The most striking feature of all, however, was the nose.
The ship had a hooked nose, a nose that pointed sharply downward, like the nose on the Concorde. The cockpit?a rectangular reinforced tinted-glass canopy?was situated right above the hooked nose.
A huge praying mantis, Gant thought. The sleekest, fastest?biggest?praying mantis that anyone has ever seen.
Gant realized that the others were also out of the water now, standing beside her on the frost-covered floor of the cavem, also staring up at the magnificent spacecraft.
Gant looked at her companions' faces.
Santa Cruz's mouth hung open.
Montana's eyes were wide.
Sarah Hensleigh's reaction, however, struck Gant as strange. Hensleigh's eyes had narrowed and she stared at the spacecraft in an unusual way. Despite herself, Gant felt a sudden chill. Sarah Hensleigh's eyes glowed with what looked dangerously like ambition.
Gant shook the thought off. and with the initial spell of the spacecraft broken, her eyes began to take in the rest of the gigantic cavern.
It took all of ten seconds for her to see them.
She froze instantly.
"Oh, God ...," she said, her voice low. "Oh, God...."
There were nine of them.
Bodies.
Human bodies, although at first it was hard to tell.
They were laid out on the floor on the far side of the pool?some lay flat on their backs; others lay draped over large rocks by the edge of the pool. Blood was everywhere. Puddled on the floor, splashed against the walls, lathered all over the bodies themselves.
It was carnage.
Limbs had been torn from their sockets. Heads had been wrenched from shoulders. Circular chunks of flesh had been ripped from the chests of some of the bodies. Exposed bones lay all over the floor, some of them splintered, others with ragged pieces of flesh still clinging to them.
Gant swallowed hard, tried desperately to keep herself from throwing up.
The divers from the station, she thought.
Santa Cruz stepped up alongside her and stared at the mutilated bodies on the far side of the pool.
"What the hell happened down here?" he said.
Schofield dreamed.
At first there was nothing. Nothing but black. It was like floating in outer space.
And then all of a sudden?whack?a glaring white light shattered Schofield's very existence, jarred him like an electric shock, and he felt searing pain like he had never felt before.
And then, just as suddenly as it had come, the shock vanished and Schofield found himself lying on a floor somewhere?cold and alone, asleep but awake.
It was dark. There were no walls.
He felt a wetness against his cheek.
It was a dog. A large dog. Schofield couldn't tell what type. He could only tell that it was big. Very, very big.
The dog nuzzled against his cheek, sniffed inquisitively. Its cold wet nose brushed against the side of his face. Its whiskers tickled his nose.
It seemed curious, not at all threatening?
And then suddenly the dog barked. Loud as hell.
Schofield jumped. The dog was barking madly now at some unseen foe. It seemed impossibly angry?frenzied, furious?baring its teeth at this new enemy.
Schofield continued to lie on the cold floor of the wall-less room unable?or just unwilling?to move. And then, gradually, the walls around him began to take shape, and soon Schofield realized that he was lying on the metal decking of E-deck.
The big dog was still standing over him, barking ferociously, snarling. The dog, it seemed, was defending him.
But from what? What could it see that he could not?
And then suddenly the dog turned and ran away and Schofield lay alone on the cold steel deck.
Asleep but awake, unable to move, Schofield suddenly felt vulnerable. Exposed.
Something was approaching him.
It came from the direction of his feet. He couldn't see it, but he could hear its footsteps as they clanged?slowly, one after the other?on the cold steel deck.
And then suddenly it was over him and Schofield saw an evil smiling face appear above his head.
It was Jacques Latissier.
His face was covered in blood, contorted in an obscene sneer. Ragged pieces of flesh hung loosely from an open wound in his forehead. His eyes were alive, burning with hate. The French commando raised his glistening knife so that it was right in front of Schofield's eyes.
And then he brought the knife down in a violent slashing?
"Hey," someone said gently.
Schofield's eyes darted open and he awoke from his dream.
He was lying on his back. In a bed of some sort. In a room with dazzling white fluorescent lights. The walls were white, too, made of ice.
A man stood over him.
He was a small man, about five-foot-three. Schofield had never seen him before.
The man was short and wiry, and he had two enormous blue eyes that seemed way too big for his small head. Large black bags hung beneath both of his eyes. He had messy brown hair that looked like it hadn't been brushed in months and two huge front teeth that were horribly askew. He wore a Kmart wash-and-wear shirt and a pair of blue polyester trousers; in fact, he looked decidedly underdressed for the near-freezing conditions inside Wilkes Ice Station.
And he was holding something.
A long-bladed scalpel.
Schofield stared at it.
The scalpel had blood on it.
The man spoke in a flat nasal voice. "Hey. You're awake."
Schofield squinted in the light, tried to lift himself up off the bed. He couldn't do it. Something stopped him. He saw what it was.
Two leather straps bound his arms to the sides of the bed. Two more straps bound his legs. When he tried to raise his head to further examine his situation, he found that he couldn't even do that. It, too, was strapped tightly down against the bed.
Schofield's blood went instantly cold.
He was completely tied down.
"Just hold on a minute," the short man said in his irritating nasal voice. "This will only take one ... more ... second."
He raised his bloody scalpel and ducked out of Schofield's field of vision.
"Wait!" Schofield said quickly.
The short man returned instantly to Schofield's view. He raised his eyebrows questioningly. "Yes?"
"Where ... where am I?" Schofield said. It hurt to speak. His throat was parched, dry.
The man smiled, revealing his crooked front teeth. "It's OK, Lieutenant," he said. "You're still at Wilkes Ice Station."
Schofield swallowed. "Who are you?"
"Why, Lieutenant Schofield," the man said, "I'm James Renshaw."
"Welcome back from the grave, Lieutenant," Renshaw said as he unbound the leather strap around Schofield's head. He had just finished removing the last three bullet fragments from Schofield's neck with his scalpel.
Renshaw said, "You know, you were very lucky you were wearing this Kevlar plate inside your collar. It didn't stop the bullet entirely, but it took most of the speed off it."
Renshaw held up the circular Kevlar insert that had previously been fitted inside Schofield's gray turtleneck collar. Schofield had forgotten all about his neck protector. To him, it was just another part of his uniform. Kevlar neck protectors were issued exclusively to Marine officers, as an extra defense against snipers. Enlisted men received no such protection, since enemy snipers rarely cared for corporals and sergeants.
With the leather strap around his forehead now removed, Schofield raised his head and looked at the Kevlar insert that Renshaw held in his hand.
It looked like a priest's white collar?curved and flat, designed to encircle its wearer's neck while remaining hidden inside his turtleneck collar. On one side of the circular Kevlar insert, Schofield could see a jagged, gaping hole.
The bullet hole.
"That bullet would have killed you for sure if it weren't fo
r your insert," Renshaw said. "Would've cut right through your carotid. After that there would have been nothing anyone could have done for you. As it happened, the bullet shattered as it passed through your Kevlar insert, so only a few small fragments of it lodged in your neck. Still, that would have been enough to kill you, and as a matter of fact, I actually think it did, at least for a short time."
Schofield had stopped listening. He was taking in the room around him. It looked like someone's living quarters. He saw a bed, a desk, a computer, and, strangely, a pair of black-and-white TV monitors mounted on top of two video recorders.
He turned to face Renshaw. "Huh?"
"Several fragments of the bullet lodged in your neck, Lieutenant. I'm pretty sure?in fact, I'm absolutely certain?that for at least thirty seconds, you lost your pulse. You were clinically dead."
"What do you mean?" Schofield said. He instinctively tried to raise his hand to feel his neck. But he couldn't move his arm. His arms and legs were still firmly tied down to the bed.
"Oh, don't worry, I fixed it up," Renshaw said. "I took the bullet fragments out and I cleaned the wound. You actually got a couple of Kevlar fragments in there, too, but they weren't a problem. In fact, I was just trying to get them out when you woke up." Renshaw indicated the bloody scalpel on a silver tray next to Schofield's bed. Beside the scalpel lay seven tiny metal fragments, all of them covered in blood.
"Oh, and don't worry about my qualifications," Renshaw said with a smile. "I did two years of medicine before I dropped out and took up geophysics."
"Are you going to untie me?" Schofield said evenly.
"Oh, yeah. Right. Listen. I'm terribly sorry about that," Renshaw said. He seemed nervous now. "At first I just had to keep your head still while I extracted the bullet fragments from your neck. Did you know that you move around a lot in your sleep? Probably not. Well, you do. But anyway, to cut to the chase, I figured what with all I have to tell you and all, it would be better if you were, well, a captive audience. So to speak." Renshaw smiled weakly at the pun he'd just made.
Schofield stared at him, unsure of what to make of this man named James Renshaw. After all, this was the man who only a week before had killed one of his fellow scientists. If nothing else, Schofield was certain of one thing. He did not want to remain tied up at this man's mercy.
"What do you have to tell me?" he said. His eyes swept the room as he spoke. The door on the far side of the room was firmly shut. All of the other walls in the room were ice.
"Lieutenant, what I have to tell you is this: I am not a murderer. I did not kill Bernie Olson."
Schofield didn't say anything.
He tried to remember what Sarah Hensleigh had told him earlier?way back when he had arrived at Wilkes?about the death of the scientist Bernard Olson.
Sarah had said that on the night Olson was killed, Renshaw had been heard arguing loudly with him. It was after that argument that Renshaw had stabbed Olson in the throat with a hypodermic syringe filled with liquid drain cleaner. Then he had injected the contents of the syringe into Olson's bloodstream. The other residents of Wilkes had found Olson dead soon after, with the syringe hanging loosely from his neck.
"Do you believe me?" Renshaw said in a low voice, eyeing Schofield suspiciously.
Schofield still said nothing.
"Lieutenant, you have to believe me. I can only imagine what you've been told, and I know it must look bad, but you have to listen to me. I didn't do it. I swear, I didn't do it. I could never do something like that."
Renshaw took a deep breath, spoke slowly.
"Lieutenant, this station is not what it appears to be. Things have been happening here?strange things?long before you and your men got here. You can't trust anyone at this station, Lieutenant."
"But you expect me to trust you?" Schofield said.
"Yes. Yes, I do," Renshaw said pensively. "And that obviously creates a problem, doesn't it? After all, as far as you're concerned, four days ago I killed a man with a hypodermic needle filled with industrial-strength Drano. Right? Hmmm." Renshaw took a step forward, toward Schofield. "But I intend to rectify this situation, Lieutenant Schofield. Conclusively. Which is why ... I'm going to do this."
Renshaw stood right next to the bed, towering over Schofield, his eyes hard.
Schofield tensed. He was totally defenseless. He had no idea what Renshaw was about to?
Snap! The leather strap around Schofield's left arm suddenly went limp and fell to the floor. A second later, the strap around his right arm did the same.
His arms were free again. Renshaw had released the leather straps that had bound them to the bed.
Schofield sat up as Renshaw moved farther down the bed and undipped the clasps that fastened the straps around his legs.
For a long moment, Schofield just stared at him. Finally, he said, "Thank you."
"Don't thank me, Lieutenant," Renshaw said. "Believe me. And promise me this: promise me that when this is all over, you'll check out Bernie Olson's body. Look at his tongue and his eyes. They will explain everything. You're my only hope, Lieutenant. You're the only person who can prove my innocence."
Now that he was free to move again, Schofield sat up on the bed. He touched his neck. It throbbed with pain. He looked at his throat in a nearby mirror. Renshaw had sutured the wound well. Nice, close stitches.
Renshaw offered him a rectangular length of adhesive gauze. "Here. Put this on over the stitches. It'll act like a Band-Aid, keep the wound tightly closed."
Schofield took the adhesive gauze and fastened it firmly over the wound on his neck. He looked down at the rest of his body. Renshaw had removed most of his body armor? he was dressed only in his full-body camouflage fatigues, with his gray turtleneck shirt underneath. He was still wearing his boots and his battered ankle/knee guards. His weapons? his pistol, his knife, his MP-5 and his Maghook?and his silver antiflash glasses all sat on a table on the far side of the room.
Schofield saw the room's closed door again, and something twigged in his memory. He remembered being told that the door to Renshaw's room had been sealed shut, riveted to its frame by Renshaw's fellow scientists. But he also remembered something else, something that someone had said only moments before he had been shot Something about Renshaw's door being broken down....
Suddenly Schofield asked, "How did I get here?"
"Oh, easy. I just stuffed your body inside the dumbwaiter and sent it up to this level," Renshaw said.
"No, I mean, I thought you were locked in this room? How did you get out?"
Renshaw offered him a sly smile. "Just call me Harry Houdini."
Renshaw crossed to the other side of the room and stood in front of the two television monitors. "Don't worry, Lieutenant. I'll show you how I got out of here in a minute. But first, I've got something here that I think you'll want to see."
"What?"
Renshaw smiled again. The same sly smile as before.
"How would you like to see the man who shot you?" he said.
Schofield stared at Renshaw for a long moment.
Then, slowly, he swung his legs off the bed. His neck stung, and he had a monster of a headache from the concussion. He walked gingerly across the room and stood next to Renshaw in front of the two television monitors.
"Aren't you cold?" he asked, looking at Renshaw's rather casual attire.
Renshaw pulled open his shirt, Superman-style, revealing a blue wet suit-like undergarment. "Neoprene bodysuit," he said proudly. "They use 'em on the shuttle, for space walks and the like. It could be a hundred below in here and I wouldn't notice it."
Renshaw flicked on one of the monitors, and a black-and-white image appeared on the screen.
The image was grainy, but after a few seconds Schofield realized what he was looking at.
It was a view of the pool at the base of the ice station.
It was a strange view, however?taken from an overhead camera somewhere?one that looked directly down on a section of the pool and its
surrounding deck.
"This is a live feed," Renshaw said. "It comes from a camera mounted on the underside of the bridge that spans C-deck. It looks straight down on the pool."
Schofield squinted as he looked at the black-and-white image on the screen.
Renshaw said, "The scientists who work at this station come down on six-monthly rotations, so we just inherit each other's rooms. The guy who had this room before me was a crazy old marine biologist from New Zealand. Strange guy. He just loved killer whales, couldn't get enough of them. God, he'd watch them for hours, liked to watch them when they came up for air inside the station. Gave them names and everything. God, what was his name ... Carmine something.
"Well, anyway, old Carmine attached a camera to the underside of the bridge?so he could keep an eye on the pool from his room. When he'd see them on his monitor, he'd hustle on down to E-deck and watch them up close. Hell, sometimes the old bastard would watch 'em from inside the diving bell, so he could get right up close."
Renshaw looked at Schofield and laughed. "I guess you're the last person in the world I should be talking to about having a close look at killer whales."
Schofield turned, remembering the terrifying battle with the killer whales earlier. "You saw all that?"
"Did I?" Renshaw asked. "Are you kidding? You bet I saw it. Hell, I got it all on tape. I mean, yikes, did you see those big bastards? Did you see the way they hunted? Did you see the complexity of their hunting behavior? Like the way they would always make a pass by their intended victim before they came in for the kill?"
"I must have missed that," Schofield said flatly.
"I tell you, they did it. Every time. Every single time. I've read about it before. You know what I think it is? It's the whale staking his claim. It's the whale telling all the other whales that this person is his kill. Hey, I could show it to you if you?"
"You said there was something else I should see," Schofield said. "Something about the man who shot me."
"Oh, yeah, right. Right. Sorry." Schofield just stared at Renshaw as the little man grabbed a videocassette and thrust it into the second video recorder. He was a strange man. Manic, nervous, and yet obviously very intelligent. And he talked a lot. It seemed that when he spoke, it all just came gushing out. Schofield found it difficult to determine exactly how old he was. He could have been anything from twenty-nine to forty.
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