited trash dump fuming oily smoke into the blue sky.
    A Navy helicopter screamed over the van, the pressure and sound vibrating the windows. Jason covered his ears. The base buzzed with other helicopters. Ashley tapped the driver on the shoulder. “Is it always this busy here?”
    The driver gave her a thumbs-up sign. “This is a slow day,” he yelled.
    She leaned back into her seat. Great.
    Blakely smiled. “We’ll only be stopping here for a couple of hours, then we’ll proceed directly to Alpha Base. It’s much quieter down there.” He glanced wistfully out the window. “Actually, after a year or so, you get accustomed to the commotion and smell up top here. I almost miss it.”
    â€œSeems like a lot of pollution for a scientific station,” Linda said with a grimace. “These surrounding biocommunities are fragile.”
    Blakely shrugged. “We’ve been allocated a ten-million-dollar cleanup fund. It’ll get better.”
    â€œI sure hope so,” Linda said.
    They were dropped off near a cement-block building. Ashley tightened her parka around her; the wind burned as it whipped across her cheeks. Frostbite could set in within mere minutes if unprotected. Her teammates dashed for the entryway. She made sure