Beneath the Dark Ice (17 page)

“No! I am not leaving this device here. It’s a prototype
and represents millions of dollars and years of research. I demand to be allowed to take it with us; if the device stays, then we all stay.”

“That’s your choice, Dr. Silex, but everyone else will be sticking together and finding a route back to the surface. I won’t try to drag you along.” Alex looked back at the cave where the creature had attacked them and then looked back at Silex. The inference was clear: you’ll be here by yourself and that thing is just down in there. Silex looked at Alex with a mixture of fear and hatred and turned to find Aimee; she shook her head and turned her back on him. Silex ground his teeth and then began to swear under his breath as he tore off his backpack and roughly ripped the image resonator and several other small boxes from the webbing and flung them over his shoulder. Alex watched them loop slowly in the dusty air before bouncing and cartwheeling across the fallen boulders, giving off a spray of sensitive electronic debris as they went.

Alex turned away from Silex to face the tunnel where Mike had just disappeared. He knew the injured HAWC was hurting and now he had just been sent by himself back into a cave where he had been attacked by a creature from a nightmare. Mike hadn’t flinched as he rushed to follow his instructions. Good man, thought Alex.

Aimee came up beside Alex. “Are you OK?” She laid her hand on his arm and looked into his face.

Alex nodded in Silex’s direction. “I get the feeling he doesn’t like me anymore. But I feel safer with you here—you can be pretty terrifying, you know.” He smiled and she smiled back.

“Who were those guys that attacked us? Dr. Silex was right; they did seem to know you.”

“They were Russian Special Forces. I’ve come across the big one before. He shot me and left me to die on the
other side of the world. I can only guess they were sent to retrieve or destroy the work we’re doing. The world is hungry for oil, Aimee, and how the world gets it is of secondary concern these days. Anyway, forget that, how are you?”

“Don’t worry about me. My dad always said I was steel wrapped in velvet. I’m tough.”

“Good, I think we’re all going to need to be tough before we see daylight again.” He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. She looked like she wanted to say something but didn’t know how to start. Alex’s comm pinged. “Mike, report in.”

“All clear and quiet.”

“OK, come back in, we’re moving out.” Alex turned towards the chosen tunnel and hopefully their path back to the surface.

It heard the boom of the falling rock and hesitated. A cave-in was one of the only things it feared. Also, the noise and vibrations made it impossible to hunt in the caves. It held its place and waited until it was sure there were no major rock falls that could crush it. It could smell the floating debris and dust from the cave and also detected the scent of fresh blood but could not risk entering a weakened cavern. It would take another route, as it sensed one of the little warm animals moving fast through the upper passages.

Pieter Dragan had been a Krofskoya agent for three years and had never failed a mission. He was not sad that his comrades had been killed. Borshov was a psychopath and made killing a prolonged game to savour, when it should have been quick and surgically efficient. His time wasting had been his downfall; too bad.

Pieter was racing back to the American’s jerry-bridge
when his night vision lens picked up a flicker of blurred movement, and then a human shape appeared standing beside the bridge at the edge of the ravine. It was a girl, and she was holding what looked like a baby. Pieter flattened himself against the wall; there didn’t seem to be anyone else and the girl looked harmless and a little lost; she also looked dripping wet.

The girl didn’t move or speak and when Pieter called to her, she seemed to glide a little closer. Maybe she came from the airplane crash and had been wandering around lost all this time. But how did she get down so deep by herself—and in the dark? Pieter stood up and called to her again, in the few words of English he knew. “Hello, who are you please, you identify, yes?”

The girl shape leaped forward and crashed into Pieter with a wet smacking sound. The pain was excruciating as several dagger-like tusks pierced his flesh. He could not push himself away from the girl as she seemed covered in foul-smelling glue and now even his face was stuck to hers.

Panic set in as he was pulled by an unbelievable strength towards the edge of the rift. His last vision through his night scope was of being hoisted over the cliff edge and drawn down into the blackness where something large and liquid-sounding waited hungrily in the depths below.

Alex distributed the useful items and food among the remaining non-military team members. The long rifles he left behind; though he would have liked the extra firepower, he decided instead to travel light and fast. He also managed to recover one of the handguns which he gave to Aimee. Silex protested, but there was no way Alex would put a loaded firearm into that man’s hands. He figured that even though the guns fired hard impact rounds as opposed to the HAWCs’ safer compressed air armaments, the danger from the creature far outweighed the danger from ricochets.

Alex checked his watch; it was only twelve hours until the chopper arrived to evacuate them. He knew the pilot wouldn’t be expecting to hear from them until they were at or near the surface, and when they weren’t there he would wait several hours and then call it in. That meant they probably had around fifteen hours to make it back to the surface—a walk in the park, if there were no more cave-ins, and if they didn’t stop from fatigue or hit a dead-end or were attacked.

The team marched in silence through the dark for several hours until their cave abruptly ended in a jumble of fallen rocks.

Monica put her hands on her hips and looked over the pile of broken stone, nodding to herself as though she’d
been expecting it. “It’s a boulder choke. In simple terms it means the passage has been filled by rocks in some ancient collapse.”

“And she’s the expert? Great choice—four hours walking for nothing. Now I guess we walk all the way back and take door number two.” Monica ignored Silex and clambered over the fallen boulders until she found what she was looking for at the very base of the pile.

She went straight to Alex. “As I expected, it looks like there might be a way through, a small choke hole, but I’ll need to check its length and depth.”

“Do it,” Alex said.

“Give me twenty minutes.” Monica looked at Alex and caught his expression. “OK, give me ten.” She removed her backpack and placed it on the ground in front of a small opening between the boulders. From the pack she took a small stick of red chalk which she held between her teeth. She tied a rope around her waist, and prepared to dive head first into the hole when Matt grabbed her ankle.

“Just one thing.” He got down close to Monica and whispered in her ear. “Be careful, come back.” She smiled and with her chalk drew a little red heart on the back of his caving glove and then, pushing her backpack in front of her, slithered forward and disappeared.

Everyone seemed to hold their breath as they focused on the small opening in the wall of stone before them. The only sound was a slight whistling coming from Silex’s nostrils as they all willed Monica to return safely. Aimee used her arm to wipe a trickle of perspiration from her eyes and tried to swallow; it hurt. Her throat was dry and sticky—Margaret had been right, water was going to be a problem. Her eyes were like glass as she thought of the two cheerful medics. Bruno always wanting to lend a hand; looking like an overstuffed sausage in his cave
suit—executed for trying to rescue his colleague. And poor Margaret—Aimee shuddered at the thought of her final moments at the hands of the brutal assassin. It’s over for them now; they’re probably better off, she thought. The rest of them were all trapped deep beneath the most isolated continent on earth and were being stalked by some carnivorous creature that lived down in the labyrinths and was snatching people away to devour them. It made her feel sick, and she shuddered again.

Aimee thought of Tom and almost cried out for him. Poor Tom—had he and his team been stalked and snared in the dark while they ran and screamed like blind rabbits in the caves? Had they become nothing more than morsels of food for the leviathan hiding somewhere beneath them? She felt the trickle of a tear run down her cheek and let it fall.

In just under twelve minutes Aimee saw a light begin to appear in the choke hole, indicating Monica was returning. Matt was there first to pull her out.

“OK, it goes all the way through, but it’s a tight squeeze. Alex and especially you, Tank, are going to have to hold your breath in some places. Everyone try not to touch anything on the way through. This fall probably occurred hundreds of thousands of years ago and is not likely to move. However, there is still a chance that the rocks that have already fallen are poised dangerously one on top of each other. An inch or two can make all the difference. Our slide through the choke hole could undermine the supports of the whole pile, and cause it to suddenly collapse into a new shape, which may be far too small for us to squeeze through. Or worse, it could collapse into a solid compressed mass—and we really don’t want to be under there if that happens.”

Monica checked everyone’s cave suit for unnecessary items or bulges. “OK, we need to stay close together so
we can actually see each other’s feet. Take off your packs and push them ahead of you. Take it slow and don’t panic. If you get a little caught up just breathe slowly and unhook yourself. There will be people in front of you and behind you to help. One more thing: avoid my red markings. I’ll go first.”

Aimee slithered out of her backpack, and holding it in front of herself folded her arms around it. The size was comforting and also meant no one saw that her hands were shaking. She closed her eyes and silently mouthed to herself,
if Monica can do it, I can; if Monica can do it, I can.
She really wanted to be home now.

She jumped when Matt bumped her elbow as he stepped forward, intending to go into the hole next. Alex overruled him. “Sorry, Matt, Takeda goes next to give us all some cover on the other side. Tank, you go last. Can’t have you corking us all up now, can we?”

Tank laughed. “Don’t mind none; I reckon you’ll have wiped it all clean by the time it’s my turn.”

Aimee looked at Tank’s bulk and hoped his good humour was matched by luck. She hugged her pack and waited for her turn.

The first thing Aimee noticed as she wriggled through the tiny tunnel was how easy it would be to get claustrophobic and lose it in such a confined space. You were continually banging your head, elbows and back on the jumble of fallen boulders. Some of the rocks were the size of houses, some were just rubble all pieced together like a giant’s jigsaw puzzle. Monica had placed a red chalk “X” on some of the rocks, indicating a weak spot or pivot point and these were to be avoided at all costs. Every time Aimee came across one glaring out of the dark her heart gave a leap at the thought of being buried alive, or worse, ending up crushed like Margaret.

Monica had said it was only about fifty feet, but she already felt she had been crawling for twice that—distance was hard to judge in such tight quarters. Perspiration ran down her face, creating more little streaks in the dust around her eyes and the air was already thickening from her hard breathing. It would be so easy to lose it in here.

She was fifth to go through, behind Silex, and mercifully he had slithered through rather quickly. The thought of him getting stuck and her spending the last few hours of her life trapped in a choke staring at Dr. Silex’s skinny legs was almost too much to bear. When she finally emerged into Monica’s waiting hands she felt such an unbelievable mixture of elation and relief that she almost burst into tears.

In no time Mike and Alex popped out of the hole and everyone gathered around waiting for Tank. Alex kept his eyes on the hole and said, “He’s struggling. He’s as strong as an ox, but about as flexible as a piano.” Alex got down on his knees and shone his torch down into the hollow. Tank must have dropped behind as he was still quite a way in.

Alex’s comm unit pinged. “I’m hooked up on something.” Alex turned to Monica. “He’s caught.” Monica immediately drew two soft elasticised ropes from her backpack and shot back into the hole. She reappeared moments later, leaving the two ropes trailing into the small opening.

“Yep, he’s wedged in about fifteen feet back. I’ve tied the ropes around his wrists. We’re going to have to give him a gentle persuasive tug. He’s ready for it.”

Alex pinged Tank. “On the count of three, big fella, give a push. One, two . . . three.”

The entire party pulled on the ropes but there was hardly any give. Then from deep within the boulder choke there
was a very slight screeching sound like a truck putting on its air brakes, followed by a hollow grinding. Although there was no visible movement from the outside, they knew this would not be the case where Tank was stuck.

Mike yelled his brother’s name and went to dive into the hole. Alex grabbed him in a bear hug that was impossible to break. They all waited. After just a few seconds there was silence again. There was no dust and no tumbling rocks. The boulder choke had simply shrugged and settled back down again for another few eons.

No one even exhaled as they stared at the small choke opening; and then to their surprise a very large body shot out of the hole like a cork. Tank was coughing and laughing. He got to his feet and dusted himself off. He looked at the team, all standing there with their mouths open.