Chapter 25 - The Frost Sanctuary
The volcanic plains of the Reykjanes peninsula looked like the surface of a dead moon. Fields of jagged black basalt stretched endlessly under a canopy of low, leaden clouds, punctuated only by plumes of white sulfurous steam hissing from cracks in the earth.
We drove a rented, mud-splattered four-wheel-drive SUV down an unmarked gravel road that snaked toward the mountains. Beside me in the passenger seat sat Arngrímur, an elderly Icelandic systems architect whom Clara had known during her first life in the Duncan empire. His beard was yellowed from cheap tobacco, his fingers calloused, but his credentials were unquestionable: he had designed the physical security architecture for Boreas Sovereign twenty years ago.
"The bunker was built during the Cold War as a secure relay station for NATO," Arngrímur said, speaking in gravelly, halting English over the rattle of the SUV's diesel engine. "Jonathan bought it in 2009. He reinforced the blast doors with twelve inches of tungsten-carbide steel. If the facility goes into lockdown, you cannot breach it with artillery. You can only enter through the intake tunnels of the geothermal cooling plant."
"How many private security contractors are on site?" Clara asked, inspecting the magazine of an Icelandic hunting rifle resting across her knees.
"Twelve. Maybe fifteen," Arngrímur replied, squinting through the mist at a cluster of low, brutalist concrete structures nestled against the side of a steaming volcanic ridge. "Ex-military. Hired through an offshore maritime firm in Malta. But they are not the problem."
"What is the problem, Arngrímur?" I asked.
"The automated defense grid," the old man said grimly. "Jonathan knows he is dying. When a man like that prepares for his own end, he does not trust his life to hired guns. The corridors are lined with algorithmic motion-tracking turrets and pressurized halon gas extinguishers. If an unauthorized biometric enters the primary server vault, the system vents the oxygen within forty seconds."
We crested the ridge, and the full scale of the facility came into view. It was a monstrous monument to corporate paranoia: a squat, windowless fortress of reinforced gray concrete, surrounded by three perimeters of razor wire and high-voltage fencing. A cluster of massive satellite uplinks pointed silently toward the gray Arctic sky, while heavy steam billowed continuously from the cooling towers at the rear.
"The cooling intake," Clara pointed through the binoculars. "Down in the volcanic trench. That’s where the water leaves the turbines."
"It is scalding," Arngrímur warned. "Eighty degrees Celsius. You have to navigate the maintenance catwalks above the drainage canal. One slip, and the water will peel the skin from your bones."
"We’ve survived worse," I said, checking the encrypted drive in my tactical jacket.
We parked the vehicle in a deep basalt depression half a mile out, cloaked by the drifting steam of a natural hot spring. The air outside tasted of sulfur and freezing frost. Clara handed me a lightweight balaclava and tactical goggles, her fingers lingering against mine for a brief, reassuring second.
"This is the final room, Evelyn," she whispered, her voice steady against the howling wind. "Whatever happens inside that concrete box, we do not leave him a way out."
May you like
"I don't intend to," I said.
We moved down into the trench, disappearing into the thick white clouds of steam, heading straight toward the mouth of the beast.
