The realization hit Elena with physical force. There had never been a dying pilot trapped in the ice, and no recent accident had occurred. The capsule was simply an abandoned piece of Cold War espionage that had missed its target by half a world, swallowed by a glacier before any recovery team could reach it.
By morning, a heavy crane helicopter lifted the vintage satellite from the snow, hauling it away toward the main research station for preservation. The storm had cleared, leaving the massive, fractured ice wall bathed in a pale, freezing sunlight. Elena and Sam stood by their snowmobile, watching the sky where the helicopter had vanished.
The silence of the glacier had returned, but the haunting memory of the garbled voice still echoed in Elena's mind. They had risked their lives, battled the freezing storm, and nearly been crushed to save a ghost—an automated tape recorder calling out for a rescue crew that was never coming, to a nation that no longer existed.