Ice Station (30 page)

Schofield just stared at Snake.

Mother said softly, “He said he was ICG.”

Book and Rebound turned instantly at Mother's words.

“Well, Sergeant?” Schofield said.

Snake said nothing.

Schofield said, “Not very talkative, huh?”

“He was pretty fucking talkative when he was getting ready to
fillet me,” Mother said. “I say we cut his balls off and
make him watch as we feed 'em to the fucking whales.”

“Good idea,” Schofield said as he glared at Snake. Snake
just sneered smugly back at him.

Schofield felt the anger well up inside him. He was furious. Right now
he just wanted to slam Snake up against the wall and wipe that smug
look off his fucking face—

“As a leader, you simply cannot afford to get angry or
upset.”

Once again, Trevor Barnaby's words rang through Schofield's
head.

Schofield wondered whether Barnaby had ever had an infiltrator in his
unit. He wondered what the famous SAS commander would have done in
these circumstances.

“Book,” Schofield said. “Opinions?”

Buck Riley just stared sadly at Snake and shook his head. He seemed to
be the most deeply affected by the revelation that Snake was an ICG
plant.

“I didn't think you were a traitor, Snake,” Book said.
Then he turned to Schofietd. “It's not for you to kill him.
Not here. Not now. Take him home. Send him to jail.”

As Book spoke, Schofield just glared at Snake. Snake stared defiantly
back at him.

There was a long silence.

Schofield broke it. “Tell me about the Intelligence Convergence
Group, Snake.”

“That's a nice wound,” Snake said softly, slowly,
looking at the adhesive gauze patch on Schofield's neck. The wound
Snake himself had inflicted. “You ought to be dead.”

“It didn't suit me,” Schofield said. “Tell me about
the ICG.”

Snake smiled a cold, thin smile. Then he began to laugh softly.

“You're a dead man,” he said quietly. Then he turned to
face the others. “You're all going to die.”

“What do you mean?” Schofield said.

“You wanted to know about the ICG,” Snake said. “I just
told you about the ICG.”

“The ICG is going to kill us?”

“The ICG will never let you live,” Snake said.
“It's not possible. Not after what you've seen here. When
the United States Government gets their hands on that
spaceship—or whatever it is that's down there—it
can't possibly allow a handful of grunts like you to know
about it. You're all going to die. Count on it.”

Snake's words hung in the air. Everyone on the deck was silent.

Their reward for arriving at Wilkes Ice Station so quickly and
defending it against the French was to be a death sentence.

“Wonderful,” Schofield said. “That's just
wonderful. I bet you're pretty fucking proud of yourself,” he
said to Snake.

“My loyalty to my country is greater than my loyalty to you,
Scarecrow,” Snake said defiantly.

Schofield's teeth began to grind. He stepped forward. Book held
him back.

“Not now,” Book said quietly. “Not here.”

“Lieutenant!” a woman's voice yelled from
somewhere high up in the station. Schofield looked up.

Abby Sinclair was leaning out over the railing of A-deck.
“Lieutenant!” she yelled. “It's time!”

Schofield strode into the radio room on A-deck. Book and James Renshaw
came in behind him. Rebound had stayed down on E-deck to keep an eye
on Snake.

Abby was already seated at the radio console. She did a double take
when she saw Renshaw enter the room.

“Hello, Abby,” Renshaw said.

“Hello, James,” Abby said, cautiously.

She turned to Schofield. “The break should be over us any second
now.” She flicked a switch on the console. The sound of static
began to wash out from two wall-mounted speakers.

Shhhhhhhhhh.

“That's the sound of the solar flare,” Abby said.
“But if you wait just... a... few... seconds ...”

Abruptly the shooshing sound cut off and there was silence.

“And there it is,” Abby said. “There's your break,
Lieutenant. Go for it.”

Schofield sat down at the console and grabbed the microphone.

He hit the talk button, but just as he was about to speak, a strange
high-pitched whistling sound suddenly blared out from the wall-mounted
speakers. It sounded like feedback, interference.

Schofield released the microphone instantly, looked at Abby.
“What did I do? Did I press something?”

Abby frowned, flicked a couple of switches. “No. You didn't
do anything.”

“Is it the solar flare? Could you have got the timing
wrong?”

“No,” Abby said firmly.

She flicked some more switches.

Nothing happened.

The system didn't seem to be responding to what she was doing. The
high-pitched whistling sound filled the radio room. Abby said,
“There's something wrong; this isn't interference from
the flare. This is something else. This is different. It's almost
as if it's electronic. As though someone was jamming
us....”

Schofield felt a chill run up the length of his spine. “Jamming
us?”

“It's as if there's someone between us and
McMurdo, stopping our signal getting through,” Abby said.

“Scarecrow...,” a voice said from somewhere behind
Schofield.

Schofield spun.

It was Rebound.

He was standing in the doorway to the radio room.

“I thought I told you to stay down with—”

“Sir, you better see this,” Rebound said. “You better
see this now.” He held up his left hand.

In it was the portable viewscreen that Schofield had brought inside
from the hovercrafts earlier. The small TV screen that displayed the
findings of the two range finders mounted on top of the hovercrafts
outside. Rebound crossed the radio room quickly and handed the screen
to Schofield. Schofield looked at the screen and his eyes instantly
widened in horror.

“Oh, Christ,” he said. The screen was filled with
red blips. They looked like a swarm of bees, converging on a point;
were all approaching the center of the screen. Schofield counted
twenty red blips. Twenty....

All of them converging on Wilkes Ice Station. “Good God....”

And then suddenly he heard a voice. A voice that made his blood run
cold. It came from the speakers that lined the walls of the radio
room. Loud and hard, as if it were a message from God himself.

“Attention, Wilkes Ice Station. Attention,” the
voice said.

It was a crisp voice, clipped and cultured.

“Attention American forces at Wilkes Ice Station. As you will
now no doubt be aware, your communication lines have been intercepted.
It is no use attempting to contact your base at
McMurdo—you will not get through. You are advised to
lay down your arms immediately. If you do not lay down your defenses
before our arrival, we will be forced to make an offensive entry. Such
an entry, ladies and gentlemen, will be painful.”

Schofield's eyes went wide at the sound of the voice. The English
accent was all too apparent.

It was a voice that Schofield knew well. A voice from his past.

It was the voice of Trevor Barnaby. Brigadier General Trevor J.
Barnaby of Her Majesty's SAS.

“Oh, Jesus,” Rebound said.

“How long till they get here?” Book asked.

Schofield's eyes were glued to the portable viewscreen. He looked
at the box at the bottom of the screen. In it was a wire-frame picture
of a hovercraft. The wire-frame hovercraft rotated within the box.
Beneath it were the words: BELL TEXTRON SR.N7-S—LANDING CRAFT
AIR CUSHIONED (UK).

“It's the SAS,” Rebound said in disbelief.
“It's the fucking SAS.”

“Take it easy, Rebound,” Schofield said. “We're not
dead yet.”

He turned to Book. “Thirty-four miles out. Coming in at eighty
miles an hour.”

“Definitely not friendly,” Book said.

Schofield said, “Thirty-four miles at eighty miles an hour. That
gives us, what—”

“Twenty-six minutes,” Abby said quickly.

“Twenty-six minutes.” Schofield swallowed. “Shit.”

The room fell silent.

Schofield could hear Rebound's breathing. He was breathing fast,
hyperventilating.

Everyone watched Schofield, waited for him to make the call.

Schofield took a deep breath, tried to evaluate the situation. The
SAS—the British Special Air Service, the most dangerous special
forces unit in the world—was on its way to Wilkes Ice Station
right now.

And it was being led by Trevor Barnaby—the man who had
taught Shane Schofield everything he knew about covert
incursionary warfare. The man who in the eighteen years he had been in
command of the SAS had never once failed in a mission.

On top of all that, Barnaby was also jamming Schofield's radio,
stopping him from getting in contact with McMurdo. Stopping him from
making contact with the only people in the world who were capable of
taking out the French warship that was hovering off the coast, waiting
to launch its missiles at Wilkes Ice Station.

Schofield checked his stopwatch. It read:

2:02:31

2:02:32

2:02:33

Shit, he thought.

Less than an hour until they launched.

Shit. It was all happening too fast. It was as if the whole
world were closing in around him.

Schofield looked at the range finder viewscreen again, looked at the
swarm of dots approaching Wilkes Ice Station.

Twenty hovercrafts, he thought. Probably two or three men in
each. That meant a minimum of fifty men.

Fifty men.

And what did Schofield have?

Three good men in the station proper. Three more down in the cave.
Mother down in the storeroom and Snake handcuffed to a pole on E-deck.

The situation didn't just look bad.

It looked hopeless.

Either they stayed here and fought a suicidal battle with the SAS, or
they ran—made a break for McMurdo in the hovercrafts—and
brought back reinforcements later.

There really was no choice at all.

Schofield looked up at the small group gathered around him.

“All right,” he said. “We get out of here.”

Schofield's feet clanged loudly as they landed hard on the cold
metal floor of E-deck. Schofield strode quickly across the deck toward
the south tunnel and Mother's storeroom.

“What's going on?” a voice called out from the other
side of the deck. Snake. “Trouble, Lieutenant?”

Schofield approached the handcuffed soldier. He saw the two French
scientists kneeling on the deck on either side of him. They just
stared resignedly at the deck.

“You made a mistake,” Schofield said to Snake. “You
started killing your own men too soon. You should have waited until
you were sure we had this station secured. Now we've got twenty
British hovercrafts speeding toward us and no reinforcements in sight.
They're going to be here in twenty-three minutes.”

Snake's face remained impassive, cold.

“And you know what?” Schofield said. “You're gonna
be here when they arrive.” He began to walk away.

“You're going to leave me here?” Snake said in
disbelief.

“Yes.”

“You can't do that. You need me,” Snake said.

Schofield looked at his watch as he walked.

Twenty-two minutes until the SAS arrived.

“Snake, you had your chance and you blew it. Now, you'd
better pray that we break through their line and get to McMurdo.
Because if we don't, this whole station—and whatever's
buried down in the ice beneath it—is gonna be lost
forever.”

Schofield stopped by the entrance to the south tunnel and turned
around. “And in the meantime, you can take your chances with
Trevor Barnaby.”

With that, Schofield turned away from Snake and entered the south
tunnel. He immediately swung right and entered Mother's storeroom.
Mother was seated on the floor by the wall again. She looked up when
Schofield came in.

“Trouble?” she said.

“As always,” Schofield said. “Can you move?”

“What's happening?”

“Our favorite ally just sent their best troops in to take this
station.”

“What do you mean?”

“The SAS are on their way and they don't sound
friendly.”

“How many?”

“Twenty hovercrafts.”

“Shit,” Mother said.

“That's what I thought. Can you move?” Schofield was
already probing around behind Mother's chair, to see if he could
gather together all of her fluid bags and intravenous drips.

“How long till they get here?” Mother asked.

Schofield looked quickly at his watch. “Twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes,” Mother said.

Behind her, Schofield quickly grabbed two fluid lines.

“Scarecrow...,” she said.

“Just a second.”

“Scarecrow.”

Schofield stopped what he was doing and looked up at Mother.

“Stop,” Mother said gently.

Schofield looked at her.

Mother said, “Scarecrow. Get out of here. Get out of here now.
Even if we had a full squad of twelve swordsmen, we'd never be
able to hold off an entire platoon of SAS commandos.”
Swordsman was Mother's term for a Marine, a reference to
the sword of honor that every Marine wore when in full dress uniform.

“Mother...”

“Scarecrow, the SAS, they aren't regular troops like we are.
They are killers, trained killers. They are trained
to go into a hostile zone and kill everyone in sight. They don't
take prisoners. They don't ask questions. They kill.” Mother
paused. “You have to evacuate the station.”

“I know.”

“And you can't do that with a one-legged old hag like me
weighing you down. If you're gonna run that blockade, you're
gonna need people who can move, people who can move fast.”

“I'm not going to leave you here—”

“Scarecrow. You have to get to McMurdo. You have to get
reinforcements.”

“And then what?”

“And then what? And then you can come back here with a fucking
battalion of swordsmen, you nuke these British sons of
bitches, you rescue the girl, and you save the fucking day. That's
what.”

Schofield just stared at Mother. She returned his gaze, looked him
squarely in the eye.

“Go,” she said softly. “Go now. I'll be all
right.”

Schofield didn't say anything; he just continued to stare at her.

Mother shrugged nonchalantly. “I mean, hey, like I've said
before, it's nothing one good kiss from a fine-looking man like
you wouldn't—”

At that moment, without warning, Schofield leaned forward and kissed
Mother quickly on the lips. It was only a short kiss—an innocent
peck—but Mother's eyes went as wide as saucers.

Schofield stood up. Mother took a deep breath.

“Whoa, mama,” she said.

“Find a place to hide and stay there,” Schofield said.
“I'll be back. I promise.”

And then he left the room.

The hovercraft's engine roared to life.

In the driver's seat, Rebound floored the accelerator. The needle
on the tachometer bounced up to 6000 rpms.

At that moment, the second Marine hovercraft came gliding across the
hard-packed snow. Its engine revved loudly as it slid to a halt
alongside Rebound's hovercraft.

Buck Riley's voice came over Rebound's radio.
“Fifteen minutes to go, Rebound. Let's get 'em over
to the main building and load 'em up.”

Schofield looked at his watch as he strode quickly round the outer
tunnel of B-deck.

Fifteen minutes to go.

“Fox. Can you hear me?” he said into his helmet mike as he
walked. While he waited for a reply, he quickly put his hand over the
microphone.

“Let's go, people!” he yelled.

The remaining residents of Wilkes—Abby and the three male
scientists, Llewellyn, Harris, and Robinson—were hurrying in and
out of their respective rooms.

Llewellyn and Robinson ran past Schofield. They were dressed in thick
black windbreakers. They hurried off toward the central shaft of the
station.

Suddenly Gant's voice came over Schofield's earpiece.
“Scarecrow, this is Fox. I read you. You're not gonna
believe what's down here.”

“Yeah, well, you're not gonna believe what's up
here,” Schofield said. “Sorry, Fox, but you're gonna
have to tell me about it later. We're in big trouble up here.
We've got a whole platoon of SAS commandos heading toward this
station and they're gonna be here in about fourteen minutes.”

“Jesus. What are you going to do?”

“We're gonna pull out. We have to. There's just too many
of them. Our only chance is to get back to McMurdo and bring back the
cavalry.”

“What should we do down here?”

“Just stay where you are. Point your guns at that pool and shoot
the first thing that pokes its head out of the water.”

Schofield looked around himself as he spoke. He couldn't see
Kirsty anywhere.

“Listen, Fox, I have to go,” he said.

“Be careful, Scarecrow.”

“You, too. Scarecrow, out.”

Schofield spun instantly. “Where's the girl!” he yelled.

He received no reply.

Just then he saw Abby emerge from her room. She was hurriedly putting
on a heavy blue parka.

“Abby! Where's Kirsty?” he called.

“I think she went back to her room!”

“Where is her room?”

“Down the tunnel! On the left!” Abby yelled, pointing down
the tunnel behind Schofield.

Schofield ran down the outer tunnel of B-deck, looking for Kirsty.

Twelve minutes to go.

He threw open every door he came to.

First door. A bedroom. Nothing.

Second door. Locked. A three-ringed biohazard sign on it. The Biotoxin
Laboratory. Kirsty wouldn't be in there.

Third door. Schofield threw it open.

And suddenly he stopped.

Schofield hadn't seen this room before. It was a walk-in freezer
of some sort, the kind used for storing food. Not anymore,
Schofield thought. Now this freezer room stored something else.

There were three bodies in the room.

Samurai, Mitch Healy, and Hollywood. They all lay on their backs,
face-up.

After the battle with the French, Schofield had ordered that the
bodies of his fallen men be taken to a freezer of some sort, where
they were to be kept until they could be returned home for a proper
burial. This was obviously where the bodies had been taken.

There was, however, a fourth body in the freezer room. It lay on the
floor next to Hollywood's body, and it had been covered over with
a brown hessian sack.

Schofield frowned.

Another body?

It couldn't have been one of the French soldiers, because they had
not been moved from where they lay—

And then he suddenly Schofield remembered.

It was Bernard Olson.

Doctor Bernard Olson.

The scientist James Renshaw was said to have killed several days
before Schofield and his team had arrived at Wilkes. The residents of
Wilkes must have placed his body in here.

Schofield checked his watch.

Eleven minutes.

And then suddenly he remembered something that Renshaw had said to him
after he had woken up inside his room, bound to the bed. When Renshaw
had released Schofield he had asked him to do something odd. He had
asked him—if he ever got the chance—to check Olson's
body, in particular the tongue and the eyes.

Schofield didn't understand what the dead man's tongue and
eyes had to do with anything. But Renshaw had insisted that they would
prove his innocence.

Ten and a half minutes.

Not enough time. Got to get out of here.

But then, Renshaw had saved his life....

All right.

Schofield hurried into the freezer room and fell to his knees beside
the brown hessian sack. He swept it off the body.

Bernard Olson stared up at him with cold, lifeless eyes.

He was an ugly man—fat and bald, with a pudgy, wrinkled face.
His skin was bone white in color.

Schofield didn't waste any time. He checked the eyes first.

They were deeply red around the rims, inflamed. Horribly bloodshot.

Then he turned his attention to the dead man's mouth.

The mouth was shut. Schofield tried to open it, but the jaw was locked
firmly in place. It wouldn't open an inch.

Schofield leaned closer and prized the dead man's lips apart so
that he could examine the tongue.

The lips came apart.

“Urghhh,” he winced as he saw it. He swallowed quickly, held
back the nausea.

Bernie Olson had bitten his own tongue off.

For some reason, before he had died, Bernie Olson had bitten down hard
with his teeth, clamping them shut. He had bitten down so hard that he
had cut his own tongue in half.

Ten minutes.

That's enough, time to go.

Schofield ran for the door, and as he passed Mitch Healy's body on
the way out, he grabbed the dead Marine's helmet from the floor.

Schofield emerged from the freezer room just as Kirsty came running
down the outer tunnel of B-deck.

“I had to get a parka,” she said apologetically. “My
other one got wet—”

“Come on,” Schofield said, grabbing her hand and pulling her
down the tunnel.