Granger shrugged uncertainly, pushed his helmet microphone’s “talk” button. At the edge of the landing zone, a flight director was slicing his right hand across his neck in a throat-cutting motion. Granger watched him through the Plexiglas windscreen and felt a sudden crick of tension in his back.

“Rob, we got clearance from you not three minutes ago,” he said into his mouthpiece.

“I know,” the comm tech said. “And I’m sorry. This is an all-points travel advisory out of your home nest. NOAA synoptics show the storm’s accelerated on a north-easterly track. Present movement has it heading straight toward us over the Ross Shelf, and McMurdo says there’s been more strengthening to the system. We’re looking at a possible upgrade from Condition II. Over.”

Both men were silent in the chopper’s cabin. Its engines kept running. After a few moments Granger reached toward the instrument panel to cut them, then leaned back in his seat staring outward as the twin-turbine whine died away.

Nimec was still looking at him with a sunken expression.

“I don’t believe this,” Nimec said. His hand was balled into a fist against the metal frame of his window. “There anything we can do?”

Granger took a deep breath. This was about the worst foul-up he could imagine. The fucking worst.

“Nothing besides wait,” he said at last, and started unbuckling his harness.

Victoria Land

They raced ahead of the storm, the wind hard at their backs, streaking cross-country over miles of snow and ice.

The sky pressed down on them, a low flat deck of clouds. Whiteout had cut visibility to thirty yards, and each rider kept his eyes on the trail of the vehicle before him to avoid separation from the group, their headlights and reflectors of no use in the stirring mist.

In the lead position, Burkhart rode with his thumb heavy on the throttle, squeezing every last bit of speed out of it, his determination a red-hot knife stabbing a passage through the soft barrier emptiness.

He leaned forward as he straddled his seat, knees locked around its leather, gloved fingers tightly gripping its handlebars. The ’mobile dipped, then nosed up, pitching with the terrain’s rise and fall. Powder sprayed from its track in flying ramps, shredding across the curved surface of his windshield. He porpoised down into a steep trench, shot along its bottom, and topped its opposite bank at a full tear, skis springing over the snow.

He could feel the storm at his neck, tumid, angry, coursing overland with unexpected swiftness. Some of his men had wished to suspend travel, find a protected spot where they could hunker down until it lifted. Their tents were designed to withstand the force of the gale. But he’d insisted they bear on at a constant pace.

Let their targets be stationary captives of the elements. His team would be a moving force.