Ice Claw dz-2

by David Gilman

  The pack merged into a semicircle, knowing it had run its prey to ground. Now it was only a matter of who went in for the kill first. Max locked eyes with the big wolf, raised his ice axe like a trophy and howled as loudly as he could. He’d made his profile bigger and his presence known in no uncertain terms. The wolves faltered. Even Sharkface felt his blood chill at the sound of Max’s howl.

  “Now!” Max said.

  They turned and sprinted for the crevasse. The wolves surged forward. Max’s foot hit the rim first, Sharkface, heavier and slightly slower, right behind him. Max bicycled his legs, like doing a long-jump on sports day. As his feet hit the far side, he threw himself down and slammed the ice axe into the ground. No sooner had he secured a firm grip than the chain yanked his arm backwards. He twisted, crying out in pain as his shoulder wrenched. Sharkface screamed. He hadn’t made the gap and had only managed to snag his ice axe on the edge.

  “Help me! Help me! Hurry!”

  Max dug his heels against a lump of ice, twisted his body and pulled his left arm towards his chest, taking the strain of most of Sharkface’s weight. The wolves snuffled and growled on the far edge, desperate to reach their prey, but they were helpless as they faced the gap.

  Sharkface could be seen just below the rim, his chained right hand clawing at the snow, the other through the axe’s wrist loop. Max shifted the strain of holding him to his legs, feeling the muscles in his thighs tighten. He held Sharkface, but now he was facing the wolves. He could smell their breath, and it seemed as though their snarling jaws could still reach him.

  Were it not for the backbreaking strain, he’d have taunted them, laughing in their faces, but if he didn’t get Sharkface off that rim the ice could give way and there’d never be the sound of laughter again.

  Max found firmer footing and brought his own ice axe free of the ground. Sharkface had managed to drag himself a little higher, but Max could see the sweat running off his face. This was ridiculous. He was trying to save the life of a boy who, the moment he was rescued, would try and kill him. Why didn’t he just slam the ice axe down onto the chain and sever it? He raised his arm and a shiver of lightning caught the blade.

  Sharkface wasn’t going to get a free ride.

  “Where’s my friend? What did Tishenko do with him?”

  “Go to hell!” Sharkface grimaced.

  “After you!” Max yelled, and dipped his shoulder as if to strike.

  “No! Wait! All right! The tunnel above the cages. He’s got him there. I swear it!”

  Max realized he must have been close to Sayid when Angelo Farentino had spoken those barbed words about his mum.

  “All right. You listen to me. I don’t know if these wolves are hungry enough to risk that jump, but if we keep our heads and we work together, we can get back to the mountain and stop Tishenko. You understand? You don’t owe him any favors.”

  Sharkface nodded. How much longer could Max bear his weight?

  Max pushed his ice axe down towards Sharkface, who grabbed it with his chained hand. Now they had an even purchase, and Max backed away, muscles straining as he pulled the floundering boy from the brink. Sharkface was clear.

  The exertion took its toll. Both slumped to the ice. The wolves ran backwards and forwards, trying to find a way of reaching them, but the big male stood still amid the scurrying. Max was on all fours and gazed past Sharkface to the wolf. A silent understanding, which Max could not have explained, bridged the void. The alpha male turned and loped away. Momentarily confused, the wolves seemed uncertain what to do, but then they too followed him. After fifty meters the pack’s leader turned his head, looked back at Max, raised his head and howled. The other wolves took up the cry. For a second it reminded Max of the siren at les Larmes des Anges.

  A warning.

  Sharkface attacked.

  28

  The axe scythed across the space between them. Max couldn’t bring his own axe to bear and block it. He flicked the chain instead, and the slack caught Sharkface’s pick’s serrated point, yanked and the blade dug into the ice a hand’s width from his thigh. It was a vicious attempt to disable him. He rolled, heaved on the chain, pulled Sharkface to him, shouldered his chest and, as he spun and the chain tightened, brought up his own axe.

  They slammed blows on each other. Max managed to get both hands on the length of his axe and block a vicious downward strike. He twisted Sharkface’s axe away but couldn’t follow through because of the chain. Sharkface was fast, his recovery instant. He swung left and right, bearing down on Max like a gladiator. The axes thudded and screeched as blade hit blade. Parry, thrust, lunge, strike, kick and shoulder-slam.

  This was a fight to the death.

  Both boys sucked in air, yelling to give their arms strength. A furious battle that could last no more than a few minutes, so intense was the assault. It was hand-to-hand combat in its most brutal form.

  They scuffed backwards and forwards into the icefield. Small crevasses making them turn on a heel, change position quickly, strike and block, a ballet of death. Max stepped inside a curving blow aimed at his back, grabbed Sharkface’s axe shaft, pulled as hard as he could and slammed the bigger boy’s chin with the top of his head. Something crunched and Sharkface spat blood.

  As Sharkface fell, he pulled Max down with him. The chain determined that neither could escape. Sharkface bucked and rolled, throwing Max clear. Max felt his feet slip into space. Another crevasse. He slid quickly. Now it was Sharkface who had to bear the weight. The edge crumbled. Max jolted downwards. He gasped. He couldn’t swing his axe and get a grip. It was only the chain holding him. His hand clung to a freezing-cold rock on the rim. Sharkface did not even hesitate. Max saw the look in his eyes as they locked on to Max’s wrist. If he chopped off Max’s hand he would save himself and kill Max. The axe was a blur. It swooped down like an executioner’s blade. Max twisted his arm. The blade struck the rock, severing the chain, and Max slid down the ice wall into darkness.

  The last thing he saw was his attacker peering over the edge. His bloodied mouth, like a shark’s having savaged its prey, and above him rolling black clouds torn by lightning.

  It was a vision of hell and the devil’s dark angel.

  An all-encompassing darkness swallowed him, its cold breath as dank as the deepest grave. After a few meters the ice wall curved into the crevasse, became a slide and scooped Max along. He reversed the ice axe, held the pick close to his armpit, leaned back and heard the grating tear as the blade dug in like an anchor. It was a terrifying, hurtling ride. He might drop into a void a thousand meters deep, or rocks could be lying in wait to mangle him. He pushed his heels together. He was slowing. He was sure of it. The huge black ice slide was flattening out.

  Now he was horizontal, his body still skidding but barely moving. He thumped into a wall of ice, grunted with fright and surprise, tucked his knees up and rolled. He lay still for a moment, then gingerly reached out to feel the ground around him. There was no drop. Perhaps he was at the bottom of the small crevasse, or on a ledge. He felt confident enough to stand, pushing his back against the cold wall. Lightning crackled somewhere overhead and, although he couldn’t see the sky, light bounced down. He was in a labyrinth. Dirty-looking ice, contamination from dust and rock, twisted this way and that, as if some great force had ripped it carelessly apart. He was on the bottom, grateful that the drop had been only about fifty meters. His hand touched the ice wall, like someone feeling their way in the dark. There was an almost negligible tremor under his palm. But it was there. A vibration.

  Every creak of slow-moving ice, every faint flicker across his eyelids from the ricocheting light, centered his thoughts. He liked the dark and trusted his instincts to guide him through it. Other senses came into play. He heard a slow, regular drip of water somewhere ahead and to the left. Probably ice meeting warm air; possibly an overhang that was melting slowly. The machine hum was far away and the cavernous, twisting walls distorted its source, but there was something else. A
smell.

  Wolves and bears can smell their prey kilometers away. No human could match this, but now Max’s senses went beyond such limitations. The musky smell of a bear and the tang of wolves reached into his mind and gave him direction. These were animals he already knew. The wolf pack and the polar bear. What was it that allowed their smells to reach him? Some kind of underground cave system, perhaps. Right now it didn’t matter. His senses told him that those animals were back where they belonged, at the mountain, and that there was a way out from down here.

  Max moved forward, one foot just nudging in front of the other, and then, when the reflected light filtered down from the sky into the underground world, he moved more quickly.

  It took over two hours to edge farther along the passageway until he was in such complete darkness that even the lightning could not penetrate. This was rock face now, not ice. He could hear a deep hum, and the vibration was much stronger. He listened, then let his hand follow the wall. It curved; he hugged it, edging along, and then he saw a thread of light. He followed it, more bravely now, confident he was not going to fall. Above him, cut in the side of what must be the mountain’s lower slopes, was a tunnel. It was easily three meters high and the same wide. Max clambered up, using the dim glow from the tunnel’s soft lights to find his way. The air moved down the passageway; it was this that had allowed the barely detectable smells to reach him.

  What appeared to be a pipeline ran through the tunnel. Max felt certain that the towers he’d glimpsed lay to his right and the mountain to his left. This was no pipeline carrying fuel; it was the high-energy conduit Tishenko was going to blast his energy source along to smash into whatever contraptions he had installed inside the mountain.

  Max heard a soft whine. He saw a steel rail above his head. Someone had to inspect this tunnel-and this was how they did it. Out of the tunnel’s gloom a slow-moving metal chair crept forward. It was double-ended so an observer could use either end, depending on the direction of travel. Max clambered on top of the pipe and, as the ski lift-type chair approached, climbed on board. A toggle stick, like a small gear lever, was set on the side arm. Max pressed it forward and the chair’s speed increased. This tunnel was bound to end at some kind of docking platform in the mountain. He leaned back; this was just like being a driver on the London Underground.

  A hard hat was placed strategically in a holder-clearly a necessity for the operator. Max ignored it-he’d live dangerously for once.

  A control room looked onto the docking area, and Max saw a white-coated figure sitting inside. As the chair emerged from the tunnel he eased himself, unseen, alongside the humming pipeline.

  Max knew there must be at least two vertical shafts that carried the lifts inside the mountain, and the various levels were both above and below him. He hunched and ran for a door marked with a zigzag sign indicating descending stairs, ever watchful of the person in the control room. The white-coated man looked up from what he was doing. Max froze. It is movement that catches the eye. The man looked right at him-and turned away. Max couldn’t believe it, but then realized that the platform was darker than the control room, and that fact, combined with the window’s reflection, would stop anyone from seeing past the glass. But Max was shocked to see the time on the clock above the man’s head: 9:57 a.m. It was as though the storm had swept away the hours. Max had less time than he thought before Tishenko blew the mountain apart at 11:34.

  The stairs were like a fire escape: reinforced steel bolted to the rock wall. Above him the tentacles of hundreds of cables snaked into the rock ceiling seventy-odd meters above his head. The crystal Tishenko had shown him must be up above somewhere. He ran down farther-another hundred steps. It was darker, quieter. He could see the hoist at the end of the passage. Two industrial-sized pipes of different thickness were bolted along the rock wall. He touched them. One was warmer than the other, which was ice cold, but without any condensation furring its sides. Both had gauges showing an unchanging pressure.

  What was down this end where the darkness led to a single blue glow? If Sayid was on this level, as Sharkface had said, where could he be other than towards the far end of the passage? Max was torn. The hoist would take him down to Farentino and the information about his mother. Who first? He ran down the passage.

  “Sayid? Can you hear me? Sayid? Where are you, mate?”

  There was no echo to his voice. The walls were closer here, muffling his words. Max listened. No response. He ran on. The air suddenly became freezing cold. He had stepped into the blue glow. He shuddered. It was an ice grotto. Max walked on, gripping the axe in his hand more tightly. Something was wrong here. It felt as though the ice was going to close around him, blocking the way out.

  That was when he saw Sayid.

  And knew his best friend was dead.

  Tishenko had given his final orders. The Citadel was guarded by twenty of his most faithful gunmen and a skeleton staff of scientists monitoring the equipment. Those who stayed awaited, with an almost fanatical zeal, the moment when the surge of power would create life. For many it was the culmination of years of devotion to creating a scientific miracle in an environment far removed from a sneering world. Fedir Tishenko was the chosen one for them.

  Tishenko stood alone inside the caged control room at the top of one of the two custom-built forty-meter-high towers that Max had glimpsed from the mountain. Lightning danced and clawed at the structures, but he was perfectly safe. The latticed steelwork crackled with high-voltage energy, but inside the cage lightning could not touch him. It was the only place where the electrical field was zero.

  Lightning coursed down through superconducting coils entwined about the towers. Each coil was made up of nine thousand filaments, each one-tenth the thickness of a human hair. Supercharged energy slammed its power into the underground acceleration chamber cut into the base of the mountain. The energy charges built up a huge source of millions and millions of volts, jamming particles together like nose-to-tail traffic on a packed motorway. When the massive power of cosmic high-energy particles seethed through the storm, delivering a lightning strike into his waiting hands, he would slam it into the particle accelerator like a high-speed van plowing into a traffic jam.

  The big bang.

  Sayid was suspended in a block of ice, as if he were floating in a deep sea. His eyes were closed, his lips slightly parted. A look of anguish creased his face. Perhaps there had been a moment before he slipped into unconsciousness when he tried to push away those constricting walls of ice.

  This chamber must be where Tishenko froze the animals. Cryogenic gas for deep-freezing was used to keep powerful heat conductors for the particle accelerator at manageable levels. Sayid had been slowly frozen to death.

  Max pressed his face against the ice. He’d failed to save his friend. It was all his fault. He could trace back every inch of their journey and chastised himself for allowing Sayid to tag along.

  A surge of violent, uncontrollable anger erupted. Max hacked the axe again and again into the ice. He stopped himself. It was a useless waste of energy. Sayid was embedded too deeply. Max swore at his own childish tantrum. Anger had blinded him to his friend’s intelligence and courage. Sayid had believed in him right until the end. Sayid’s hands pressed against the ice, and Max saw the unmistakable message written on his left palm. It was slightly blurred because of the ice, but it could be seen by its thick black lettering-an indelible-ink pen:

  CUT BEARD CLAW

  Cut bears claw? Max said it over and over in his head. He knew that Sayid had cracked the code, that the piece of paper with the magic square decoded the numbers on the crystal. Sayid had both. And in those last minutes before he died he had believed that Max would find him.

  “Well done, mate. You’re a bloody genius. And I’m not leaving you in there. I’m gonna get you home to your mum. I promise,” Max muttered.

  Bear’s claw? Where? How? Polar bear? Frozen bear? It defied understanding, but if this was Zabala’s coded message, the
n it was vital. Max clambered up behind the ice cage that held Sayid, his hand seeking out the fat warm pipe. He turned off the valve; the pressure gauge dropped. Balancing his feet against lower pipe work and his back against the rock face, he swung the ice axe as hard as he could.

  Water spurted from the gash, power-washing over the ice. Max had ruptured the pipe carrying geothermal water from deep below the ground. Its heat dissipated on the ice, steam filling the room.

  Max heard echoes of gunfire and small rapid explosions. The lights went out. For a few seconds it was pitch-black, and then a dull glow tried to lessen the darkness as an emergency generator kicked into life.

  There was an attack going on inside the mountain. Max watched the ice melt away slowly, but it would still take time to release Sayid’s body. Something rumbled above his head. It sounded like automatic doors being closed and then the final thump as they locked. Soft, deceptive gunfire carried down the hoist shaft. That meant the fight had moved farther away. If demolitions were being used and created any major malfunctioning of Tishenko’s equipment everything could blow up inside the mountain anyway-without Tishenko’s lightning surge.

  This place could end up as a tomb for both Sayid and Max.

  Max was dripping wet; steam soaked through his clothing. Sayid’s body had not moved as the hot water continued to gush over the ice block. The water flooded the passageway, spilling down the hoist shaft. Max heard someone crying for help. Farentino.

  The hoist still worked, and as it slowed its descent into the caged area, Max jumped clear. Farentino was at the front of his cage shouting, his arms jammed through the bars. Fumes and smoke from damaged machinery were beginning to fill the cavern.