Dead Ice

TWENTY NINE

Maddock took the stairs two at a time, oblivious to the danger. It was all about time now. His chest was stained red with the animal’s blood and his own.

“Maddock!” Someone shouted when he emerged into the corridor.

It took him a moment to orient himself. He could see their silhouette backlit in the bright light streaming in through the doorway. “Zara? What the hell are you doing in here? I told everyone to keep out.”

“We heard a gunshot. Are you all right? Where’s Bones.?”

“I’m fine.” He waved her away. “Bones is back there. The egg’s been broken — whatever the hell’s inside it is out, and we’ve been exposed, stay back.”

“Are you all right?”

“On top of the world. Bones too. But we need to find the antidote, if there is one, to whatever agent or toxin was in there.”

“Well this just got a heck of a lot more interesting,” Willis said, appearing with Professor behind Leopov’s shoulder. “What are we looking for and where are we looking for it?”

“No idea. Anywhere. Everywhere. We don’t even know for certain that there is one. If this virus or whatever it is has been inside that egg since the time of Rasputin and the Romanov’s there’s no guarantee any antidote even survived.”

“Are you sure there was anything inside?” Professor asked. “Or if it’s still viable?”

“Not a chance I’m prepared to take. There’s not going to be anything on board the ship that’s going to be able to deal with an unknown virus. The chopper should be on its way to pick us up now, but we’re not getting on it if there’s even the slightest risk we’re going to become Patient Zero and bring a plague to the mainland. Simple as that. So we’ve got until the chopper gets here to find what we need or we wave it away.”

Maddock gave orders for them to work in pairs. It might not cover the whole building as quickly, but it would increase the thoroughness of the search. They just needed to cut out wasted time and not allow themselves to become preoccupied with places where the vaccine was unlikely to be hidden. Doors led to offices and sleeping quarters that did not look promising. Other doors opened onto bare rooms with only a bench and bars on the windows. There were survivors. They weren’t in good shape. Maddock found an old man huddled in a corner, arms wrapped around his knees, knees tucked under his chin, rocking in a ball. He left the cell door open, the man could leave if he wanted to, or stay there and rot.

The next three were the same but the inhabitants had not been so fortunate.

They needed to keep looking. Fast.

Door after door, room after room, cells, offices, they were all the same. Maddock felt like screaming, until finally he opened the doors on a fully equipped laboratory. There was more equipment in the one room than he’d seen in any lab in his life.

“Doesn’t it seem weird to you there are two laboratories in this place?” he asked.

“Two?” Leopov said.

“Yeah, there’s a full scale lab downstairs, that’s where the Russian was.” He patted the tear across his Artic jacket where the blood had already begun to crust. “Our little furry friend seemed right at home down there.”

“You found one inside?”

“Took out the whole Spetsnaz team.”

“But inside? That doesn’t make sense. Where did it come from? How did it even get inside? Those things don’t live in captivity, hell they don’t even exist outside of places like this, surely? This island’s been inhabited for years. There were expeditions up here long before the Russians laid claim to it.”

“I’m not sure it was wild,” Maddock said. “More like a guard dog.”

“But how would that work?” Leopov frowned. “Aside from the obvious, sabertooth tigers are extinct, so how could anyone have domesticated them? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Unless they found a way to clone them… is that even possible? I mean that was some lab down there… maybe they’ve been doing some kind of genetic engineering?”

“I don’t know. The only thing any of us know is that something killed those people out in the exercise yard,” Leopov said. “I didn’t see tooth and claw wounds, so that makes me think it was a virus or nerve agent or something. It’s the same thing that took those people out on the submarine, too. Beyond that, it’s all just guesswork, and even that’s stretching what we know. But if you guys have been exposed, then we’re exposed, and we’re wasting time we can’t afford to.”

Maddock knew that she was right.

A noise behind him caused Maddock to turn, gun in hand.

He was a hair’s breadth from pulling the trigger when he recognized the man as the prisoner they’d released.

“Has it gone?” he asked, his eyes wild with fear.

“The sabertooth?” Maddock asked.

The man nodded, his head moving rapidly.

Maddock nodded. “It’s dead.”

The old man walked toward them, pitifully frail.

He reached out to support him, but the man shrugged him away.

And then the strangest thing happened: his face lit up when he saw Leopov.

“Natasha?”