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rear of the aircraft lowered onto the ice as vehicles drove up into their enormous interiors. The sound of the sixteen aircraft engines turning was a deep hum muted by distance.
    ‘They’re loading up,’ Charlotte said. ‘Why?’
    Cody had no answer for her, and any that he might have concocted was drowned out as a Bandvagen thundered toward them down the road, its headlights slicing through the darkness. They turned as the vehicle suddenly shuddered to a halt and four soldiers got out. Three of them were armed, their rifles held at port arms but their eyes watching Cody, Jake and Charlotte as an officer clambered from the cab and gestured to them.
    ‘What are you doing here?’ the officer demanded.
    ‘We saw the planes come in,’ Jake replied. ‘We wondered what was going on.’
    ‘Bradley Trent, Sauri. Where are they?’
    ‘At the field station, just south of the observatory,’ Jake answered.
    ‘How far away?’
    ‘Five clicks south of here. Why?’
    The officer looked past the compound toward the fading horizon, clenched his jaw for a few moments, and then turned to the three armed soldiers behind him. He shook his head and waved a level hand across his throat. The soldiers whirled and leapt back into the transporter.
    The officer clambered up into the BV’s cab.
    ‘Hey,’ Jake shouted as he scrambled down the bank. ‘What the hell’s going on?’
    Jake’s last words were drowned out as the BV’s engine was gunned and the vehicle thundered past in a cloud of snow and fumes. Cody watched as the vehicle’s tail lights wound their way toward the airfield. Minutes later, it was driven carefully into the back of the last Hercules in the line.
    Jake joined him again at the top of the bank and they watched in amazement as the four aircraft withdrew their boarding ramps and lined up on the runway.
    ‘They’re leaving,’ Charlotte gasped in disbelief. ‘They’re leaving us.’
    ‘Can’t be,’ Jake said. ‘It must be some kind of exercise.’
    The roar of the Hercules’ engines increased and one after the other they thundered away down the ice strip amid clouds of ice spray until their winking navigation lights climbed into the night sky and turned south. As the last aircraft faded away into the darkness, Cody felt a twinge of concern twist in his guts.
    ‘They wanted to take Bradley and Sauri with them,’ he said to Jake.
    Jake looked at the distant aircraft as they vanished from sight.
    ‘Get back to Alert Five and get on the radio,’ he said, ‘Find out what the hell is going on.’
    ***

5
    Cody hurried into the observatory compound, yanking his Arctic gloves and jacket off as he stumbled into the communications room.
    The computer was still on from when he had spoken to Danielle, and next to it was a bank of radios that linked to both terrestrial and satellite detectors. He glanced at his watch. A little after six in the evening. The time in Boston was almost the same as Alert and there would no doubt be somebody available back at MIT — the place never slept.
    Cody dropped into the chair and grabbed the microphone.
    ‘Boscombe Base, this is Alert Five, repeat, Alert Five, do you copy?’
    A long hiss of static was followed by a cheerful voice that crackled as it was distorted by atmospheric turbulence and the extreme range.
    ‘Well a very good evening to you Alert Five, how fares thee in thine icy…’
     
    ‘Guys, something’s going on up here and we need some help,’ Cody cut across the jovial reply. ‘The Canadian Forces Station just cleared out and abandoned us.’
    A long hiss of static. ‘You’re kidding.’
    ‘Would I joke about something like this?’ Cody snapped. ‘They’ve cleared out, flown south. You want to find out why?’
    ‘Yeah, sure. I’ll call back. Give me a minute.’
     
    ‘Great, make it fast okay?’
    Cody sat back in his chair and glanced at the monitor. The Internet Homepage of the Massachusetts’s Institute of Technology glowed back at him. Cody