Текст книги "Ice Hunt"

Автор книги: James Rollins

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Текущая страница: 27 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

Before she could even get Commander Sewell’s attention, the double doors to the barracks had popped open and Greg had rushed into the room with a small squad. He had ordered everyone to remain quiet.

Too shocked by the miracle, Amanda had flown into his arms. Ignoring decorum, he had pulled her to him, kissed her, and whispered that he loved her.

Together, they had waited until the Delta Force helicopter lifted off. Then they were all running. With Greg in the lead, they raced through the shadows to the oceanography shack. Inside, Amanda found a strange sight. Thrust up within the lab’s main research room stood the conning tower of the Polar Sentinel. The sub had surfaced its tower through the square hole cut in the ice. The small port was normally used by the oceanographers to raise and lower their two-man bathysphere. But now it serviced the sub’s tower, the proverbial square peg in a round hole.

With time ticking down, the party had fled into the submarine.

As soon as all were aboard, Greg had ordered the submarine to crash-dive. The Polar Sentinalfell away like a brick. They were at forty fathoms when the Russian V-class incendiaries blew off the top of their world.

Amanda had been in Cyclops at the time. She had witnessed the blinding flash, the impossible sight of flames shooting down through the water. The submarine had been rocked, shoved deep, but with the insulation of almost three hundred feet of water, they had survived, no more than rattled.

Greg had then related her father’s frantic VLF message, his warning about the ultimate mission of the Delta strike team. “I was already here, planning a rescue attempt under the Russians’ noses. I never imagined that I’d have to rescue you from our own forces.” This last was spoken bitterly.

He had also shared the news about her father’s medical condition. A heart attack. But he was recovering well in the naval hospital on Oahu. “Even before he’d let them treat him, he insisted the warning be sent first.”

The timing had saved them.

Now once again, the Polar Sentinelspied from below. This time the submarine hovered beside the inverted mountain of ice that hid Ice Station Grendel. Through the DeepEye’s penetrating sonar, they had watched the assault upon the buried station. It was eerie watching the silent play unfold on the screen, the ghostly images of men and gunfire.

Then the explosion erupted, appearing as a wash of yellow on the monitor.

It slowly cleared.

Greg squeezed her knee, indicating he wanted to speak to her. She turned and looked at him. “I don’t know what we can do to help,” he said. “It looks like the entrance collapsed. They’re trapped in there.”

Over Greg’s shoulder, a figure stirred, moving forward. “Jenny.” It was the woman’s father. He pointed to the screen and tapped one of the phantoms, the form billowy from the sonar. “That’s my daughter.”

Amanda glanced back to him. “Are you sure?”

He leaned forward and ran his finger down the figure’s lower half. “She broke her leg when she was twenty-two. They had to pin it back together.”

Amanda focused the DeepEye slightly. The old man could be right. The penetrating sonar was similar to X rays. And there appeared to be a distinct metallic density in the lower extremities. It could be her.

She turned to John and read the raw fear in his face. He knewit was his daughter. Amanda struggled to think of some other way to rescue Jenny and any other folk trapped between the two forces.

Greg pointed to the monitor. Throughout the upper levels of the station, spats of yellow appeared on the monitor. She didn’t have to read his lips to know what it was. Gunfire.

A large flare of amber flashed midlevel in the station.

She turned to him.

“Grenade,” he mouthed.

She turned back as flashes and flares continued to descend into the depths of the station.

It was all out-war.

8:22 P.M.

ICE STATION GRENDEL

Another grenade exploded, rocking the floor under Jenny. In her arms, she held the Inuit boy. He screamed and sobbed, covering his ears, squeezing his eyes tightly closed. She rocked him as she crouched.

Matt hovered over them both, a rifle in his hand.

Screams and shouts wafted up the central shaft, along with billows of smoke and soot. Fires were raging somewhere below. Most of the base was steel, brass, and copper. But a significant part of its infrastructure was straw and flammable composites.

It was burning.

Even if the Delta Force team could commandeer the station, what then? They would either die in flames or be buried in the ice as the station collapsed.

And then there was always the third possibility.

Hovering amid the column of smoke, the large titanium sphere rested on the elevator platform. One of the soldiers, a demolition expert, knelt in front of an open hatch at the bottom of the sphere. He had been studying it for the past ten minutes, tools spread at his knees, untouched. It was not a good sign.

Craig barked at her shoulder as the gunfire ebbed below. He was yelling into his radio while he surveyed the level. Two other Delta Force soldiers held positions by the shaft. The remainder of the squad continued its guerrilla war down below.

Lowering his throat mike, Craig stepped to them. He eyed the collapsed exit. “There’s no way for the few men left above to dig us out. It would take days. Any attempt to blast a way through with a missile would just get us all killed.”

“So what are they going to do?”

Craig closed his eyes, then opened them. He stared over to the bomb. “I ordered them to stand down, to retreat thirty miles off. I can’t risk losing the journals.”

“Thirty miles?” Matt asked. “Isn’t that overkill?”

Craig nodded to the device being examined over the shaft. “It’s nuclear. That’s as much as Sergeant Conrad can tell us right now. Unless we can deactivate it…” He shrugged.

Jenny had to give the guy credit. He was one cold fish. Even in their current straits, his mission was his first priority.

Matt continued to watch over them, eyes sweeping all around. “The shooting…I think it’s slowing…”

Jenny realized he was right. She cradled the boy. The gunfire had died to sporadic bursts.

Over by the central shaft, the two guards stirred. One yelled back to them. “Friendlies coming up!”

A pair of Delta Force team members clambered up the steps. They led a Russian soldier, hands on top of his head, at gunpoint. A young man, no older than eighteen, he blinked at the blood that ran down his face. Soot covered his clothes.

One of his captors snapped at him in Russian. He dropped to his knees. The other came to report to Craig. “They’re surrendering. We’ve another two prisoners on Level Three.”

“And the others?”

“Dead.” The soldier glanced back to the stairwell. The gunfire had ended. “We cleared all the tiers, except for Level Four. Men are sweeping it now.”

“What about Admiral Petkov?” Matt asked.

The man nudged the prisoner. Weak with terror and loss of blood, he fell on his side, afraid even to lower his hands to catch himself. “He says that the admiral fled into Level Four. But so far, we’ve not found him. The prisoner might be lying. He may need a little encouragement.”

Before the matter could be addressed, Sergeant Conrad approached from his examination of the nuclear bomb.

Craig turned his full attention toward the man. “Well?”

The soldier shook his head. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. As far as I can tell, it’s a low-yield nuclear device. Minimal radiation risk. But it’s certainly no standard bomb. I’m guessing more of a disrupter of some type. Like the EM-pulse weapons under development. The explosive capability is small for a nuclear weapon, but its energy could generate a massive pulse. But I don’t think it’s an electromagneticpulse. Something else. I don’t know what.”

Matt interrupted his report. “You said the explosion would be small. That’s the part I want to know about. How small?”

He was answered with a shrug. “Small for a nucleardevice. But it’ll crack this island like a hard-boiled egg. If it blows, we’re all dead, no matter what pulse it sends out.”

“Can you deactivate it?”

The sergeant shook his head. “The trigger is based on subsonics. It’s tied to an external detonator. Unless we can get the abort code to turn this thing off, this baby’s going to blow in”—he checked his watch—“in fifty-five minutes.”

Craig rubbed his left temple. “Then we need to find the admiral. He’s our only chance.” His gaze settled on the frightened youth at his feet. He nodded to the soldier who had kicked the man. “Find out what he knows.”

The prisoner must have understood. He babbled in Russian, terrified, his hands still on his head.

Matt stepped between the prisoner and the soldier. “Don’t bother. I can find Petkov. I know where he must be holed up.”

Craig turned to him. “Where?”

“Down on Level Four. I’ll have to show you.”

Craig narrowed his eyes, glancing between the youth and the shaft. “All right. I doubt this fellow knows anything anyway.” He pulled out his pistol and shot the man in the head.

The retort was loud in the silent station. Skull, brains, and blood splattered across the floor.

“Jesus Christ!” Matt yelled, stumbling back as the blast echo died. “Why did you do that?”

Craig’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t play me for a fool, Matt. You know why.” He headed toward the shaft, waving for a pair of soldiers to flank him. “It’s either us or them. Pick sides and let’s go.”

Matt remained frozen but stared toward Jenny, who had twisted from the body, shielding the boy.

The gunshot had sent the boy into another bout of wailing. Jenny held him tightly.

Matt stepped over and leaned down, hugging them both. “Go,” she whispered, defying her own heart’s desire. She wanted him to stay with them. “But watch your back.”

A small nod. He understood her. The biggest danger right now was the bomb. Once that was nullified, they’d find some way to survive both the Russians and the Delta Force strike team.

Matt stood, shouldering his rifle.

Jenny closed her eyes, not wanting to see him leave. But as he stepped away, she opened her eyes. She watched his every movement: the set of his shoulders, the length of his stride. She drank him in, not knowing if she’d ever see him again, regretting the waste of bitter years.

Then they were gone. Two guards watched the shaft. Otherwise she was alone with the gently sobbing boy. She comforted him, as she had not been able to comfort Tyler. She ran fingers through his hair, whispered wordless sounds to soothe.

Across the way, the two guards by the stairs talked softly together. There was no more gunfire, no more explosions. Smoke still hazed the level. Through the oily fog, the lone beacon still shone, beating like a titanium heart, counting down.

As she cradled the boy, a voice whispered behind her, ghostly and vague. She was not even sure she heard it. Then her name was spoken.

“Jenny…can you hear me?”

She cautiously glanced behind her. She did not recognize the voice. It came from an overturned set of electronics.

“Jenny, it’s Captain Perry of thePolar Sentinel .”

8:32 P.M.

USS POLAR SENTINEL

Perry stood in the communication shack by the bridge. He spoke into the UQC underwater telephone. “If you can hear me, move toward the sound of my voice.”

As he waited, he switched to the shipboard intercom. He hailed the Cyclops chamber. “John, can Amanda see Jenny on the monitor? Is your daughter responding?”

A short pause, then an answer came through. “Yes!” He heard a father’s hope in the man’s voice.

For the past five minutes, they had waited, spying with the DeepEye until Jenny was alone. Earlier, Perry had eavesdropped on communication between the station and the Drakonthrough the underwater phone. He had hoped the rubber landline that draped into the ocean had not been severed by the blast.

“Jenny, we can see you with our sonar. Is there any way you can transmit? There should be a receiver. Just like an old-fashioned phone. If you find it, simply talk into it.”

Perry waited, praying. He didn’t know what help they could offer, but he needed to know the situation in the station to formulate a plan.

The line remained quiet.

C’mon…we need some break. A bit of luck.

The silence stretched.

8:33 P.M.

ICE STATION GRENDEL

Jenny clutched the telephone receiver in her hand. Tears of frustration welled in her eyes. The cord was cut. There was no way to communicate out. She wanted to bang the handset on the ground in frustration. Instead she simply set it down.

So far the two guards remained busy with their own discussion. She kept one arm around little Maki, not wanting to attract attention.

The captain’s voice returned. “There must be a problem at your end. But we’re monitoring all means of communication coming from the station. We have all our ears up. You simply need to find a radio of any sort. Even a walkie-talkie. Our ears are very good out here. Get to it. But don’t let any of the Delta team see you.”

Jenny closed her eyes.

“Just know we’re watching you. We’ll do what we can to help.”

She listened to his confidence, but it shed from her like water off a seal’s fur. Even if she could reach a radio, what good would it do? How could they help?

She stared at the blue lights circling around and around the titanium sphere. A sense of despair and hopelessness settled over her. She was too tired to fight any longer. She had been up almost two days straight. The constant terror and tension had burned all substance from her. She felt hollow and empty.

Then a new voice whispered from the tiny speaker. “Jenny, we’re here. We won’t leave until we get you all out of there.”She barely heard the words, it was the voice that held her attention: the familiar slight slurring, the drawled consonance.

“Amanda…” She was naming a ghost.

“I have someone who wants to speak to you.”

There was a pause during which Jenny sought to make sense of it all.

“Honey…Jen…”

Tears flowed, filling the hollow space in her heart. “Papa!”

Her outburst drew the guards’ attention. She leaned over the boy, speaking to him, covering her mistake.

Behind her, her father spoke to her…alive! “Do as Captain Perry says,”he urged her. “We won’t leave you.”

Jenny hunched over the boy, rocking, hiding her sobs. Her father still lived. The miracle of it pushed back her despair. She would not give up.

She lifted her head and stared over to the dead Russian teenager. From the upper pocket of his fatigues, a black walkie-talkie protruded.

Jenny stood up, pulling the boy in her arms. As she paced with Maki, softly humming, she edged closer to the body. Once near enough, she waited until the guards’ backs were turned. Then she darted down, snatched the walkie-talkie, and sprang back up.

She hid the radio where no one would think to look.

But what now?

Across the room, the titanium sphere continued its deadly countdown. There could be no rescue until that threat was addressed.

It was all up to the man she loved.

8:36 P.M.

Matt led the way down the long curving hall of frozen tanks.

Craig followed with his two men. Other members of Delta Force manned key positions throughout this level. With all the remaining Russians executed, the base was once again an American station…all except for one Russian admiral.

Matt reached the end of the hall, where the line of tanks stopped. He crossed to the secret panel. Pausing, he weighed the evils here: Craig versus the Russian admiral. But he also pictured Jenny and the little boy. He took strength from her heart, her will to protect the innocent. Before any other matters could be decided, the bomb had to be deactivated.

His fingers tightened on the rifle in his hand.

“There’s nothing here,” Craig said suspiciously.

“Nothing?” Matt reached and swung open the hidden panel, revealing the wheeled latch to the ice lab’s door. He glanced over to Craig with one eyebrow raised. “Then you go in first, because I doubt we’re going to get a very warm welcome.”

Craig waved Matt aside and had one of the Delta Force guards work the wheel. Matt allowed him to struggle a moment, remembering his own frustration. But time was critical. He leaned forward and hit the secret switch that unlocked the wheel. It spun free. The door cracked open.

No one moved to open it farther.

Craig stepped closer. “Admiral Petkov!” he called. “You asked for us to meet, to parley a solution. I’m still willing to talk if you are.”

There was no answer.

“Maybe he killed himself,” one of the guards mumbled.

This theory was quickly disproven as Petkov called out, “Come in.”

Craig frowned, unsettled by the admiral’s yielding. He glanced to Matt.

“I’m not going in there first. This is yourgoddamn game.”

Craig motioned everyone to either side, then pulled the door open himself, shielding his body behind the door. There was no gunfire.

One of the soldiers, a sergeant, extended a small spy mirror around the corner. He studied the room for a few moments. “All clear,” he said, not hiding his surprise. “He’s just sitting in there. Unarmed.”

Making the soldier prove his words, Craig waved him in first. Raising his rifle, the sergeant slid from his vantage point and ducked low through the doorway. Dropping to a knee, he swept his weapon around, ready for any threat. None arose.

“Clear!” he yelled.

Craig cautiously stepped around the door, his pistol pointing forward. He crossed into the room. Matt followed, while the other guard remained posted in the hall.

Little had changed inside the ice lab. Nothing had been moved or destroyed. Matt had at least expected Petkov to have smashed the samples, but the glass syringes were still secured across the back shelves.

Instead, the admiral sat on the ice floor beside his father. The two could have been brothers, rather than father and son.

“Vladimir Petkov,” Craig said.

There was no need to confirm the obvious.

Craig’s eyes took in the wall of syringed samples. He kept his gun pointed at the admiral. “It doesn’t have to end this way. Give us the abort code to the bomb upstairs and you can still live.”

“Like you allowed my men to live, like you allowed your own people at Omega to live.” Petkov scowled. He lifted an arm and shook back his sleeve, revealing the hidden wrist monitor. “The bomb upstairs is a sonic charge, set to go off in another forty-two minutes.”

Craig no longer even tried to lie. “I can turn those forty-two minutes into a lifetime of pain.”

Petkov laughed bitterly at the threat. “You can teach me nothing about pain, huyok.”

Craig bristled at the clear insult.

“What do you mean a soniccharge?” Matt interrupted. “I thought it was a nuclear bomb?”

Petkov’s gaze flicked to him, then back to Craig. The Russian admiral knew the true enemy here. “The device has a nuclear trigger. After a sixty-second sonic pulse, the main reactor will go critical and blow. It’ll take out the entire island.”

Craig shoved his pistol closer, threatening. The hammer cocked back.

Unfazed, Petkov simply tapped his exposed wrist monitor. “The trigger is also tied to my own heartbeat. A fail-safe. Kill me and the time before detonation will drop to one minute.”

“Then maybe something else will persuade you.” He shifted his pistol and pointed it at Petkov’s father’s head. “Matt told me your story. Your father took the elixir along with the Eskimos. If he did that, then a part of him wanted to live.”

Petkov remained unreadable, stone. But there was no response this time.

“Like the boy, he may still be alive even now. Would you take that chance at rebirth from him? I understand the shame and grief that drove your father to his decision, but there can be no redemption in death, only in life. Would you deny your father that?” Craig stepped forward and crushed the glass syringe Vladimir had used decades ago. “He injectedhimself. He wantedto live.”

Petkov glanced to his father. One hand twitched up, then down, plainly wavering.

Matt pressed, “And what about little Maki? Your father put him to the final test himself, the boy he took as his foster son. He wanted the boy to live. So if not for yourself or your father, consider the boy.”

Petkov sighed. His eyes closed. The silence became a physical weight on them all. Finally, tired words flowed from the admiral. “The abort code is a series of letters. They must be entered forward, then reentered backward.”

“Tell me,” Craig urged. “Please.”

Petkov opened his eyes. “If I do, I want one promise from you.”

“What is that?”

“Do with me what you will, but protect the boy.”

Craig narrowed one eye. “Of course.”

“No research labs. You mentioned using him again as an issledovatelskiy subyekt, a research subject.” He indicated the wall of syringes. “You have more than enough here. Just let the boy live a normal life.”

Craig nodded. “I swear.”

Petkov sighed again. “I suggest you write the code down.”

Craig pulled a small handheld device from his pocket. “A digital recorder.”

Petkov shrugged. “The code is L-E-D-I–V-A-Y-B-E-T-A-Y-U-B-O-RG-V.”

Craig played it back to make sure he got it right.

The admiral nodded. “That’s it.”

“Very good.” Craig lifted his pistol and pulled the trigger.

The noise in the small space sounded like a grenade. Several of the syringes shattered.

Again, Matt was startled from the sudden violence. He stumbled back. The guard at the door, obeying some hidden signal, snatched the rifle from his fingers. The other soldier’s weapon pointed at his face.

Petkov remained on the floor. His father’s body had fallen over his legs, headless now. The frozen skull had shattered half away from the point-blank shot.

Matt gaped at Craig.

The man shrugged. “This time I did it because I was pissed off.”

8:49 P.M.

Victor held his father’s body. Parts of his skull littered his lap, the floor, the shelves. A shard had sliced his own cheek, deeply, but he barely felt the sting. He clutched the cold flesh.

A moment ago, there had been hope that some part of his father yet lived, suspended in time. But now all such hopes had been shattered away as thoroughly as the frozen skull.

Dead.

Again.

How could the pain be so fresh after so many years?

Though his heart thudded painfully in his chest, no tears came. He had shed his tears for his father when he was a boy. He had no more.

Craig spoke by the door to one of his guards. “Take them both to the cells to join the others. Bring the woman and boy down, too.”

The boy…

Viktor stirred, finding purpose. “You swore,” he called out hoarsely.

Craig paused at the door. “I will keep my promise as long as you haven’t lied.”

8:50 P.M.

Matt watched the admiral struggle to his feet and noted there was still a strength to him. Petkov’s hands were bound so that he couldn’t access the wrist monitor, and in short order, he and Petkov were escorted at gunpoint from the room.

It was over. Craig had won.

With the bomb deactivated, the bastard had plenty of time to recall the remainder of the Delta team and dig himself free. And with the notes and samples, he had all he needed from the ice station.

All that was left was to clean up the mess.

Returned to their cell, Matt and Petkov drew stunned gazes from the other prisoners, Ogden and the two biology students in one cell, Washburn alone in the other.

It didn’t take long for Jenny and Maki to be herded down as well. They were thrust into the cell with Washburn.

Matt met Jenny at the bars. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. Her face was ashen, but her eyes were twin sparks of hellfire. Washburn took Maki from Jenny and sat with the boy on the bed. He seemed fascinated by the lieutenant’s dark skin.

“What happened?” Jenny asked.

“Craig got the samples, the books, and the abort code.”

Petkov stirred behind Matt, speaking for the first time. “The huyokgot nothing,” he spat out thickly.

Matt turned to the man. His face was pure ice. “What do you mean?”

“There is no abort code for the Polaris Array.”

It took half a second for Matt to assimilate the information. The admiral had tricked Craig, outfoxed him at his own game. And while Matt might have appreciated it in other circumstances, the outcome was bleak for all of them.

“In twenty-nine minutes,” Petkov said, “the world ends.”