Текст книги "Ice Hunt"

Автор книги: James Rollins

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“We can’t,” Greer said as Washburn pounded to them. “The Russians—”

“Fuck the Russians!” Washburn said, panting hard. “We’ve got a hell of a lot worse on ourasses!” She waved the others ahead of her.

The gunfire died. The other sailor was on his feet and sprinting toward them. He fumbled to replace his rifle’s spent magazine. “Go, go, go!”

Greer jabbed a finger at O’Donnell and Pearlson. “You and you. Take the civilians back up.”

O’Donnell nodded. He grabbed Craig by the elbow and took off with the panicked folk. Matt shook off Pearlson’s attempt to do the same.

The seaman shrugged and headed up on his own, but he called over his shoulder back to his lieutenant. “What about the Russians, sir?”

Fuck the Russians. Matt was still stunned by the woman’s response.

Greer’s reply was more useful. “Take them as far as the Crawl Space exit. Then wait for us!”

The only acknowledgment was a quick turn on a heel, and the group continued their headlong flight up the tunnel.

The last Navy man reached them.

“Commander Bratt,” Greer said, sounding surprised.

“Prepare to lay down cover fire!” Urgently, Bratt spun around, dropping to a knee. He ripped a fresh magazine from his coat and slapped it home.

Greer joined his senior officer, standing behind him, rifle pointed over Bratt’s shoulder. He passed his flashlight into Matt’s free hand.

Matt glanced between the retreating party and the two stationary gunmen. He debated which was best – to stay or go. His only other choice was to flee blindly down some side tunnel and get lost. No option seemed wiser than another, so he simply stood his ground.

He stepped to Bratt’s other shoulder.

Bratt glanced up at him, then away. “Who the hell are you?”

Matt raised his pistol, pointing it past the officer. “Right now, I’m a guy covering your ass.”

“Then welcome to the party,” Bratt grumbled back.

“What’s coming?” Greer asked on the other side.

“Your worst goddamn nightmare.”

From beyond the reach of the flashlight, red eyes reflected back at them. Matt’s head began to buzz oddly, like mosquitoes whirling in his skull.

“Here they come!” Bratt said, sucking in a breath.

A massive snowy-skinned creature striped in red…no, blood…thundered into view. It filled the tunnel, weeping red from multiple gunshot wounds. Gouged tracks furrowed its sides. The side of its face was raw hamburger. But it kept coming.

What the hell was it?

Other shadows could be seen in brief glimpses behind it.

The lead beast charged toward them. Claws tore at the ice.

The buzzing grew louder in Matt’s skull.

Then a barrage of rifle fire erupted, startling Matt to react. He aimed the 9mm pistol, but he knew the gun was useless. No more than the Alaskan grizzly, such a meager weapon would never bring down this creature. Several of the fresh wounds had been direct strikes between the monster’s eyes.

And still the beast ripped toward them, keeping its domed forehead low, charging like a bull, using its thick rubbery skin and insulating blubber as a bulletproof shield, a natural battering ram.

Matt pulled his trigger, more in blind fear than with any real hope for a kill shot.

“Damn things won’t die!” Bratt confirmed.

Matt continued to fire, squeezing round after round, until the pistol’s slide locked open.

Out of bullets.

Greer noticed. “Go!” he ordered, tossing his head in the direction of the retreating party, now vanished. His voice vibrated from his own rifle’s recoil as he passed a radio at Matt. “Channel four.”

Matt took the radio, ready to flee.

Then the lead beast crashed to the ice, as if slipping, legs going limp. It slid farther on the ice, nose dragging, then stopped. Its eyes remained staring at them, still reflecting red in the flashlight. But there was no longer life behind them.

Dead.

The buzzing in Matt’s head faded to a nagging itch behind his ears.

Bratt regained his feet. “Pull back.”

The beast’s bulk blocked the remaining creatures, but the animals still could be seen moving behind the mound of macerated flesh.

Matt and the two Navy men retreated to the next intersection of tunnels. Rifles continued to point at the dead bulk plugging the tunnel.

“That should hold them for now,” Greer said.

The bull’s body jolted forward, sliding toward them, shouldering over slightly. Then it stopped again.

“You had to say that,” Matt muttered, backing away

Greer sneered. “What the fuck?”

The bulk began sliding again.

“The others are pushing from behind!” Bratt said, amazed more than terrified. “Shit!”

The buzzing in Matt’s head, dulled a moment ago, flared anew. But he sensed it came from a new direction, like someone looking over his shoulder. Matt swung toward the neighboring cross tunnel.

As his flashlight turned, a pair of red eyes glowed back at him.

Only ten yards away.

Matt jerked his pistol up, pure reflex, as the creature charged.

From the corner of his eye, he spotted the still open slide on his weapon.

Nope, still out of bullets.

12:49 P.M.

Unable to determine what drew the grendel away, Amanda had no clue as to its whereabouts now. Connor’s mining helmet hung crooked on her head, casting a slanting beam of light down the tunnel, hitting an orange spray-painted marker on the wall.

Lacy Devlin’s trail marker.

Amanda searched farther down the wall. Please…

Another painted spot appeared against the blue ice: a green diamond. Lacy’s path had finally crossed another. A sob escaped Amanda. She had reached the mapped areas of the Crawl Space at last.

She raised the handheld radio and pressed the transmit button. “If anyone’s listening, I’ve found another trail. Green diamonds. I’m following it up. I’ve seen no sign of the beast for the past hour. But please help me.”

She clicked the radio off, preserving the battery, and prayed. If only someone waslistening…

In dead silence, she increased her pace.

As she followed one diamond to the next, she judged she must be close to the inhabited areas of the ice cavern system. Taking a chance, she reached up and twisted her helmet lamp, extinguishing her sole source of light.

Darkness closed around her, close and claustrophobic.

She was now deaf andblind.

After half a minute, her eyes adjusted to the press of black ice. She scanned around, first with her eyes, then slowly swiveling her head.

She found what she had been seeking.

Overhead, a faint star glowed deep in the ice, a pool of brightness. Someone was down here with flashlights.

As she stared, standing stationary, the glow suddenly split into two tinier stars, fainter but distinct. Each glow flew quickly away from the other.

One rose higher and away, a fading star, waning, then gone.

The other shot in her direction. Growing brighter, moving fast.

Searchers…someone had surely heard her.

She feared calling out, especially knowing what else lurked in these dark tunnels. Her best chance was to shorten the distance between the moving glow and herself. She twisted her helmet lamp back on.

In the glare of her small bulb, the other glow disappeared. She hated to extinguish the only sign of hope, but it was too dangerous to traverse the ice maze in the dark – and she dared not lose the trail of green diamonds. If her rescuers had heard her, it was this path they would search to find her.

She hurried forward, stopping every other minute to turn off her light and check her bearings in relation to the rescue party.

And she did one other thing at each stop.

12:52 P.M.

“I’m still following the trail of green diamonds. But please be careful. The predator that killed Lacy and Connor is still loose somewhere in these tunnels.”

In Matt’s pocket, the radio passed to him by Greer continued to relay this lost woman’s saga. He had already tried to raise her, but she either couldn’t pick up the signal or had some malfunction with her radio. Whatever the reason, Matt had his own problems.

He continued his mad flight down the ice tunnel, empty pistol in hand, flashlight in the other.

Five minutes ago, the solitary hunter had charged into the crossroads, separating Matt from the two Navy men, filling the passage. The pair had opened fire, trying to buy Matt time to flee.

It hadn’t worked.

After a moment’s hesitation, the beast gave chase – a lioness running down the lone gazelle.

With nothing but an empty pistol in hand, Matt ran headlong down the tunnel, slipping and sliding down steep traverses. He barely kept his footing. His shoulders struck with bruising force against walls and outcroppings. But he refused to slow down. He had already seen how fast a bullet-riddled monster moved. He feared the speed of a healthy, undamaged specimen.

For a few long minutes, he had seen no evidence of the monster. Maybe it had slipped away. Even the fuzzy feeling in his head had quieted. It was as if something emanated from them, something outside the wavelength of ordinary hearing.

Now it had vanished.

Dare he hope the beast was gone with it?

The radio crackled again. “ Please…if you can hear this, bring help. Bring guns! I’m still on the green diamond trail.”

What the hell did that mean? Green diamond trail. It sounded like a Lucky Charms cereal advertisement.

“I’ve not seen any sign of the grendel now for the past forty-five minutes. It seems to have disappeared. Maybe it fled.”

Matt scrunched his brow. Grendel?Was that what had attacked them? If so, it seemed this woman knew more about what was down here than anyone else did.

He raced around a corner, skidding on his heels, spinning to make the turn. Ahead the tunnel diverged into two passages. The beam of his flashlight caught a flash of odd color against the ice. A blue circle was painted at the threshold to the right, a green diamond on the left.

Trail markers

Understanding dawned. He chose the left tunnel and continued running, still watching his back, but now also searching for the next green diamond.

Hell, if I’m running, I might as well run toward someone who knows what the hell is going on down here.

Matt continued, winding this way and that. Gravity and the slick slope pulled him deeper and deeper – and still there was no sign of the woman on the radio. It was endless dark ice, and he moved in a glowing blue grotto, lit by his lone flashlight.

“Hello!”The call this time did not come through the radio. It came from ahead of him.

Matt skated around another bend, one hand against the ice wall to balance himself. His flashlight beam rounded the corner and illuminated a strange sight: a tall and shapely woman, naked, painted blue, like some Inuit goddess.

He skidded toward her, realizing that she wasn’t naked but instead wore some skintight pale blue unitard, its hood pulled up. She also wore a mining helmet crooked on her head. Its lamp shone in his eyes.

“Thank God!” she cried, hurrying toward him.

Her features became clear when she switched off her lamp. The confusion in her eyes spread over her face.

“Who are you?” She glanced past him. “Where are the others?”

“If you’re looking for a rescue party, you’ll have to settle for me.” He lifted the useless pistol in his hand. “Though I’m not sure I’m going to do you much good.”

“And you are?” she asked again. Her words were slightly slurred, her voice unusually loud. Was she drunk?

“Matthew Pike, Alaskan Fish and Game.”

“Fish and Game?” Her confusion deepened. “Could you lower your flashlight? I…I’m deaf, and I’m having trouble reading your lips against the glare.”

He lowered his light. “Sorry. I’m one of the group being shuttled from Omega.”

She nodded, understanding. But suspicion also glinted. “What’s going on? Where’s everyone else?”

“The station’s been evacuated. The Russians attacked Omega.”

“My God…I don’t understand.”

“And they’re now in the process of commandeering the facility here, too. But what about you? Who are you? Why are you down here alone?”

She moved closer, but her eyes flickered between him and the tunnel behind him. “I’m Dr. Amanda Reynolds. Head of Omega Drift Station.” She told him an abbeviated, hurried story of missing scientists and the sudden attack by the giant ice predator.

“You called them grendels over the walkie-talkie,” he said as she finished her bloody tale. “Like you knew about them.”

“We found frozen remains here. Down in some ice cavern. They were supposed to be fifty thousand years old, dating back to the last ice age. Some type of extinct species.”

Extinct, my ass,he thought. Aloud he related his own experiences since the Russian attack, keeping a watch on the tunnels with his flashlight.

“So there’s more than one grendel…” she mumbled, her voice a whisper. “Of course, there must be. But how have they remained hidden for so long?”

“They’re not hiding now. If this is some frozen nest, it’s too dangerous to remain down here. Do you know another trail to the surface? With what was on my scent, maybe we’d better get off this green diamond trail. Try another.”

She pointed forward. “This trail should lead to others. But I’m not that familiar with the Crawl Space. My guess is that they all end eventually at the exit.”

“Let’s hope so. C’mon.” Matt headed out, going slowly now, cautious, backtracking up. “We need to watch for any sign of the grendels: spoor, scratched marks in the ice. Avoid those areas.”

She nodded. He had to respect this woman. She had faced one of these beasts alone and survived. And now she sought to escape with nothing but a walkie-talkie and a small ice ax. All the while deaf to what might be out there.

“With a bit of luck,” she said, “we won’t run into any more of them.”

Matt turned just as a wave of buzzing cut through his skull, rattling the tiny bones in his ears.

He felt a frantic clutch on his elbow. Amanda pulled beside him. Even deaf, she must have felt the reverberation. And from the way her fingers cut into his right biceps, she knew its implication.

Their luck had just run out.

10. Blood on the Ice

APRIL 9, 1:02 P.M.

OMEGA DRIFT STATION

After an hour in front of the space heater, Jenny felt almost thawed – and oddly reenergized. Maybe it was the caffeine, maybe it was the morphine, maybe it was the stupidity of their plan.

Moments ago, word had reached them that the Russian submarine had left. This news came from a seaman who had been found hiding in one of the research shacks by the Russian forces and tossed into the barracks to join the rest of the captives. The seaman had witnessed the sub’s departure.

“Do you have any estimate of how many Russians are still here?” Lieutenant Sewell asked him, kneeling beside the newly arrived sailor.

The man shivered in his seat, his hands soaking in a bowl of warm water. His teeth chattered as he answered. “Not for certain, sir. I spotted some ten men, but there have to be more I didn’t see.”

“So, more than ten,” Sewell said, his lips thin with worry.

The seaman glanced to his senior officer, eyes wide. “Th-they shot Jenkins. He tried to bolt across the ice. He was going to bug out to the NASA station. Try to use their crawler to get away. They shot him in the back.”

Sewell patted the man’s shoulder. They had all heard similar reports. It was clear the Russians were under strict orders to lock down this station. One by one, all of the officers and a few of the scientists had been dragged away at gunpoint. But they were returned unharmed, except for one lieutenant who came back with a broken nose.

Interrogation, Sewell had told Jenny. The Russians were clearly searching for something, something that once lay hidden at the lost ice station. They hadn’t found it. Yet.

Jenny had caught a glimpse of their interrogator as he stood in the doorway: a tall, stately Russian with a shock of white hair, and a face even paler.

Sewell began to rise from his knee, but the shivering seaman stopped him again, pulling a wet hand from the bath. “Sir, I also saw two Russians dropping a canister into a hole in the ice. Other holes were being drilled.”

“Describe the canisters.”

“They were the size of minikegs.” The seaman shaped them with his dripping hands. “Solid black with bright orange end caps.”

“Shit.”

Jenny had been leaning over, tying on dry boots. She straightened. “What are they?”

“Russian incendiary charges. V-class explosives.” Sewell closed his eyes as he stood up. “They must be planning on melting this entire base into the ocean.”

To the side, Kowalski had finished dressing and stood in front of the heater. He held his hands toward the warmth. His fingernails were still tinged slightly blue. “So do we go ahead with our plan?”

“We have no choice. It’s becoming clearer and clearer that the Russians’ mission here is a plunder-and-purge. They intend to grab what they can and burn everything behind them. Whatever is over at the Grendel base, the Russians are determined to take it and leave no one to tell the tale.”

Kowalski sighed. “Then, as long as they don’t find what they’re looking for, we live. Once they do, we die.”

Sewell didn’t even bother responding to the man’s statement. He turned instead to Jenny. “Our plan. Still think you can pull off your end?”

Jenny’s father placed a hand on her shoulder. She covered it with her own. He didn’t want her to go. “I’ll make it.”

Sewell stared at her a moment, clearly trying to weigh her resolve. She met his hard gaze. He finally nodded. “Let’s go.”

Kowalski stepped to her side. He towered over her, a gorilla with only slightly less body hair. “You’ll need to keep up with me.”

She rolled her eyes.

Sewell led them both over to where a pair of sailors had pulled away a section of ceiling and cut through the insulation of the Jamesway hut with plastic knives. Their work was hidden out of direct sight of the guarded doorway. Luckily the Russians mostly kept out of the room, confident about their imprisonment – and rightly so. Where could the captives escape to even if they could get out of the barracks? The prison hut was well patrolled, and beyond the camp lay only a prolonged freezing death.

Their parkas had been confiscated. Only a fool would risk the freezing storm with nothing but the shirt on his back.

To escape here meant certain death.

This grim thought plagued Jenny as she watched the pair of sweating sailors labor overhead. They worked within the gap in the fiberglass insulation, unscrewing an exterior plate in the hut’s roof. It was difficult work with only plastic utensils, but they were managing.

A screw fell to the floor from above.

Sewell pointed up. “Normally there’s a skylight installed there. One of three. But in the Arctic, where it’s dark half the year and continually sunny the other, windows were found to be more of a nuisance, especially as a source of heat loss. So they were plated and sealed.”

“One more to go,” one of the men grunted overhead.

“Dim the lights.” Sewell signaled. The lamps around the immediate area were extinguished.

Jenny pulled a spare blanket around her shoulders and knotted it to form a crude hooded poncho. It was too large for her slight frame, but it was better than nothing. Anything to cut the wind.

The last screw fell. A plate dropped next into the waiting hands of one of the workers. It was followed by a blast of cold air.

Wind whistled inside. Much too noisy. Sewell pointed to a petty officer, who turned up his CD player. The band U2 wailed over the howl of the blizzard outside.

“You’ll have to hurry,” Sewell said to Kowalski and Jenny. “If anyone chances in here, we’ll be discovered. We’ll have to reseal the opening ASAP.”

Jenny nodded. A bunk bed had been shoved under the opening to use as a makeshift ladder. Jenny scrambled up. She met her father’s eyes for a moment, read the worry in them. But he remained silent. They had no choice. She was the best pilot here.

Standing atop the bunk, Jenny reached up through the hole in the ceiling. She gripped the icy edge of the roof. Without gloves, her fingertips immediately froze to the metal, burning. She ignored the cold.

Helped by the two sailors shoving her hips, she pulled up and poked her head into the blizzard. She was immediately blinded by the winds and blowing ice.

She donned her goggles and dropped belly first to the curved roof of the hut and slithered out. She moved carefully, her nose inches from the corrugated exterior. The winds threatened to kite her off the roof. Worse, the Jamesway huts had barrel-shaped roofs, like the older Quonset huts. The roof sloped steeply to the snowy ground on either side.

Jenny straddled the top, clinging as best she could to the ice-coated surface. She carefully crabbed around to see Kowalski miraculously squeeze his bulk through the dimly lit hole, like Jonah squeezing from the blowhole of a metal whale.

He grunted a bit, then signaled her, jabbing a finger toward the windward side of the hut. The pair shimmied and slid on their butts to where the sloping roof went straight down toward the ground. The ice threatened to take them over the edge against their will.

On this side of the Jamesway, snow had built up into a large bank, a frozen wave permanently breaking against the hut, reaching almost to the roof. Kowalski searched from his perch for any Russian guards. Jenny joined him. It looked clear for the moment, but visibility was mere feet in the ground blizzard.

He glanced over to her.

She nodded.

Kowalski led the way. Sliding feetfirst over the edge, he dropped down onto the snowbank, then rolled skillfully down its icy slope. He vanished out of view.

Readying herself, Jenny glanced back to the hole. It had already been closed. There was no turning back. She slid on her cold rear over the icy edge of the roof and fell to the snow.

Now to escape.

She rolled artlessly down the snowbank, losing control of her tumble and landing atop Kowalski. It was like hitting a buried boulder. The collision knocked the wind out of her.

She gasped silently.

Rather than helping her, Kowalski pushed her farther down into the snow. He pointed with his arm.

Beyond the edge of a neighboring hut, a group of shadowy figures hunched against the wind. They were only discernible because of the pool of light cast about them from idling hovercraft bikes.

The pair stayed hidden.

The shadowy group soon mounted their hovercraft. The engines must have been idling because the headlamps immediately rose, swaying in the gusts, then turned away. The wail of winds covered the sound of the engines, giving an eerie quality to the sight.

The vehicles vanished into the empty ice plains. The two remaining guards stalked away and disappeared into the next building.

Jenny watched the glow of the last hovercraft fade out. They could be going to only one place: the Russian ice station. Her thoughts turned to the other Sno-Cat that had vanished, heading in the same direction, carrying Matt and the Seattle reporter.

For the first time in years, Jenny prayed for Matt’s safety. She wished she could have spoken the words that bitterness and anger had locked inside her all this time. It seemed so pointless now, so many years wasted in despair.

She whispered soft words into the wind.

I’m sorry…Matt, I’m so sorry…

Gunfire erupted behind them, loud and near.

“Up!” Kowalski yelled in her ear, yanking her to her feet. “Run!”

1:12 P.M.

ICE STATION GRENDEL

Amanda fled alongside the tall stranger. The grendel still remained out of sight farther up the maze of passages, but the buzz of its echolocation filled the back of her head with a fuzzy, scratchy feeling.

It was tracking them, slowly, cautiously, driving them deeper into the ice island.

“What is it waiting for?” Matt asked.

“For our luck to run out,” she answered, remembering Lacy Devlin’s fate. “One of these times, we’re going to turn into a dead end. A blocked passage, a cliff. Then we’ll be trapped.”

“Deadly and smart…a great combination.”

Together they rounded a curve of smooth tunnel. The crampons on Amanda’s boots gave her traction, but Matt slid, skidding around on the ice. She grabbed his arm to help him keep his footing.

Matt turned to her. “We can’t keep this up. We’re just heading deeper and deeper down, away from where we want to go.”

“What else can we do?” She held up the small ice ax she had taken from Connor. “Face it with this?”

“Not a chance.”

“Well, you’re Fish and Game. I’m geophysical engineering. This is your department.”

Matt bunched his brows. “We need something to lure this thing off our scent. Lay a false track for it to follow. If we could slip past it, get above it, then at least we’d be heading toward the exit as we ran.”

Amanda struggled for an answer to this riddle, her mind shifting into objective mode. She reviewed what she knew about the beasts. Little to nothing was the answer, but that did not preclude her from extrapolating hypotheses. The grendels hunted by echolocation, but they were also sensitive to light and perhaps even heat. She remembered her experience in the beast’s nest. It hadn’t been aware of her hiding place until after it destroyed the flashlight and she had begun to sweat.

Light and heat. She sensed an answer here, but what?

They ran past another crisscrossing of tunnel – then she had it!

“Wait!” she called out, and stopped.

Matt slowed, braking on his heels, one hand on the wall. He turned to her.

Amanda backed to the tunnel crossings. Light and heat. She tugged the chin strap to her helmet and pulled it off. She twisted on the lamp so it glowed brightly, then reached to her waist where her air-warming mask was belted in place next to its heater. She unhooked it and dialed the heating element to full burn. It quickly grew warm in her hands.

“What are you thinking?” Matt asked.

She hurried back to the crossroads, eyes scanning for any sign of the hunter. “These creatures hone in on light and heat signatures.” She flipped over her mining helmet and crammed the air-warming mask and its heater – now hot to the touch – inside the helmet.

She lifted her creation higher.

Matt joined her and nodded. “A lure for a false trail.”

“Let’s hope this does the trick.” She slipped past him, ducked low to the ice, and flung the helmet down the main tunnel. The yellow helmet skated and spun atop its crown, light twirling like an ambulance siren. It bounced off a wall and disappeared around the bend, carrying her air-warming unit with it.

Amanda stood and faced Matt. “Light and heat. The grendel will hopefully follow after the lure, heading deeper. Once past here, we can sneak behind its back and head up.”

“Like tossing a stick for a dog.” Matt nodded, eyeing her with more respect. He turned off his flashlight. The only illumination now came from the vanished helmet.

In the darkness, they retreated down the side tunnel and hid behind a tumbled fall of ice blocks. Crouched together, they stared back at the main passage. The glow of the helmet was faint, but it was stable. The helmet must have come to a stop somewhere below. Amanda hoped it rested far enough down the shaft to give them a good lead from the beast.

Now to wait, to see if the grendel took the bait.

1:18 P.M.

Matt knelt on one knee. He spied through a peephole that pierced the tumble of ice. Eyes wide, he strained to soak up every photon of light that illuminated the neighboring passage. He struggled to hear any sign of the beast. All that he could sense was the vague, nagging vibration of the hunting beast’s sonar. It was dull – but growing.

The woman’s fingers in his hand suddenly spasmed tighter.

Matt spotted it, too. Shifting shadows.

A dark bulk pushed into view, soaking up the feeble glow of the abandoned helmet. The creature filled the passage, shouldering up to the crossroads. In the shadows, it looked as black as oil, though Matt knew it was as pale as bleached bone.

It stopped.

Lips rippled back to show the glint of teeth. Its bulky head swayed to either side. The buzz of its sonar swamped over them. It seemed to vibrate the very darkness, searching for prey.

Matt held perfectly still. Though well hidden by the fall of ice, he feared any movement might attract the beast. Could it sense their body heat through the frozen blocks?

He felt the creature’s gaze upon him.

He feared even to blink. Take the bait, damn you!

The gaze continued to penetrate the tunnel, suspicious, sensing something. It snorted deep in its throat – then it tossed its head around.

It slunk down the passage, slowly but steadily, drawn toward the light and the heat. Whatever it had sensed from them, it ignored and turned toward the stronger lure.

Then it was gone.

Matt waited a full minute, long enough for the beast to move far down the passage and around the bend. Then he carefully stood and moved back to the main corridor. They didn’t dare wait too long. Soon the grendel would learn of their ruse and backtrack here. They needed to put as much distance between the beast and themselves as possible.

Amanda kept beside him. He checked the passage. The shadow of the grendel could be seen sliding around the bend as the beast hunted its false prey.

He signaled Amanda.

They reached the main corridor and headed away into the dark, careful of their steps, feeling with their hands as the distant light of the helmet totally waned away.

After a minute, Matt had to risk using his flashlight, praying that the flare of light didn’t attract the grendel. He flicked on the lamp but held his palm over it, muting the glow. The light streamed faintly between his fingers, but it was enough. They increased their speed.

Neither spoke.

As they half ran and half skated along, moving upward in the passageways, Matt grew concerned about other grendels that might be down here. Yet so far there had been no telltale brush of sonar.

He finally risked his own walkie-talkie. He passed the flashlight to Amanda, then pressed the radio to his lips. He whispered, afraid to let his voice carry too far. “Lieutenant Greer? Can you read me? Over.”

He listened for an answer, racing a step ahead of Amanda.

A voice answered, faint but audible, “This is Lieutenant Commander Bratt. Where are you?”

Matt frowned. “Hell, if I know. Where are you?”

“We’re gathered with the others at the exit to the Crawl Space. Can you reach us?”

“I’ve found Dr. Reynolds. We’ll try our damnedest.”

Matt turned to Amanda. Beyond her, echoing up to them, a roar suddenly sounded.