Ice Station (11 page)

It was the only movement in the whole pool. Nobody else had even dared
to move.

Almost immediately, a towering black dorsal fin appeared alongside the
desperate swimmer. After a second, it slowed, and then it ominously
sank below the surface behind him.

The result was as violent as it was sudden.

With a hideous crack, the French commando's body suddenly
snapped backwards in the water. He turned in the water and opened his
mouth to scream, but nothing came out. His eyes just went wide. He
must have seen that the whale had crushed the whole of his lower body
with its bite and was now holding him firmly within its mighty jaws.

The whale's second yank was even more powerful than the first. It
pulled the Frenchman under with such force that the man's head
jolted backward and slapped down hard against the water as he went
under and disappeared forever.

Sarah Hensleigh gasped. “Oh, Jesus....”

Buck Riley's section of catwalk was still attached to the ice
wall. Just. It hung downward at a steep angle, out over the central
shaft.

The three scientists—Riley didn't know their names—had
all been too slow. The sudden collapse of the catwalk had caught all
three of them by surprise. Too slow to get a handhold, they had all
fallen down into the shaft.

Riley's reflexes had been quicker. When the catwalk had fallen
away beneath him, he had hit the deck and immediately garnered a
fingerhold in the grating of the catwalk itself.

The little girl had also been fast.

As soon as the floor had dropped away beneath her, she had fallen to
the catwalk and immediately started to slide toward the edge.

Her feet had gone over the edge first, followed quickly by her waist
and then her chest. Just as her head fell clear of the railing, she
threw out a desperate hand and miraculously caught hold of the hand
railing.

The railing held for a second, but, weakened by the force of the gas
explosion, it suddenly buckled and snapped and swung out over the edge
of the catwalk, so that it now hung upside down out over the
shaft.

And so the little girl hung there, one-handed and screaming, from the
upside-down railing of the catwalk, fifty feet above the
killer-whale-infested pool.

“Don't look down!” Riley yelled, as he reached for her
hand. He had already seen the killer whales down in the pool, had just
seen one of them take the French commando. He didn't want the
little girl seeing them.

The little girl was crying, sobbing, “Don't let me
fall!”

“I won't let you fall,” Riley said as he lay on his
stomach stretched out as far as he could, trying to grab her wrist.
Small, isolated spot fires burned on the remnants of the catwalk all
around him.

His hand was about a foot away from the girl's when he saw her
frightened eyes begin to dart around.

“What's your name?” Riley said suddenly, trying to
distract her.

“”My hand is hot," she whimpered.

Riley looked back along the railing. About five yards to his left, a
small spot fire licked at the point where the downed railing met the
catwalk.

“1 know it's hot, honey. I know it is. Just keep holding on.
What did you say your name was?”

'Kirsty."

“Hi, Kirsty. My name's Buck, but you can just call me Book
like everybody else does.”

“Why do they call you that?”

Riley cast a sideways glance at the spot fire licking against the
railing.

Not good.

Under the intense heat of the explosion, the black paint on the
railing had broken out into dry, paperlike flakes. If the fire came
into contact with those flakes, the whole railing would go up in
flames.

Riley kept reaching out for Kirsty's hand, stretched harder. Half
a foot away. He almost had her.

“Do you always”—Riley breathed a weak
half-laugh— “ask this many questions?” He grimaced as
he stretched. “If you”—breath—“really wanna
know”—breath—“it's because,
once”—breath—“one of my friends found out I was
writing a book.”

“Uh-huh....” Kirsty's eyes began to wander again.

“Kirsty. Now listen to me, honey. I want you keep your eyes
looking right at me now, OK. Right at me.”

“OK,” she said.

Then she looked down.

Riley swore.

Rebound had been less than three yards away from the French commando
when he had been taken under. The sheer violence of the
Frenchman's death had scared the living shit out of him.

Now, the whole pool was silent.

Rebound hovered in the pool, looking desperately about himself. The
water was cold and the bullet wound in his shoulder stung, but he
barely even noticed them now.

Mother was treading water next to him, her face watchful. Waiting,
with tense anticipation. Legs's body floated facedown in the water
next to her, a halo of blood slowly fanning out from its head, seeping
into the clear, blue water around it.

The four remaining French commandos were also still in the pool. They
completely ignored Rebound and Mother, their battle forgotten, at
least for the moment.

Last of all, Rebound saw the scientists—two women and one man.

Ten people in all were in the pool, and not one of them moved.

Not one of them dared to move.

They had all had seen the French commando go under moments before.

The lesson: if you don't move, they might not take you.

Rebound held his breath as three massive shadows glided slowly through
the water beneath him.

He heard a sudden click and turned to see Mother holding her MP-5
poised above the surface.

Jesus, Rebound thought. If there was anyone in the world who
had the balls to take down a killer whale with a gun, it had
to be Mother.

More silence.

Don't move....

And then suddenly there came an incredible roar as one of the whales
exploded out from beneath the surface, right next to Mother.

It lifted half of its enormous body out of the water, turned onto its
side in mid-air, and then plowed into Legs's motionless body.
There was a series of sickening crunches as it caught the dead body in
its mouth and clamped down hard with its teeth, breaking nearly every
bone in it. And then the whale's head went under and its tail
appeared, and then the tail disappeared and only frothing water
remained.

And Legs's body was gone.

Rebound just stayed where he was, hovering in the water, his mouth
agape. And then, slowly, it dawned on him.

Legs hadn't been moving.

An unspoken understanding instantly spread throughout the nine
remaining people in the pool.

The killers didn't care whether they were moving or not.
...

The nine people in the pool moved as one, breaking out into frantic
swimming strokes as the killer whales rose to the surface beneath them
and commenced their feeding frenzy.

Up on what was left of B-deck, Book Riley swore again.

When Kirsty had seen the pool, seen the enormous black-and-white
shapes in it, her lower jaw had started to quiver. Then, when she saw
the first killer leap up out of the water and crunch through
Legs's dead body, she started to hyperventilate.

“OhmyGod, ohmyGod,” she sobbed.

Riley began to hurry. He quickly lowered his upper body out over the
edge of the down-turned catwalk, so that he was now practically
hanging upside-down, reaching for Kirsty with his free right hand.

Their hands were now only two inches apart.

He almost had her.

And then all of a sudden he heard a soft whooshing sound from
somewhere to his left.

Riley's head snapped round.

“No___”

The spot fire had ignited the flakes on the railing. The response was
instantaneous. A small orange flame began to race along the length of
the railing, devouring the dried paint flakes in its path, leaving a
tiny trail of fire in its wake.

Riley's eyes went wide.

The trail of fire was rocketing along the length of the railing.

And heading right for Kirsty's hand!

Kirsty was still looking down at the killer whales in the pool. She
swung her head up to look at Riley, and in an instant their eyes met
and Riley saw the absolute terror in her eyes.

Riley stretched down as far as he could, his whole upper body dangling
upside down off the downturned catwalk, in a desperate effort to grab
her hand.

The orange flame raced along the black hand railing, its fire trail
lighting up the railing behind it.

Riley's hand was an inch away from Kirsty's.

He stretched again and felt the tips of his fingers brush against the
top of her hand.

Another inch. Just another inch...

“Mr. Book! Don't let me fall!”

And then suddenly the bright orange line of fire cut across
Riley's field of vision and he yelled in frustration.

“No!”

The fire trail sped across the railing in front of him, right
underneath Kirsty's hand.

Riley watched in helpless horror as the little girl squealed with pain
and then did the only thing her body knew to do when it came into
contact with fire.

She let go.

Kirsty dropped fast.

But as she did so, Buck Riley released his grip on the catwalk above
him and lunged forward after her. He dropped three feet straight
down—one arm pointed down, the other pointed up. His lower hand
snatched the wool-lined hood of Kirsty's pink parka while his
upper hand caught the flaming railing behind him.

Both of their bodies jerked to a sudden halt, and Riley did a jarring
180-degree spin that nearly pulled his arm out of its socket. He was
now right side up, hanging from the same burning railing that had,
only seconds earlier, caused Kirsty to fall.

And oddly, despite the searing heat seeping through his leather-gloved
hand, he managed a relieved smile.

“I gotcha, baby,” he breathed, almost laughing. “I
gotcha.”

Kirsty just hung there below him with her arms held out awkwardly on
either side of her body, held up only by Riley's grip on the
wool-lined hood of her parka.

All right, Riley said to himself, how the hell are we
gonna get out of this—

There came a sudden popping sound and abruptly Kirsty lurched
downward. She only dropped an inch, and for an instant Riley
couldn't understand what had happened.

Then he saw it.

His eyes zeroed in on the join between Kirsty's pink parka and its
pink wool-lined hood.

Riley's eyes went wide.

The hood wasn't actually part of the parka.

It was one of those removable hoods that could be connected to the
collar of the parka whenever the wearer so desired. It was only
attached to Kirsty's parka by six clasplike buttons.

The popping sound that he had heard had been the sound of one of those
buttons unclasping.

Riley began to feel sick.

“Oh, that's not fair. That's not fucking fair,” he
said.

Pop!

Another button unclasped.

Kirsty dropped another inch.

Riley was at a loss. He didn't know what to do. There was nothing
he could do. He was already hanging from the lowest point on
the railing, so he couldn't lower himself any further. And Kirsty
was hanging from his other hand, so he couldn't reach any
farther either.

Pop! Pop!

Two more buttons unclasped and Kirsty screamed in horror as she
dropped sharply and then jolted to a sudden stop.

The pink hood began to stretch. Only two buttons held it to the
parka's collar now.

Riley thought about swinging Kirsty in toward the C-deck catwalk below
them, about four yards away. But he quickly dispelled the thought. The
wool-lined hood was now only tenuously connected to the parka. Any
movement would almost certainly unclasp the remaining two buttons.

“God damn it!” he yelled. “Can't anybody
help me!”

“Hold on!” another voice yelled from somewhere nearby.
“I'm coming!”

Riley turned his head and saw Schofield on the far side of the C-deck
catwalk, inside a small alcove of some sort. Next to him was Fox.
Schofield seemed to be directing her to go down the nearest
rung-ladder and head for the pool deck while he took care of Riley and
Kirsty.

Pop!

One of the last two buttons snapped open, and Riley turned his
attention back to Kirsty. Grimacing, he held tight and looked down at
her. The little girl was scared out of her mind. Her eves were red.
filled with tears. She stared into his eves and spoke through
teary sniffles: “I don't want to die. Oh,
my God, I don't want to die.”

One button left.

The hood was stretched taut, straining under Kirsty's weight.

It wasn't going to hold....

A second before it happened, Buck Riley felt the weight of the little
girl pull on the hood and he said softly, “I'm sorry.”

With a sudden pop, the final button snapped open and Riley
watched helplessly as Kirsty fell away from him in a kind of
nightmarish slow motion. Her wide eyes looked right into his as she
fell, her face the picture of pure, unspeakable terror. Those wide
eyes became smaller and smaller, and Buck Riley felt sick to his
stomach as he saw the little girl splash into the icy pool fifty feet
below.

The pool at the base of Wilkes Ice Station had
become a slaughterhouse. From his alcove on C-deck, Shane Schofield
looked down at it in horror.

Blood had so clouded the icy water that nearly half of the enormous
pool was now no more than a maroon haze. Even the massive killer
whales disappeared when they swam through the murky patches.

Schofield surveyed the scene.

On one side of the pool were the French. They had suffered the worst.
They had already lost two men to the killers.

On the other side of the pool were the two remaining
Marines—Rebound and Mother—and the three scientists from
Wilkes who had been with Book when B-deck had given way. All five of
them were swimming desperately for the metal deck that surrounded the
pool.