Текст книги "Ice Hunt"

Автор книги: James Rollins

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

Act Three
Feeding Frenzy

11. Timeless

APRIL 9, 1:42 P.M.

OUT ON THE ICE…

Bundled in a white parka, Viktor Petkov rode through the heart of a blizzard. His hands were encased in heated mittens, his face protected from the winds by the furred edge of his hood, a thick wool scarf, and a pair of polarized goggles.

But no amount of clothing could keep the cold from his heart. He was heading to the gravestone of his father, a frozen crypt buried in the ice.

He straddled the backseat of the hovercraft bike, harnessed in place. The skilled driver, a young officer under Mikovsky, handled the vehicle with a reckless confidence that could only come from youth. The craft flew over the ice, no more than a handspan above the surface, a rocket against the wind.

The storm continued its attempt to blow them off course, but the driver compensated, maintaining a direct line toward the lost station using the bike’s gyroscopic guidance system.

Viktor stared out at the snow-blasted landscape. Around him lay nothing but a wasteland, a desert of ice. With the sun blanketed by clouds and snow, the world had dissolved into a wan twilight. It sapped one’s will and strength. Here, hopelessness and despair took on physical dimensions. With winds wailing in his ears, the eternal desolation sank into his bones.

Here is where my father spent his last days, alone, exiled, forgotten.

The craft swung in a slow arc, following the shadow of a pressure ridge, the spines of a sleeping dragon. Then, out of the continual gloom, a misty light grew.

“Destination ahead, Admiral!” the driver called back to him.

The hovercraft adjusted course under him. Flanking the lead bike, the other two craft matched the maneuver like a squadron of MiG fighters in formation. The trio raced toward the light.

Details emerged through the blowing snow. A mountain range of ice, a black pool, square, man-made, and at the base of one peak, a shaft of light shone like a beacon in the storm.

They rounded the polynya and swept toward the opening to the base. Engines throttled down. The three hovercraft lowered to their titanium skis, touching down again, skidding across the ice. They slid to a stop near the entrance, parking in the lee of a ridge to protect the vehicles from the worst of the storm.

The driver hopped off while Viktor struggled with his harness’s buckle. Bound as he was in mittens, his dexterity was compromised, but even bare-knuckled, he would still have had difficulty. His hands shook. His eyes were fixed to the ragged shaft – blasted, hacked, and melted down to the tomb below. He had seen ancient burial sites ripped into like this by grave robbers in Egypt. That is what they all were – the Americans and the Russians – filthy grave robbers, fighting over bones and shiny artifacts.

He stared, unblinking.

I am the only one who belongs here.

“Sir?” The driver offered to help, reaching toward his harness.

Viktor snapped back to the moment, unbuckled on his own, and dismounted. On his feet now, he yanked off and pocketed the heated mittens. The cold immediately burned his exposed flesh, like Death’s handshake, welcoming him to his father’s crypt.

He stalked past his men, heading toward the entrance. He found a lone guard inside the shaft. The fellow snapped out of his shivering hunch.

“Admiral!” he said.

Viktor recognized the man as one of the senior officers of the Drakon. What was he doing standing guard duty? He was instantly alert. “What’s wrong, Lieutenant?”

The man fought his tongue. He seemed to be struggling to find the right words. “Sir, we’ve run into a couple of problems. One here, one back at Omega. Captain Mikovsky is awaiting your call on the UQC.”

Viktor frowned, glancing back at the empty polynya. A black line, almost buried in the snow, trailed from the lake and disappeared down the shaft. It was a UQC line, an underwater telephone, a type of active sonar that transmitted voices instead of pings. Such communication spanned only short distances, so the Drakonhad to still be patrolling the local waters.

He waved the guard to proceed.

The half-frozen party headed down the tunnels, slipping past the blasted ruin of a Sno-Cat near the door. The guard continued to speak rapidly. “The problem here, sir, is that a handful of military men and civilians have barricaded themselves on Level Four. We couldn’t get to them because of some strange beasts that attacked our men.”

“Beasts?”

“White-skinned. Massive. The size of bulls. I didn’t see them myself. The creatures disappeared back into the ice caves by the time reinforcements arrived. We lost one man, dragged away by one of the creatures. The hall is under guard now.”

Viktor’s legs grew numb under him at the description. Before leaving, he had read his father’s secret reports in Moscow.

Grendels…could it be them? Could a few still be alive?

They were soon inside the main station. The black vulcanized line ended at a small radio unit. The radioman stood rapidly at the appearance of the admiral.

“Sir! Captain Mikovsky is holding for—”

“I heard.” He strode to the UQC phone, picked up the handset, and spoke into the receiver. “Admiral Petkov here.”

“Admiral, I have an urgent report from our forces at Omega.” The words echoed hollowly, like someone was speaking through a long pipe, but it was clearly Captain Mikovsky. “I wanted you updated immediately.”

“Go ahead.”

“There’s been a security breach. A female prisoner and a U.S. seaman escaped the barracks internment and reached a small aircraft.”

A fist tightened. How could this happen?

“They escaped, sir. With the storm, we have no way of tracking them. Most likely they’re heading to the Alaskan coast to raise the alarm.”

Fury built inside Viktor’s chest. Such a mistake should never have been allowed to happen. The mission called for no eyewitnesses to the war here. It had all been carefully timed. Under the cover of both blizzard and solar storm, the United States’ reconnaissance satellites would have been able to discern only vague infrared signatures at best. And while echoes of the prior battles would be recorded by patrolling subs and ships, without living eyewitnesses, there was a level of plausible deniability on the part of the Russian government. Even the U.S. research sub, the Polar Sentinel,had been allowed to leave unmolested with its evacuees. While the sub might have spotted the Drakonin these waters, they couldn’t visually verify what happened above the ice.

Plausible deniability. It was the new catchphrase of modern battle.

But now two prisoners had escaped, two eyewitnesses who could place him, a Russian admiral, on-site.

Viktor forced himself to take a deep calming breath. He stanched his anger, snuffing it out. His initial reaction had been reflexive, purely military. Ultimately it didn’t matter. He placed a hand over the Polaris wrist monitor, reminding himself of the larger picture.

Viktor found his calm center again. Besides, both governments had authorized this secret war, what was coyly termed in political circles as a skirmish. Such clandestine battles occurred regularly between foreign powers, including the United States. They were waged in hidden corners of the world: the waters off North Korea, the deserts of Iraq, the hinterlands of China, and more than once even here in the lonely wilds of the polar seas. The chains of command understood these skirmishes, but the details never reached the radar screens of the public at large.

Out of sight, out of mind.

“Admiral,” Mikovsky continued, “what are your orders?”

Viktor reviewed the current situation. It was unfortunate but salvageable – yet he could take no further chances. Omega and its prisoners were no longer an asset. The prize was plainly not over there. He kept his voice stoic and firm. “Captain, take the Drakonto Omega.”

“Sir?”

“Once there, draw back our men from the base and retreat.”

“And Omega…the prisoners?”

“Once our men are clear, ignite the buried charges. Melt the entire base into the ocean.”

A long pause. It was a death sentence for those innocents left behind. The captain’s words returned faintly. “Yes, sir.”

“Afterward, return here. Our mission is almost complete.” Viktor replaced the handset to its cradle. He turned to the men gathered around him. “Now to the other problem at hand.”

1:55 P.M.

ICE STATION GRENDEL

Matt gaped, horrified, along with the others. A long curving hall stretched out from the main lab room. Lit by bare bulbs, the passage followed the outer wall of this level, circling and vanishing around the curve of this tier. Inset into the back wall every couple of feet were steel tanks standing on end, taller than Matt by a foot. Thick rubber hoses and twisted conduits ran along both floor and ceilings, connecting tank to tank. Though the fronts of the tanks were windowed in thick glass, the details inside remained murky because of the thick frost over the clear surface.

But a dozen of the closest tanks had the frost recently scraped from them. The glow of the overhead bulbs shone plainly upon the sight inside. The interior of each tank was filled with solid ice, a perfect blue clarity.

And like an insect trapped in amber, a shape was embedded in the heart of each tank. Naked. Human. Each face contorted in a rictus of agony. Palms pressed against the glass, fingers blue and clawing. Men. Women. Even children.

Matt stared down the long tunnel. Tank after tank. How many were there? He turned his back on the macabre sight. He saw the shocked looks on the others’ faces.

Two members of the group, though, looked more embarrassed than horrified.

He walked back to the main room and faced them: Lieutenant Bratt and Amanda Reynolds. “What is all this?” He waved an arm down the hall.

Craig appeared at his side. Washburn and the civilian scientists gathered with him.

“It’s what the Russians are trying to cover up,” Amanda said. “A secret lab dating back to World War Two. Used for human experimentation.”

Matt studied the barred door. Greer and Pearlson stood guard there. For the moment, the Russians had given up on trying to get the door open. They were probably wary of the return of the grendels after chasing them back into the Crawl Space with gunfire. But that fear wouldn’t keep them out forever.

“What were the bastards trying to do here?” Washburn asked, looking the most shaken, her stoic demeanor shattered.

Amanda shook her head. “We don’t know. We locked down the lab as soon as we discovered what was hidden here.” She pointed to a glass cabinet that contained a neat row of journals, covering two shelves. “The answers are probably there. But they’re all coded in some strange script. We couldn’t read them.”

Craig approached and cracked the door open. He leaned over, studying the bindings. “There are numbers here. Dates, it looks like. He ran a finger down the journals. “If I’m reading this right, from January 1933…to May 1945.” He pulled the last one out and flipped through it.

“Twelve years,” Bratt said. “It’s hard to believe this operation ran for so long without anyone knowing.”

Amanda answered, “Back then, communication up here was scant. Travel rare. It wouldn’t be hard to hide such a place.”

“Or lose it when you wanted to,” Matt added. “What the hell happened here?”

The biologist, Dr. Ogden, spoke from the hallway. He straightened from one tank. “I may have an idea.”

Everyone turned to him.

“What?” Bratt asked brusquely.

“The grendels,” he said to the lieutenant commander. “You saw what happened. The specimens came to life after being frozen for centuries.”

Amanda’s eyes widened. “That’s impossible.”

Bratt turned to her. “No, ma’am. Dr. Ogden is right. I saw it happen with my own eyes.”

Dr. Ogden continued: “Such a miraculous resurrection is not unheard of in the natural world. Certain turtles hibernate in frozen mud over an entire winter, then rise again with the spring thaw.”

“But frozen solid?” Amanda asked.

“Yes. Arctic wood frogs freeze as hard as stone during the winter. Their hearts don’t beat. When frozen, you can cut them in half, and they don’t bleed. All EEG activity ceases. In fact, there’s no cellular activity at all. For all intents and purposes, they’re dead. But come spring, they thaw, and within fifteen minutes, their hearts are beating, blood pumping, and they’re jumping around.”

Matt nodded when Amanda glanced at him. “It’s true. I’ve read about those frogs.”

“How can that be?” Amanda argued. “When a body freezes, ice expands in the cells and destroys them. Like frostbite. How do the frogs survive that?”

“The answer is quite simple,” Ogden said.

Amanda raised an eyebrow.

“Sugar.”

“What?”

“Glucose specifically. There’s a Canadian researcher, Dr. Ken Storey, who has been studying Arctic wood frogs for the past decade. What he’s discovered is that when ice starts forming on a frog’s rubbery skin, its body starts filling each cell with sugary glucose. Increasing the osmalality of the cell to the point that life-killing ice can’t form inside it.”

“But you said the frogs do freeze?”

“Exactly, but it is only the water outsidethe cells that ices up. The glucose insidethe cell acts as a cryoprotectant, a type of antifreeze, preserving the cell until thawed. Dr. Storey determined that this evolutionary process is governed by a set of twenty genes that convert glycogen to glucose. The trigger for what suddenly turns these specific genes on or off is still unknown, but a hormonal theory is most advocated, something released by the frog’s glandular skin. The odd thing, though, is that these twenty genes are found in allvertebrate species.”

Amanda took a deep breath. “Including the Ambulocetus…the grendels.”

He nodded. “Remember I told you that I would classify this new species as Ambulocetus natans arctos. An Arctic-adapted subspecies of the original amphibious whale. The gigantism, the depigmentation…are all common Arctic adaptations. So why not this one, too? If it made its home here – in a land ruled notby the sun, but by cycles of freezing and thawing – then its body might adapt to this rhythm, too.”

Bratt added. “Besides, we sawit happen with the monsters. We know they can do this.”

Ogden nodded and continued: “It’s a form of suspended animation. Can you imagine its potential uses? Even now university researchers are using the Arctic frogs as a model to attempt freezing human organs. This would be a boon to the world. Donated organs could be frozen and preserved until needed.”

Matt’s gaze had returned to the line of tanks. “What about these folk? Do you think that’s what’s going on here? Some type of sick organ bank? A massive storage facility for spare parts?”

Ogden turned to him. “Oh, no, I don’t think that at all.”

Matt faced him. “Then what?”

“I wager the Russians were attempting something grander here. Remember when I said the twenty genes that orchestrate the wood frog’s suspended animation are found in allvertebrate species. Well, that includes humans.”

Matt’s eyes widened.

“I believe that these people were guinea pigs in a suspended animation program. That the Russians were trying to instill the grendels’ ability to survive freezing into humans, seeking a means of practical suspended animation. They sought the Holy Grail of all sciences.” Ogden faced the questioning looks around him. “Immortality.”

Matt swung to face the contorted, pained figures in the ice. “Are you saying that these people are still alive?”

Before anyone could answer, a pounding sounded from the door, determined, stolid. Everyone went silent.

A hard voice called out to them. “Open the door immediately…if we have to cut our way through, you will suffer for our troubles.”

From the dead tone of the other’s voice, it was no idle threat.

The wolf was at their door.

2:04 P.M.

AIRBORNE OVER THE POLAR CAP

Jenny fought the gale pounding at her windshield. It blew steady, but sudden gusts and churning winds kept her fingers tight on her controls, eyes glued to her instruments. She had not even bothered to glance out the windshield for the past ten minutes. What was the use?

Though she couldn’t see anything, she still wore her snow goggles. Even with the blizzard, the midday glare shot through the windshield. It made her want to close her eyes. How long had it been since she’d slept?

She pushed these thoughts away and watched her airspeed. Too slow. The headwind was eating her speed. She tried to ignore the fuel gauge. The needle pointed to a large red E. A yellow warning light glowed. Empty. They were flying on fumes into a blizzard.

“Are we sure about this?” Kowalski said. The seaman had given up trying to raise anyone on the radio.

“I don’t see we have much other choice,” Jenny said. “We don’t have enough fuel to reach the coast. We’d be forced to land anyway. I’d rather land somewhere where we had some chance of living.”

“How far out are we?” Tom asked from the backseat. Bane lay curled on the seat beside him, tail tucked around his body.

“If the coordinates you gave me are correct, we’ve another ten miles.”

Kowalski stared out the windshield. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

Jenny ignored him. They had already debated it. It wastheir only choice. She struggled to eke out a bit more speed, taking every lull in the wind to surge ahead, lunging in spurts toward their goal. The controls had grown more sluggish as ice built on the wings and crusted on the windshield. They were slowly becoming a flying ice cube.

They traveled in silence for another five minutes. Jenny barely breathed, waiting for the props to choke out as her greedy engines consumed the last of her fuel.

“There!” Tom suddenly blurted, jamming an arm between Jenny and Kowalski. Bane lifted his head.

Jenny tried to follow where the ensign pointed. “I don’t see—”

“Ten degrees to starboard! Wait for the wind to let up!”

Jenny concentrated on where he indicated. Then, as the snow eddied out in a wild twist, she spotted a light ahead, glowing up at them. “Are you sure that’s the place?”

Tom nodded.

“Ice Station Grendel,” Kowalski moaned.

Jenny began her descent, studying her altimeter. Without fuel, they needed a place to land. They couldn’t go back to Omega and to touch down in the wasteland of the polar cap was certain death. There was only one other place that offered adequate shelter. The ice station.

It was risky, but not totally foolhardy. The Russians would not be expecting them. If they could land out of direct sight, Tom Pomautuk knew the layout of the station well enough to possibly get them into one of the exterior ventilation shafts that brought fresh air down to the buried station. They could hole up there until the Russians left.

And besides, their dwindling fuel situation left them little other choice.

The Otter lurched as the portside engine coughed. The prop skipped a beat, fluttering. In a heartbeat, the Twin Otter became a SingleOtter. Flying on one engine, Jenny fought to hold the plane even while dropping her flaps. She dove steeply. “Hold tight!”

Kowalski had a death grip on both armrests. “I got that covered.”

There was no sight line to the ice fields below. Jenny watched her altimeter wheel down. The winds continued to fight, grabbing the plane, trying to hold it aloft.

Jenny bit her lower lip, concentrating. She tried to fix the position of the station’s beacon light, now gone again, in her mind’s eye. A map formed in her head, fed by data from her instruments and her own instinct.

As the altimeter dropped under the two-hundred-foot ceiling, she focused on her trim, fighting both the wind and the dead engine to hold herself level. The snow became thicker, not just from the sky but now blowing up at her from the ice plain below.

She intended to descend from here as gradually as possible. It was the only safe way to land blind. Slow and even…as long as the last engine held. She watched the altimeter drop under a hundred…then seventy…then—

“Watch out!” Tom called from the backseat.

Her gaze flicked up from her focus on her instruments. Out of the storm ahead, the winds parted in places to reveal a wall of ice ahead of them, broken and thrust up into jagged teeth, misted with blowing snow. It lay less than a hundred yards ahead. She thought quickly, weighing options in a heartbeat. She plainly didn’t have the engines to make it over them.

Beside her, Kowalski swore a constant string, his version of a prayer.

Jenny gnashed her teeth, then jammed her stick forward, diving more steeply. Screw it,she thought, I’m sticking this landing. She dropped the plane the last fifty feet, sweeping out of the sky, plunging toward the peaks of ice.

The ground was nowhere in sight.

Kowalski’s prayer became more heartfelt, finishing with “I really, really hate you!”

Jenny ignored him. She concentrated on her instruments, trusting them. They promised the ground was down there somewhere. She completely dropped her flaps; the plane dipped savagely.

It was too much for her last engine. The motor gasped, choked, and died. In that moment, they became a frozen rock with wings, hurtling earthward.

“Fuuuucccckkkk!”Kowalski cried, hands now pressed to the side window and dash.

Jenny hummed. The momentum of the glide continued to hold – barely. The needle on the altimeter slipped lower and lower, then settled to zero. There was still no sign of the ground.

Then her skis hit the ice, soft and even.

She punched up her flaps to brake their speed. They had landed at speeds much faster than she liked.

As the Otter continued to race over the slick surface, side winds threatened to topple it over on a wing, attempting to cartwheel them off to oblivion. But Jenny worked her flaps, plied the Otter with skill, and adjusted their course to keep the wings up.

“Ice!” Tom called from the backseat.

The peaks were rushing at them. The plane’s speed had hardly slowed. With skis for landing gear, the Otter had no hydraulic brakes – just flaps and friction. She had plenty of the former, little of the latter.

Still, after a decade of mushing in a dog sled, Jenny knew the delicate physics of ice and steel runners.

The Otter continued to skate toward the towering cliffs, sliding toward a certain crash. Jenny had already recognized the inevitable.

She was going to lose her plane.

“This is going to hurt,” she mumbled.

As the plane swept toward the cliff face, she prayed the ice remained slick. Everything depended on her flaps – and timing.

She watched the cliffs grow in front of her. She counted in her head, then at the last moment, she dropped the flaps on the starboard side and continued to brake with the other. The nimble plane fishtailed, spinning around like an Olympic figure skater.

The tail assembly swept backward and struck the cliff, absorbing a fair amount of the impact and tearing away in the process. Jenny jerked in her seat harness as the plane jarred. The wing glanced next, taking more of the impact, crumpling up and away. Then the cabin hit, striking the cliff broadside – but since the worst of the impact had already been absorbed by the tail and wing, their collision was no more than a fender bender.

Everyone was shaken but alive.

Bane climbed back into his seat from the floor, looking none too pleased by the whole experience. Jenny turned to Kowalski. He reached out with both hands, grabbed her cheeks, and kissed her full on the mouth.

“Let’s never fight again,” he said.

Outside, the engine on the crumpled wing broke away and hit the ice.

“We’d better get out of here,” Tom said.

They hauled out of the plane. Before climbing free, Jenny removed some supplies from the emergency locker: a flashlight, a pair of extra parkas and mittens, a large coil of poly-line rope, a flare gun, and a pocketful of extra flares. She glanced to the empty hooks that normally held her service shotgun and silently cursed Sewell for confiscating it.

She exited the broken plane and tossed one of the spare parkas to Kowalski.

“Looks like Christmas came early,” he muttered as he pulled into it. It was too small for his large frame. The sleeves rode four inches up his forearm, but he didn’t complain.

Jenny quaked in the winds, but at least she was sheltered by the cliffs, the worst of the storm blunted. She quickly donned her parka.

Bane trotted around the wreckage, then lifted his leg. His yellow stream misted steamily in the frigid cold.

Kowalski stared a moment. “Damn smart dog. If I had to go, I’d be doing the same thing, too. Remind me from here on out never to get into anything smaller than a 747.”

“Be respectful. She gave all she had to get you here.” Jenny stared at the wreckage, feeling a surprisingly deep pang of regret at the loss.

Tom tugged his parka tighter around his boyish shoulders. “Where now?”

“Off to where we’re not welcome,” Kowalski answered. He pointed to the mountain range. “Let’s see if we can sneak in the back door.”

As they headed off, Jenny asked, “Where does this supposed hidden ventilation shaft lead?”

Tom explained the base’s air circulation system. It functioned without pumps. Shafts were simply drilled from the surface to the deepest levels of the station – even below the station. The colder surface air, being heavier than the warmer air below would sink into these shafts and displace the warmer stagnant air. “This creates a passive circulation system,” Tom finished. “The fresh air is pocketed in a cavern system that wraps around the station. A reservoir of clean air, so to speak. It is then heated through baffles and used to service the station.”

“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.