Ice Station ss-1

by Matthew Reilly

  It is so very cold.

  Gant looked at the naked body on the floor at her feet.

  Simon Wayne Daniels.

  She felt a pang of sadness for him. He had died here, alone. Buried alive in this cold, icy tomb.

  And then all of a sudden Santa Cruz's voice exploded across her helmet intercom, shattering her thoughts: "Montana! Fox! Get out here! Get out here now! I have a visual on enemy divers! I repeat! Enemy divers are about to come up inside the cavern!"

  The team of SAS divers made their way up the underwater ice tunnel with the aid of sea sleds. There were eight of them, and by virtue of their twin-propeller sea sleds they moved quickly through the water. All of them wore black.

  "Base. This is Dive Team. Come in," the lead diver said into his helmet communicator.

  "Dive Team, this is Base," Barnaby's voice came in over the intercom. "Report."

  "Base, time is now 1956 hours. Dive time since leaving the diving bell is fifty-four minutes. We have a visual on the surface. We are coming up to the cavern."

  "Dive Team, be aware. We have Intel that there are four hostile agents inside that cavern waiting for you. I repeat, there are four hostile agents inside the cavern waiting for you. Use appropriate action."

  "Copy, Base. We will. Dive Team out."

  Gant and Montana came sprinting back into the main cavern.

  They came up alongside Santa Cruz, who was manning the tripod-mounted MP-5s. He pointed down into the pool.

  Several ominous black shadows could be seen rising up through the clear aqua-colored water..

  The three Marines took up positions behind various boulders, MP-5s in their hands. Montana told Sarah Hensleigh to stay behind him and stay down.

  "Don't be impatient," Montana's voice said over their helmet intercoms. "Wait for them to breach the surface. It's no use firing into the water."

  "Got it," Gant said as she saw the first shadow rise steadily through the water toward the surface.

  A diver. On a sea sled.

  He came closer and closer, up and up, until strangely, just below the surface, he stopped.

  Gant frowned.

  The diver had just stopped there, about a foot below the surface.

  What was he doing?

  And then suddenly the diver's hand shot up out of the water and Gant saw the object in his hand instantly.

  "Nitrogen charge!" she yelled. 'Take cover!"

  The diver tossed the nitrogen charge and it bounced onto the hard, icy floor of the cavern. Gant and the other Marines all ducked behind their boulders.

  The nitrogen charge exploded.

  Supercooled liquid nitrogen splattered everything in sight. The gooey blue poxy smacked against the boulders the Marines were hiding behind, splattered against the walls of the cavern. Some of it even hit the big black ship standing in the middle of the enormous cave.

  It was the perfect diversion..

  Because no sooner had the nitrogen charge gone off than the first SAS commando was charging out of the water with his gun pressed to his shoulder and his finger jamming down on the trigger.

  The diving bell was almost at the surface now. It continued its slow rise upward.

  After Schofield had seen Barnaby feed Book Riley to the killer whales, his anger had become intense. He wanted to kill Barnaby. He wanted to rip his heart out and serve it up to him on a?

  Schofield untied the length of cable wrapped around his waist and ripped the two bulky sixties wet suits off his body. Then he grabbed his MP-5 and chambered a round. If he didn't kill Barnaby, then he was damn well going to take out as many of them as he could.

  As he readied his gun, Schofield saw a small Samsonite carry case on one of the shelves of the diving bell. He opened it. And saw a row of blue nitrogen charges sitting in a cushioned interior, like eggs in an egg box.

  The SAS must have left them here when they went down to the cave, he thought as he grabbed one of the nitrogen charges and put it in his pocket.

  Schofield looked outside. The killer whales, it seemed, had disappeared for the moment. For a brief instant, he wondered where they had gone.

  "What are you doing?" Renshaw said.

  "You'll see," Schofield said as he stepped around the circular pool at the base of the diving bell.

  "You're going out there?" Renshaw said in disbelief. "You're leaving me here?"

  "You'll be OK." Schofield tossed Renshaw his Desert Eagle pistol. "If they come for you, use that."

  Renshaw caught the gun. Schofield didn't even notice. He just turned around and, without even a second glance back at Renshaw, stepped off the metal deck of the diving bell and dropped into the water.

  The water was near freezing, but Schofield didn't care.

  He kept hold of the diving bell and climbed up one of its exterior pipes, pulled himself up onto its spherical roof.

  They were almost up at the station now.

  And as soon as they got there, Schofield thought, as soon as they broke the surface, he was going to let rip with the most devastating burst of gunfire the SAS had ever seen? aimed first and foremost at Trevor J. Barnaby.

  The diving bell rose through the water, approaching the surface.

  Any second now, Schofield thought as he gripped his MP-5.

  Any second...

  The diving bell broke the surface with a loud splash.

  And there, standing on top of it, holding onto its winch cable, dripping with water, was Lieutenant Shane Schofield, with his MP-5 raised.

  But Schofield didn't fire.

  He blanched.

  The whole of E-deck was lined with at least twenty SAS troopers. They stood in a ring around the pool, surrounding the diving bell.

  And they all had their guns trained on Shane Schofield.

  Barnaby stepped out from the southern tunnel, smiling. Schofield turned and saw him, and as he did so, he cursed himself, cursed his anger, cursed his impulsiveness, for he knew then that in the heat of the moment, in the pure anger that he had felt following Book's death, he had just made the biggest mistake of his life.

  Schofield tossed his MP-5 over to the deck. It clattered against the metal decking. The SAS commandos caught hold of the diving bell with a long hook and pulled it through the water toward the deck.

  Schofield's mind was working again, and with crystal clarity. In the moment that he had broken the surface and seen the SAS troops with their guns pointed at him, his senses had returned with all their force.

  He hoped to hell that Renshaw was keeping himself hidden inside the diving bell.

  Schofield jumped down off the diving bell and landed with a loud clang on E-deck. He breathed a hidden sigh of relief when the SAS commandos released the diving bell and let it float back out into the center of the pool. They hadn't seen Renshaw.

  Then two big SAS men grabbed Schofield roughly, pinned his arms behind his back, and slapped a pair of handcuffs around his wrists. Another SAS soldier frisked him thoroughly and pulled the nitrogen charge out of his pocket. He also took Schofield's Maghook.

  Trevor Barnaby came over. "So, Scarecrow. At last we meet. It's good to see you again."

  Schofield said nothing. He noticed that Barnaby was wearing a black thermal wet suit.

  He's planning on sending another team down to the cave, Schofield thought, with himself included.

  "You've been watching us from the diving bell, haven't you," Barnaby said, grinning. "But so, too, have we been watching you." Barnaby smiled as he indicated a small gray unit mounted on the edge of the pool. It looked like a camera of some sort, pointed down into the water.

  "One never leaves any flank unguarded," Barnaby said. "You of all people should know that."

  Schofield said nothing.

  Barnaby began to pace. "You know, when I was told that you were leading the American protective force on this mission, I'd hoped that we might get a chance to meet. But then, when I arrived, you flew the coop." Barnaby stopped his pacing. "And then I heard that you were last s
een flying off a cliff in a hovercraft and suddenly I was sure we wouldn't be meeting."

  Schofield said nothing.

  "But now, well"?Barnaby shook his head?"I'm so glad I was wrong. What a pleasure it is to see you again. It's really quite a shame that we have to meet in these circumstances."

  "Why is that?" Schofield said, speaking for the first time.

  "Because it means that one of us has to die."

  "My sympathies to your family," Schofield said.

  "Aha!" Barnaby said. "Some fight. I like that. That's what I always liked about you, Scarecrow. You've got fight in you. You may not be the greatest strategic commander in the world, but you're a damned determined son of a bitch. If you don't pick up something right away, you knuckle down and learn it. And if you find yourself on the back foot, you never give up. You can't buy that sort of courage these days."

  Schofield said nothing.

  "Take heart, Scarecrow. Truth be told, you never could have won this crusade. You were hobbled from the start. Your own men weren't even loyal to you."

  Barnaby turned to look at Snake Kaplan on the far side of the pool. Schofield turned to look, too.

  "You'd like to kill him, wouldn't you," Barnaby said, staring at Snake.

  Schofield said nothing.

  Barnaby turned, his eyes narrowing. "You would, wouldn't you?"

  Schofield remained silent.

  Barnaby seemed to think about something for a moment. When he turned back to face Schofield, he had a glint in his eye.

  "You know what?" he said. "I'm going to give you the chance to do exactly that. A sporting chance, of course, but a chance nonetheless."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, since I'm going to kill you both anyway, I figure I might as well leave it up to the two of you to decide who gets fed to the lions and who dies on his feet."

  Schofield frowned for a second, not understanding, and then he looked back at the pool. He saw the high black dorsal fin of one of the killer whales cut through the water toward him.

  The killers were back.

  "Unlock him," Barnaby called to the SAS soldiers guarding Snake. "Gentlemen, to the drilling room."

  With his hands cuffed firmly behind his back, Schofield was led down the southern tunnel of E-deck. As he walked past the storeroom, he stole a quick glance inside it.

  The storeroom was empty.

  Mother was gone.

  But Barnaby hadn't said anything about Mother before....

  They hadn't found her.

  The SAS men marched Schofield down the long, narrow corridor and shoved him into the drilling room. Schofield stumbled inside and spun around.

  Snake was shoved into the drilling room a couple of seconds later. His handcuffs had been removed.

  Schofield looked at the drilling room around him. In the center of the room stood the large black core-drilling apparatus. It looked like a miniature oil well, with a long, cylindrical plunger suspended in the middle of a black skeletal rig. The plunger, Schofield guessed, was the part of the machine that drilled down into the ice and obtained the ice cores.

  On the far side of the core-drilling machine, however, Schofield saw something else.

  A body.

  Lying on the floor.

  It was the crumpled, blood-smeared body of Jean Petard, untouched since Petard had been shredded by the hailstorm of shrapnel from his own Claymore mines several hours earli?

  "Gentlemen," Barnaby said suddenly from the doorway. It was the only way in or out of the room. "You are about to fight for the privilege of living. I will return in five minutes. When I return, I expect one of you to be dead. If, after that time, both of you are still alive, I will shoot you both myself. If, on the other hand, one of you is dead, the winner will get to live for a short while and die in a more noble fashion. Any questions?"

  Schofield said, "What about these cuffs?" His hands were still handcuffed behind his back. Snake's were free.

  "What about them?" Barnaby said. "Any more questions?"

  There were none.

  "Then, do as you will," Barnaby said before he left the room and closed the door behind him, locking it.

  Schofield immediately turned to Snake. "All right, listen, we have to figure out a way to?"

  Snake slammed into Schofield hard.

  Schofield was lifted clean off the floor and rammed with stunning force into the wall behind him. He doubled over, gasped for breath, and looked up just in time to see Snake's open palm rushing at his face. He ducked quickly and Snake's hand hit the wall.

  Schofield's mind went into overdrive. Snake had just come at him with a standard hand-to-hand combat move?an open-palmed punch that was designed to send the other guy's nose back into his brain, killing him with one hit.

  Snake was out to kill him.

  In five minutes.

  The two men were still close, so Schofield thrust up hard with his knee and caught Snake in the groin. Schofield leaped clear of the wall. Once he was clear of Snake and the wall, he jumped up quickly and brought his cuffed hands forward? under his feet?so that they were now in front of his body.

  Snake came at him with a flurry of kicks and punches. Schofield parried each blow with his cuffed hands and the two men parted and began to circle each other like a pair of big cats.

  Schofield's mind raced. Snake would want to get him onto the floor. While he remained on his feet, he would be OK? because even with his hands cuffed, he could still parry any blow Snake threw at him. But if they both went to the ground, it would be all over. Snake would have him in no time.

  Got to stay off the ground....

  Got to stay off the ground....

  The two Marines circled each other?on either side of the black drilling apparatus in the center of the room.

  Suddenly Snake grabbed a length of steel from the floor and swung it hard at Schofield. Schofield ducked, too late, and took a glancing blow to the left side of his head. He saw stars for a second and lost his balance.

  Snake was on him in an instant, launching himself across the room, tackling Schofield hard, driving him back against the wall.

  Schofield's back slammed into a power switch on the wall and instantly, across the room, the vertical plunger on the drilling machine suddenly whirred to life and began to spin rapidly. It emitted a shrill, roaring sound like that of a buzz-saw.

  Snake threw Schofield to the ground.

  No!

  Schofield hit the ground hard and rolled immediately?

  ?only to find himself lying face-to-face with Jean Petard.

  Or, at least, what was left of Petard's face after it had been ripped to shreds by the blast of the Claymore mines.

  And then at that moment?in that fleeting moment?Schofield caught a glimpse of something inside Petard's jacket.

  A crossbow.

  Schofield reached desperately for the crossbow with his cuffed hands. He got his hands around the grip, got ahold of it, and?

  ?then Snake crash-tackled him, and both men slid across the floor and slammed into the drilling machine in the center of the room. The sound of the spinning plunger roared in their ears.

  Schofield lay on his back, on the floor. Snake knelt astride him.

  And in a sudden instant, Schofield saw that he still had the crossbow in his hands. He blinked. He must have kept hold of it when Snake had crash-tackled him.

  It was then that Snake hit Schofield with a pulverizing blow.

  Schofield heard his nose crack and saw the blood explode outward from his face. His head slammed back against the floor. Hard.

  The world spun and for a fleeting instant Schofield blacked out. Suddenly he felt a wave of panic?if he blacked out completely, that would be the end of it. Snake would kill him where he lay.

  Schofield opened his eyes again, and the first thing he saw was the spinning plunger of the drilling machine hovering three feet above his head!

  It was right over the top of him!

  He saw the leading edge of the s
pinning cylinder?the sharply serrated leading edge, the edge that was designed to cut down through solid ice.

  And then suddenly he saw Snake move in front of the plunger, his face contorted with anger, and then he saw Snake's fist come rushing down at his face.

  Schofield tried to raise his hands in his defense but they were still cuffed together, pinned underneath Snake's body. He couldn't get them up?

  The blow hit home.

  The world became a blur. Schofield struggled desperately to see through the haze.

  He saw Snake draw his hand back again, preparing for what would no doubt be the final blow.

  And then Schofield saw something off to the right.

  The switch on the wall that had started the drilling machine. He saw three big round buttons on the switch panel.

  Black, red and green.

  And then, with startling clarity, the words on the black button suddenly came into focus.

  LOWER DRILL.

  Schofield looked up at Snake, saw the rapidly spinning plunger right above his head.

  There was no way Schofield could shoot Snake with the crossbow, but if he could just angle his hands slightly, he might be able to...

  "Snake, you know what?"

  "What?"

  "I never liked you."

  And with that Schofield raised his cuffed hands slightly, aimed his crossbow at the big black button on the wall, and fired.

  The arrow covered the distance in a millisecond and... ... hit the big black button right in its center?pinning it to the wall behind it?just as Schofield thrust his head clear of the drilling machine and the plunger, spinning at phenomenal speed, came rushing down into the back of Snake's head.

  Schofield heard the sickening crunch of breaking bone as Snake's whole body was yanked violently downward?headfirst?by the weight of the plunger and then suddenly, grotesquely, the plunger, its shrill buzzing filling the room, carved right through Snake's head and a flood of thick red-and-gray ooze poured out from his skull and then with a final sprack! the plunger popped out through the other side of Snake's head and continued on its way down into the ice hole beneath it.