Текст книги "Ice Hunt"

Автор книги: James Rollins

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

She nodded. “Well, he has enough specimens to work with.”

“Yes, indeed. He should be able to thaw—” Dr. Willig started and peered over a shoulder.

Amanda followed his gaze. He had heard something. It didn’t take long to spot the commotion that drew his attention and interrupted their conversation.

Henry Ogden and Connor MacFerran were nose to nose. The brawny Scottish geologist loomed over the shorter biologist. But Henry was not about to give ground. He stood with his hands on his hips, leaning forward, an angry Chihuahua before a pitbull.

Dr. Willig turned back to her so she could read his lips. “Here we go again. This is the third head butting since I came down here an hour ago.”

“I’d better see what’s going on,” Amanda decided reluctantly.

“Always the diplomat.”

“No, always the baby-sitter.” She left Dr. Willig and crossed to the warring researchers. They barely noted her arrival, continuing their argument.

“…not until all the specimens are collected. We’ve not even begun the photographs.” Henry had his face almost pressed against the geologist’s.

“You can’t hog all the friggin’ research time down here. That cliff is volcanic basalt with pure carboniferous intrusions. All I need to do is core a few samples.”

“How few?”

“No more than twenty.”

The biologist’s face darkened. “Are you mad? You’ll tear the whole thing down. Ruin who knows how much sensitive data.”

Amanda barely followed their discourse, missing much as she read their lips, but she gained as much information from the gestures and body postures. A fistfight was about to break out. She could smell the territorial bloom of testosterone.

“Boys,” she said calmly.

They glanced to her, to her crossed arms, to her stern expression. Each took a step back.

“What’s this all about?” she asked slowly.

Connor MacFerran answered first. His lips were harder to read because of his thick black beard. “We’ve been patient with the biology team. But we have just as much right to sample this discovery. An inclusion of this magnitude”—he waved to the cliff face—“is not the sole ownership of Dr. Ogden.”

Henry stated his case. “We’ve only had the one night to prep the site. Our collection is more delicate than the bulldozing techniques of the geologists. It’s a simple case of priority. My sampling won’t harm his specimens, but his sampling could irreparably damage mine.”

“That’s not true!” Though Amanda could not hear Connor’s voice rise, she caught it from the color of his cheeks and the way his chest puffed. “A couple cores in areas free of your damn molds and lichens won’t harm anything.”

“The dust…the noise…it could ruin everything.” Henry turned his full attention to Amanda. “I thought we had decided all this last night.”

She finally nodded. “Connor, Henry’s right. This cliff face has been here for fifty thousand years. I think it could last another couple of days for the biology team to collect their samples.”

“I need at least ten days,” Henry cut in.

“You have three.” She faced the broad-shouldered Scotsman, who wore a sloppy grin of satisfaction. “Then you can start collecting cores – but only where Henry says you can.”

The large man’s grin faded. “But—”

She turned away. It was the easiest way to cut someone off when you were deaf. You simply stopped looking at them. She faced Henry now. “And you, Henry…I suggest you concentrate on clearing out a section of cliff face within three days. Because I will authorize drilling in here by that time.”

“But—”

She turned her back on both of them and saw Dr. Willig grinning broadly at her. MacFerran stalked off in one direction, heading toward the tunnel exit. Henry marched off in the other, ready to harangue his underlings. That bit of détente should buy her at least twenty-four hours of strained peace between the biologists and geologists.

Dr. Willig crossed to her. “For a moment, I thought you were going to spank them.”

“They’d have enjoyed it too much.”

“Come.” The elderly Swede motioned. “You should see what Dr. Ogden is really protecting.”

He took her hand, like a father might a daughter. He led her toward a familiar cleft in the volcanic rock face. Her feet began to drag. “I’ve been in there already.”

“Yes, but have you seen what our argumentative scientist is doing?”

Curiosity kept her feet moving. The pair reached the opening in the cliff. This morning, Amanda had changed out of her thermal sailing suit and simply wore jeans, boots, wool sweater, and a borrowed Gore-Tex parka for her journey into the icy Crawl Space. As they reached the tunnel entrance, she finally noted how warm it was. A steady flow of humid air rolled from the mouth of the cleft.

Dr. Willig led the way, still holding her hand. “It is really quite amazing.”

“What is?” The warmth distracted her…as did the slightly rank odor carried on the damp flow of air. Water sluiced in small trickles over the rock under her boots. It dripped from the ceiling, too.

Within six steps, they reached the cave beyond the cleft. Like the greater cavern outside, this space had been invaded by modern technology. A second generator vibrated in a corner. Space heaters lined both walls, facing inward. Two light poles blazed in the center, illuminating the space in too great detail.

Yesterday evening, with only the single flashlight, the chamber had been spooky and lost in time. But now, under the glare of the halogen spots, the place had a clinical aspect.

As before, the dissected creature lay sprawled and staked across the room’s center. But rather than being frosted in ice, appearing old, it now glistened and dripped. The exposed organs wept in trickles and shone like fresh meat on a butcher’s block. It looked like the dissection had started only yesterday, rather than sixty years ago.

Beyond the carcass, through the sheen and flow of meltwater over their surfaces, the six large blocks of ice had become clear crystal. At the heart of each block lay a curled pale beast, nose tucked in the center, long, sinuous body wrapped around the head, then its thick tail around again.

“Does their sleeping shape remind you of anything?” Dr. Willig asked.

Amanda searched her nightmares and found no answers. She shook her head.

“Maybe it’s because of my Nordic heritage. It reminds me of some of the old Norse carvings of dragons. The great wyrms curled in on themselves. Noses touching tails. A symbol of the eternal circle.”

Amanda ran along the logic track of her friend. “You think some Vikings might have found these frozen beasts before. These…grendels?”

He shrugged. “They were the first polar explorers, crossing the North Atlantic to Iceland and glacier-shrouded Greenland. If there’s a clutch of these creatures here, who’s to say there are not others scattered throughout the frozen northlands.”

“I suppose that’s possible.”

“Just an idle thought.” He stared over at the melting blocks. “But it does raise some misgivings in my mind. Especially with all the death found here in the station.”

She glanced at him. Dr. Willig knew nothing about Level Four.

He continued, clarifying his point: “All those Russian scientists and staff personnel. It’s a tragedy. It makes you wonder what happened sixty years ago. Why the station was lost.”

Amanda sighed. She remembered her first cold steps into the tomb. All the bodies – some skeletal, as if starved; some clear suicides; others had met more violent ends. She could only imagine the madness that must have set in here.

“Remember,” she said, “the base was lost in the forties. Before the time of satellite communication. Before submarines had reached the North Pole, and before the tangle of Arctic currents was ever mapped. All it would’ve taken is a fierce summer storm, or a communication breakdown, or a mechanical failure in the base, or even a single, lost, resupply ship. Any of these mishaps could’ve resulted in the station’s loss. Back in the 1930s, the Arctic reaches were as remote as Mars is today.”

“It’s a tragedy, nonetheless.”

She nodded. “We may have more answers when the Russian delegation arrives in a few more days. If they’re cooperative, we might have a more complete story.” But Amanda knew of one detail the Russians would never be fully forthcoming about. How could they? There was no explanation to justify what had been found on Level Four.

She noted the oceanographer’s eyes focused on the curled grendels and remembered he had never finished his last thought. “You mentioned some misgivings. Something about the old Norse symbol of the curled dragons.”

“Yes.” He rubbed his chin, making it slightly harder to read his lips. When he saw her squinting, he lowered his hand. “Like I was saying, the symbol signifies the circle of eternal life, but it also has a darker, more ominous significance. And with all the tragedy found here…the fate of the base…” He shook his head.

“What else does the symbol represent?”

He faced her fully so she could read his lips. “It means the end of the world.”

7:05 A.M.

Lacy Devlin crouched elsewhere in the Crawl Space. As a junior research assistant with the geology department, her shift under Connor MacFerran did not begin for another two hours. Then again she had already spent most of last night underConnor in his makeshift room here at the base. He had a wife back in California, but that didn’t mean the man didn’t have needs.

She smiled at the memory as she laced her skates.

All set, she stood and stared down the long, slightly curved ice tunnel. She did a few stretches, working loose the knots in her thighs and calves. Her legs were her trademark. Long and smoothly muscular, swelling to powerful hips. She had been a speed skater with the U.S. Olympic team back in 2000, but a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her knee had benched her career. She had eventually finished her undergraduate work and moved to graduate school in Stanford. That was where she had met Connor MacFerran.

Lacy took a few steps in her short-track skates. They were ankle-high, composed of graphite and Kevlar molded to the shape of her feet. When worn, they were as much a part of her body as her own fingers and toes. She also wore an insulated skin suit – striped red, white, and blue – over thermal underwear. And of course a helmet. In this case, not her usual plastic racing headgear, but one of the geologists’ mining helmets, equipped with a light on its brim.

She started down the tunnel. She had skated many times across the surface of the polar ice cap, but the tunnels were more challenging. The swooping water-melt channels were a delight to fly through.

She pushed with her legs, extending fully, still feeling a bit of that deep ache from last night with Connor. It added to her exhilaration and excitement. Last night, for the first time, he had said he loved her, whispering it urgently in her ear, panting each word as he thrust into her. The memory warming her now, she barely felt the cold.

As she began her run, the tunnel slanted in a short decline, increasing her speed. She had a set course that she ran each morning since the discovery of the Crawl Space. It was out of the geology team’s way. There were no interesting inclusions to sample, so the passages in this section were not sanded. Two months ago, she had first walked the course to sight any obstacles and memorize which turns made a complete circuit, ending where she started.

Lacy sped around the first bend, sweeping up the curved ice wall. The wind of her speed whistled in her ears. She crouched as she came around the corner. Ahead lay a series of switchbacks, a crazy S-shaped twist of tunnel. It was her favorite part of the circuit.

Balancing herself, she kept her left arm tucked behind her back and swung her right arm in sync with her stride. Back and forth, she pushed with her legs, accelerating into the switchbacks. She hit the twisted section of tunnel with a shout of glee. With each cutback, she flew high up the walls, momentum keeping her riding in perfect balance.

Then she was out of the switchbacks and into a section that required more attention. Tunnels crisscrossed in a funhouse maze. She braked a bit, slowing to catch the spray-painted markers on the ice. She had memorized the turns, but she knew better than to make a mistake.

She swung her helmet lamp, which cast its single beam far down the dark tunnel, giving the ice a translucent glow. The markers – orange arrows – were easy to pick out. They seemed to shine with their own light.

She shot into the first of the arrow-painted passages, passing by dead ends and tunnels that led out to dangerous terrain. As she passed one of these unmarked tunnels, shadows shifted deep inside, but her speed was too fast to get a look. As she shot past, she risked a glance behind her. No luck.She was already too far down the tunnel. The angle was wrong for the beam of her helmet lamp to penetrate the rapidly retreating tunnel mouth.

She faced forward. At such speeds, her attention needed to stay focused ahead of her. Still, her nerves were now jangled, like someone had drenched her with ice water. She had gone from easy contentment and joy to a hard-edged anxiety.

She tried to dismiss it. “Just the shadows playing tricks,” she said aloud, hoping her own voice would comfort her. But the echoes of her words spooked her. They sounded unnaturally loud.

She was now acutely aware of how alone she was down here.

A small noise caught up to her. Probably a bit of ice sliding and scraping down the tunnel. Still, the scritching tightened her jaw. Twisting her neck, she glanced behind her again. The beam of light revealed only empty passage, but the length of view was only twenty yards as the tunnel twisted away behind her.

She turned back around, almost missing one of the orange markers. She had to brake and kick out with her left leg to make the sharp turn into the correct passage.

As Lacy shot into the proper tunnel, her legs trembled under her. Fear fatigued her muscles. She realized she should have taken the tunnel just before this one. She had marked thispassage because it led outward into a long half-mile single loop. The otherwas a shortcut, too short for her usual four-mile run. Now she just wanted to get the hell out of these passages and back to other people, back to Connor’s arms.

As she raced down the loop, she increased her speed, seeking to put some distance between her and the shifting shadows. After a full minute with nothing but her own thoughts, she realized how foolish she was being. There were no more suspicious shadows or noises – just the clean hiss of her blades over the ice.

She began the climb out of the loop. The passage slanted up and required work to keep moving forward. But her momentum and the smooth ice helped. Shoving with her legs, falling into her familiar rhythm, she raced back out of the loop – heading toward home again.

A small laugh escaped her. What was she so afraid of? What could be down here? She studied her reaction. Maybe her night with Connor had awakened some deep misgiving in her after all. Maybe this was an echo of guilt. She had met Connor’s wife many times at university functions. Linda was a sweet, gentle woman with an easy, welcoming manner. She didn’t deserve to be so—

The noise returned. The slippery sound of ice on ice.

Now it came from aheadof her.

She braked. Far down the passage, near the end of the loop, shadows shifted. Her light could not reach that far. She slowed but didn’t stop. She wasn’t sure. She wanted to see if there was truly anything to fear. Her light bled ahead as she advanced.

“Hello!” Lacy called out. Maybe it was another of the researchers, off to explore on his own.

No answer. Whatever movement she had noted had now stopped. The shadows had settled to their usual stillness.

“Hello!” she repeated. “Is anyone there?”

She crept forward, gliding on her skate blades. She followed the glow of her light as it stretched down the passage.

Ahead, the loop came to an end, reentering the funhouse maze of passages again. Her throat had gone dry and tight from the cold, as if someone were choking her. I only have to get through the maze…then it’s a straight shot back to civilization.

Despite her momentary flare of guilt, she wanted nothing at this moment but to see Connor. Just the thought of the towering man with his strong hands and broad shoulders quickened her legs. Once she was back in his embrace, she would be safe.

She climbed out of the loop and into the maze. Nothing was here. “Just tricks,” she whispered to her own heart, “just ice, light, and shadow.”

She followed the orange markers, like beacons in the night. Twisting one way, then another. Then, from far down in the dark well, her light reflected back at her. Two red spots glowed.

Lacy knew what she was seeing.

Eyes, unblinking, large – dead of emotion.

She braked to a stop, kicking up ice.

Fear shook through her. She felt her bladder give way a little, the trickle hot in her skin suit.

She backed a single step, then another. Legs trembled. She wanted to turn and run, but she feared turning her back on those eyes. She continued her halting retreat.

Then in a blink, the eyes vanished – whether because her light had pulled back or the presence was gone, she didn’t know. Free from their paralyzing stare, she twisted around and fled on her blades.

She raced, fueled by terror. Her arms flailed, her legs kicked, digging out chunks of ice in her panic. She fled blindly into the maze of passages. Her markers were all designed for a counterclockwise circuit, orange arrows pointing the safe way. Now, as she ran backward through her course, the markers were meaningless. They all pointed back toward the creature behind her.

In a matter of moments, she was lost.

She raced down a narrow passage, one she had never been in before, more a crack in the ice than a true tunnel. Her breathing choked into ragged gasps. Blood pounded in her ears. But her own heartbeat was not loud enough to drown out the skitter on the ice.

Crying, tears flowing and freezing on her cheeks, she scrabbled with her blades. The tunnel widened a bit, allowing her more room to push and kick. She only had to get away…keep moving. A low moan flowed out from her. It didn’t sound like her. But she couldn’t stop it either.

She craned around, shining the light over her shoulder. Through the pinch in the tunnel behind her, something was shoving toward her. It was huge. Eyes glowed from its bulk, an albino whiteness, a rolling snowbank.

Polar bear,her mind screamed.

She remembered the whispers of something picked up on the DeepEye sonar. Movement on the scope.

She cried out and raced away.

As she fled around a sharp corner, the floor vanished a few yards in front of her. The bright ice ended at darkness. As a geology student, she knew the name for this: ice shear. Like any crystal, when ice was exposed to stress, it broke in clean planes. On glaciers, this led to ice-shear cliffs. But the same features could be found inside glaciers, too…or inside ice islands.

Lacy dug in her blades, but her momentum and the downward tilt of the tunnel betrayed her. She flew over the cliff edge and into empty space. A scream, sharp enough to shatter ice, burst from her. She tumbled into the chute, dropping away into darkness.

The shear pit was not a deep one, no more than fifteen feet, and she struck the ice floor with her blades. The impact was too much. Despite the Kevlar ankle guard, one ankle cracked. Her other knee struck so hard that she felt it in her shoulder. She crumpled to the floor in a heap.

Pain drove away her fear, traveling out to all her nerve endings.

She looked upward, to the cliff’s edge.

Her light rose in a beacon.

At the precipice, the beast hesitated. It peered down at her with those dead eyes, glowing red in the reflection of her light. Claws dug into the ice. Shoulders bunched as it leaned over the edge. Rapid huffs of mist curled from each slitted nostril as a deep rumble flowed from it, seeming to vibrate the very air.

Staring up, Lacy knew she had been mistaken a moment ago. With this realization, terror drove sanity to the edges of her consciousness.

It was half a ton in mass, its skin smooth, shining oily, more like a dolphin’s skin. Adding to this appearance, its head was sleek, earless, but domed high, sweeping down to an elongated muzzle, giving it a stretched appearance. The slitted nostrils rose too high on its face, almost above its wide-spaced eyes.

Lacy stared numbly. It was too large, too muscular, too primeval for the modern world. Even in her madness, she recognized what she was seeing: something prehistoric, saurian…yet still mammalian.

The beast studied her in turn, its lips rippling back from its long snout to reveal rows of jagged teeth as bright as broken bone against pink gums. Razored claws sank into the ice.

Some primitive part of her responded to the age-old instincts of predator and prey. A small mewling whimper escaped Lacy’s throat.

The beast began its slow climb into the pit.

7:48 A.M.

OMEGA DRIFT STATION

Matt was tired of having guns pointed at him. An hour ago, he and the others had been corralled into a mess hall and were now seated at one of the four tables in the room. A small kitchenette occupied the back half of the space. Empty and cold. Breakfast must have already been served.

They had been offered leftover coffee – and though it was as thick as Mississippi mud, it was hot and welcome. Craig hunched over his mug, clutching it with both hands as if it was all that stood between him and a slow, painful death.

Jenny sat beside her father on the other side of the table. Her initial scowl at being forced from her plane had not subsided. If anything, her frown lines had deepened. Her sheriff’s badge and papers had done nothing to dissuade the Navy security team from leading them at gunpoint into this makeshift holding cell.

As Matt had suspected, after the attack on Prudhoe, no one was taking any chances. The chain of command had to be followed. Matt knew this only too well from his own military days.

He stared over at the two guards – from their uniforms, a petty officer and a seaman. Each bore a rifle across his chest and a holstered pistol on his belt. Jenny’s weapon had been taken from her, along with the service shotgun stored in the back of the Otter.

“What is taking them so long?” Jenny finally whispered under her breath, teeth clenched.

“Communication is still bad,” Matt said. The head of the security team had left twenty minutes ago to verify their identification. But that meant reaching someone on the coast, who, in turn, would surely need to reach Fairbanks. They could be here all morning.

“Well, who the hell is in charge here?” she continued.

Matt knew what she meant. The entire security team seemed to consist of the six men who had escorted them to the station. Where were the other Navy personnel? Matt remembered the empty polynya and the docking bollards hammered into the ice. “Those in charge must be out in the submarine.”

“What submarine?” Craig asked, perking up from his mug.

Matt explained what he saw from the air. “The old SCICEX stations were serviced by Navy subs. This is surely no exception, especially as deep as we are into the polar pack. I’d bet my eyeteeth that the senior Navy personnel are aboard the submarine on some mission. Perhaps off to help at Prudhoe.”

“What about the head of the research team?” Craig asked. “There has to be a chain of command among the civilians. If we could get someone to listen…”

Since their arrival, a handful of men and women had drifted through to gawk at the newcomers. Their faces were a blend of scientific curiosity and raw need for news of the outside world. One of the men, a researcher with a NASA group, had to be forcibly escorted away by one of the guards.

“I don’t know who’s in charge of the civilian researchers, but I’d wager that person is gone, too.” Matt nodded to their guards. “I’m sure the civilian head of the drift station would’ve barged right past these two.”

As if hearing him, the door burst open – but it wasn’t the head of the base. It was Lieutenant Commander Paul Sewell, head of the security team. He strode over to the table.

Bane rose from where he lay, but Matt placed a hand on the wolf. The dog settled to his haunches, remaining alert.

The Navy leader placed Jenny’s badge and identification on the table. “Your credentials checked out,” he said, and eyed the others. “But your superiors in Fairbanks seemed to know nothing about what you’re doing up here. They said you were on vacation.”

He passed out the other pieces of identification: Matt’s Fish and Game badge, John’s driver’s license, and Craig’s press credentials.

Jenny gathered her badge and ID. “What about my sidearm and shotgun?”

“They’re in lockup until the captain returns.” His tone brooked no argument. Matt respected Lieutenant Commander Sewell’s civil but no-nonsense manner.

Jenny did not. Her scowl grew darker. She did not like being unarmed.

“Sir,” Craig said, “we didn’t come here to start trouble. We heard about your discovery of an abandoned ice base.”

This drew a startled response from the lieutenant commander. “The Russian base?”

Matt practically spit out his coffee. Russian…Jenny’s eyes widened in surprise. John settled his own mug of coffee very slowly to the table.

Only Craig kept his face still and unresponsive. He didn’t miss a beat as he continued: “Yes, exactly. I was sent by my paper to report on the discovery. These folks agreed to escort me after I ran into some…um, problems in Alaska.”

Matt regained his composure and nodded. “Someone tried to kill him.”

Now it was the lieutenant commander’s turn to raise an eyebrow.

Matt continued: “A group of paramilitary commandos sabotaged his plane and brought it down. Paratroopers dropped in to finish the job. We barely escaped to reach…Sheriff Aratuk.” He pointed to Jenny.

She nodded. “We’ve been pursued ever since. We even think the explosions over at Prudhoe Bay are somehow connected to all this…to the discovery here.”

“How…?” Sewell’s brow built into ridges. “Wait! Who even told you about the Russian ice station?”

“My sources are confidential,” Craig said, facing the stern lieutenant commander. “I’ll only speak further to someone with authority here. Someone who can act.”

A frown that matched Jenny’s formed on the Navy man’s face. As head of security, he was clearly suspicious of the newcomers. Matt noted Craig eyeing the man, too, trying to read him.

“Before anything can be decided, I’ll need to consult with Captain Perry when he returns,” Sewell finally said.

Passing the buck up the command chain,Matt thought.

“And when is he due back?” Craig asked.

Sewell just stared at him and didn’t answer.

“Then who’s in charge of the station in the meantime?” Jenny asked. “Where’s the head of the research team? Someone we can talk to?”

The lieutenant commander sighed, clearly straining to straddle the line between civility and authority. “That would be Dr. Amanda Reynolds. She’s…she’s out for the moment.”

“Then what about us?” Jenny demanded. “You can’t hold us here.”

“I’m afraid I can, ma’am.” He turned from the table and left. The guards remained at the door.

“Well, that got us nowhere,” Matt said after a long stretch of awkward silence.

“On the contrary.” Craig leaned closer to the table and kept his voice low. “A Russian ice base. No wonder I was called out here. Something must’ve been found over there. A political hot potato.” He ticked off points on his fingers. “The Navy clamps down the drift station. A gag order silences the scientists. And someone must have learned of my itinerary. Tried to stop me from getting here.” Craig glanced around the table.

“The Russians?” Jenny asked.

Craig nodded. “If it was our own government, they could’ve stopped me through a thousand legal channels. Whoever was after us was keeping their noses low to the ground, trying to go under the radar.”

Matt nodded. “Craig could be right. The commandos certainly had a military background. It could have been a small strike team sent to execute a surgical attack.”

“But why target me?” Craig mumbled. “I’m just a reporter.”

Matt shook his head. “You may be the only one outside this base or a need-to-know chain of command in government who has any inkling of the discovery out here.” He silently ran over the scenario in his head. Something didn’t add up here. What was so important to require such a deadly response?

He stared over at the Navy guards. They stood stiffly, not with the usual casual attentiveness of someone baby-sitting civilians. He had seen soldiers acting the same way prior to a battle. And Sewell’s silence when he asked when the submarine and its captain might return…it jangled Matt’s nerves with warning. If the crew had headed out to Prudhoe Bay to help in salvage and rescue, they’d be gone days. Sewell would’ve arranged rooms for them. The fact that they were still here meant the captain was expected back soon. And if this was true, why wasn’tthe sub called to help at Prudhoe Bay? This was a disaster in their own backyard. Why had the submarine remained? Why did it needto stay here?

Craig spoke up, stating the obvious. “We need to find out what’s going on.”

“I’m open to any ideas,” Matt said.

Jenny met Matt’s gaze. “First we have to devise some way to get over to that Russian ice station. Whatever triggered all this started there.”

“But how?” Matt asked. “We can hardly just walk over there. And they’ve got the plane under guard.”

No one had any answers, but from each person’s worried expression, everyone knew time was running out.

Matt sensed forces larger than any of them swirling down upon this frozen acre of ice. Russians…Americans…a lost base hiding some secret…

What clandestine war had they gotten themselves into?