Exit Alpha (38 page)

‘Sounded expensive,’ he grinned.

She yipped, ‘First blood.’

N
o encouraging explosion came. All they’d heard was the impact and the engines cutting out.

He said, ‘Bad bend. But they’ll be alive.’

He panted over to the flabbergasted Reilly who crouched behind the sledge near two of his men. ‘Sorry. You’re in a war. But the chopper’s scrap. So if you uncouple those hoses and get the ship off, it’s safe.’

Reilly grabbed the field radio, contacted the ship, called back. ‘The skipper won’t take off without Duckworth and Snodgrass.’

‘Where are they?’

‘Went to the bunk van to freshen up.’

‘Then call them up.’

‘They didn’t take a handset.’

‘Christ! Where’s the quad then?’

‘They rode it over there.’

‘Hell.’ He waved to Hunt who was covering the blizz line, filled her in. ‘We’ve got to get back to the vans.’

‘But we’ll be heading straight for Zuiden’s squad.’

‘Tough.’ He shuffled along the blizz line. ‘Come on. We’re dead anyway.’

‘Is there a point to this?’

‘I’m trying to save the old man.’

‘First, you tell me to wet-nurse bastards who try to torture me to death. Now you want me to be a Catholic martyr?’

‘Right. St Karen of Antarctica.’

‘You’re obsessed.’

‘Quit belly-aching, soldier. After you cop a few rounds, you won’t feel much.’

They worked out whistle signals on the trot. Visibility was now down to metres. The blizz line vanished before the next pole appeared as if veiled by gauze.

The sound of generators now. Through the swirling curtain, the first sledge loomed. They walked to its end past snow piled against its runners, plunged into whiteness, alert for any dark smudge that could be the approaching squad, cursing the ice on their goggles that made a wide field of vision impossible.

Their dead-reckoning plunge took them to the next line of parked vans. The bunk van was the second. The quad was at the foot of its steps, coupled to a small, now empty sled.

‘Okay. You’re holding the fort.’ He left her crouched behind the bike and went up into the van.

Duckworth, all high shoulders and hanging testicles, was drying himself after his shower.

‘We’re being attacked,’ Cain told him.

‘My God! Thought I heard something.’

‘You’ve got to get back to the ship and get airborne before they wreck it.’ He dragged his goggles off to clean them, grateful for warmth on his hands.

The small dumpy second man had to be Snodgrass. He was pulling on his polar fleece. The crotch of his oversized thermal underwear hung near his knees. He said in a Midlands accent, ‘We’d better slip our cable.’

Trust the Brits, Cain thought, to take their monthly wash at the least strategic time.

Duckworth grabbed his long johns. ‘Who are these people?’

‘Squad from EXIT. And if you don’t pull your finger out, they’ll gut you.’

‘Gawd. Where are the others, Snodders?’ Duckworth asked the smaller man, his drooping accent proving him a victim of the English caste system which Cain detested as much as the relic hobbling India.

‘Sparks is still on board, sir. And the chief’s checking trim and fuel weights with the skipper.’

A burst of fire from outside. Hunt — having a hard day at the office.

The two men exchanged frightened glances.

Cain said, ‘I’ll hold them off. Come out when I tell you, then get on that bike and go.’

When he cleared the cold porch, Hunt was still flattened behind the quad. He gave the whistle they’d agreed on. She didn’t look around, put one hand half up to halt him. He listened, trying to stay alert. The blowing snow deadened sound and the generators had become white noise.

Once the rush would have clicked him into the drill. Now weary, breathless, weakened, he was an easy mark. His stiff, exhausted body just wanted to lie down. But the opposition, he knew, would be fighting the same disorientation as hypoxia starved their muscles and brains.

Still, they’d be fresher, well equipped. If they had a thermal imager he was sushi.

He glanced at Hunt, then up. Zero visibility. Nothing. Just the continent trying to kill them. He’d heard that tank commanders sometimes fell asleep between shots. You’re drifting he told himself. Get with it.

Without food you’ll perish in 30 days.

Without water you’ll perish in three days.

Without oxygen you’ll perish in three minutes.

Without the will to survive you’ll perish in three seconds.

Hunt still crouched immobile, her yellow gear looking grey. In the grim world they now inhabited, colours faded with distance. Safer to attack than slug it out in one place. He gestured to her for a sitrep.

Her left arm went out. There was someone on that side and she was ordering a flanking move.

He edged back along the van, climbed over the rail, dropped and worked his way around the sledges. Now the skin was creeping on the back of his neck. Was Zuiden stalking him from behind? He had his hood down now, head protected by the balaclava only. He needed full vision, needed to attack before he froze.

Halfway along the second sledge, a smudge — as if the far runner had melted out on the snow. As he watched, it moved.

Then his vision became a green blur.

He fired, using the residual sight-picture, lurched back against the sledge, trying a roll.

Shoot and scoot.

But he was useless, blinded.

The green dazzle faded. Would he ever see again? Or had his goggles and the snow chopped the frequency? He blinked, helpless. Christ, his eyes!

A laser rifle.

Why not just kill him?

Some vision came back. The same smudge near the runner. When in doubt, empty your mag. He fired again.

Fighting the moment of shock, he moved forward, hugging the sledge. He was almost on top of the man before he could see what he’d done.

The surgeon was face down. On the back of his pile jacket, a perforation extended from mid-chest to neck.

Cain kicked him over, yanked off his goggles. Not Zuiden. The face lacked half a jaw and the wide eyes were silting with snow. He’d done his second-last mag on the sod.

He examined the laser pistol. The man had an Ingram, too. So why the hell hadn’t he used it? He changed the mag on the M–4, slung the Ingram around him as well, ripped the mag pouch off the man’s lower leg and wrapped its Velcro tabs tightly around his own where its jungle camo pattern stood out like a stop sign. Both guns were chambered for 9mm but the mags were different. No time for frigging around. Zuiden could be steps away and ready to give him a tracheotomy.

He waited, checking rear and side.

Nothing.

Whiteness.

He held his glove at arm’s length from his face, testing his eyes. It wasn’t just his vision. The blizz was worse. Although the wind wasn’t strong, probing snow flew everywhere. The engagement was becoming a lottery in which the only thing that mattered was misfortune.

A burst to his right. It sounded like Hunt. Adrenaline, as combat instructors indelicately put it, would now be running down her leg.

He edged around the second sled, goggles riming, could see almost nothing ahead. Just the nearest runner and the vanishing lip of the tray. She’d be ahead of him now in the swirling grey. Where was her target?

Laser guns? Made no sense.

He moved ahead very slowly, knowing she might shoot him. The one thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire was incoming friendly fire. He gave the low whistle again.

An answer with the right note pattern. Crude but practical. He got past the first sledge runner, squirmed under the tray and waited.

Nothing.

His body was shutting down and his starved drifting mind told him he was a restless wandering ghost, a fugitive like his namesake in the Bible. Told him he was a shot-up relic being hunted by a Grade Three assassin. Bailed up in the world’s worst environment with a femme dyke he felt sorry for. And trying to save the life of the 263rd pope . . . And that it didn’t come crazier than this.

He now had the M–4’s stock unfolded and the stub barrel above the lip of the runner shoe. Without the protective overmitts, his gloved hands were turning to ice. He stared along the rudimentary sights.

Zuiden. Could he cream the sod?

Then — another break.

Bunny boots.

Yellow bunny boots padding past the runner — right in front of his face.

They stopped. The man was stooping to check under the sledge.

Cain waited till his pelvis was in sight and hit him with a burst.

A bellow. The surgeon crumpled, thudded on the snow, his gun bouncing on his chest, writhed, kicked. Cain riddled him and stopped it.

It didn’t look like Zuiden and he had no energy to check.

A whistle.

He returned the signal, crawled to the back of the sledge, saw nothing, got out from under, retreated back to the bunk van and climbed up.

Nothing all the way.

A cocoon of nothing.

How many more were hidden in this soup?

He edged to the front of the container. Hunt was still just visible in position behind the quad. She’d heard him coming, briefly turned. He pointed to the van, then the four-wheel bike, flung his arm wide.

She acknowledged.

He went in, gave the pair their marching orders. ‘You two on the bike. The two of us on the sled. Head straight along the sledges, then veer right and look for the blizz line. Go.’

The two crewmen got in position on seat and rear rack of the bike. Cain and Hunt kneeled in the sled, covering opposite sides, ready to fire.

The single cylinder four-stroke started.

No attack.

They churned to the end of the last line of sledges and headed into limbo. Duckworth, steering — hands and face freezing — put the 250-kilogram vehicle into a slide that almost capsized them.

Cain cursed, ‘Slow up,’ and clung to the lip of the sled. Where was the bleeding blizz line? If they. . . .

It was wrapped around Duckworth’s waist.

He freed himself, swung them left, headed through the void. Except for the slender line on their right, vision was nil. The bike’s high-flotation tyres sprayed the sled with snow. As they approached the tower, they heard, above the racket of the quad, the welcome sound of engines from the ship.

Duckworth stopped them at the foot of the tower, which vanished up into nothing. Reilly, still crouched by his radio, pointed toward the noise. Duckworth turned the bike and went forward in low gear until the darker smear of the ship curved down to hang above them.

They reached the hatch, a shuddering lighter square in its belly with a crewman peering down. The winch-line hung from it, a metal triangle attached to the hook. Duckworth killed the bike, got his foot on the metal stirrup, grasped the wire and was hauled up.

Cain stood back to back with Hunt, gauntlets still off. His body was sluggish with cold and his hands felt like dead meat. Swirling snow and droning engines.

Last act, he thought.

The wire came down again and Snodgrass stepped into the stirrup.

Hunt pointed to the pouch on his leg. ‘Got more nails?’

‘Wrong mags.’ He gave her the half-used mag from his Spectre, tossed the gun and got ready with the Ingram.

They stood back to back, ready to engage.

Flynn’s face staring down, a handset held near his mouth. ‘What’s happening?’

Cain called, ‘They’re not after your men. They’re after us and the pope.’

‘Merciful heavens.’ Although Snodgrass was on board, he was letting the cable down again. ‘You’d better come up.’

Cain sent Hunt first.

Sporadic amplified crew-calls from above.

‘Switching to manual.’

‘Buoyancy?’

‘Equilibrium.’

‘Flippers?’

‘Elevators neutral and stern ballast control standing by.’

Hunt was up there and the cable coming down.

‘Clear away aft.’

‘Reporting clear.’

‘And reverse thrust.’

‘Slow astern.’

‘Release clamps.’

‘Ten. Twenty. Forty.’

‘Bow thruster and half left rudder.’

As he got his own foot in the stirrup, the shuddering above him ceased and the solid ice beneath him fell away. The huge envelope, no longer moored, was drifting astern and rising.

Flickers below. The surgeons had reached the tower, were firing up at the ship. Then he was too high to see anything but whiteness and the welcoming square of light above.

‘Clear.’

‘Forward thrust. Up ship.’