Ice Station (38 page)

But Schofield wasn't listening. He was just staring out through
the window set in the ice. In the distance to the southwest—at
the top of one of the nearby ice cliffs—he saw a faint
intermittent green flash. Flash-flash. Flash-flash. It was the green
beacon light mounted on top of Wilkes Ice Station's radio antenna.

“Mr. Renshaw. I'm going back in there... with or without you,
whatever might be in the way.” Schofield turned to face him.

“Come on. It's time to retake Wilkes Ice Station.”

Wrapped in two layers of oversized 1960s-era wet
suits, Schofield and Renshaw swam through the icy silence, breathing
with the aid of their thirty-year-old scuba gear.

They both had the same length of steel cable tied around their
waists—cable that stretched all the way back to the large
cylindrical spooler inside Little America IV, about a mile to the
northeast of Wilkes Ice Station. It was a precaution, in case either
of them got lost or separated and had to get back to the station.

Schofield held a harpoon gun that he had found inside the Little
America station out in front of him.

The water around them became crystal clear as they swam underneath the
coastal ice shelf and into a forest of jagged stalactites of ice.

Schofield's plan was that they would swim under the ice
shelf—depending on how deep it went—and come up inside
Wilkes Ice Station. Outside, he had taken his bearings from the
position of the green beacon light atop the station's radio
antenna. He figured that if he and Renshaw could keep swimming in the
general direction of the beacon, once they went under the ice shelf
they would eventually be able to spot the pool at the base of the
station.

Schofield and Renshaw were in a world of white. Ghostly-white ice
formations—like mountain peaks turned
upside-down—stretched downward for nearly four hundred feet.

Schofield frowned inside his diving mask. They would have to go quite
a way down before they could come up again inside the station.

The two of them swam down the side of one of the enormous ice
formations. Through his mask, the only thing Schofield could see was a
wall of solid white ice.

After a while, they came to the bottom of the ice formation—the
pointed “peak” of the inverted mountain. Schofield slowly
swam underneath the peak, and the wall of white glided out of his
view—

—and he saw it

His heart nearly skipped a beat.

It was just hanging there in the water in front of him, suspended from
its winch cable, making its slow journey back up toward the station.

The diving bell.

Heading back up toward the station.

And then Schofield realized what that meant.

The British had already sent a team down to investigate the
cavern.

Schofield hoped to hell that his Marines down in the cavern were
ready.

As for him and Renshaw, they had to get to that diving bell. It was a
free ride up to Wilkes Ice Station that Schofield did not want to
miss.

Schofield spun in the water to signal Renshaw. He saw the short
scientist behind him, swimming underneath the inverted mountain peak.
He signaled for Renshaw to pick up the pace and the two men hurried
through the water toward the diving bell.

“How many are down there?” Barnaby
asked softly.

Book Riley didn't say a word.

Book was on his knees, with his hands cuffed behind his back. He was
down on E-deck, by the pool. Blood poured out from his mouth. His left
eye was half-closed, puffed and swollen. After falling from the
speeding hovercraft with Kirsty, Book had been brought back to Wilkes.
As soon as he had arrived at the station, he had been taken down to
E-deck to face Barnaby.

“Mr. Nero,” Barnaby said.

The big SAS man named Nero punched Book hard in the face. Book fell to
the deck.

“How many?” Barnaby said. He was holding Book's Maghook
in his hand.

“None!” Book yelled through bloody teeth.
“There's no one down there. We never got a chance to send
anyone down there.”

“Oh, really,” Barnaby said. He looked at the Maghook in his
hands thoughtfully. “Mr. Riley, I find it very difficult to
believe that a commander of the caliber of the Scarecrow would neglect
to make the task of sending a squad down to that cave the very
first thing that he did once he got here.”

“Then why don't you ask him?”

“Tell me the truth, Mr. Riley, or very soon I am going to lose my
temper and feed you to the lions.”

“There's no one down there,” Book said.

“OK,” Barnaby said, turning abruptly to face Snake.
“Mr. Kaplan,” he said. “Is Mr. Riley telling me the
truth?”

Book looked up sharply at Snake.

Barnaby said to Snake, “Mr. Kaplan, if Mr. Riley is lying to me,
I will kill him. If you lie to me, I will kill
you.”

Book looked up at Snake with wide, pleading eyes.

Snake spoke. “He's lying. There are four people down there.
Three Marines, one civilian.”

“You son of a bitch!” Book said to Snake.

“Mr. Nero,” Barnaby said, tossing Book's Maghook to
Nero. “String him up.”

Schofield and Renshaw surfaced together inside the slow-moving diving
bell.

They climbed up out of the water and stood on the metal deck that
surrounded the small pool of water at the base of the spherical diving
bell.

Renshaw removed his mouthpiece, gasped for breath. Schofield scanned
the interior of the empty diving bell, looking for weapons, looking
for anything.

He saw a digital depth counter on the far wall. It was ticking
downward as the diving bell ascended: 360 feet. 359 feet. 358 feet.

“A-ha,” Renshaw said from the other side of the bell.

Schofield turned. Renshaw was standing in front of a small TV monitor
that was attached to the wall high up near the ceiling. Renshaw
clicked it on. “I forgot about this,” he said.

“What is it?” Schofield asked.

“It's another of old Carmine Yaeger's toys. You remember
the old guy I told you about before, the guy who used to watch the
whales all the time. Do you remember I told you he used to watch them
sometimes from inside the diving bell? Well, this monitor is another
one of his video feeds of the station's pool. Yaeger had it
installed so he could watch the surface of the pool while he was
underwater in the bell.”

Schofield looked up at the small black-and-white monitor.

On the screen he saw the same view of E-deck that he had seen when he
was in Renshaw's room earlier. The view from the camera on the
underside of the retractable bridge on C-deck, looking straight down
on E-deck.

Schofield froze.

He saw people on the screen.

SAS troops with guns. Snake still cuffed to the pole. And Trevor
Barnaby, pacing slowly around E-deck.

And there was one other person.

There on the deck, down at Barnaby's feet, having his feet tied
up, was Book Riley.

“All right, hoist him up,” Barnaby said, once Nero had
finished tying the Maghook's cable around Book's ankles.

Somebody else had already splayed out the Maghook's rope and
tossed its launcher over the retractable bridge on C-deck, creating a
pulley-like mechanism.

Nero took the launcher from one of the other British commandos and
wedged its grip between two rungs of the rung-ladder between E-deck
and D-deck. Then he pressed the black button on the launcher that
reeled in the rope.

As a result of the pulley mechanism—the rope being stretched
taut over the bridge on C-deck—Book was suddenly lifted off the
deck by his ankles. His hands were still cuffed behind his back. He
swung out over the pool and dangled
helplessly—head-down—in the air above the water.

“What the hell are they doing?” Renshaw asked as he and
Schofield stared at the black-and-white monitor.

On the monitor they could see Book dangling directly beneath them,
hanging from his own Maghook out over the water.

At that moment, the diving bell rocked slightly, and Schofield grabbed
the wall to steady himself.

“What was that?” Renshaw said quickly.

Schofield didn't have to answer him.

The answer lay right outside the windows of the slow-moving bell.

Several large dark shapes rose through the water all around the diving
bell, their distinctive black-and-white outlines all too familiar.

The pod of killer whales.

They were heading up toward the station.

The first dorsal fin pierced the surface of the water, and a murmur
went up among the twenty or so SAS troops gathered around the pool on
E-deck.

Book was still dangling upside-down above the pool. He saw it, too:
the enormous black outline of a killer whale gliding slowly through
the water beneath him. He began to wriggle, but it was no
use—his hands were firmly cuffed, his feet firmly bound.

His dog tags began to slip over his head. A couple of seconds later
they dropped off his chin and plonked down into the water and sank
fast.

Barnaby watched the killer whales from the poolside deck. “This
should make things very interesting.”

At that moment, one of his corporals came up to him. It was the same
corporal who had reported to him before. “Sir, the Tritonal
charges are all set.”

The corporal offered Barnaby a small black unit the size of a thick
calculator. It had a numbered keypad on it. “The detonation unit,
sir.”

Barnaby took it. “How are the outer markers looking?”

“We have five men stationed along the outer perimeter monitoring
the horizon with laser range finders, sir. Last check, there was no
one within fifty miles of this place, sir.”

“Good,” Barnaby said. “Good.”

He turned his attention back to the pool and the American Marine
hanging helplessly above it.

“Gives us a little time for some R and R,” Barnaby said.

“Jesus, can't this thing go any faster?” Schofield said
as he stared at the depth counter. It ticked slowly downward as they
rose through the water. They were still 190 feet from the surface.
Still at least seven minutes away.

Schofield watched the image of Book on the screen.

“Shit!” he said. “Shit!”

“Mr. Nero,” Barnaby said.

Nero pressed a button on the Maghook's launcher, and suddenly the
Maghook began to play out its rope and Book began to descend
toward the pool, headfirst.

The water beneath him was choppy. Killer whales sliced through it in
every direction. Suddenly one of them rose above the surface beneath
Book and blew a spray of water out of its blowhole.

Book's head descended toward the water. He was one foot above it
when he jolted to a sudden halt.

“Mr. Riley!” Barnaby called from the safety of the deck.

“What?”

“Rule Britannia, Mr. Riley!”

Nero hit the button again and Book's head and upper body plunged
underwater.

No sooner was Book underwater than a line of sharp white teeth
whooshed past his face.

Book's eyes went wide.

There were so many of them! Killer whales all around him. A
slow-moving forest of black and white. The whales seemed to
prowl around the water.

And then suddenly Book saw one of them spot him, saw it turn suddenly
in the water and come at him—at speed.

Book hung there, upside down in the water, totally exposed, unable to
move.

The killer charged at him.

The SAS commandos cheered when they saw the enormous dorsal fin of the
killer make a beeline for the submerged Marine.

In the diving bell, Schofield was glued to the monitor.

“Come on, Book,” he said. 'Tell me you've got
something up your sleeve."

Book shook his hands behind his back. The cuffs wouldn't budge.

The killer came at him.

Fast.

It opened its jaws and rolled onto its side and—

—slid past him, brushing roughly against the side of Book's
body.

The SAS commandos booed.

In the diving bell, Schofield breathed a sigh of relief.

Behind him, Renshaw said softly, “It's over.”

“What do you mean, it's over?”

“Remember what I told you before. They stake their claim with the
first pass. Then they eat you.”

Book screamed with frustration under the water.

He couldn't get his hands free.

Couldn't... get.. .his... hands... free....

And then he saw the killer whale again.

It was coming at him a second time. The same whale.

The killer whale powered through the water, faster this time, moving
with purpose, its high dorsal fin cutting hard through the chop.

Book saw its jaws open again, and this time he saw the white teeth and
the pink tongue and as it came closer and closer his terror became
extreme.

The killer whale didn't roll sideways this time.

It didn't brush past him this time.

No, this time, the seven-ton killer whale plowed into Book
with pulverizing force, and before Book even knew what had hit him the
big whale's jaws came crashing down around his head.

Inside the diving bell, Schofield stared at the monitor in silence.

“Holy Christ,” Renshaw breathed from behind him.

The image on the screen was absolutely horrifying.

A fountain of blood spewed out from the water. The whale had crunched
into Book's suspended body and consumed his entire upper half. Now
it was shaking the corpse violently, trying to wrench it free from the
rope—like a great white shark grappling with a piece of meat
hung out over the side of a boat.

Schofield didn't say anything.

He swallowed back the vomit welling in his throat.

Down in the cavern, Montana and Sarah Hensleigh
stared at the screen above the keypad. Gant had left them. She had
gone back over to the fissure she had found at the other end of the
cavern.

Hensleigh stared at the screen.

24157817 _________________________

ENTER AUTHORIZED ENTRY CODE