Ice Hunt (38 page)

“So the ventilation shaft empties into this cavern system?” Jenny asked.

Kowalski nodded. “We should be safe once we get there.”

Tom agreed. “We call it the Crawl Space.”

2:13 P.M.
ICE STATION GRENDEL

Matt fled with the others down the circular hall as it wound the circumference of this research level. To his right, he marched past the gruesome tanks, one after the other. Matt found himself counting. He was up to twenty-two.

He forced himself to stop. The tanks continued around the bend. There had to be fifty at least. He turned to the other wall of plate steel. It was interrupted by a few windows into offices, some sealed doors, and a few open hatches. He peered through one of these and spotted a hall of small barred cells. And in another, a larger barracks facility.

Here is where they must’ve housed the prisoners,
Matt thought. He could only imagine the terror of these folk.
Did they know their eventual fate?

Dr. Ogden trailed at Matt’s heels, while Amanda strode ahead of him. The biologist would occasionally rub at the frosted glass of a tank with the cuff of his sleeve, peer inside, and mutter.

Matt shook his head. He hadn’t the stomach for further scientific curiosity. He only wanted to get the hell out of here, back to the Alaskan backcountry, where all you had to fear was a hungry grizzly.

Behind him, a loud clang echoed from the main lab. The Russians were breaking in. After the threat from that icy voice, the group had fled, heading farther into this level.

Bratt led them. “It should be another ten yards or so.” He clutched a set of folded station plans in his hand.

Craig kept peering over the commander’s shoulder at the papers. The schematics came from a material sciences researcher from the NASA group. The scientist had mapped the entire physical plant of the station. Matt prayed the man knew his business.

Greer yelled. He was farther down the hall, scouting ahead. “Over here!” The lieutenant had dropped to one knee. A hatch lay between two tanks. Conduits and piping led out from it and spread to either side, trailing out along floorboards and ceiling to service the awful experiment.

Pearlson indicated a diagram plated to the wall above the hatch. It was the layout of this level. He tapped a large red X on the map. “You are here,” he muttered.

Matt studied the map, then glanced forward and back. They were at the midpoint of the storage hall. Halfway around this level.

Pearlson and Greer set to work unscrewing the panel, using steel scalpels. Around them, everyone carried pilfered weapons found in the labs before they fled: additional scalpels, bone saws, steel hammers, even a pair of meat hooks wielded by Washburn. Matt did not want to speculate on the surgical use of those wicked tools. He himself carried a yard-long length of steel pipe.

Matt studied their party as the sailors worked on the hatch. They had all reverted to a pack of stone-age hunter/gatherers…armed with expertly crafted surgical weapons. A strange sight.

Ogden was again rubbing at a nearby tank. The squeaking of wool on glass drew Matt’s attention. He had to resist clubbing the man with his pipe.
Leave them be,
he wanted to scream.

As if reading his mind, Ogden turned to him, eyes pinched. “They’re all indigenous,” he muttered. The man’s voice cracked slightly. Matt finally realized the tension wearing at the biologist, close to breaking him. He was trying to hold himself together by keeping his mind occupied. “Every one of them.”

Despite his previous objection, Matt stepped closer, brows bunched together. “Indigenous.”

“Inuit. Aleut. Eskimo. Whatever you want to call them.” Ogden waved a hand, encompassing the arc of tanks. “They’re all the same. Maybe even the same tribe.”

Matt approached the last tank the biologist had wiped. This one appeared at first empty. Then Matt looked down.

A small boy sat frozen in ice on the bottom of the tank.

Dr. Ogden was correct in his assessment. The lad was clearly Inuit. The black hair, the sharp almond eyes, the round cheekbones, even the color of his skin—though now tinged blue—all made his heritage plain.

Inuit. Jenny’s people.

Matt sank to one knee.

The boy’s eyes were closed as if in slumber, but his tiny hands were raised, pressing against the walls of his frozen prison.

Matt placed his own palm on the glass, covering the boy’s hand. Matt’s other hand clenched on the pipe he carried. What monsters could do this to a boy? The lad could be no older than eight.

A sudden flash of recognition.

He was the same age as Tyler when he died
.

Matt found himself staring into that still face, but another ghost intruded: Tyler, lying on the pine table in the family cabin. His son had died in ice, too. His lips had been blue, eyes closed.

Just sleeping
.

The pain of that moment ached through him. He was glad Jenny wasn’t here to see this. He prayed she was safe, but she should never see this…any of this.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, apologizing to both boys. Tears welled in his eyes.

A hand touched his shoulder. It was Amanda. “We’ll let the world know,” she said thickly, her pronunciation further garbled by her own sorrow.

“How could this…he was only a boy. Who was watching after him?”

But Matt’s face was turned to the glass. Still, her fingers squeezed in sympathy.

Ogden stood on his other side. Eyes haggard, he was half bent studying a panel of buttons and levers. One finger traced some writing. “This is odd.”

“What?” Matt asked.

Ogden reached to a lever and pulled it down with a bit of effort. The snap was loud in the quiet hall. The panel buttons bloomed with light. The glass of the tank vibrated as some old motor caught, tripped, then began to hum.

“What did you do?” Matt blurted, offended, anger flaring.

Ogden stepped back, glancing between Matt and Amanda. “My God, it’s still operational. I didn’t think—”

A loud crash reverberated down the hall, echoing to them.

“The Russians,” Bratt said. “They’re through.”

“So are we,” Greer said with a grimace. “Almost.” Pearlson struggled with the last quarter-twist screw.

Craig stood at their backs, eyes wide and unblinking, staring between their hurried labor and the hall. The reporter held a foot-long steel bone pin, a surgical ice pick, clutched to his chest. “C’mon, already,” he moaned.

Shouts could now be heard. Footsteps on steel plate, cautious still.

“Got it!” Greer spat. He and Pearlson lifted the service hatch free.

“Everyone out!” Bratt ordered.

Craig, the closest, dove first. The others followed, flowing through the opening.

Matt, suddenly weak and tired, still knelt by the frozen boy. His hand on the glass ached from the cold of the ice inside. He felt the vibration in the glass from the buried machinery.

Amanda stepped away. “Hurry, Matt.”

He looked one more time at the boy. He felt like he was abandoning the child as he stood. His fingers lingered an extra moment, then he turned away.

Greer helped Amanda through, then waved to Matt.

He shoved over and ducked under the hatch.

Washburn was crouched on the far side. She pointed one of her steel hooks, like some Amazonian pirate, down the crawlway.

Matt followed Amanda on hands and knees, pipe under one arm. Bratt led the party, followed by Craig and the biology group. Matt hurried, making room for the others behind him: Pearlson, Greer, and Washburn.

The tunnel was a mere shaft bored through the ice. Rubber mats lined the floor to aid in climbing through it. Conduits shared the space, running along both walls.

After five yards, the tunnel suddenly darkened. Matt peered over his shoulder. Greer had pulled the hatch in place, hopefully hiding their retreat or at least delaying its discovery. This fourth level was large and broken into many compartments. The Russians would lose time, hunting through the level; hopefully they’d miss the loose hatch for a while.

The way became darker—and colder.

Finally the chute dumped into some old service cubbyhole. It was merely a cube cut out of the ice. A few pieces of wooden furniture crowded the space, along with spools of conduit and copper wire, stacks of spare metal plates, a thick rubber hose, and a tool trunk.

A ladder, just wood rungs pounded into one of the ice walls, climbed to another shaft twenty feet above.

Bratt pointed the rolled sheaf of his schematics. He kept his voice low. “That should lead to the third level. They stairstep up, one level at a time.”

Washburn studied the next tunnel. “We might be able to make it to the old weapons locker on the third level. It’s in the main section of the station, but if the Russians’ attention were distracted for a moment, a small team might be able to reach it.”

Bratt nodded. “Up,” he ordered.

Surgical tools were pocketed in order to free hands. The group mounted the ladder in the same order as before. Matt followed Amanda. He reached the top and pulled himself into the next service shaft.

A shout sounded behind him. Russian. It came from down the tunnel to the lab on Level Four.

“Damn it,” Greer growled.

The Russians had already found their rabbit hole.

A shot rang out. The slug ricocheted down the shaft and rebounded into the cubbyhole. Ice blasted as the bullet struck the wall, inches from where Washburn climbed the ladder.

Matt reached down and helped haul her up. Nimble as a cat, Washburn slipped past him. “Get the others moving faster,” he urged her.

No further prompting was needed. Everyone in the chute had frozen at the rifle blast, but now they hurried away, Bratt in the lead.

A new commotion echoed down to them. Mumbled orders in Russian. They were hard to discern. Matt’s ears were still ringing, but he didn’t like the furtive tone of this new speech.

Matt leaned over the tunnel opening. “Get your asses up here!” he hissed down to the last two men. They had both splayed themselves against the walls to either side, wary of further gunshots.

Greer leaped to the ladder first, flying up like a monkey. Pearlson was at his heels, practically crawling up his partner’s legs.

Matt grabbed the loose hood of Greer’s parka and dragged the man to him, then shoved him after the others.

Pearlson had one hand on the lip of the service shaft. Matt turned to help him next. Over the seaman’s shoulder, he saw a black object bounce into the room below.

Matt’s eyes widened with horror. It looked like a matte-black pineapple.

Pearlson must have been looking at Matt’s face at that moment. “What…?” He glanced back over his own shoulder.

The black object danced on the ice, striking the wall at the base of the ladder.

“Shit!” Pearlson said, staring up at Matt.

Matt lunged out and grabbed the seaman’s hood.

Pearlson knocked his arm away and leaped up, covering the shaft’s opening with his own torso. “Go!” he wailed in grim terror.

Matt fell back as the grenade exploded. The concussion knocked him farther back. The flash of brightness blinded him. He felt a wash of heat over his face and neck. He surely screamed, but was deaf to it.

The flash died away immediately, but not the heat—it grew more intense.

The source became horribly clear as Matt’s vision blinked back.

Pearlson still blocked the exit, but his clothes were on fire. No, not his clothes—his entire body.

It had been no ordinary grenade, but an incendiary device, exploding with liquid fire.

Pearlson’s body tumbled backward as the end of the shaft melted toward Matt, the rubber matting bubbling. He backpedaled away. His face and neck felt sunburned. If Pearlson hadn’t shielded the chute, they all would’ve been parboiled inside. The residual heat still felt like an open oven. The ice turned to water, dripping all around.

The Russians must have known they ran a good chance of losing the escapees in the warren of service tunnels and chutes. Their ploy had been brutal and swift. The grenade would either kill them or flush them out.

A hand grabbed Matt’s shoulder.

It was Greer. The lieutenant stared unblinking toward the melted ruins. “Move it.”

Matt’s ears still throbbed. He barely heard the man, but he nodded.

Together they crawled after the others.

But where could they go? Death lay either way. The only question remaining was the method of their demise. Matt stared ahead, then behind.

Ice or fire
.

12

Raiding Parties