We entered a fog bank, a heavy white mist that seemed to stagnate over the base of the mountain. Over the next hundred yards, I became immersed in its emptiness, the mountain disappearing behind the mist and the knee-deep snow barely visible from one stride to the next. It was a complete whiteout except, of course, it was pitch-dark—olive-green in my vision. I would have lost it mentally had Ming not offered an occasional tug on the rope to reassure me I was not alone in this madness.

All but blind, I feared we could be walking in a giant circle, until I felt rock beneath my boots, the ground solidifying with each step. Another fifty feet elevated me above the fog, and I found myself at the base of the mountain, staring up at its snow-covered peak. Leaning against a boulder, I checked my GPS, which indicated I was in the green zone for Target One.

Ming joined me. She was shivering badly, approaching the threshold of hypothermia. Dropping to her knees in the snow, she handed me her sensory instrument. “Plant it for me. I’m too weak.”

I unscrewed the lead cap and popped out the device, careful not to handle the octagonal-shaped plutonium unit. Stretching out the telescopic antenna, I plunged the pole’s spiked end into the earth and snow, twisting it back and forth like a beach umbrella to deepen the hole before filling it in. After testing the stability of the pole, I powered on the sensory device.

Other than a reassuring hum, nothing happened. And nothing will until all three sensors are working and the array is established, dumb-ass.

I was taking another reading from the magnetometer when Ben emerged from the fog. He was sucking in lungfuls of air, on the verge of hyperventilating. “This… is… batshit crazy. Ming… you okay?”

She shook her hooded head no.

I pulled Ben aside. “Ming’s close to hypothermia. The way I see it, we have three choices. We can leave her here while we plant the other two devices, in which case her core temperature will continue to drop and she’ll probably die before we make it back to the sub, or we can send her back to the sub now while we plant the other two devices.”

“What’s the last option?”

“The three of us head back to the sub now and tell the Colonel to go fuck himself.”

Ben gazed at the mountaintop. “Ordinarily I’d vote for the last option, but there are ramifications. Whatever’s out here, it’s been generating incredible gobs of energy for fifteen million years, which means the three of us are standing on top of the single most powerful thing in the solar system, besides the sun. Agreed?”

“No, but go on.”