Ice Station (51 page)

The first F-22 exploded in a giant fireball. When it went up in
flames, the other F-22 pilots shouted as one.

“—missile just came out of the fucking
sky!—”

“—can't see him anywhere—”

“—bastard's using some sort of cloaking
device—”

A couple of the F-22 pilots hit their afterburners, but it was no use.

More missiles shot out from the shimmering body of air that was the
Silhouette. Three hit their targets right away, blasted them
to smithereens.

The sixth and final F-22 tried to make a run for it. It managed to get
a mile away before the missile that had acquired it—the last
missile to drop from the rotating missile racks inside the
Silhouette—slammed into its tailpipe and blew it to
hell.

Inside the Silhouette, Schofield breathed a sigh of relief.
As he turned north, he keyed his radio again. “USS Wasp.
Come in. USS Wasp. Please. Come in.”

After several tries, there finally came a reply.
“Unidentified aircraft, this is Wasp. Identify
yourself.” Schofield gave his name and service number. The
person at the other end checked it and then said,

“Lieutenant Schofield, it's good to hear from you. The
flight deck has been cleared. You have clearance to land. I am sending
you our coordinates now.”

The Silhouette flew into the night

The USS Wasp, the Marine Corps' aircraft carrier-like
vessel, was about eighty nautical miles from Schofield. It would take
about fifteen minutes to cruise there.

In the luminescent green glow of his indicator dials Schofield stared
out at the orange horizon. He had lifted the cloaking device and was
allowing the plane to go on autopilot for a while.

The previous twenty-four hours flitted through his mind.

The French. The British. The ICG. His own men who had died on a
mission that was never meant to succeed. Faces flashed across his
mind. Hollywood. Samurai. Book. Mother. Soldiers who had died so that
their country could lay its greedy hands on some extraterrestrial
technology that never was.

A deep sadness fell over Schofield.

He leaned forward and began flicking some switches. The screen in
front of him flashed:

MISSILE ARMED. TARGETING ...

Schofield quickly hit another switch.

MANUAL TARGETING SELECTED.

He maneuvered the target selector on the screen until he found the
target he was looking for. He pressed the select button on his stick.

Several other option screens appeared and Schofield calmly chose the
options he wanted.

SET DELAY PERIOD: 23:00 MINS. SAFETY MEASURES: DEACTIVATED.

Then, when he was done, he hit his thumb trigger.

At that moment, the sixth and final missile inside his missile bay
rotated on its rack and dropped down into the sky. Its thrusters
kicked in and the missile shot off into the distance, climbing high
into the deep black sky.

The USS Wasp lay at rest in the middle
of the Southern Ocean.

It was a big ship. With a length of 844 feet, it was as long as two
and a half football fields. The enormous five-story superstructure in
the middle of the ship—the operations center of the ship known
as “the island”—looked down on the flight deck. On a
normal day, the flight deck would have been dotted with choppers,
Harriers, gunships, and people, but not today.

Today the flight deck was deserted. There was no movement on it at
all, no aircraft, no people.

It looked like a ghost town.

The Silhouette slowed perfectly in the air above the non-skid
deck of the Wasp, its retros firing thin streams of gas down
onto the deck beneath it. The ominous black fighter plane landed
softly on the flight deck, near the stern of the ship.

Schofield peered out through the canopy of the Silhouette.

The flight deck in front of him was eerily empty. Schofield sighed. He
had expected that.

“All right, everyone, let's get out of here,” he said.

Renshaw and Kirsty left the cockpit. Wendy went with them. Schofield
said he would take care of Gant.

Before he left the cockpit, however, Schofield pulled a long, thin
silver canister from the satchel that he had stretched over his
shoulder.

He set the timer on the Tritonal charge for ten minutes and then left
it on the pilot's chair. Then he picked up Gant and carried her
out of the cockpit and into the missile bay. Then he carried her down
the steps and out of the Silhouette.

The flight deck was deserted.

In the orange twilight, Schofield and his motley collection of
survivors stood in front of the ominous black plane. The big black
Silhouette, with its sharply pointed down-turned nose and its
sleek, low-swept wings, looked like a gigantic bird of prey as it sat
there on the deserted flight deck of the Wasp in the cold
Antarctic twilight.

Schofield led the others across the empty flight deck, toward the
five-story superstructure in the middle of the ship. It was a strange
sight—Schofield with Gant in his arms, Renshaw and Kirsty, and
last of all, loping across the flight deck behind them, staring in awe
at the massive metal vessel all around her, Wendy.

As they approached the island, a door opened at the base of the
massive structure and a white light glowed from inside it.

Suddenly a man's shadow appeared in the doorway, silhouetted by
the light behind him. Schofield came closer and recognized the owner
of the shadow, recognized the weathered features of a man he knew
well.

It was Jack Walsh.

The Captain of the Wasp. The man who, four years ago, had
defied the White House and sent a team of his Marines into Bosnia to
get Shane Schofield out.

Walsh smiled at Schofield, his blue eyes shining.

“You've been getting a lot of noses out of joint today,
Scarecrow,” he said evenly. “Lot of people talking about
you.”

Schofield frowned. He had kind of expected a warmer reception from
Jack Walsh.

“Why have you cleared the deck, sir?” Schofield said.

“I didn't—” Walsh began, cutting himself off as
suddenly another man brushed rudely past him and stepped out onto the
flight deck and just stood there in front of Schofield.

Schofield had never seen this man before. He had carefully groomed
white hair, a white mustache, and a barrel-like torso.

And he wore a blue uniform. Navy. The number of medals on his breast
pocket was staggering. Schofield guessed he must have been about
sixty.

“So this is the Scarecrow,” the man said, looking Schofield
up and down. Schofield just stood there on the flight deck, holding
Gant in his arms.

“Scarecrow,” Jack Walsh said tightly, “this is Admiral
Thomas Clayton, the Navy's representative to the Joint Chiefs of
Staff. He assumed command of the Wasp about four hours
ago.”

Schofield sighed inwardly.

An Admiral from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Jesus.

If what he had heard about the ICG was correct, the Joint Chiefs were
its head, its brain. Schofield was looking at one of the
heads of the ICG.

“All right!” Admiral Clayton yelled loudly to
someone standing in the doorway behind Walsh. “Get out
there!”

At that moment, a stream of men—all of them dressed in blue
coveralls—poured out of the doorway in front of Schofield and
headed across the deck toward the Silhouette.

Admiral Clayton turned to Schofield. “Seems this mission is not
going to be a complete waste of time after all. We heard the
commentary of your dogfight with the F-22s. A cloaking device, huh?
Who would have thought it.”

Schofield looked back out at the deck, saw the men in blue coveralls
reach the stern end of the flight deck, saw them begin to swarm all
over the Silhouette. A couple of them went up the steps and
inside the big black plane.

“Captain Walsh,” Schofield said, indicating Gant. “This
Marine needs medical attention.”

Walsh nodded. “Let's get her to the infirmary.
Deckhand!”

A deckhand appeared, took Gant from Schofield, carried her inside.

Schofield turned to Kirsty and Renshaw. “Go with her. Take Wendy,
too.” Kirsty and Renshaw obeyed, went inside the island. Wendy
hopped in through the doorway after them. Schofield made to follow
them, but as he did, there came a shout from over by the
Silhouette.

“Admiral!” one of the men in blue coveralls called
out from underneath the pointed nose of the Silhouette.

“What is it?” Admiral Clayton said, walking over to the
plane.

The man held up the Tritonal 80/20 charge that Schofield had left
inside the cockpit. Clayton saw it. He didn't seem at all
perturbed by its presence.

Admiral Clayton turned to Schofield from fifty yards away.
“Attempting to destroy the evidence, Lieutenant?”

The Admiral took the charge from the man, turned the pressurized lid,
and calmly flicked the disarm switch.

Clayton smiled at Schofield. “Really, Scarecrow,” he called.
“You'll have to do better than that to beat me.”

Schofield just stared at Clayton, standing over by the
Silhouette. “I'm sorry about the deck, sir,”
Schofield said quietly.

Behind him, Jack Walsh said, “What?”

“I said, I'm sorry about the deck, sir,” Schofield
repeated.

At that moment, there came a sudden high-pitched whining sound. And
then before anyone knew what was happening, the whine became a scream
and then, like a thunderbolt sent from God himself, the sixth and
final missile from the Silhouette came shooting down out of
the sky and slammed into the Silhouette at nearly three
hundred miles per hour.

The big black fighter plane shattered in an instant, exploded into a
thousand pieces. Every man inside or near it was killed instantly. The
fuel tanks of the big black plane exploded next, causing a red-hot
fireball of liquid fire to flare out from the destroyed plane. The
fireball billowed out across the deck and engulfed Admiral Clayton. It
was so hot, it wiped the skin from his face.

Admiral Thomas Clayton was dead before he hit the ground.

Shane Schofield stood on the bridge of the
Wasp as it sailed east across the Southern Ocean, into the
morning sun. He took a sip from a coffee mug with the words CAPTAINS
MUG written on it. The coffee was hot.

Jack Walsh came out onto the bridge and offered him a new pair of
silver antiflash glasses. Schofield took them, put them on.

It had been three hours now since the Silhouette had been
destroyed by one of its own missiles.

Gant had been taken to the infirmary, where her condition had
worsened. Her blood loss had been severe. She had lapsed into a coma
about half an hour ago.

Renshaw and Kirsty were in Walsh's stateroom, sleeping soundly.
Wendy was playing in a dive preparation pool belowdecks.

Schofield himself had had a hot shower and changed into a tracksuit. A
corpsman had attended to his wounds, reset his broken rib. He had said
that Schofield would need further treatment when he got back home, but
with a few painkillers he would be OK for now. When the corpsman had
finished, Schofield had returned to Gant's bedside. He had only
come up to the bridge when Walsh had called for him.

When he'd got there, Walsh had told him that the Wasp had
just received a call from McMurdo Station. Apparently, a battered
Marine hovercraft had just arrived at McMurdo. In it were five
people—one Marine and four scientists—claiming that they
had come from Wilkes Ice Station.

Schofield shook his head and smiled. Rebound had made it to McMurdo.

It was then that Walsh demanded a rundown of the events of the
preceding twenty-four hours. Schofield told him everything—about
the French and the British, the ICG, and the Silhouette. He
even told Walsh about the help he had received from a dead Marine
named Andrew Trent.

When Schofield had finished recounting his story, Walsh just stood
there for a moment in stunned silence. Schofield took another sip from
his mug and looked aft, through the slanted panoramic windows of the
bridge. He saw the gaping hole at the stern end of the flight deck
where the missile had hit the Silhouette. Jagged lengths of
metal stuck out into the hole; wires and cables hung loosely from it.

Of course, Walsh had accepted Schofield's apology for the damage
to the deck. He hadn't much liked Admiral Clayton anyway; the
asshole had assumed command of Walsh's ship, and no skipper
appreciated that. And then when Walsh heard about Schofield's
experiences with the ICG down at Wilkes Ice Station, he had no pity
for Clayton and his ICG men at all.

As he stood there gazing down at the hole in the flight deck,
Schofield began to think about the mission again, in particular about
the Marines he had lost, the friends he had lost, on this
foolish crusade.

“Uh, Captain,” a young Ensign said. Walsh and Schofield
turned together. The young Ensign was sitting at an illuminated table
inside the communications room that adjoined the bridge. “I'm
picking up something very peculiar here....”

“What is it?” Walsh said. He and Schofield came over.

The Ensign said, “It appears to be some kind of GPS transponder
signal, coming from just off the coast of Antarctica. It's
emitting a valid Marine code signal.”

Schofield peered at the illuminated table in front of the Ensign. It
had a computer-generated map drawn on it. Down on the coast of
Antarctica—just off the coast, actually—there was a small,
blinking red dot, with a blinking red number alongside it: 05.

Schofield frowned. He remembered pressing his own Navistar Global
Positioning System transponder when he and Renshaw had been marooned
on the iceberg. His GPS transponder code was “01” since he
was the unit commander. Snake was 02; Book was 03. The numbers then
ascended in order of seniority.

Schofield tried to remember who “05” was.

“Holy shit,” he said, realizing. “It's
Mother!”