The Black Knight (41 page)

Ethan hurled off his thick Arctic jacket and managed to drive his legs down into one of the suits, hauling it over his shoulders as he looked at the black water surging closer and heard the sound of the walls of the cavern crashing inward under the unbearable pressure of millions of tons of water swelling in the tunnels.

‘You’ll never make it!’ Veer yelled as he tried to yank the blade from his boot, his features twisted with pain. ‘We’re all going to die down here!’

Ethan ignored the mercenary as he zipped up his suit and hefted the oxygen tank onto his back, clipping it in place as he looked across at Hannah and saw her pulling the tank of the dead soldier into place on her own shoulders. She pulled the rubber hood into place and attempted to wipe thick blood off the faceplate with numb hands. She yanked the faceplate into place and Ethan quickly sealed it for her.

He stepped out from behind her and saw Veer move.

‘Down!’

Something flickered in the light as it flew across the dock, and all at once Ethan saw that the blade was out of Veer’s boot. He heard a thump and felt Hannah stiffen, her eyes wide with shock as she looked around and down. Hannah slump onto her knees as the thick blade of the knife quivered in her side.

‘No!’

Ethan dropped alongside her, the serrated blade buried in her flesh somewhere just below her ribs, Hannah’s eyes wide and her breathing coming fast as her hands clenched around the handle of the blade.

‘No, don’t move it!’ Ethan yelled. ‘You’ll break the seal of the suit!’

Ethan turned as a tremendous roar burst across the cavern and the fissures in the far wall suddenly burst open. Fierce columns of icy glacial water exploded into the docks and burst past the command center, pouring down onto the docks as frigid water flooded over the dock walls.

Ethan saw the water flood across the dock around them, and then he saw a huge, muscular and torpedo-shaped form surge from the waves and slide onto the dock.

‘We’re going, now!’ Ethan urged as he held Hannah and let the freezing water rush across them.

He kicked off, the flow of water rushing toward the tunnel as he let the fearsome flow carry them along and looked back to see Veer’s body immobile on the dock as the water burst around it. Then he saw the leopard seal, its huge form dwarfing Veer’s as it lunged for his body and sank its razor sharp teeth into his leg and wrenched him toward the water.

Veer screamed as the seal hauled him off the dock but the sound of his torment was lost as the water thundered by them and carried their bodies downstream, Ethan glimpsing Veer vanish into the waves. Ethan held Hannah close alongside him as they were swept along and the current washed them off the dock and sent them careering down the tunnel and out of the chamber.

The walls of the tunnel thundered by, the roar of the rushing water amplified by the enclosed space and the sharp ice walls illuminated only by the glow from the flashlights attached to their wetsuits as they were sent tumbling through the depths of the narrow chasm.

Hannah’s legs were kicking alongside his, and the knowledge that she was still conscious was hope enough for Ethan to keep fighting as the current swept them along through the gloomy confines of the tunnel. He saw the shadowy form of the Nazi soldier buried deep in the ice flicker past like a ghoul in the subglacial darkness, began to see faint bioluminescence in the water as they were rushed along by the current. The water levels began rising faster than the current could carry them, and all at once he saw the glow from their flashlights flickering across the ceiling of the tunnel, the ragged surface dangerously close to their skulls as they tore along.

‘We’re going to have to dive!’ Ethan said as he grappled for his mouthpiece. ‘Can you make it?!’

Ethan felt Hannah squeeze his hand tightly as she shoved her own mouthpiece into place as the water threatened to dash them against the ice. Ethan pushed his mouthpiece into place and then kicked away from the surface of the water, one hand around Hannah’s chest as they plunged beneath the surface.

The roar of the rushing water became a dull but equally threatening rumble as they plunged through the darkness. Ethan could just make out the walls of the tunnel rushing by in a cloud of bubbles, the bioluminescent algae and bacteria in the water providing a soft blue glow. The current was immensely strong, twisting with the path of the tunnel and keeping their bodies a respectable distance from the sharp, ragged walls as they tumbled over while passing alongside powerful vortexes. He knew that if they became caught into those vortexes it would all be over, their fate the same as the Nazi guard buried for eternity in a tight corner of the tunnel.

Ethan held onto Hannah as tightly as he could and tried to look in the direction of their travel, and almost at once he flinched as he saw a dead body pinned against the surface of the tunnel, then another, then more still. He realized that Veer’s team had been caught by the freezing deluge as they fled for the rappel lines that would have carried them out of the fissure. He saw dozens of bodies pinned against the tunnel walls or turning over and over in vortexes, their faces white and their mouths agape, eyes wide with the final terrible agony of drowning.

The tunnel took a swift turn to the left and Ethan reached out to his right, trying to keep both himself and Hannah on their backs in the hope of his hand catching one of the many rappel lines left by Riggs’ SEAL team when they had entered the fissure.

He saw in the gloom the faint halo of the four glow sticks they had wedged into the ice appear in front of him, the soaring walls of the cliff above glowing like a sword of light distorted by the churning waves of the surface as they rushed past beneath, and to his elation he saw Hannah reach out too and search for the lines.

Something brushed across Ethan’s arm and slid along it toward his wrist, and he felt Hannah suddenly jerk in his grip as she got a hold of one of the lines and hung on to it for grim death. Ethan caught the same line, slid down beneath her in the strong current, and then they both slammed against the fissure wall.

Ethan managed to hang on, felt Hannah thump into his side alongside him and he pushed her upward, knowing the pain she must be in. Hannah pulled herself slowly up and out of the flow, inch by agonizing inch. Ethan hauled himself up after her and they broke through the surface and clambered up and out of the water, hanging on to the lines as Ethan wrenched off his mask.

‘Can you make it up?’ he yelled above the roar of the rushing water, his face numb with the cold and his hands aching.

Hannah nodded as she tore off her mask and mouthpiece, but he could see that her face was as pale as the ice surrounding them from more than just the cold.

‘I can,’ she gasped wearily, her voice inaudible above the roar of the water but Ethan able to guess her words from her lips. ‘Let’s go.’

Ethan scrambled up the line beneath Hannah, hoping to help her if she faltered. They climbed one icy ledge at a time, the faint glow of sky far above them drawing them upward. Ethan looked up at Hannah as she climbed, the rushing water below fading away from them, and as he did so something warm dropped onto his cheek. He reached up and touched it and saw blood smeared on his finger, and he knew that Hannah could not continue on much longer.

‘Keep going!’ he encouraged, trying to sound upbeat, ‘we’re almost there!’

Hannah, one agonizing step after another, climbed the last few yards out of the fissure and Ethan reached up to help push her upward and over the edge of the trench, the thick blade still protruding from her side and drenched with blood. Hannah managed to lever herself over the edge without wrenching the blade and then she slumped onto the ice.

Ethan scrambled up the line and over the ledge, saw the same spectacular sky they had left behind many hours before, the sun was low on the horizon amid a halo of torn ribbons of cloud, black against the brilliant sunset that would not end for months.

Ethan dropped down alongside Hannah, who was lying now on her back and staring up at the heavens.

‘Hang in there,’ Ethan said, ‘we’re getting out of here now.’

Hannah managed a vacant smile as Ethan turned to the ski-gliders, and then his heart sank. Every one of them had been sabotaged, the engines reduced to smoldering wreckage by Veer’s men and the parasols likewise burned.

Ethan slumped onto his haunches as he surveyed the vast wilderness around them, hundreds of miles of barren ice glowing in the light of the low sun. The silence was almost deafening.

‘We’re not leaving,’ Hannah croaked alongside him as she turned her head and saw the damaged ski-gliders nearby. ‘Looks like you’re stuck with me until the bitter end.’

‘I’ll think of something,’ Ethan promised.

Hannah smiled and rested one hand on top of his. ‘We’re about to be bombed, Ethan, in case you’d forgotten.’

Ethan looked down at her and then he heard a noise coming toward them, as though the sky above them were being torn apart, and he knew that it was over, that there could be no escape.

‘You owe me ten bucks, asshole,’ Hannah smiled.

Ethan heard the noise reach a deafening crescendo, and he squeezed her hand in return as the sky was torn apart by noise above them.

***

XLIX

DIA Watch Center,

Manhattan

Nicola Lopez sprinted down a corridor that led to the DIA’s Watch Center and burst in to see Jarvis and Vaughn concentrating on the main screen with Hellerman.

‘I’ve got it!’ Lopez yelled as she hurried across to them and thrust the codes into Hellerman’s hand. ‘Put them in!’

Hellerman grabbed the codes and pinned them to his monitor as he began typing furiously.

‘What did you offer Wilms to get them?’ Jarvis asked her.

Lopez watched as letters, numbers and symbols flew across the screen and Hellerman hit “
Enter
” on his keyboard. ‘I promised him solitary confinement,’ she replied. ‘After a night with his cellmates, he doesn’t want to encounter another human being again in his entire life.’

A flurry of digital code swept across the screen as the computers accessed the KIL Satellite’s controls, and then Hellerman gave a whoop of victory.

‘We’re in!’ he yelped as he scanned the data now streaming down his monitor.

‘Cancel the launch!’ Jarvis ordered. ‘Shut the damned thing down!’

Hellerman obeyed without hesitation and the satellite’s systems began shutting down one after another as Hellerman accessed them and terminated the code managing the various systems and programs.

‘As soon as I’m done,’ he said, ‘I’ll order the satellite into a terminal descent and send it into the Pacific Ocean somewhere far from…’

‘Belay that,’ Jarvis snapped.

Lopez shot the old man a sharp glance. ‘That wasn’t part of the agreement.’

‘The agreement’s changed,’ Jarvis replied without looking at her. ‘The president himself wants the satellite placed in a new orbit, parallel to one of our new Keyhole satellites.’

‘So you can monitor targets and be ready to hit them at a moment’s notice,’ Lopez guessed easily. ‘Damn it Doug, I should’ve known better. This satellite is dangerous and there could be more of them.’

‘We have the control codes now,’ Jarvis replied. ‘Majestic Twelve won’t be able to use this system as leverage against other countries, nor our own for that matter.’

Vaughn was frowning at the screen. ‘Oh, no.’

‘What?’ Lopez asked.

‘We’re too late,’ Vaughn replied. ‘Look, the data for the satellite says that it holds four weapons, those tungsten projectiles. There are only two on board now.’

Hellerman rattled off a line of code and then examined the results. ‘Damn, he’s right.’

Jarvis leaned closer.

‘One would account for the Vela Incident,’ he said, ‘but the other?’

Hellerman accessed more code, his hands flying over the keys, and Lopez heard his sigh of regret as he looked up at her.

‘We missed it,’ he said. ‘The satellite launched a second projectile three minutes ago.’

Lopez felt her stomach flip inside her. She already knew the answer to her next question, but she felt compelled to ask anyway: ‘What was the target?’

Hellerman rattled off another code command and looked up to the main screen. Lopez looked up and saw an image of the Southern oceans, and there upon it an arc with a red icon upon it that was following a line of descent toward a spot in the Eastern Antarctic.

‘It’s already on its way down,’ Hellerman said in a quiet voice, the rest of the Watch Center silent now as they observed the tiny icon. ‘Velocity is approximately one mile per second and increasing.’

Lopez walked away from the desk, as though having a clearer view of the screen would somehow allow her to influence the outcome of the strike.

‘Can we intercept it?’ Jarvis asked hopefully.

‘No allied aircraft in the vicinity,’ Hellerman replied, ‘and no way that our ballistic defenses could be launched in time to intercept that missile now. Two minutes to impact, it’s already entering the atmosphere.’

Lopez looked across at Vaughn. ‘No word from Ethan?’

‘Nothing.’

Lopez looked at the screen and saw the missile accelerating rapidly, a small digital read-out reaching three miles per second already.

‘Oh my God, that’s going to create one hell of a bang when it hits,’ Hellerman said unhelpfully as he gazed at the icon.

Lopez looked at the phone on Jarvis’s desk, hoped against hope that it would ring. To her amazement, it suddenly buzzed urgently and Jarvis hit the speaker button.

‘Jarvis, tell me something good!’

The line crackled with distortion as a voice reported in.

‘The SEAL team made it out and the artifact has been secured,’
the voice replied.
‘The team is clear but not everybody made it back.’

‘Where’s Ethan Warner?’ Lopez demanded.

‘And Hannah Ford?’ Vaughn added.

‘Stand by.’

There was a painfully long wait on the line as the caller checked with the crew of the submarine and the SEAL team.

‘I’m sorry, but Agents Warner and Ford are both unaccounted for and were last seen inside the base below the glacier, which has since collapsed.’