Ice Hunt (43 page)

“Well, let’s just hope that includes the guards stationed on our level,” Bratt grumbled. He stared at the map, considering this option.

“Whatever we do,” Amanda said, “we’d better act fast. At some point, the Russians are going to start sending search parties into these service tunnels.”

“Or simply lob more incendiary grenades down here,” Craig said dourly. The reporter crouched on his heels, arms wrapped around his chest. His gaze flicked to the three tunnels that left the small room, clearly watching for Russian commandos to storm through or for another of the black pineapples to bounce in and incinerate the lot of them.

Bratt nodded and straightened. “Okay. Let’s scout out the electrical room. See if it’s even possible and do a head count on the Russians on this tier.” He eyed the group. “Greer and Washburn are with me.”

“I’m coming, too,” Matt said. He was not about to be left behind.

Greer supported Matt’s decision. “The man was Green Beret, sir. And we sure as hell could use an extra body if we have to take out any guards.”

Bratt eyed Matt up and down, then nodded. “The rest will stay here.”

Matt raised his hand. “We should also have someone on watch in the generator room. In case we get in trouble, they could haul ass back here and get everyone else moving up higher.”

“Very good,” Bratt acknowledged.

“I’ll do it,” Craig said, but he looked like the words had to be choked out of him.

“Then let’s get this done.” Bratt folded up the schematic and passed it to Amanda. He quickly reviewed the plan. “We hit the lights. Use the distraction to take out any soldiers that remain here. Then make a dash-and-grab on the weapons locker.”

Matt picked up the length of sharpened pipe from the floor. He met Amanda’s worried gaze and offered a smile that he hoped looked reassuring.

“Be careful,” she said.

He nodded and followed the Navy trio into the service duct. Craig crawled on hands and knees behind him. The generator room was only sixty feet down the tunnel. They reached the end, and Washburn used her meat hooks to work the vent free.

They crawled into the room. The reek of diesel oil and exhaust gases hung heavy in the humid, heated air. The generators rattled in their stanchions, plenty of noise to cover their invasion.

As they gathered, Matt noted the stacks of batteries against the left wall; each was the size of a standard air-conditioning unit. As he eyed the power storage units, a glint on the neighboring wall caught his eye. The corners of his mouth lifted with pleasure.

He dropped his pipe and crossed to the wall. He removed the heavy fire ax from its wall pegs.

“Oh, man,” Greer griped, lifting the foot-long steel bone pins in his hands. “I wish I had seen that first.”

“Finders keepers,” Matt said, hefting the ax to his shoulder.

Bratt led them to the neighboring room. All four walls were covered with electrical panels. As they searched for the controls to Level One, Matt saw the difficulty immediately. Everything was coded in Russian Cyrillic.

“Here,” Washburn whispered. She pointed to a set of hotdog-sized glass-and-lead fuses. “These are the relays for the first level.”

“Are you sure?” Matt asked.

“My father was an electrician with Oakland PG&E,” she said.

“And she reads Russian,” Greer said. “My sort of woman.”

“The main switch is corroded in place,” she said. “I’ll have to pull the fuses.”

“Wait.” Bratt crossed and posted himself at the door that led to the main room. A small window in the door allowed him to spy into the central open space. He pointed to his eyes with two fingers, then splayed four fingers up in the air.

He spotted four guards.

Bratt turned to them. “Mr. Teague,” he whispered tersely, pointing to Craig. “Close the generator door. We don’t want the noise to alert the guards when we open the main door.”

The reporter nodded, closing the door and keeping guard in front of it.

Bratt turned to the others. “On my count,” he whispered tersely. “Pull the fuses, then be ready to bolt.” He lifted his hand, all fingers up. He counted down, lowering one finger at a time.

Five…four…three…

3:28 P.M.

Admiral Viktor Petkov stood in the entrance room to Level Four’s research labs. The steel door lay on the floor behind him, the hinges and security bar cut away. Across the door’s surface, letters were scored in Russian Cyrillic:

It was the name of the laboratory, the name of the base, the name of the monsters that nested in the neighboring ice caves.

Grendel.

His father’s project.

Viktor stood in front of an open cabinet. It contained dated journals, coded and stored, written in his father’s own handwriting. Viktor didn’t touch anything. He simply noted the missing volumes. Three of them. Whoever had been here knew what they had been looking for. A fist clenched. He could guess the identity of the thief—especially considering the news just related to him.

The young lieutenant who had relayed the update still stood stiffly at his shoulder, awaiting his response. Viktor had yet to acknowledge the man’s hurried report.

A moment ago, the lieutenant had rushed in, insisting on speaking to the admiral immediately. The radio operator manning the UQC underwater phone had picked up some disturbing noises over the unit’s hydrophone. He reported hearing distant blasts echoing under the ice shelf: multiple explosions.

“Depth charges,” the lieutenant had related. “The radioman believes he was hearing the concussion of depth charges.”

But that wasn’t the worst of the news. Amid the explosions, a weak static-chewed message had been transmitted on shortwave. A Mayday from the
Drakon
. Their submarine was under attack.

It had to be the U.S. Delta Force team, finally having arrived on the playing field. Late, but making up for its tardiness with deadly efficiency.

The lieutenant had then finished his message, barely keeping the panic from his voice. “The radioman reported definite bubbling, marking a sub implosion.”

Viktor fixed his gaze on the gaps in the shelf of journals. There was no doubt who had stolen the volumes: the same person who called the attack down upon the
Drakon
, the Delta Force controller, the leader sent in advance to covertly obtain his father’s research, to secure it before calling in the clean-up crew. Now with the prize in hand, the Delta Forces had been mobilized.

“Sir?” the lieutenant mumbled.

Viktor turned. “No one else must know about the
Drakon
.”

“Sir…?” There was a long pause as the admiral fixed the man with his steel-gray eyes, then a strained response: “Yes, sir.”

“We will hold this station, Lieutenant. We will find the Americans who were here earlier.” He continued to clench a fist. “We will not fail in this mission.”

“No, sir.”

“I have new orders to pass on to the men.”

The lieutenant stood straighter, ready to accept his assignment. Viktor told him what he wanted done. The Polaris engine had been unpacked and bolted to the floor on Level Five. By now, all the crew had been briefed with the mission assignment: to retrieve the research here, then erase all signs of the base. And while the crew certainly knew the destructive nature of the explosive device on Level Five—believing it to be a mere Z-class nuclear incendiary device—none knew its true purpose.

The lieutenant paled as Viktor gave him the code to prime the Polaris device. “We will not let the Americans steal the prize here,” he finished. “Even if it costs all our lives, that must not happen.”

“Yes, sir…no, sir,” the young man stammered. “My men will find them, Admiral.”

“Don’t fail, Lieutenant. Dismissed.”

The lieutenant fled away. There was no threat like one’s own death to motivate a crew. The Americans would be found, and the prize recaptured, or no one would be leaving this base alive—not the Americans, not the Russians, not even himself.

Viktor studied his wrist monitor as he listened to the lieutenant’s footsteps retreating below. On the monitor, the Polaris star glowed brightly, marking his continued contact with the array. The center trigger remained dark.

He waited.

Before detonating Polaris, he had first hoped to return to Russia with his father’s research in hand, to clear his family name. But now matters had changed.

Viktor had risen through the ranks to become admiral of the Northern Fleet because of his ability to mold strategies to circumstances, to keep the larger picture in mind at all times. He did so now as he stared at the tiny red heart-shaped icon in the lower corner of the wrist monitor, slipping back to another time.

He was eighteen, entering his apartment, full of pride, clutching his admission papers to the Russian Naval Academy. He smelled the urine first. Then the gusty breeze through the open door set his mother’s body to swinging from her broken neck. He rushed forward, the admission papers fluttering from his fingers and landing under his mother’s heels.

He closed his eyes. He had come full circle now, leaving his mother’s body and ending here at his father’s crypt.

From one death to another.

It was now time to complete the cycle.

Vengeance weighed far heavier on his heart than honor.

That
was the bigger picture.

He opened his eyes and found the monitor had changed—subtly but significantly. The five points of the star continued their sequential flashing, winding around the dial, and the small heart icon still blinked with each pulse beat in his wrist. But now a new glow lit the monitor, a crimson diamond in the center of the star.

The lieutenant had followed orders.

The Polaris engine had been primed.

All was in readiness, requiring only one last act.

Viktor reached to the one button he had held off touching until now. He depressed the red bezel on the side of the wrist monitor, holding it for the required minute.

Seconds counted away—then the central trigger light on the wrist monitor began to flash.
Activated
.

He studied the blinking. The trigger marker flashed in sync with the heart icon in the corner of the screen. Only then did he let go.

It was done.

The detonation of the Polaris device was now tied to his own heartbeat, to his own pulse. If his heartbeat ceased for a minute’s time, the device would blow automatically. It was an extra bit of insurance, a fallback plan in case all should turn against him.

Victor lowered his arm.

He was now a living trigger for the array. There was no abort code, no fail-safe. Once it was initiated, nothing could stop Polaris.

With its detonation, the old world would end, and a new one would begin, forged in ice and blood. His revenge would be exacted on all: the Russians, the Americans, the world. Viktor’s only regret in such a scenario was that he would not be around to see it happen.

But he knew how to live with regret…he had done it his entire life.

As he began to turn away, a sailor ran up to him, coming from the hall that held the frozen tanks. “Sir! Admiral Petkov, sir!”

He paused. “What is it?”

“S-something…” He motioned back to the hall. “Something is happening down there.”

“What? Is it the Americans?” Viktor had left a group of guards by the service vent. They were to wait until the caustic blast from the incendiary grenade cooled, then proceed and hunt down any survivors.

“No, not the Americans!” The sailor was breathless, eyes wide with horror. “You must see for yourself!”

3:29 P.M.

…two…one…

From his post beside the electrical panel, Matt watched as Bratt finished his silent count, ticking down with his fingers, ending with a clenched fist in the air.

…zero…go!

Washburn began yanking at the fuses that powered Level One, but the old glass tubes were stubborn, corroded in place. She was going too slow.

Matt motioned her aside and used the butt of his fire axe to smash the line of fuses. The tinkling cascade of shards blew outward. A wisp of electrical smoke followed, snaking into the air.

The effect was immediate. Distant shouts echoed to the group.

Bratt waved them all to the door. Through the window, Matt saw a handful of men in white parkas rush toward the central spiral staircase. Rifles were at the ready. More shouting followed, interspersed with barked orders.

Two of the four men mounted the stairs and fled upward. Two remained on guard.

“A couple birds aren’t leaving the nest,” Greer grumbled.

“We’ll have to take them out,” Bratt said. “We have no other choice. Our hand is played.”

The two soldiers, dressed in unzipped parkas, continued to man their posts, but they kept their attention fixed toward the stairs, their backs to the electrical suite.

Bratt pointed to Washburn and Matt. “You take the one on the left. We’ll take the other.” He nodded to Greer.

Matt readied his ax. He had never killed a man with such a crude weapon. In the Green Berets, he had shot men, even bayoneted one, but never hacked one with an ax. He glanced over to Craig.