She knew what she was seeing flew in the face of one of the most important treaties in existence. Since the early 1960s, the Antarctic Treaty had maintained that the continent was a scientific preserve and that no nation could claim sovereignty over any part of it. The accord also stated that it was illegal for signatories to mine for raw materials or drill for oil, on land or offshore.

Linc tapped her on the shoulder and pointed farther south. She saw what he was pointing at, a separate building away from the others, but she wasn’t sure what piqued his interest. She shot him an inquiring glance.

“I think that’s a missile battery.”

If he was right, that was another violation, she believed. She clicked off more than a dozen pictures with her camera, shooting through the night vision binoculars. They weren’t the best pictures, but they were at least proof.

Linc slithered back over the crest of the hill. “What do you think?” he asked when they were clear.

“I’d say the Argies have been busy. Did you notice the icebergs in the bay?”

“Yeah. Oil derricks.”

Linda nodded. “We’ve got to report this.”

A wind was starting to pick up. It wasn’t enough to cause a whiteout, but visibility was down dramatically, and after so much time exposed Linda felt the cold starting to seep through her clothes. Remarkably, she could still see her trail of nuts and washers.

Linc continued to scan all around them, so he was the one to spot the snowmobile. He pushed Linda to the ground hard enough to cause the air to explode from her lungs. They didn’t know if they’d been spotted, and a tense few seconds passed as the machine’s single headlamp bounced through the darkness.

Time stretched, and it looked like the driver hadn’t seen them moving, or, if he had, he though it was a trick of the wind. The sled’s motor was a piercing whine, but he continued to angle away from them. At the last second, the sentry jerked the handlebars hard over and drove straight for the prone pair.

Linc cursed, and brought his assault rifle to his shoulder.

He couldn’t see what the driver was doing because of the glare of its headlamp, but the crack of a shot carried over the engine’s beat. The shot went wild because the snowmobile was racing over rough terrain. The snowmobile was almost on them. Linc fumbled in his oversized mittens to flick off the safety, and when he realized he wouldn’t have time he lurched to his feet and swung the rifle like a baseball bat.

The gun hit the driver in the neck, and the kinetic energy of his forward motion coming against Linc’s tremendous strength ripped him off the back of the machine and sent him sprawling across the ice.