The Citadel

There was just the sound of the car's engine and tires on asphalt for several minutes as the man in the front seat considered that. "Area 51 is already on the radar. The whispers are out. We've got an excellent cover story for it." He fell silent once more, and Lansale waited in the backseat. "But the Citadel. That we ca

Lansale leaned forward. "The plan was always to make the Citadel 'disappear.'"

"Yes," the man agreed, "but the plan was for that to happen six months from now."

"I will accelerate the plan," Lansale said. "All links to the Citadel will be severed within seven days. I'll personally take care of it."

Antarctica, Approximately 575 Miles

East of High Jump Station

28 May 1949

"The last load," the young captain in the gray parka remarked.

"Amen to that," Captain Va

Capable of carrying over sixteen tons of cargo or 133 people, and with a wingspan over two hundred feet wide, the JRM-Mars was a workhouse that had allowed them to haul more cargo back and forth to this spot than a squadron of smaller planes.

Va

The sky was clear and the wind had died down. The weather report from High Jump Station written down by his copilot looked good, but Va

Va

Va

"Closing the ramp," the loadmaster a

Va

Whitaker simply nodded and clambered down the steps to take his seat in the rear.

"Let's do it," Va

Va

Va

The whole mission had turned strange after the initial order to support Operation High Jump, a massive exploration of Antarctica by the military. Almost their entire squadron had received the tasking and deployed south. But on arrival at High Jump Station, a cluster of Quonset huts set next to another ice runway on the shore of a large ice-covered bay, their plane had been detached from the others and given this strange mission to support Captain Whitaker and the Citadel. They'd been warned, in no uncertain terms, that they were not to discuss the mission with anyone.

"I've got the beacon clear," the copilot informed Va

As long as they kept the needle on the direction finder centered, they'd come in right on top of High Jump Station. That was another odd thing. They'd flown every mission on instruments in both directions, never once using a map, not that there were any maps available. As any good pilot would, Va

Satisfied all was going well, he kicked back in his chair to take a quick nap. He was going to need the rest since he was the primary pilot for the longer ten-hour leg from High Jump Station to New Zealand.

Three hours later he was awakened by the copilot. He could feel the plane descending, and looking out of the cockpit, saw the cluster of huts and tents and mounds of supplies that was the land-based hub of the Antarctic High Jump Expedition. Out the right window he could see the massive form of Mount Erebus, an active volcano dominating the horizon. Below lay the Ross Ice Shelf, the edge more than five hundred miles from its origin at the foot of the Queen Maud Mountains.

The copilot swung them around on approach. As soon as the skis touched the ice runway, he reduced throttle and used the flaps to break the plane. It was a long slow process as they slid down the strip, and Va

As they came to a halt, the copilot kept the engines ru