“Sir, they weren’t freed. They all died in the fire, their remains burned to bits of charred bone. All told, there were sixteen fatalities, not including the foreigners. Eight were on the bridge of the cruiser, four plus a sentry in the plant, two died in the fire with the prisoners, and two more were killed when men panicked and started shooting at shadows.” That last piece of news was especially hard to deliver because Jimenez had been in charge, and the lack of discipline reflected on him. “We have found absolutely no evidence that this was anything more than a tragic accident.”

The General didn’t comment. He was still grappling with the quadruple loss—his wife and their two young children, his son, and, most assuredly because of this calamity, his career. He stared fixedly ahead, his body moving only when the snowcat bounced over a rough patch. They rounded the last hill, and the base was spread before them. Seen from above, the damage to the gas-processing plant looked bad. From ground level, it was far worse.

Half of the building, which had been big enough to park two jumbo jets, was a smoking hole in the ground in the center of tons of torn and blackened pipes. The Admiral Guillermo Brown was tied to the pier, her back half appearing normal, while from her bridge forward she was a charred husk. It was a testament to her Russian builders that more men aboard her hadn’t perished.

Out across the bay stood the legs of three of the production platforms. Of the rigs themselves, only the spindly arms of deck cranes poking above the waves marked their locations. Ice was already forming around them, and within another few days the bay would be a solid sheet.

“Mr. Laretta says that we can still pump oil to the storage tanks from the surviving rigs, but, without any means to process the natural gas, we have no way to power the operation,” Jimenez said when the silence became too much for him. “But he did say that portable machines can be brought in that will give us some processing capabilities and allow us to start rebuilding.”

Espinoza continued to sit like a stone.

“We still need to evacuate most of the staff until we can get fuel down here and the processor is up and running. Laretta says he needs just twenty men, at first. There will be more later, to be sure, but for now there aren’t enough resources to keep the rest alive. I forgot to ask, General, when are the other planes coming?”