Free The Citadel by Robert Doherty

His voice sharpened. "Listen, we were told everything about that place was classified. I mean, it was a long time ago and all that, but still, a guy can get in trouble."

Tai leaned forward in her seat once more and flipped the picture over. "They have your name on the back."

There was a long pause, and finally MacIntosh spoke, his voice resigned. "Yeah, I took those damn pictures. At first I didn't see what the big deal about the whole thing was anyway. It was an additional duty I was assigned: battalion historian. But they told us not to talk about it—national security and all that."

"Who are 'they'?" Tai asked.

"The big shots. High-ranking officers. Except I could tell they didn't know shit either."

Tai leaned back. "What about the air crews that flew you in there? Do you know where they were from?"

"There was only one air crew that did all the flights. I think they were home-based out of here—Hawaii. They sure didn't like the cold. Flew a big-ass seaplane that had been modified to land on ice." His eyes got a distant look. "No one liked the cold."

"You were with the 48th Engineers," Vaughn said.

"Yes."

"A company?" Vaughn added.

MacIntosh shook his head. "No. I was with Battalion staff. If I'd been with A Company, then…" His voice trailed off.

"Then what?" Tai pressed.

"Then I wouldn't be here. They all died."

"How?"

"Plane went down on the way back," MacIntosh said. "No survivors. Hell, they never found the plane or the bodies. Went down in the ocean. And it was a damn floatplane, so it had to have crashed, not made an emergency landing."

Vaughn glanced at Tai. He knew she was thinking the same thing he was—very convenient. And exactly the way Lansale had died.

"Why weren't you on the plane?" Tai asked.

"I should have been," MacIntosh said. "But I got evacuated during one of the supply runs. Actually, the last supply run before they pulled the company out. And since I wasn't on the company roster, I guess no one missed me on the last flight." He held up his left hand. "Frostbite. From taking those damn pictures. I got careless. You'd think I'd have known better after three months, but—anyway, I got the bite bad and needed to be medevacked. I hopped a ride on that plane. Never got listed on the manifest.

"From there they sent me on back here to Hawaii. One plane early. If I hadn't been medevacked…" MacIntosh fell silent.

"Where was the Citadel?" Tai asked.

"I don't know."

Tai frowned. "What do you mean you don't know? You didn't know where you were?"

MacIntosh tried to explain. "I mean, I knew we were in Antarctica, but I couldn't tell you where. We weren't allowed any maps. When we flew, they blacked out the windows in the hold of the MARS. No one in that company knew where the hell they were the entire time they were there."

"You had to have some idea," Tai pressed. "What direction from High Jump Station?"

"You ever been to Antarctica?" MacIntosh didn't wait for an answer. "The goddamn place is one big jumbled-up mass of ice and mountains. North or south?" MacIntosh laughed. "Compasses don't work too well down there. Do you know that the magnetic pole is farther north of the true South Pole than where they had High Jump Station? In fact, magnetic south from High Jump Station, which is now where McMurdo Station is located, is actually west if you look at a map. That was the most screwed-up place I've ever been. All I know is that the site was a little less than a four-hour flight by MARS seaplane from High Jump Station. You look at the pictures and you got as good an idea of where that place was as I do."

"What did the engineers build there?" Tai asked.

"They didn't really 'build' anything per se," MacIntosh said. "They put together a Tinkertoy set. It was all prefab," he explained. "They flew this thing in by sections, and the MARS was the only plane big enough to fit them inside of. Someone with a lot more brains than we had in our outfit designed that thing. Each piece could just