Greer found that there was a universal readiness among extraterrestrials to engage in peaceful communications with the common man rather than our appointed leaders, who have downed dozens of crafts using EMP weapons over the last five decades. There are no secrets when communicating through the conscious mind, so if a human participant possesses a dark agenda, contact is cut off. CE-5 participants believe warfare and the use of nuclear weapons have led to Earth’s isolation, our visiting E.T. ambassadors seeing humanity as an aggressive, divided civilization armed with knowledge that could lead to self-destruction. As such, these entities are hesitant to share advanced technologies until a lasting world unity and peace is achieved.

The fact that one of them had chosen to share its knowledge with me gave me hope that I could use Greer’s CE-5 protocols to communicate outside of Lake Vostok.

What was I hoping to accomplish? In truth, I didn’t know. I felt desperate and alone, and Susan’s murder had rattled my nerves. With my son’s life hanging in the balance, I needed something—anything—that might give me an edge, be it information or a weapon… or an alien ally whom I could convince to free my family.

After consuming a mug of clam chowder in the Davis cafeteria, I returned to my room to change into my extreme weather gear. I was pulling on my boots when I heard a phone playing the Rolling Stone’s Gimme Shelter, one of my favorite songs. Searching the room, I traced the sound to a cell phone stuffed inside my pillowcase.

A text had been sent.

Dragonslayer: FOLLOW THE SHORELINE NORTH AND AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.

My pulse raced. Only one person had ever called me Dragonslayer—my father.

I quickly finished dressing. Slipping the phone inside my jacket pocket, I left my room and headed out of the nearest exit, my face cloaked behind goggles and a ski mask.

It was dusk and curtains of green light were already forming in the eastern sky by the time I made my way down to the frozen surface waters of Prydz Bay. I followed the shoreline north as instructed, abused by a twenty-knot wind carrying a wind chill of minus thirty-five.

I heard someone trudging through the snow behind me. It was my guard. He was following me on a parallel course farther inland, trying to stay out of sight.

The cell phone vibrated in my jacket pocket. I pulled it out, using my body to conceal its light from my shadow.

WALK OUT ONTO THE BAY 200 PACES AND STOP.

The bay? They must be sending a helicopter. I glanced overhead, listening for rotary blades. Would MJ-12 shoot it down? Did my intended rescuers know I had a tracking device circulating through my bloodstream?