Keeping Secrets on Ice

Sunday Dec 30 2010. The gunman pressed the end of the barrel hard into the back of the other man's neck squeezing the trigger at the same time. The sound of the gunshot was partly muffled by the heavily padded hood of the victim's parka, the rest of it snatched away in the blizzard of wind and ice that swept over the two lone figures. The large calibre round entered the man's lower neck and exited through the other side of his skull, taking most of his face with it and spraying sizable chunks of bone and brains over the white surface. Feng's dead body collapsed like a wet sack. The killer knelt next to the body quickly going through the dead mans pockets. He found what he was looking for and carefully examined it. It was a cylindrical piece of ice that with the exception of the black globules near its centre was crystal clear. He retrieved a small plastic container from his own jacket and dropped the sample inside, sealing the lid.
The gunman stood for a moment, holstering the weapon and replacing the outer glove back on his gun hand. He watched with satisfaction as the drifting snow quickly covered the bloody evidence staining the ice. The body was also collecting snow and would be covered in minutes. In 70,000 years, as the ice floe continued its steady march north; they might find it at the other end of the lake. The man with the gun grunted and returned to the waiting snow tractor, climbing into the warmth of the cab.
The driver waited until he was seated then shifted the snow machine roughly into gear without looking up. "Wet feet?" he asked.
"Big fucking mouth," the gunman said, Frozen feet now.
"You think Feng knew you were going to kill him?"
The gunman thought about the exit wound, "didn't show in his face." He said, at least what was left of it. Hong Liu squirmed himself comfortably into the trucks seat. He worked for the Second Bureau of the Chinese Ministry for State Security, the Foreign Bureau, the one responsible for operations abroad.
"What about Hamilton?" The driver asked.
"If he sniffs around here again kill him." He looked through the windscreen into the blinding snow, the wipers scraped back and forth furiously in an almost futile attempt to maintain some visibility. But he wasn’t thinking about the snow, he was thinking about the Australian. Hamilton was a risk, too great a risk to leave walking and talking. He pulled his gloves off, checking his pocket for the cylinder. "Hamilton was talking to Feng,” He continued, “when the time is right..." Hong left the sentence hanging because he was really talking to himself, he knew if anyone were to find out about the ice core sample, China’s future would be gravely jeopardised.
The driver nodded. "We have agents in Australia, why not have them do it?”
"No,” Hong Liu said, a little troubled by the other mans complacence. “This I need to do myself.” What they were undertaking now would take many years to come to fruition and could turn the world and the balances of power upside down.
The driver had no idea what was in Hong’s pocket or what they were doing here. He didn’t want to know; in this case ignorance was bliss. Like Shultz in Hogans Heroes, his chances of survival were much better if he ‘knew nothing!’ anyone in the PLA could tell you that. He replayed the German accent in his head, he wasn’t about to try it out loud.
"Durnovo is preparing the drill site," Hong said shivering a little, but not from the cold. "We don't need any more complications like Feng." He looked at the driver. “Or we might join him.”
The driver inwardly shrank and looked away. Yes, the least said the better; Hong seemed to have an unusual degree of latitude with Beijing. He didn’t want to be Hongs next job. What ever they were doing was clearly worth killing for, not that that had ever been a problem.
He looked up and for a fleeting moment and saw the squashed orange pumpkin shape of the moon between the racing clouds of blowing snow. The squashed shape was due to atmospheric bending of light or refraction - an effect which is more severe closer to the horizon, something poor old Feng would never see again he thought, but something the driver wanted to see many more times.
On the way back to camp the driver tracked the moons path until it sank below the horizon, fearful now thinking somehow his fate and the moons presence were somehow entwined. As he watched the moon disappear, a whole world away and at the very same time someone else was watching it. Actually there were probably millions watching it, but most of them were mindless ponderings of something far away, something unreachable. The individual that mattered to this story was scouring its surface looking for something left behind from decades before, and he had one heck of view. The other important thing here was that this individual along with the snow cat driver and Hong had something else in common other than just the moon. A set of events had just been set in motion that bound them all together in a struggle that would pit them against each other, see two of them dead plus untold others and a planet on the brink of destruction.

Preface - Antarctica

Preface - Antarctica

Antarctica is home to more than 70 lakes that exist thousands of feet under the surface of the continental ice sheet, including one under the South Pole itself. Lake Vostok, beneath Russia's Vostok Station, is one of the largest of these sub glacial lakes hidden beneath 12,000 feet of ice. The Lake, a body of water the size of Lake Ontario, is over 155 miles long, 31 miles wide, and contains around 1250 cubic miles of water, a good match for Lake Superior.

There are more than 145 other lakes trapped under the ice. Vostok's two largest neighbours are referred to as 900E (named after the longitude) and the other Sovetskaya, named after the Russian research station coincidentally built above it. Like Lake Vostok, their icy waters have been sealed off from the surface for over 35 million years. The 900E Lake has a surface area of 2,000km2, which is about the size of Rhode Island, and is second only to Lake Vostok's 14,000km2 surface area. Sovetskaya Lake was calculated to be about 1,600 km2. Both are sealed beneath more than two miles of ice. The lake depths, estimated to be at least 900 meters, were calculated from gravity data taken during aerial surveys in 2000 and 2001.

Great Reader Feed back

Have received some great reader feed back:

I couldn't put it down. I read it in three days.
I have a "vast "collection of military thrillers, including DeMercurio, Clancy, Dale Brown, David Poyer, Steve Coonts, Larry Bond and Gordon Kent, and of course the two recent excellent books by John Birmingham. I honestly consider your writing equal to them all, and your research, illustrations and story weaving excellent. Stephen Taylor. Cabarita NSW

Plowright’s military thriller builds unbearable tension, placing unlikely heroes like the Defence Force’s Brian and Lance Hamilton, at the epicentre of a mounting crisis that, after a combination of totally unexpected events, threatens to destroy the planet. Lt. Col. (Ret) Richard Humby.

The best Australian military techno thriller I have ever read. Up there with Brown and Clancy. Senior Australian Defence Analyst.

The best Australian military tWas great reading, I couldn't pull my self away from it, often reading from 6pm (straight after work) till 4-4:30am the next morning! I have always enjoyed Tom Clancy's series and have found your storyline to be as good if not better, The action kept flowing continually! Peter Cheel

Couldn’t put it down. Read it in less than 12 hours. Maybe I read it too fast …Best book since Red October (and probably better) Peter Walshe

I've read all of Tom Clancy's and Larry Bond's books and happily rate 'Shotgun Onet' right up there with their work. It's so refreshing to have more original ideas being published with strong lead characters like the Hamilton brothers. Ryan Kennedy

Really liked the story line and thought the situation created was very possible. I thoroughly enjoyed the read - equal to most famous novelists I have read. Richard Cram.

Shotgun One

This blog has three purposes; the first is to blog my book series beginning with Shotgun One, the second is to add my research material and the third to discuss the numerous topics the books cover.

The books are military thrillers set in the present and near future. They follow the lives of two brothers; Brian and Lance Hamilton. The books are well researched and if you liked Tom Clancey's originals, you will love these. The action starts high in the skies over the Gulf of Oman and on the slopes of Afghanistan's tallest peak, Mount Sikiram.

A double spaced manuscript in pdf format can be downloaded from here: Shotgun One It's 11MB and page length 671

FAST DOWNLOAD
Pages 1-100 2.44MB Pages 101-200 3.46MB
Pages 201-300 1.61MB Pages 301-400 1.7MB
Pages 401-500 576KB Pages 501-600 545KB
Pages 601-672 321KB

Website: www.vostokstation.com.au