Ice Station

"Oh, don't worry, I fixed it up," Renshaw said. "I took the bullet fragments out and I cleaned the wound. You actually got a couple of Kevlar fragments in there, too, but they weren't a problem. In fact, I was just trying to get them out when you woke up." Renshaw indicated the bloody scalpel on a silver tray next to Schofield's bed. Beside the scalpel lay seven tiny metal fragments, all of them covered in blood.

"Oh, and don't worry about my qualifications," Renshaw said with a smile. "I did two years of medicine before I dropped out and took up geophysics."

"Are you going to untie me?" Schofield said evenly.

"Oh, yeah. Right. Listen. I'm terribly sorry about that," Renshaw said. He seemed nervous now. "At first I just had to keep your head still while I extracted the bullet fragments from your neck. Did you know that you move around a lot in your sleep? Probably not. Well, you do. But anyway, to cut to the chase, I figured what with all I have to tell you and all, it would be better if you were, well, a captive audience. So to speak." Renshaw smiled weakly at the pun he'd just made.

Schofield stared at him, unsure of what to make of this man named James Renshaw. After all, this was the man who only a week before had killed one of his fellow scientists. If nothing else, Schofield was certain of one thing. He did not want to remain tied up at this man's mercy.

"What do you have to tell me?" he said. His eyes swept the room as he spoke. The door on the far side of the room was firmly shut. All of the other walls in the room were ice.

"Lieutenant, what I have to tell you is this: I am not a murderer. I did not kill Bernie Olson."

Schofield didn't say anything.

He tried to remember what Sarah Hensleigh had told him earlier?way back when he had arrived at Wilkes?about the death of the scientist Bernard Olson.

Sarah had said that on the night Olson was killed, Renshaw had been heard arguing loudly with him. It was after that argument that Renshaw had stabbed Olson in the throat with a hypodermic syringe filled with liquid drain cleaner. Then he had injected the contents of the syringe into Olson's bloodstream. The other residents of Wilkes had found Olson dead soon after, with the syringe hanging loosely from his neck.

"Do you believe me?" Renshaw said in a low voice, eyeing Schofield suspiciously.

Schofield still said nothing.

"Lieutenant, you have to believe me. I can only imagine what you've been told, and I know it must look bad, but you have to listen to me. I didn't do it. I swear, I didn't do it. I could never do something like that."

Renshaw took a deep breath, spoke slowly.

"Lieutenant, this station is not what it appears to be. Things have been happening here?strange things?long before you and your men got here. You can't trust anyone at this station, Lieutenant."

"But you expect me to trust you?" Schofield said.

"Yes. Yes, I do," Renshaw said pensively. "And that obviously creates a problem, doesn't it? After all, as far as you're concerned, four days ago I killed a man with a hypodermic needle filled with industrial-strength Drano. Right? Hmmm." Renshaw took a step forward, toward Schofield. "But I intend to rectify this situation, Lieutenant Schofield. Conclusively. Which is why ... I'm going to do this."

Renshaw stood right next to the bed, towering over Schofield, his eyes hard.

Schofield tensed. He was totally defenseless. He had no idea what Renshaw was about to?

Snap! The leather strap around Schofield's left arm suddenly went limp and fell to the floor. A second later, the strap around his right arm did the same.

His arms were free again. Renshaw had released the leather straps that had bound them to the bed.

Schofield sat up as Renshaw moved farther down the bed and undipped the clasps that fastened the straps around his legs.

For a long moment, Schofield just stared at him. Finally, he said, "Thank you."

"Don't thank me, Lieutenant," Renshaw said. "Believe me. And promise me this: promise me that when this is all over, you'll check out Bernie Olson's body. Look at his tongue and his eyes. They will explain everything. You're my only hope, Lieutenant. You're the only person who can prove my innocence."

Now that he was free to move again, Schofield sat up on the bed. He touched his neck. It throbbed with pain. He looked at his throat in a nearby mirror. Renshaw had sutured the wound well. Nice, close stitches.

Renshaw offered him a rectangular length of adhesive gauze. "Here. Put this on over the stitches. It'll act like a Band-Aid, keep the wound tightly closed."

Schofield took the adhesive gauze and fastened it firmly over the wound on his neck. He looked down at the rest of his body. Renshaw had removed most of his body armor? he was dressed only in his full-body camouflage fatigues, with his gray turtleneck shirt underneath. He was still wearing his boots and his battered ankle/knee guards. His weapons? his pistol, his knife, his MP-5 and his Maghook?and his silver antiflash glasses all sat on a table on the far side of the room.

Schofield saw the room's closed door again, and something twigged in his memory. He remembered being told that the door to Renshaw's room had been sealed shut, riveted to its frame by Renshaw's fellow scientists. But he also remembered something else, something that someone had said only moments before he had been shot Something about Renshaw's door being broken down....

Suddenly Schofield asked, "How did I get here?"

"Oh, easy. I just stuffed your body inside the dumbwaiter and sent it up to this level," Renshaw said.

"No, I mean, I thought you were locked in this room? How did you get out?"

Renshaw offered him a sly smile. "Just call me Harry Houdini."

Renshaw crossed to the other side of the room and stood in front of the two television monitors. "Don't worry, Lieutenant. I'll show you how I got out of here in a minute. But first, I've got something here that I think you'll want to see."

"What?"

Renshaw smiled again. The same sly smile as before.

"How would you like to see the man who shot you?" he said.

Schofield stared at Renshaw for a long moment.

Then, slowly, he swung his legs off the bed. His neck stung, and he had a monster of a headache from the concussion. He walked gingerly across the room and stood next to Renshaw in front of the two television monitors.

"Aren't you cold?" he asked, looking at Renshaw's rather casual attire.

Renshaw pulled open his shirt, Superman-style, revealing a blue wet suit-like undergarment. "Neoprene bodysuit," he said proudly. "They use 'em on the shuttle, for space walks and the like. It could be a hundred below in here and I wouldn't notice it."

Renshaw flicked on one of the monitors, and a black-and-white image appeared on the screen.

The image was grainy, but after a few seconds Schofield realized what he was looking at.

It was a view of the pool at the base of the ice station.

It was a strange view, however?taken from an overhead camera somewhere?one that looked directly down on a section of the pool and its surrounding deck.

"This is a live feed," Renshaw said. "It comes from a camera mounted on the underside of the bridge that spans C-deck. It looks straight down on the pool."

Schofield squinted as he looked at the black-and-white image on the screen.

Renshaw said, "The scientists who work at this station come down on six-monthly rotations, so we just inherit each other's rooms. The guy who had this room before me was a crazy old marine biologist from New Zealand. Strange guy. He just loved killer whales, couldn't get enough of them. God, he'd watch them for hours, liked to watch them when they came up for air inside the station. Gave them names and everything. God, what was his name ... Carmine something.

"Well, anyway, old Carmine attached a camera to the underside of the bridge?so he could keep an eye on the pool from his room. When he'd see them on his monitor, he'd hustle on down to E-deck and watch them up close. Hell, sometimes the old bastard would watch 'em from inside the diving bell, so he could get right up close."

Renshaw looked at Schofield and laughed. "I guess you're the last person in the world I should be talking to about having a close look at killer whales."

Schofield turned, remembering the terrifying battle with the killer whales earlier. "You saw all that?"

"Did I?" Renshaw asked. "Are you kidding? You bet I saw it. Hell, I got it all on tape. I mean, yikes, did you see those big bastards? Did you see the way they hunted? Did you see the complexity of their hunting behavior? Like the way they would always make a pass by their intended victim before they came in for the kill?"

"I must have missed that," Schofield said flatly.

"I tell you, they did it. Every time. Every single time. I've read about it before. You know what I think it is? It's the whale staking his claim. It's the whale telling all the other whales that this person is his kill. Hey, I could show it to you if you?"

"You said there was something else I should see," Schofield said. "Something about the man who shot me."

"Oh, yeah, right. Right. Sorry." Schofield just stared at Renshaw as the little man grabbed a videocassette and thrust it into the second video recorder. He was a strange man. Manic, nervous, and yet obviously very intelligent. And he talked a lot. It seemed that when he spoke, it all just came gushing out. Schofield found it difficult to determine exactly how old he was. He could have been anything from twenty-nine to forty.

"That's it!" Renshaw exclaimed suddenly.

"What? What's it?" Schofield said.

"Yaeger. Carmine Yaeger. That was his name."

"Play the video, would you," Schofield said, exasperated.

"Oh, yeah, right." Renshaw hurriedly hit the PLAY button on the VCR.

An image came up on the second monitor. It was almost identical to the one that was on the first monitor, from the same high-mounted camera looking down on the pool and its surrounding deck.

There was only one difference.

On the second monitor's screen, someone was standing on the deck.

Schofield stared at the screen intently.

The person on the screen was a man, one of the Marines. He was alone.

Schofield couldn't tell who it was because the camera was positioned directly above him. All he could see was the top of the man's helmet and his armored shoulder plates.

And then suddenly the man looked up, slowly scanning the shaft of the station, and Schofield saw his face.

He frowned.

He was looking at his own face.

Schofield turned immediately to Renshaw. "When did you record this?"

"Just keep watching."

Schofield turned back to the screen.

He saw himself stop next to the pool and speak into his helmet mike. There was no sound; he could just see his own mouth moving. He stopped talking and took a step across the deck.

And then he stopped.

He had stepped on something.

Schofield saw himself bend down and examine some broken glass on the deck. He seemed to look about him. And then suddenly his head cocked to the side. He was listening to something. Listening to someone speaking over his helmet intercom.

The Shane Schofield on the screen then stood up and was starting to turn when suddenly his whole body jolted violently and a small spray of blood exploded out from his neck. He stopped instantly and swayed slightly, and then he raised his hand to his neck and held it out in front of his face. It had blood all over it.

And then his knees buckled and he fell in a heap to the deck. He just lay there on the deck, motionless.

Schofield stared at his own image on the screen.

He had just seen himself get shot....

He turned to Renshaw.

Renshaw just nodded back at the screen. "There's more," he said quietly. "A lot more."

Schofield swung back to face the screen.

He saw his own body lying on the pool deck, unmoving. It lay there for a while.

Nothing happened.

And then suddenly someone stepped into the frame.

Schofield felt his adrenaline rush as he watched the screen. He was about to see the person who had shot him.

The first thing he saw was the helmet.

It was another Marine.

A man. Schofield could tell by the way he walked. But he couldn't see his face.

The Marine walked slowly over to Schofield's unmoving body. He was in no hurry. He pulled his automatic pistol from his holster as he approached Schofield's body, pulled back the slide, cocking the gun.

Schofield stared at the screen intently.

The Marine, his face still obscured by his helmet, bent down over Schofield's body and placed two fingers on Schofield's blood-covered throat.

"He's checking your pulse," Renshaw whispered.

That was exactly what he was doing, Schofield saw. The Marine on the screen waited several seconds with his fingers on Schofield's neck.

Schofield didn't take his eyes off the screen.

The Marine on the screen stood up, satisfied that Schofield had no pulse. He uncocked his pistol, put it back in its holster.

"And... look at that," Renshaw said. "There's nothing there." Renshaw turned to face Schofield. "Lieutenant, I do believe your heart just stopped beating."

Schofield didn't even look at Renshaw as he spoke. His eyes were glued to the screen.

"Now look at what he does here," Renshaw said. 'This is his fatal mistake...."

Schofield watched as on the screen the Marine?his face still masked by his helmet?shoved Schofield's dead body across the deck with his foot.

He was shoving the body toward the pool.

After two strong kicks, Schofield's body was lying on the edge of the deck, right next to the water. The Marine then pushed Schofield's body one last time with his foot and the body fell limply into the water.

"He doesn't know it," Renshaw said, "but that guy just kick-started your heart."

"How?"

"The way I figure it, that water's so cold, it acted like a defibrillator?you know, those electric-shock paddles they use on TV to restart peoples' hearts. The shock your body received when it hit that water?and let me tell you, that would have been one hell of a shock to a body that wasn't prepared for it?was enough to jolt your heart back into action."

Schofield watched the screen.

The Marine stood at the edge of the deck for a while, watching the circle of ripples that indicated the spot where Schofield's body had entered the inky water. After about thirty seconds, the Marine turned and looked around him.

And at that moment, as the Marine turned, Schofield saw something that made his blood run cold.

Oh, no..., he thought.

The Marine then turned on his heel and quickly walked out of the frame.

Schofield turned to Renshaw, his mouth agape.

"It's not over yet," Renshaw said, interrupting him before he spoke. "Keep watching."

Schofield turned back to face the screen.

He saw the image of the deck and the pool. Otherwise there was nothing.

Nothing was happening.

Nothing at all.

There was no one on the deck. No movement in the water.

A full minute passed.

And then Schofield saw it.

"What the hell..." he said.

At that moment, the water in the pool seemed to part of its own accord and suddenly, in a wash of bubbles and froth, Schofield's body?limp and lifeless?emerged from the water.

Schofield watched, stunned.

But it was what came after his body that truly laid him cold.

Whatever it was, it was absolutely huge, at least as big as a killer whale.

But this was no killer whale.

It lifted Schofield's lifeless body out of the water and deposited it gently onto the deck. Water washed out onto the deck all around Schofield's limp body as the animal leaped up onto the deck after him. The whole deck shuddered under its immense weight.

It was huge. It dwarfed Schofield's body. Schofield watched it, entranced.

It was a seal of some sort.

An enormous, gigantic seal.

It had a huge blubbery body, layer upon layer of undulating fat, and it propped itself up on two massive foreflippers. The impression that Schofield got of the animal's strength was overwhelming?to hold up that enormous body required phenomenal musculature. It must have weighed at least eight tons.

The strangest feature of all, however, was the animal's teeth. This enormous seal had two long inverted fangs?fangs that protruded from its lower jaw and rose up in front of its nose.

"What the hell is that?" Schofield said softly.

"I have no idea," Renshaw said. "The nose, the eyes, the shape of the head. It looks like an elephant seal. But I've never seen one so big. Or with teeth like that. Elephant seals have large lower canines, but I've never seen one with lower canines that big before."

The seal on the screen was on the deck now. It ducked its head over Schofield's body. It seemed to be sniffing him. It slowly made its way up his inanimate body, until finally its long whiskers brushed against his nose. Schofield didn't move at all.

And then, slowly, very slowly, the big seal began to open its mouth.

Right in front of Schofield's face!

Its jaws parted?a hideous, obscene yawn?revealing the animal's enormous lower fangs. The massive seal leaned forward and lowered its head. Its mouth began to close around Schofield's head....

Schofield stared at the screen; his eyes went wide.

The seal was about to bite his head off.

It was going to eat him!

And then suddenly the giant seal spun. At first, Schofield was surprised at how quickly the big animal moved. The deck beneath it shook as it turned its hulking frame around.

It had seen something offscreen.

The seal began to bark.

There was no sound on the monitor, but Schofield could see it barking. It bared its teeth. Barked and barked. It shuffled around, agitated, adopted an aggressive stance. The muscles on its huge foreflippers bulged as it moved.

And then suddenly the big seal turned and dived back into the pool. The huge splash it created sent waves sloshing up over the deck, all over Schofield's unmoving body.

"Wait for it," Renshaw said. "Here's my big entrance."

At that moment, Schofield saw another man step into the frame. This man was not wearing a Marine helmet, and his face was clearly visible. It was Renshaw.

On the screen, Renshaw hurried forward and grabbed Schofield's body by the armpits and dragged him quickly out of the camera's field of vision?

Renshaw hit the STOP button on the video recorder.

"And that's all there is," he said.

At first, Schofield didn't say anything. It was all just too overwhelming.

First, the Marine shooting him and checking his pulse? to make sure that he was dead?and then kicking him into the pool so that there would be no trace.

And then the elephant seal.

The massive creature that had lifted Schofield's body out of the water and placed it gently on the poolside deck and had then disappeared back into the murky water.

Renshaw said, "Now do you understand what I was saying about you being clinically dead? That guy we just saw, I think he was pretty sure that you were dead."

Schofield said, "He was ready to put a bullet in my head if he wasn't sure."

He shook his head at the thought of what he had just seen. Death, it seemed, had just saved him from death. "Holy shit...," he breathed.

He stared blankly into space for a few moments, taking it all in. Then he blinked quickly, returning to the present.

"Can you rewind that tape, please," he said to Renshaw. He had just remembered something about the image of the Marine who had shot him, something that the sight of the elephant seal had temporarily pushed from his mind.

Renshaw rewound the tape, pressed PLAY.

Schofield saw himself walk out onto the deck.

"Fast-forward through this," he said.

Renshaw fast-forwarded through the tape. Schofield watched as he walked around the deck in fast motion and then suddenly fell to the ground, shot.

The Marine arrived. Checked Schofield's pulse. He then stood up and starting rolling the body toward the pool with his foot.

"OK, slow down here," Schofield said.

The image returned to normal speed just as the Marine shoved Schofield's body a final time and the body dropped into the water.

"OK, get ready to stop it," Schofield said, watching the screen intently.

On the screen, the Marine was standing at the water's edge, looking down into the pool at the spot where Scho-field's body had entered the water.

Then the Marine turned and looked about himself.

"There!" Schofield said. "Stop it there!"

Renshaw quickly hit the PAUSE button on the VCR, and the image on the screen froze.

The screen showed the top portion of the Marine's helmet. The man's shoulders had also rotated upward slightly as he had turned to look about himself.

"I don't get it," Renshaw said. "You still can't see his face."

"I'm not looking at his face," Schofield said.

And he wasn't.

He was looking at the man's shoulders. At the man's right shoulder plate.

The image on the screen was grainy, but Schofield could see the shoulder plate clearly.

A picture had been painted onto it.

Schofield felt a sliver of ice run down his spine as he stared at the picture that had been tattooed onto the man's shoulder plate.

It was a picture of a cobra, with its jaws bared wide.

In the dark storeroom down on E-deck, Mother rested her head gently against the cold, icy wall.

She shut her eyes. It had been about a half hour since anyone had come to check on her, and she expected Buck Riley to come by soon. Her leg was starting to ache, and she was itching for another hit of methadone.

She took a deep breath, tried to shut out the pain.

After a moment, however, she had a strange sensation thai someone else was in the room with her....

Slowly, Mother opened her eyes.

Someone was standing in the doorway.

A man. A Marine.

He just stood there, like a statue, silhouetted in the doorway. His face was cloaked in shadow. He didn't say a word.

"Book?" Mother said, sitting upright. She squinted, took a closer look, tried to see who it was.

She stopped, startled.

It wasn't Book.

Book was shorter than whoever this was, more rounded. This Marine was tall and lean.

The Marine still didn't speak. He just stood there, staring at Mother, his features covered in darkness. Mother realized who it was.

"Snake," she said. "What's the matter? Don't you talk anymore? Cat got your tongue?"

Snake didn't move from the doorway. He just kept staring at Mother.

When he spoke, Mother didn't see his mouth move. Hisface was low, rough. "I'm here instead of Book," he said. "I'm here to take care of you, Mother."

"Good," Mother said, sitting up straighter, preparing herself for another shot of methadone. "I could use another shot of that kickapoo joy juice."

Snake still didn't move from the doorway.

Mother frowned. "Well?" she said. "What are you waiting for?a gilt-edged invitation?"

"No," Snake said, his voice cold.

He stepped forward into the storeroom and Mother's eyes widened in horror as she saw the light from the corridor outside glint off the knife in his hand.

Mother pushed herself back against the icy wall of the storeroom as Snake stepped through the doorway, brandishing his long Bowie knife. "Snake, what the fuck are you doing?"

"I'm sorry, Mother," he said coldly. "You're a good solder. But you're too close to this."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Snake stepped slowly closer.

Mother's eyes were glued to the glistening knife in his hand.

"National security," Snake said.

"National security?" Mother scoffed. "What the fuck are you, Snake?"

Snake smiled a thin, evil smile. "Come on, Mother; you've been around. You've heard the stories. What do you think I am?"

"A fucking wacko, that's what I think," Mother said as her eyes fell upon her helmet, lying on the floor of the storeroom halfway between her and Snake. It was lying upside down, with the microphone pointed up in the air.

Slowly, Mother began to slide her left hand down toward her belt.

"I do what's necessary to be done," Snake said.

"Necessary for what?" Mother said as she flicked a button on her belt. The button that switched on her helmet mike.

In Renshaw's room on B-deck, Schofield now had his body armor back on.

He reached for his various weapons. His pistol went into its holster; his knife went back into its sheath on his ankle guard. He slung his MP-5 over his shoulder and bolstered his Maghook behind his back. Last, Schofield reached for his helmet and slid it over his head.

He heard voices immediately.

"?the national interest."

"Snake, put that fucking?"

And then suddenly static cut across the signal and there was nothing.

But Schofield had heard enough.

Mother.

Snake was down with Mother.

"Jesus," he said.

He spun to face Renshaw. "OK, Harry Houdini, you've got exactly five seconds to show me how you got out of this room."

Renshaw immediately ran toward the door. "Why? What's going on?" he said.

Schofield hurried alongside him. "Somebody's about to get killed."

Down in the storeroom, Snake lifted his foot off what was left of Mother's helmet.

The small microphone at the jawline of her helmet lay crumpled and bent, broken beyond repair.

"Come on, Mother," Snake said in an admonishing tone. "I expected more from you. Or did you just forget that I receive your transmissions, too?"

Mother scowled at him. "Did you kill Samurai?"

"Yes."

"You fuck."

Snake was almost on top of her now. Mother shifted against the wall.

"Time to die, Mother," Snake said.

Mother snorted at him. "Snake. I've just got to know. What sort of sick, twisted, two-faced son of a bitch are you?"

Snake smiled. "The only kind, Mother. I'm ICG."

Schofield watched tensely as Renshaw stepped up to the thick wooden door of his room.

Up until that time, Schofield hadn't noticed that the door was made up of about ten vertical wooden planks. Renshaw immediately placed his fingers up against one of these vertical planks.

"The horizontal beams are on the outside," Renshaw said. "Which meant that no one outside this room saw the cuts I made on the inside of these vertical planks."

Schofield's eyes widened when he saw them.

Two thin horizontal lines stretched across the width of the heavy wooden door?like two scars in the wood?cutting across the wide vertical planks. The two horizontal lines ran in parallel, approximately three feet away from each other?at precisely those points where the horizontal beams on the other side of the door would have been.

Schofield marveled at Renshaw's ingenuity.

Anyone standing on the other side of the door would never have known that Renshaw had managed to saw right through the vertical wooden planks.

"I used a steak knife to saw through the planks," Renshaw said. "Three, actually. The wood wears them down pretty fast." He reached off to his right and grabbed a worn-down steak knife and Renshaw inserted the blade of the knife into the narrow gap between two of the vertical planks. Then he worked the knife like a crowbar until suddenly one of the planks popped clear of the rest of the door.

Renshaw pulled the plank clear of the door, and a long rectangular hole appeared in the door where the plank had been. Through that rectangular hole Schofield could see the curved outer tunnel of B-deck stretching away from him.

Renshaw worked quickly. He grabbed the next plank with his bare hands and hurriedly pulled it away.

The hole on the door got wider.

Schofield started removing the vertical planks with him, and soon the hole was wide enough for a man to fit through.

"Stand back," Schofield said.

Renshaw took a step back as Schofield dived, headfirst, through the hole in the door. He rolled to his feet on the other side and immediately ran off down the tunnel.

"Wait!" Renshaw yelled. "Where are you going!"

"E-deck!" Schofield's voice echoed back.

And then suddenly Schofield was gone and Renshaw was alone in his room, staring at the empty square hole he had made in the door.

He peered out through it after Schofield.

"I never dived through it like that," he said.

Schofield ran.

The walls of the curved outer tunnel streaked past him. He was breathing hard. His heart pounded loudly inside his head. He turned left, headed toward the central shaft.

A thousand thoughts ran through his mind as he raced through the tunnels of B-deck.

He thought of the tattoo on the shoulder plate of the man who had shot him. A cobra. A snake.

Snake.

The mere concept was too bizarre for Schofield to comprehend. Snake was a highly decorated Marine. One of the longest-serving members in the Corps, let alone Schofield's unit. Why would he throw it all away by doing something like this? Why would he kill his own men?

And then Schofield thought about Mother.

Snake was down on E-deck with Mother.

It made sense. Snake had already killed Samurai, the weakest member of Schofield's team. Mother?with one leg and heavily dosed up on methadone?would be another easy target.

Schofield hit the B-deck catwalk on the fly. He ran for the rung-ladder and slid down it fast C-deck. He slid down the next rung-ladder?D-deek?and then the next.

He was on E-deck now. He ran across the pool deck, past the lapping waves of the pool, and headed for the south tunnel.

He entered the south tunnel and saw the door to Mother's storeroom.

Schofield approached the open doorway to the storeroom cautiously. He unholstered his Maghook?he still couldn't use his pistol in the gaseous environment of the station?and held it out in front of him like a gun.

He approached the doorway, came to it. Then he took one last deep breath and then...

... he turned fast into the doorway, his Maghook up and ready.

He saw the scene inside.

And his jaw dropped.

"Holy shit," he breathed.

They were on the floor of the storeroom.

Mother and Snake.

At first, Schofield just stared at them, stared at the scene.

Mother was stretched out on the floor, with her back up against one of the walls. She had her good leg extended across the room, pressed up against Snake's throat, pinning him to a thick wooden shelf filled with scuba tanks. Her boot was pressed hard against his throat, pushing his chin upward, squeezing his face back against the sturdy wooden shelf. She also held her Colt automatic pistol cupped in her hands, extended in the perfect shooting position. Pointed right at Snake's face.

The gaseous environment of the station obviously didn't bother her.

Mother glared at Snake down the barrel of her gun. Blood dripped freely from two deep gashes above her left eye. It dripped down off her eyebrow, smacking down onto her left cheek like droplets of water from a leaking tap. Mother didn't notice the blood?she just stared right through it, into the eyes of the man who had tried to kill her.

For his part, Snake was pinned to the wooden shelf. Every now and then he would attempt to struggle, but Mother had all the leverage. Whenever he tried to wriggle out of her hold, she would press down hard on his Adam's apple with her big Size 12. Mother was choking him with her foot.

The room around them looked like a bomb had hit it.

Wooden shelves lay twisted on the floor, splintered and shattered. Scuba tanks rolled aimlessly across the floor. A knife?Snake's?lay on the floor. Blood dripped off its blade.

Slowly, Mother turned her head and looked over at Schofield, who was still just standing in the doorway, stunned.

Her chest heaved up and down. She was still breathing hard from the fight.

"Well, Scarecrow," she said, taking another breath. "You think this was easy? Are you just gonna fucking stand there, or what?"

Pete Cameron pulled his Toyota to a stop outside 14 Newbury Street, Lake Arthur, New Mexico.

Fourteen Newbury was a pleasant-looking white weatherboard cottage. Its front garden was immaculate?perfectly cut grass, a rock garden, even a small pond. It looked like the home of a retiree?the home of someone who had the time, and the inclination, to take loving care of it.

Cameron looked at the business card again. "All right, Andrew Wilcox, let's see what you've got to say."

Cameron stepped up onto the porch and knocked on the screen door.

Thirty seconds later, the inner door opened and a man of about thirty-five appeared behind the screen. He looked young and fit, clean-shaven. He smiled pleasantly.

"Mornin'," the young man said. "How can I help you?" He had a broad Southern drawl. When he said "I" it sounded like "Ah"?How can ah help you?

Cameron said, "Yes, hi. I'm looking for a Mr. Andrew Wilcox." Cameron held up the business card. "My name is Peter Cameron. I'm a writer for the Washington Post. Mr. Wilcox sent me his card."

The smile on the young man's face vanished instantly.

His eyes swept Cameron's body as if evaluating him. Then they swept the street outside as if to see whether anyone was watching the house.

And then suddenly the man's attention returned to Cameron.

"Mr. Cameron," he said, opening the screen door. "Please, come inside. I was hoping you'd come, but I didn't expect to see you so soon. Please, please, come inside."

Cameron stepped through the doorway.

It didn't occur to him until he was fully inside the house that the man's Southern accent had completely disappeared.

"Mr. Cameron, my real name is not Andrew Wilcox," the young man now sitting opposite him said. The drawl was gone, replaced by a voice that was clear and precise, educated. East Coast.

Pete Cameron had his pad and pen out. "Can you tell me your real name?" he asked gently.

The young man seemed to think about that for a moment, and as he did so, Cameron got a better look at him. He was a tall man, handsome, too, with blond hair and a square jaw. He had broad shoulders and he looked physically fit. But there was something wrong about him.

It was the eyes, Cameron realized.

They were tinged with red. Heavy black sacks hung beneath both of them. He looked like a man on the edge, a man who hadn't slept in days.

And then, at last, the man spoke. "My real name," he said, "is Andrew Trent."

"I used to be a First Lieutenant in the Marines," Andrew Trent explained, "in command of an Atlantic-based Reconnaissance unit. But if you examine the official USMC records, you'll find that I died in an accident in Peru in March 1997."

Trent spoke in a low, even voice, a voice tinged with bitterness.

"So, you're a dead man," Pete Cameron said. "Nice, very nice. OK, first question: why me? Why did you contact me?"

"I've seen your work," Trent said. "I like it. Mother Jones. The Post. You tell it straight. You also don't just write down the first thing you hear. You check things out and because of that, people believe you. I need people to believe what I'm going to tell you."

"If it's worth telling in the first place," Cameron said. "All right, then, how is it that according to the United States Government you are officially dead?"

Trent offered Cameron a half-smile, a smile totally devoid of humor. "If it's worth telling in the first place," he repeated. "Mr. Cameron, what if I were to tell you that the government of the United States of America ordered that my whole unit be killed?"

Cameron was silent.

"What if I were to tell you that our government?yours and mine?planted men inside my unit for the sole purpose of killing me and my men in the event that we found something of immense technological value during a mission?

"What if I were to tell you that that was exactly what happened in Peru in March 1997? What would you think then, Mr. Cameron? If I told you all that, then do you think my story would be worth telling?"

Trent then told Cameron about what had happened inside the ruins of the Incan temple high in the mountains of Peru in March of 1997.

A team of university researchers who had been working inside the temple had apparently discovered a series of frescoes chiseled into its stone walls. Magnificent coloured frescoes that depicted scenes from Incan history.

One of the frescoes in particular had captured their attention.

It depicted a scene not unlike the famous painting of the Incan king, Atahuallpa, meeting the Spanish conquistadors.

On the left-hand side of the fresco stood the Incan king, in full ceremonial dress, surrounded by his people. He was holding a golden chalice in his outstretched hands. A gift.

On the right-hand side of the fresco stood four strange-looking men. Unlike the olive-skinned Incans, their skin was bone white. And they were thin, unnaturally thin?tall, emaciated. They had large black eyes and round-domed foreheads. They also had pointed, narrow chins and?bizarrely? no mouths.

In the carved stone picture, the leader of this delegation of tall white "men" was holding a silver box in his outstretched hands, reciprocating the gesture of the Incan king in front of him.

It was an exchange of gifts.

"How long did it take them to find it?" Cameron asked dryly.

"Not long," Trent said.

As Trent explained, they found the object of their search mounted on a pedestal not far from the fresco itself, a small stone pedestal sunken into the wall of the temple.

It just sat there. All on its own. It was about the size of a shoe box and the color of chrome.

It was the silver box from the fresco.

"Those scientists couldn't believe their luck," Trent said. "They called their university back in the States right away and told them what they'd found. Told them that they may have discovered a gift from an alien civilization."

Trent shook his head. "Stupid bastards. They did it over a telephone line. An open goddamn telephone line. Hell, anyone could have heard them. My unit was sent in to protect mem from anyone who did."

Trent leaned forward in his chair.

"The problem was, it wasn't really my unit."

Trent went on to tell Cameron about what had happened after his unit's arrival at the temple?in particular, how several of his own men had turned on him when the SEAL team had arrived at the temple.

"Mr. Cameron. The order to plant men in my unit came from a government committee called the Intelligence Convergence Group," Trent said. "It's a joint committee made up of members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the National Reconnaissance Office. Put simply, its primary objective is to secure for America technological superiority over the rest of the world.

"They killed my unit, Mr. Cameron. My whole unit. And then they hunted me. For twelve days, they scoured that temple looking for me. American soldiers, hunting me. I stood squeezed into a small fissure in a wall, being dripped on by stinking seepage, for twelve days before they gave up and left."

Cameron said, "What happened to the university researchers?"

Trent shook his head. "The SEALs took them away. They were never heard from again."

Cameron fell silent.

Trent went on. "Eventually, I got out of that temple and made it back to the States. It took a while, but I got there in the end. The first place I went was my parents' house. But when I got there I saw two guys sitting in a van across the street, watching the house. They had people there, waiting for me to come back."

Trent's face went cold. "That was when I decided to find out who'd been behind it all. It didn't take me long to find a trail, and at the end of that trail. I found the ICG."

Cameron found that he was staring at Trent. He blinked out of it.

"OK. Right," he said, regaining his composure. "This ICG, you say it's a joint committee, right? Made up of members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the National Reconnaissance Office, right?"

"That's correct," Trent said.

"OK." Cameron knew about the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but he knew little about the National Reconnaissance Office. It was the intelligence agency charged with procuring, launching, and operating all of America's spy satellites. Its secrecy was legendary; it was one of the few agencies that was allowed to operate under a "black" budget?a budget that, because of the sensitivity of its subject matter, did not have to be disclosed to Senate Finance Committees. Throughout the Cold War, the U.S. Government had consistently refused to acknowledge the NRO's existence. It was only in 1991, in the face of mounting evidence, that the government finally caved in and acknowledged that it did exist.

Trent said, "The ICG is a marriage of two of the most powerful agencies in this country?the supreme commanding body of all of our armed forces and the most secret arm of our intelligence community."

"And its job is?what did you say??'to secure technological superiority' for America?"

"Its job," Trent said, "is to ensure that every major breakthrough in technology?be it the compact disc or a computer chip or stealth technology?belongs to the United States of America."

Trent took a deep breath. "Mr. Cameron, I don't think I'm explaining this very well. Let me put it another way. The ICG's job is intelligence gathering or, as they call it in government-speak, 'intelligence convergence.'

"Its job is to hoard valuable information. To make sure that no one knows about it except us. And the ICG will not hesitate to kill in order to achieve that goal. Its job?its reason for being?is to ensure that certain information is for American eyes only. Because in the end, the ICG has only one ambition: to keep America in the lead?way out in the lead? ahead of the rest of the world."

"Uh-huh," Cameron said, "and you claim it does this by inserting men into elite military units?"

"Compromising frontline military units is only one part of the ICG's overall strategy, Mr. Cameron. It's also one of the easiest parts. Think about it," Trent said. "The Joint Chiefs of Staff are part of the ICG. They can ensure that men of their choosing?ultraloyal men, usually older enlisted men, sergeants, gunnery sergeants, the career soldiers?get placed in the right units. And by 'the right units' I mean the rapid-response units, the frontline units that get to battle scenes first. The Marine Recons, the Navy SEALs, the Army Rangers.

"But having men inside frontline military units is only good for getting sudden things like enemy spy satellites that fall out of the sky or meteorites that crash down to Earth.

"Look at it this way: A meteorite lands in the middle of the Brazilian jungle. We send in the Marines. The Marines secure the area and grab the meteorite. Then, if something of value is found inside that meteorite, you eliminate the Marines who found it."

"You eliminate them?"

"Think about it," Trent said bitterly. "You can't have a team of high-school-educated grunts running around with the most highly prized national secrets?secrets that could put the United States twenty years ahead of the rest of the world? bouncing around inside their heads, now can you?

"Hell, you don't need sodium nitrate to get that sort of information out of a low-level soldier. You give him a few beers, a pretty girl, and the slightest hint that he has a chance of getting a blow job and your average Marine Corporal will be telling Miss Big Tits everything he knows about the glowing green meteorite he found on a mission in the jungles of Brazil.

"Don't forget the value of these secrets, Mr. Cameron," Trent said. "The loss of a couple of foot soldiers does not even begin to compare with the value of a twenty-year head start on the rest of the world."

Pete Cameron interrupted him. "All right, then, how often does something like this happen? The elimination of an entire unit. I mean, it's got to be pretty rare."

Trent nodded. "It is rare. I only know of it happening on four occasions in the last fifteen years."

"Uh-huh." Cameron cocked his head doubtfully. "Mr. Trent, I see what you're saying, but something like this would require a whole network of well-placed people. High-ranking soldiers who aren't just part of the Joint Chiefs but who are well placed in the bureaucracy?"

"Mr. Cameron, do you know who Chuck Kozlowski is?"

"I've heard the name?"

"Sergeant Major Charles R. Kozlowski is Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps. Do you know what the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps is, Mr. Cameron?"

"What?"

"The Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps is the highest-ranking noncommissioned officer in the Corps. An enlisted man, Mr. Cameron, the highest-ranking enlisted man. Chuck Kozlowski has been a Marine for thirty-three years. He's one of the most decorated soldiers in the country."

Trent paused. "He's also ICG."

Cameron stared at Trent for a long moment, then he wrote down the name.

Chuck Kozlowski.

Trent said, "He's the guardian angel of every crooked soldier in the Corps. Someone told me he even came down to Peru after my incident and personally escorted the surviving Marines?the traitors, all of them senior enlisted men?back home. He reassigned them without even a blink. I'm told he even recommended one for a fucking medal."

"Jesus...."

"That's your network, Mr. Cameron. A network that has infiltrated the enlisted ranks of the United States Marine Corps all the way to the very top?to the extent that it even determines which units its men are assigned to. But it doesn't stop there. Like I said before, compromising elite military units is only one part of the ICG's overall program. The ICG compromises a whole lot more than just the military."

"Like what?"

"Like other sources of breakthrough technology," Trent said.

"Such as?"

"Well, for one thing, business."

"Business? You mean private companies?"

Trent nodded.

"You're telling me that the government of the United States has planted people inside private corporations to spy on them?"

"Microsoft. IBM. Boeing. Lockheed," Trent said, deadpan. "Plus, of course, all of the other major Navy, Army, and Air Force contractors, especially if they have contracts with other countries."

"Holy shit," Cameron said.

"There are other places, too."

"Like..."

"Like universities," Trent said. "Universities are high on the list of ICG-compromised organizations. Cloning sheep? ICG knew about in 1993. Cloning humans?ICG knew about it last year." Trent shrugged. "It makes sense. Universities are the cutting edge. If you want to find out what's in the pipeline, it's best to put your people in the pipe."

Cameron didn't say anything for a full minute.

The sheer concept of an America-wide intelligence-gathering conspiracy made his spine tingle. An octopus-like network, with its tentacles stretching out from a small boardroom in the Pentagon to all the corners of the country, penetrating every major business and university. It was worth checking out some more.

Andrew Trent interrupted his thoughts.

"Mr. Cameron," he said seriously. "The ICG is a dangerous organization. A very dangerous organization. It owes its allegiance to one thing and one thing only. The United States of America. So long as America wins, the ICG doesn't care what it has to do. It will kill to achieve that goal. It will kill you and it will kill me. Mr. Cameron, patriotism is the virtue of the vicious. An organization that is prepared to infiltrate its own armed forces and kill its own men to keep this country's secrets safe is not one you want to mess with lightly."

Cameron nodded solemnly. Then he said, "Mr. Trent, do you have anything, anything at all, with names or something that I could?"

Trent grabbed a sheet of A4 paper from the table beside him.

"The results of my search so far," he said. "Names, positions held, and rank, if any." He handed the sheet to Cameron.

Cameron took it, scanned it quickly. It read:

TRANSMIT MO. 767-9808-09001

REF NO. KOS-4622

SUBJECT: THE FOLLOWING IS AN ALPHABETICAL LIST OF PERSONNEL AUTHORIZED TO RECEIVE SECURE TRANSMISSIONS.

NAME

LOCATION

FIELD/RANK

ADAMS, WALTER K.

LVRMRE LAB

NCLR PHYSCS

ATKINS, SAMANTHA E.

GSTETNR

CMPTR SFTWRE

BAILEY, KEITH H.

BRKLY

AERONTL ENGNR

BARNES, SEAN M. N.

SEALS

LTCMMDR

BROOKES, ARLIN F. A.

RNGRS

CPTN

CARVER, ELIZABETH R

CLMBIA

CMPTR SCI

CHRISTIE, MARGARET V.

HRVRD

IDSTRL CHMST

DAWSON, RICHARD K.

MCROSFT

CMPTR SFTWRE

DELANEY, MARK M.

IBM

CMPTR HRDWRE

DOUGLAS, KENNETH A.

CRAY

CMPTR HRDWRE

DOWD, ROGER F.

USMC

CPRL

EDWARDS, STEPHEN R.

BOEING

AERONTL ENGNR

FAULKNER, DAVID G.

JPL

AERONTL ENGNR

FROST, KAREN S.

USC

GNTC ENGNR

GIANNI, ENRICO R.

LCKHEED

AERONTL ENGNR

GRANGER, RAYMOND K. A.

RANGERS

SNR SGT

HARRIS, TERENCE X.

YALE

NCLR PHYSCS

JOHNSON, NORMA E.

U.ARIZ

BKJTOXNS

KAPLAN, SCOTT M.

USMC

GNNY SGT

KASCYNSKI, THERESA E.

3M CORP

PHSPHTES

KEMPER, PAULENE J.

JHNS HPKNS

DRMTLGY

KOZLOWSKI, CHARLES R.

USMC

SGT MJR

LAMB, MARK I.

ARMALTE

BLLSTCS

LAWSON, JANE R.

U.TEX

INSCTCIDES

LEE, MORGAN T.

USMC

SGT

MCDONALD, SIMON K.

LVRMRE LAB

NCLR PHYSCS

MAKIN, DENISE E.

U.CLRDO

CHMCL AGNTS

NORTON, PAUL G.

PRNCTN

AMNO ACD CHNS

OLIVER, JENNIFER F.

SLCN STRS

CMPTR SFTWRE

PARKES, SARAH T.

USC

PLNTLGST

REICHART, JOHN R.

USMC

SGT

RIGGS, WAYLON J. N.

SEALS

CMMDR

SHORT, GREGORY J.

CCA CLA

LQO SCE

TURNER, JENNIFER C.

UCLA

GNTC ENGNR

WILLIAMS, VICTORIA D.

U.WSHGTN

GEOPHYS

YATES, JOHN F.

USAF

CPTN

Cameron glanced up from the list, shook his head in disbelief. "How do you know all this, Mr. Trent?"

"I've made some discreet inquiries," Trent said. "Primarily by shadowing the people mentioned on that list."

Cameron held up the sheet of paper. "So how'd you get this list in the first place?"

Trent smiled. It was the first real smile Cameron had seen from Trent for the hour that he had known him.

"You remember those guys I told you about who were parked in the van outside my parents' house?"

"Yes...."

"Well, I followed one of them home. Stopped him in the doorway to his apartment and asked him a few questions. He was very cooperative, once he was ... properly motivated."

"What happened to him?" Cameron asked warily.

When he answered, Trent's voice was hard, cold, entirely devoid of emotion.

"He died."

Snake stood handcuffed to the same pole as Henri Rae and Luc Champion on E-deck. His weapons and body armor had been removed. He just stood there, cuffed to the pole, dressed in his camouflaged full-body combat fatigues.

Schofield, Riley, and Rebound stood on the deck in front of him, looking at him. Mother was also out on the pool deck, sitting in a chair, looking like Cleopatra on a chaise. Schofield had had Book and Rebound carry her out onto the deck for this.

Last of all, behind Schofield, stood James Renshaw. He was the only civilian on the pool deck.

The atmosphere was tense. No one spoke.

Schofield looked at his watch.

It was 3:42 p.m.

He remembered what Abby Sinclair had said about the solar flare in the atmosphere above Wilkes Ice Station. A break in the solar flare would be passing over the station at 3:51.

Nine minutes.

He would have to make this quick. Gant and the others were still down in the cavern, and he wanted to contact them and find out exactly what was down there before he called McMurdo.

Schofield pressed a button on the side of his watch and the display changed. The stopwatch screen appeared. It displayed numbers ticking upward:

1:52:58

1:52:59

1:53:00

Damn, Schofield thought.

It was going to be close. After he spoke with the people at McMurdo at 3:51, they would have less than an hour to figure out a way to seek out and destroy the French warship hovering off the coast waiting to fire its missiles at Wilkes Ice Station.

"All right," he said, turning to the group assembled around him. "Book. Rebound. You first."

Book and Rebound told their story.

They had both been outside, working on the station's antenna, out by one of the outer buildings.

"And then you called and asked for one of us to go and check on Mr. Renshaw," Book said. "Snake took the call, so he went to do it. He came back after about fifteen minutes and said that everything was fine, said that Mr. Renshaw was still in his room and that it had just been a false alarm."

Schofield nodded?that was when he had been shot.

Book said, "A little later, I got up to go and check on Mother, but Snake stopped me and said that he'd do it. I didn't think anything of it at the time, so I said sure, if he wanted to."

Schofield nodded again?that was when the attack on Mother had happened.

He stepped forward so that he stood right in front of Snake. "Sergeant," he said. "Would you care to explain yourself?"

Snake said nothing.

Schofield said, "Sergeant, I said, would you like to tell me what in fucking hell is going on here."

Snake didn't flinch. He just sneered coldly at Schofield.

Schofield hated him, hated the very sight of him.

This was the man who had shot him?killed him?and then checked to make sure that he was dead.

Schofield had thought about his own shooting.

In the end, it was the frosted glass on the deck that explained it. The white frosted glass that Schofield had stepped in only moments before he had been shot.

It explained two things: why Snake was able to fire a gun safely in the gaseous atmosphere of Wilkes Ice Station and where he had fired it from.

The answer, in the end, was simple.

Snake hadn't fired his sniper rifle from inside the station at all. He had fired it from outside the station. He had broken a tiny round hole in the white frosted glass dome that towered above the central shaft of the station and he had then shot down through that hole at Schofield. The glass that he had dislodged from the dome to make the hole in it had fallen all the way down through the shaft to E-deck. The same glass that Schofield had stepped on only moments before he had been shot.

Schofield just stared at Snake.

Mother said softly, "He said he was ICG."

Book and Rebound turned instantly at Mother's words.

"Well, Sergeant?" Schofield said.

Snake said nothing.

Schofield said, "Not very talkative, huh?"

"He was pretty fucking talkative when he was getting ready to fillet me," Mother said. "I say we cut his balls off and make him watch as we feed 'em to the fucking whales."

"Good idea," Schofield said as he glared at Snake. Snake just sneered smugly back at him.

Schofield felt the anger well up inside him. He was furious. Right now he just wanted to slam Snake up against the wall and wipe that smug look off his fucking face?

"As a leader, you simply cannot afford to get angry or upset."

Once again, Trevor Barnaby's words rang through Schofield's head.

Schofield wondered whether Barnaby had ever had an infiltrator in his unit. He wondered what the famous SAS commander would have done in these circumstances.

"Book," Schofield said. "Opinions?"

Buck Riley just stared sadly at Snake and shook his head. He seemed to be the most deeply affected by the revelation that Snake was an ICG plant.

"I didn't think you were a traitor, Snake," Book said. Then he turned to Schofietd. "It's not for you to kill him. Not here. Not now. Take him home. Send him to jail."

As Book spoke, Schofield just glared at Snake. Snake stared defiantly back at him.

There was a long silence.

Schofield broke it. "Tell me about the Intelligence Convergence Group, Snake."

"That's a nice wound," Snake said softly, slowly, looking at the adhesive gauze patch on Schofield's neck. The wound Snake himself had inflicted. "You ought to be dead."

"It didn't suit me," Schofield said. "Tell me about the ICG."

Snake smiled a cold, thin smile. Then he began to laugh softly.

"You're a dead man," he said quietly. Then he turned to face the others. "You're all going to die."

"What do you mean?" Schofield said.

"You wanted to know about the ICG," Snake said. "I just told you about the ICG."

"The ICG is going to kill us?"

"The ICG will never let you live," Snake said. "It's not possible. Not after what you've seen here. When the United States Government gets their hands on that spaceship?or whatever it is that's down there?it can't possibly allow a handful of grunts like you to know about it. You're all going to die. Count on it."

Snake's words hung in the air. Everyone on the deck was silent.

Their reward for arriving at Wilkes Ice Station so quickly and defending it against the French was to be a death sentence.

"Wonderful," Schofield said. "That's just wonderful. I bet you're pretty fucking proud of yourself," he said to Snake.

"My loyalty to my country is greater than my loyalty to you, Scarecrow," Snake said defiantly.

Schofield's teeth began to grind. He stepped forward. Book held him back.

"Not now," Book said quietly. "Not here."

"Lieutenant!" a woman's voice yelled from somewhere high up in the station. Schofield looked up.

Abby Sinclair was leaning out over the railing of A-deck. "Lieutenant!" she yelled. "It's time!"

Schofield strode into the radio room on A-deck. Book and James Renshaw came in behind him. Rebound had stayed down on E-deck to keep an eye on Snake.

Abby was already seated at the radio console. She did a double take when she saw Renshaw enter the room.

"Hello, Abby," Renshaw said.

"Hello, James," Abby said, cautiously.

She turned to Schofield. "The break should be over us any second now." She flicked a switch on the console. The sound of static began to wash out from two wall-mounted speakers.

Shhhhhhhhhh.

"That's the sound of the solar flare," Abby said. "But if you wait just... a... few... seconds ..."

Abruptly the shooshing sound cut off and there was silence.

"And there it is," Abby said. "There's your break, Lieutenant. Go for it."

Schofield sat down at the console and grabbed the microphone.

He hit the talk button, but just as he was about to speak, a strange high-pitched whistling sound suddenly blared out from the wall-mounted speakers. It sounded like feedback, interference.

Schofield released the microphone instantly, looked at Abby. "What did I do? Did I press something?"

Abby frowned, flicked a couple of switches. "No. You didn't do anything."

"Is it the solar flare? Could you have got the timing wrong?"

"No," Abby said firmly.

She flicked some more switches.

Nothing happened.

The system didn't seem to be responding to what she was doing. The high-pitched whistling sound filled the radio room. Abby said, "There's something wrong; this isn't interference from the flare. This is something else. This is different. It's almost as if it's electronic. As though someone was jamming us...."

Schofield felt a chill run up the length of his spine. "Jamming us?"

"It's as if there's someone between us and McMurdo, stopping our signal getting through," Abby said.

"Scarecrow...," a voice said from somewhere behind Schofield.

Schofield spun.

It was Rebound.

He was standing in the doorway to the radio room.

"I thought I told you to stay down with?"

"Sir, you better see this," Rebound said. "You better see this now." He held up his left hand.

In it was the portable viewscreen that Schofield had brought inside from the hovercrafts earlier. The small TV screen that displayed the findings of the two range finders mounted on top of the hovercrafts outside. Rebound crossed the radio room quickly and handed the screen to Schofield. Schofield looked at the screen and his eyes instantly widened in horror.

"Oh, Christ," he said. The screen was filled with red blips. They looked like a swarm of bees, converging on a point; were all approaching the center of the screen. Schofield counted twenty red blips. Twenty....

All of them converging on Wilkes Ice Station. "Good God...."

And then suddenly he heard a voice. A voice that made his blood run cold. It came from the speakers that lined the walls of the radio room. Loud and hard, as if it were a message from God himself.

"Attention, Wilkes Ice Station. Attention," the voice said.

It was a crisp voice, clipped and cultured.

"Attention American forces at Wilkes Ice Station. As you will now no doubt be aware, your communication lines have been intercepted. It is no use attempting to contact your base at McMurdo?you will not get through. You are advised to lay down your arms immediately. If you do not lay down your defenses before our arrival, we will be forced to make an offensive entry. Such an entry, ladies and gentlemen, will be painful."

Schofield's eyes went wide at the sound of the voice. The English accent was all too apparent.

It was a voice that Schofield knew well. A voice from his past.

It was the voice of Trevor Barnaby. Brigadier General Trevor J. Barnaby of Her Majesty's SAS.

FIFTH INCURSION

16 June 1551 hours

"Oh, Jesus," Rebound said.

"How long till they get here?" Book asked.

Schofield's eyes were glued to the portable viewscreen. He looked at the box at the bottom of the screen. In it was a wire-frame picture of a hovercraft. The wire-frame hovercraft rotated within the box. Beneath it were the words: BELL TEXTRON SR.N7-S?LANDING CRAFT AIR CUSHIONED (UK).

"It's the SAS," Rebound said in disbelief. "It's the fucking SAS."

"Take it easy, Rebound," Schofield said. "We're not dead yet."

He turned to Book. "Thirty-four miles out. Coming in at eighty miles an hour."

"Definitely not friendly," Book said.

Schofield said, "Thirty-four miles at eighty miles an hour. That gives us, what?"

"Twenty-six minutes," Abby said quickly.

"Twenty-six minutes." Schofield swallowed. "Shit."

The room fell silent.

Schofield could hear Rebound's breathing. He was breathing fast, hyperventilating.

Everyone watched Schofield, waited for him to make the call.

Schofield took a deep breath, tried to evaluate the situation. The SAS?the British Special Air Service, the most dangerous special forces unit in the world?was on its way to Wilkes Ice Station right now.

And it was being led by Trevor Barnaby?the man who had taught Shane Schofield everything he knew about covert incursionary warfare. The man who in the eighteen years he had been in command of the SAS had never once failed in a mission.

On top of all that, Barnaby was also jamming Schofield's radio, stopping him from getting in contact with McMurdo. Stopping him from making contact with the only people in the world who were capable of taking out the French warship that was hovering off the coast, waiting to launch its missiles at Wilkes Ice Station.

Schofield checked his stopwatch. It read:

2:02:31

2:02:32

2:02:33

Shit, he thought.

Less than an hour until they launched.

Shit. It was all happening too fast. It was as if the whole world were closing in around him.

Schofield looked at the range finder viewscreen again, looked at the swarm of dots approaching Wilkes Ice Station.

Twenty hovercrafts, he thought. Probably two or three men in each. That meant a minimum of fifty men.

Fifty men.

And what did Schofield have?

Three good men in the station proper. Three more down in the cave. Mother down in the storeroom and Snake handcuffed to a pole on E-deck.

The situation didn't just look bad.

It looked hopeless.

Either they stayed here and fought a suicidal battle with the SAS, or they ran?made a break for McMurdo in the hovercrafts?and brought back reinforcements later.

There really was no choice at all.

Schofield looked up at the small group gathered around him.

"All right," he said. "We get out of here."

Schofield's feet clanged loudly as they landed hard on the cold metal floor of E-deck. Schofield strode quickly across the deck toward the south tunnel and Mother's storeroom.

"What's going on?" a voice called out from the other side of the deck. Snake. "Trouble, Lieutenant?"

Schofield approached the handcuffed soldier. He saw the two French scientists kneeling on the deck on either side of him. They just stared resignedly at the deck.

"You made a mistake," Schofield said to Snake. "You started killing your own men too soon. You should have waited until you were sure we had this station secured. Now we've got twenty British hovercrafts speeding toward us and no reinforcements in sight. They're going to be here in twenty-three minutes."

Snake's face remained impassive, cold.

"And you know what?" Schofield said. "You're gonna be here when they arrive." He began to walk away.

"You're going to leave me here?" Snake said in disbelief.

"Yes."

"You can't do that. You need me," Snake said.

Schofield looked at his watch as he walked.

Twenty-two minutes until the SAS arrived.

"Snake, you had your chance and you blew it. Now, you'd better pray that we break through their line and get to McMurdo. Because if we don't, this whole station?and whatever's buried down in the ice beneath it?is gonna be lost forever."

Schofield stopped by the entrance to the south tunnel and turned around. "And in the meantime, you can take your chances with Trevor Barnaby."

With that, Schofield turned away from Snake and entered the south tunnel. He immediately swung right and entered Mother's storeroom. Mother was seated on the floor by the wall again. She looked up when Schofield came in.

"Trouble?" she said.

"As always," Schofield said. "Can you move?"

"What's happening?"

"Our favorite ally just sent their best troops in to take this station."

"What do you mean?"

"The SAS are on their way and they don't sound friendly."

"How many?"

"Twenty hovercrafts."

"Shit," Mother said.

"That's what I thought. Can you move?" Schofield was already probing around behind Mother's chair, to see if he could gather together all of her fluid bags and intravenous drips.

"How long till they get here?" Mother asked.

Schofield looked quickly at his watch. "Twenty minutes."

"Twenty minutes," Mother said.

Behind her, Schofield quickly grabbed two fluid lines.

"Scarecrow...," she said.

"Just a second."

"Scarecrow."

Schofield stopped what he was doing and looked up at Mother.

"Stop," Mother said gently.

Schofield looked at her.

Mother said, "Scarecrow. Get out of here. Get out of here now. Even if we had a full squad of twelve swordsmen, we'd never be able to hold off an entire platoon of SAS commandos." Swordsman was Mother's term for a Marine, a reference to the sword of honor that every Marine wore when in full dress uniform.

"Mother..."

"Scarecrow, the SAS, they aren't regular troops like we are. They are killers, trained killers. They are trained to go into a hostile zone and kill everyone in sight. They don't take prisoners. They don't ask questions. They kill." Mother paused. "You have to evacuate the station."

"I know."

"And you can't do that with a one-legged old hag like me weighing you down. If you're gonna run that blockade, you're gonna need people who can move, people who can move fast."

"I'm not going to leave you here?"

"Scarecrow. You have to get to McMurdo. You have to get reinforcements."

"And then what?"

"And then what? And then you can come back here with a fucking battalion of swordsmen, you nuke these British sons of bitches, you rescue the girl, and you save the fucking day. That's what."

Schofield just stared at Mother. She returned his gaze, looked him squarely in the eye.

"Go," she said softly. "Go now. I'll be all right."

Schofield didn't say anything; he just continued to stare at her.

Mother shrugged nonchalantly. "I mean, hey, like I've said before, it's nothing one good kiss from a fine-looking man like you wouldn't?"

At that moment, without warning, Schofield leaned forward and kissed Mother quickly on the lips. It was only a short kiss?an innocent peck?but Mother's eyes went as wide as saucers.

Schofield stood up. Mother took a deep breath.

"Whoa, mama," she said.

"Find a place to hide and stay there," Schofield said. "I'll be back. I promise."

And then he left the room.

The hovercraft's engine roared to life.

In the driver's seat, Rebound floored the accelerator. The needle on the tachometer bounced up to 6000 rpms.

At that moment, the second Marine hovercraft came gliding across the hard-packed snow. Its engine revved loudly as it slid to a halt alongside Rebound's hovercraft.

Buck Riley's voice came over Rebound's radio. "Fifteen minutes to go, Rebound. Let's get 'em over to the main building and load 'em up."

Schofield looked at his watch as he strode quickly round the outer tunnel of B-deck.

Fifteen minutes to go.

"Fox. Can you hear me?" he said into his helmet mike as he walked. While he waited for a reply, he quickly put his hand over the microphone.

"Let's go, people!" he yelled.

The remaining residents of Wilkes?Abby and the three male scientists, Llewellyn, Harris, and Robinson?were hurrying in and out of their respective rooms.

Llewellyn and Robinson ran past Schofield. They were dressed in thick black windbreakers. They hurried off toward the central shaft of the station.

Suddenly Gant's voice came over Schofield's earpiece. "Scarecrow, this is Fox. I read you. You're not gonna believe what's down here."

"Yeah, well, you're not gonna believe what's up here," Schofield said. "Sorry, Fox, but you're gonna have to tell me about it later. We're in big trouble up here. We've got a whole platoon of SAS commandos heading toward this station and they're gonna be here in about fourteen minutes."

"Jesus. What are you going to do?"

"We're gonna pull out. We have to. There's just too many of them. Our only chance is to get back to McMurdo and bring back the cavalry."

"What should we do down here?"

"Just stay where you are. Point your guns at that pool and shoot the first thing that pokes its head out of the water."

Schofield looked around himself as he spoke. He couldn't see Kirsty anywhere.

"Listen, Fox, I have to go," he said.

"Be careful, Scarecrow."

"You, too. Scarecrow, out."

Schofield spun instantly. "Where's the girl!" he yelled.

He received no reply.

Just then he saw Abby emerge from her room. She was hurriedly putting on a heavy blue parka.

"Abby! Where's Kirsty?" he called.

"I think she went back to her room!"

"Where is her room?"

"Down the tunnel! On the left!" Abby yelled, pointing down the tunnel behind Schofield.

Schofield ran down the outer tunnel of B-deck, looking for Kirsty.

Twelve minutes to go.

He threw open every door he came to.

First door. A bedroom. Nothing.

Second door. Locked. A three-ringed biohazard sign on it. The Biotoxin Laboratory. Kirsty wouldn't be in there.

Third door. Schofield threw it open.

And suddenly he stopped.

Schofield hadn't seen this room before. It was a walk-in freezer of some sort, the kind used for storing food. Not anymore, Schofield thought. Now this freezer room stored something else.

There were three bodies in the room.

Samurai, Mitch Healy, and Hollywood. They all lay on their backs, face-up.

After the battle with the French, Schofield had ordered that the bodies of his fallen men be taken to a freezer of some sort, where they were to be kept until they could be returned home for a proper burial. This was obviously where the bodies had been taken.

There was, however, a fourth body in the freezer room. It lay on the floor next to Hollywood's body, and it had been covered over with a brown hessian sack.

Schofield frowned.

Another body?

It couldn't have been one of the French soldiers, because they had not been moved from where they lay?

And then he suddenly Schofield remembered.

It was Bernard Olson.

Doctor Bernard Olson.

The scientist James Renshaw was said to have killed several days before Schofield and his team had arrived at Wilkes. The residents of Wilkes must have placed his body in here.

Schofield checked his watch.

Eleven minutes.

And then suddenly he remembered something that Renshaw had said to him after he had woken up inside his room, bound to the bed. When Renshaw had released Schofield he had asked him to do something odd. He had asked him?if he ever got the chance?to check Olson's body, in particular the tongue and the eyes.

Schofield didn't understand what the dead man's tongue and eyes had to do with anything. But Renshaw had insisted that they would prove his innocence.

Ten and a half minutes.

Not enough time. Got to get out of here.

But then, Renshaw had saved his life....

All right.

Schofield hurried into the freezer room and fell to his knees beside the brown hessian sack. He swept it off the body.

Bernard Olson stared up at him with cold, lifeless eyes.

He was an ugly man?fat and bald, with a pudgy, wrinkled face. His skin was bone white in color.

Schofield didn't waste any time. He checked the eyes first.

They were deeply red around the rims, inflamed. Horribly bloodshot.

Then he turned his attention to the dead man's mouth.

The mouth was shut. Schofield tried to open it, but the jaw was locked firmly in place. It wouldn't open an inch.

Schofield leaned closer and prized the dead man's lips apart so that he could examine the tongue.

The lips came apart.

"Urghhh," he winced as he saw it. He swallowed quickly, held back the nausea.

Bernie Olson had bitten his own tongue off.

For some reason, before he had died, Bernie Olson had bitten down hard with his teeth, clamping them shut. He had bitten down so hard that he had cut his own tongue in half.

Ten minutes.

That's enough, time to go.

Schofield ran for the door, and as he passed Mitch Healy's body on the way out, he grabbed the dead Marine's helmet from the floor.

Schofield emerged from the freezer room just as Kirsty came running down the outer tunnel of B-deck.

"I had to get a parka," she said apologetically. "My other one got wet?"

"Come on," Schofield said, grabbing her hand and pulling her down the tunnel.

As they turned into the tunnel that led to the central shaft, Schofield heard someone shout, "Wait for me!"

It was Renshaw. He was hurrying as fast as his little legs would carry him, racing around the curved outer tunnel toward Schofield and Kirsty. He was dressed in a heavy blue parka, and he was carrying a thick book under his arm.

"What the hell were you doing?" Schofield said.

"I had to get this," Renshaw said, indicating the book under his arm as he ran past Schofield and headed for the central well.

Schofield and Kirsty followed. "What the hell is in there that's so important?" Schofield yelled.

Renshaw called back, "My innocence!"

Outside the station, snow was flying horizontally.

It assaulted Schofield's face?bounced off his silver glasses?as he emerged from the main entrance with Kirsty and Renshaw by his side.

Eight minutes to go.

Until the SAS arrived.

The two white Marine hovercrafts were already parked outside the main entrance to the station. Book and Rebound stood beside the two big vehicles, hustling the residents of Wilkes onto Rebound's white hovercraft.

Schofield's plan was simple.

Rebound's hovercraft would be the transport. It held six people, so it would be used to carry all of the residents of Wilkes?Abby, Llewellyn, Harris, Robinson, and Kirsty? plus Rebound himself.

Book and Schofield would ride shotgun, defending the transport craft as it raced eastward and attempted to outrun the SAS hovercrafts speeding toward Wilkes Ice Station.

Book would drive the second Marine hovercraft, Schofield the French unit's orange hovercraft. James Renshaw, Schofield decided, would ride with him.

Schofield saw Rebound slam the sliding door of his hovercraft, saw Book leap up onto the skirt of his hovercraft and disappear inside the cabin. Book reemerged a second later with a large black Samsonite trunk in his hands and hurled the big black trunk across the snow toward Schofield. It landed with a loud thud.

"Pest control!" Book called.

Schofield hurried toward the trunk.

"Here," he said to Renshaw as he ran. "Put this on."

He handed Renshaw the Marine helmet that he had picked up on his way out of the freezer room. Then he quickly picked up the big Samsonite trunk and headed for the French hovercraft.

The French hovercraft sat silently in the snow outside the main entrance to the station. Unlike the two white USMC hovercrafts, it was painted a bright garish orange.

Seven minutes.

Schofield leaped up onto the skirt of the French hovercraft and yanked open the sliding door. He got Renshaw to pass the big Samsonite trunk up to him, and he threw it inside.

Schofield hurried into the cabin and made for the driver's chair. Renshaw jumped in behind him and pulled the sliding door shut.

Schofield keyed the ignition.

The engine roared to life.

The big seven-foot fan at the rear of the hovercraft began to rotate. It got faster and faster until, like the propeller on an old biplane, it suddenly snapped into overdrive and became a rapidly spinning blur.

Beneath the hovercraft's black rubber skirt, four smaller turbofans also kicked into action. The big hovercraft lifted slowly off the ground as the skirt inflated like a balloon.

Schofield brought the big orange vehicle around so that it came alongside the two white Marine hovercrafts. They were all pointing outward, away from the station.

Looking out through the reinforced windscreen of his hovercraft, Schofield could see the horizon to the southwest. It glowed a haunting orange.

Superimposed upon it were a collection of dark shadows. Small black boxes with fat rounded bases that seemed to kick up a haze of dust behind them.

The British hovercrafts.

Closing in on Wilkes Ice Station.

"All right, people," Schofield said into his helmet mike, "Let's get out of here."

The ground raced by beneath them.

The three American hovercrafts whipped across the ice plain at phenomenal speed, side by side. Book and Schofield were on the outside; Rebound's transport was in the middle.

They raced east, in the direction of McMurdo. The three hovercrafts kept to the coastline, skirting around the edge of a cliff that towered above an enormous bay-like expanse of water. From point to point, the bay was about one mile across, but to go around it by land required a trek of almost eight miles. The mountainous waves of the Southern Ocean crashed loudly against the base of the cliffs.

As his hovercraft sped across the ice plain, Schofield looked behind him. He saw the British hovercrafts approaching Wilkes Ice Station from the west and the south.

"They must have landed at one of the Australian stations," he said over his helmet intercom. Casey Station, most likely, he thought. It was the nearest one, about seven hundred miles due west of Wilkes.

"Fucking Australians," Rebound's voice said.

Five miles away, in the silent interior of a black American-made Bell Textron SR.N7-S hovercraft, Brigadier General Trevor J. Barnaby stared impassively out through the reinforced glass windshield of his hovercraft.

Trevor Barnaby was a tall, solid man, fifty-six years old, with a fully shaven head and a pointed black goatee. He stared out through the windshield of his hovercraft with cold, hard eyes.

"You're running, Scarecrow," he said aloud. "My, my, you are a clever one."

"They're heading east, sir," a young SAS corporal manning the radio console next to Barnaby said. "Out along the coast"

"Send eight crafts after them," Barnaby commanded. "Kill them. Everyone else is to proceed to the station as planned."

"Yes, sir."

The speedometer on Schofield's hovercraft edged over eighty miles per hour. Snow pounded against the windshield.

"Sir, they're coming!" Rebound's voice shouted over Schofield's helmet intercom.

Schofield's head snapped right and he saw them.

Several British hovercrafts had broken away from the main group and were heading toward the three escaping American hovercrafts.

"The others are going for the station," Book's voice said.

"I know," Schofield said. "I know."

Schofield whirled around in the driver's seat. He saw Renshaw standing in the back section of the cabin, looking slightly ridiculous in Mitch Healy's oversized Marine helmet.

"Mr. Renshaw," Schofield said.

"Yes."

"Time to make yourself useful. See if you can open that trunk on the floor there."

Renshaw immediately dropped to his knees and flipped the latches on the black Samsonite trunk that lay on the floor in front of him.

Schofield drove, turning around every few seconds to see how Renshaw was faring with the trunk.

"Oh, shit," Renshaw said as he opened the trunk and saw what lay inside it.

At that moment, there came a sudden booming sound from outside and Schofield snapped around again.

He knew that sound....

And then he saw it.

"Oh, no...," he groaned.

The first missile slammed into the snow-covered ground right in front of Schofield's speeding hovercraft.

It left a crater ten feet in diameter, and a split second later Schofield's hovercraft screamed over the edge of the crater, exploding through the dust cloud above it.

"Incoming!" Rebound's voice yelled.

"Get inland!" Schofleld called back as he caught sight of the cliff edge about a hundred yards to his left. "Get away from the edge!"

Schofield's head snapped around again as he spoke. He saw the cluster of British hovercrafts behind him.

He also saw the second missile.

It was white and round, cylindrical, and it cut through the driving snow in front of the lead British hovercraft, its spiraling smoke trail looping through the air behind it. A Milan antitank missile.

Renshaw saw it, too. "Yikes!"

Schofield floored it.

But the missile was closing in too quickly. It angled in toward his speeding hovercraft, fast.

Too fast.

And then suddenly, at the last moment, Schofield yanked hard on the steering yoke of his hovercraft and the whole craft swerved dramatically to the left, toward the cliff edge.

The missile shot across the bow of the speeding hovercraft and Schofield instinctively swerved back right and the missile slammed into the snow off to his left, exploding in a spectacular shower of white.

Schofield immediately swung back left, just as a second missile slammed into the snow-covered earth right next to him.

"Keep swerving!" he yelled into his helmet mike. "Don't let them get a lock on you!"

The three American hovercrafts all began to swerve as one as they rocketed across the flat Antarctic landscape, the hailstorm of unguided British missiles slamming down into the snow all around them. Deafening explosions filled the air. Massive gouts of snow and earth erupted from the ground.

Schofield fought desperately with the steering yoke of his hovercraft. The hovercraft screamed across the ice plain, a juggernaut out of control, ducking and swerving as it avoided the missiles that rained down all around it.

"The trunk!" Schofield yelled to Renshaw. "The trunk!"

"Right!" Renshaw said. He lifted a compact black tube out of the Samsonite trunk. It was about five feet long.

"All right," Schofield said as he yanked hard on the steering yoke to avoid another screaming British missile. The hovercraft rocked sharply as it swung hard to the right. Renshaw lost his balance and fell against the wall of the cabin.

"Lock the tube onto the gripstock!" Schofield yelled.

Renshaw found the gripstock in the trunk. It looked like a gun without a barrel?just the grip and the trigger and a stock that you rested on your shoulder. The compact cylindrical tube clicked firmly into place on the top of the gripstock.

"All right, Mr. Renshaw. You just made yourself a Stinger missile launcher! Now use it!"

"How?"

"Open the door! Put it on your shoulder! Point it at the bad guys, and when you hear the tone, pull the trigger! It'll do the rest!"

"OK...," Renshaw said doubtfully.

Renshaw yanked open the right-hand sliding door of the hovercraft. Screaming Antarctic wind instantly invaded the interior of the craft. Renshaw struggled against it, forced his way toward the open door.

He rested the Stinger on his shoulder, shuffled it so that his eyes settled into its sights. Through the night-sights, he saw the lead British hovercraft from head-on, caught between a pair of crosshairs. The British hovercraft glowed green?

And then suddenly Renshaw heard a dull buzzing sound.

"I hear the tone!" he yelled excitedly.

"Then pull the trigger!" Schofield called back.

Renshaw pulled the trigger.

The recoil of the Stinger sent Renshaw flying back onto the floor of the cabin.

The missile shot forward from its launcher. The back-blast?the sudden explosive burst of fire that shoots out the back of a rocket launcher when it is fired?shattered the windows behind Renshaw.

Schofield watched as the Stinger spiraled through the air toward the lead British hovercraft. Its smoke trail looped gracefully through the air behind it, revealing its flight path.

"Good night," Schofield said.

The Stinger slammed into the lead British hovercraft and the hovercraft exploded instantly, shattered into a thousand pieces.

The other British hovercrafts continued relentlessly forward, ignoring their fallen comrade. One of the rear ones just shot straight through the burning remains of the exploded lead hovercraft.

"Good shot, Mr. Renshaw!" Schofield said.

In the cabin behind Schofield, Renshaw awkwardly got to his feet. Once he had regained his balance, he looked out through the side door of the hovercraft and saw the fiery remains of the British hovercraft he had destroyed.

"Yikes," he said softly.

The seven remaining British hovercrafts closed in.

"Book!" Rebound's voice yelled. "I need help over here!"

"Hang on! I'm coming over!" Book yelled as he yanked on the steering yoke of his LCAC.

Book's hovercraft swung right?around and behind Rebound's transport?and slammed hard into the side of the first British hovercraft. Both crafts bounced wildly off each other as they careered across the ice plain.

Book pushed open one of his side windows with the barrel of his MP-5 and was about to fire on the black hovercraft racing alongside him when suddenly it filled with light and every one of its reinforced glass windows shattered as one and blew out of their frames.

Book watched in amazement as the British hovercraft exploded into flames and fell away behind him. Then he looked over his shoulder and saw Schofield's orange hovercraft sweep around behind him. The smoke trail of a Stinger still lingered in the air in front of it.

"Thanks, Scare?"

"Book! Watch your left!" Schofield's voice shouted.

The impact knocked Book sideways through the air and the world tilted crazily as his hovercraft was lifted off the ground by the stunning impact, and then suddenly?whump? the big hovercraft thudded back down to earth without any loss of speed.

Book was totally disoriented. He was trying to climb back into the driver's seat when another smashing impact rocked his hovercraft again, this time from the right.

"Scarecrow!" he yelled. "?I'm in a lot of trouble here!"

"I see you, Book! I see you! I'm coming!" Schofield peered out through the snow-streaked windshield of his own speeding hovercraft.

He saw Book's hovercraft, racing forward across the ice plain in front of him. On each side of it was a black British hovercraft, taking turns ramming it hard.

"Renshaw! How's that new Stinger coming?"

"Almost there ...," Renshaw said from behind him. He was furiously trying to jam a new tube into the gripstock.

"Hold on, Book!" Schofield said.

Schofield gunned the engine of his LCAC and the hovercraft responded by increasing its speed. Gradually, it began to haul in the three hovercrafts in front of it?Book's and the two British ones.

Slowly, gradually, Schofield's orange hovercraft overtook the three hovercrafts on the left-hand side and then suddenly, swiftly, it swept across in front of them.

Schofield looked back through his rear windshield, through the blur of his rear turbofan and saw the three hovercrafts behind him. He then snapped to look forward and saw Rebound's transport hovercraft racing across the ice plain about twenty yards to his left.

"Rebound!" he said.

"Yeah!"

"Get ready to go in and grab Book!"

"What?"

"Just get ready!"

"What are you gonna do?"

"A slingshot," Schofield said as he drew his MP-5. He turned to Renshaw. "Mr. Renshaw ..."

"What?"

"Hold on."

And with that, Schofield slipped the hovercraft into neutral and yanked the steering yoke hard to the right.

Like a bizarre two-ton ballet dancer, Schofield's hovercraft did a complete lateral 180-degree spin right in front of Book's hovercraft and the two British hovercrafts.

In the cabin, Schofield quickly jammed the big vehicle into reverse and engaged the turbofan again.

Now he was travelling backward!

At eighty miles per hour.

In front of Book and the two British hovercrafts!

Schofield thrust his MP-5 out through the driver's side window and let rip with an extended burst of gunfire.

The front windshield of the left-hand British hovercraft exploded with bullet holes. Schofield could see the men behind the windshield convulse as they were hit by the barrage of gunfire.

The shot British hovercraft immediately peeled away from Book's hovercraft and faded back into the distance.

Book was still in hell.

The British hovercraft to his left was gone now, but the one on his right was ramming him with renewed intensity.

The two hovercrafts careered across the flat expanse of ice, side by side, their engines roaring.

And then suddenly Book saw the side door of the British hovercraft open. A thick black gun barrel protruded from it.

"Oh, shit" Book said.

A puff of smoke appeared from the end of the gun barrel? it was an M-60 grenade launcher?and a second later the whole side door of Book's hovercraft suddenly exploded inward.

Wind rushed into the cabin.

They'd blown open the side of his hovercraft!

At that moment, a small black object flew in through the hole in the side of the hovercraft and clattered across the floor of the cabin.

Book saw it immediately.

It was a small black cylindrical object with blue numbers written along its side. As it rolled across the floor of the cabin, it looked like an ordinary grenade, but as Book knew, it was a whole lot more than that.

It was a nitrogen charge.

The signature weapon of the SAS.

The most advanced grenade in the world. It even had a tamper mechanism so that you couldn't pick it up and throw it back at the person who threw it at you. Standard time delay: five seconds.

Get out of the hovercraft! Book's mind screamed.

Book dived for the left-hand side of the cabin?the side furthest away from the British hovercraft?and reached for the door. He slid it open fast.

Five...

Freezing Antarctic wind rushed at his face. Slicing horizontal snow lashed his eyes. Book didn't care. Snow wouldn't kill him, and a fall from the hovercraft might. But the nitrogen charge definitely would.

Four... three...

Book dived out into the freezing wind and immediately jammed the sliding door shut behind him. He lay flat against the top of the black rubber skirt that ran around the base of the speeding hovercraft. His face was pressed awkwardly up against the outside of the windows of the cabin. The screaming, speeding wind assaulted his ears.

Two... one...

Book prayed to God that the reinforced Lexan glass windows of the hovercraft could withstand the?

The nitrogen charge went off inside the hovercraft.

Smack!

A wave of ice blue liquid nitrogen slapped hard against the glass right in front of Book's face. Book instinctively jerked his head back.

He stared in amazement at the interior of the hovercraft's cabin. Supercooled liquid nitrogen had splattered itself against every exposed surface inside the cabin.

Every exposed surface.

The whole of the inside of the window in front of him was dripping with gooey blue poxy. Book sighed with relief. The reinforced glass had held, just.

And then suddenly ... craaaaack?!

Book pulled his head back just as the window?snap-frozen by the liquid nitrogen and contracting rapidly?broke out into a thousand spiderwebs.

"Book!"

Book spun and saw Rebound's hovercraft pull up alongside his own. He could see Rebound through the windscreen, sitting in the driver's seat.

"Get on!"

Rebound's hovercraft nudged closer to Book's. The side door of Rebound's hovercraft slid open. The rubber skirts of the two hovercrafts touched briefly, then parted again.

"Jump!" Rebound said, his voice loud in Book's earpiece.

Book tried to get to his feet.

"Come on!" Rebound said urgently.

Book tried to keep his eyes focused on the black rubber skirt of Rebound's hovercraft. Tried not to look at the white streaks of snow racing by at eighty miles an hour beneath the two speeding hovercrafts.

And then out of the corner of his eye, he saw it.

Saw the black hovercraft materialize in the background behind Rebound's hovercraft.

Suddenly Book heard Rebound yell, "Get there, Scarecrow!" and then he saw the side door of the British hovercraft open. Saw the Milan antitank missile launcher appear inside it.

And then Book saw the familiar puff of smoke and he saw the missile shoot out of its launcher and fly through the air toward him, its looping white smoke trail spiraling crazily behind it, and in that instant, in that moment, Book knew it was too?

"Book! For God's sake, jump! Jump now! Shit!"

Book jumped.

Book flew through the air.

As he flew, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the British hovercraft explode as it was hit by an American Stinger. But it had got its own missile off before it had been hit. Book saw the white-tipped missile roll through the air toward him.

And then suddenly his hands came down hard on the black rubber skirt of Rebound's hovercraft and he forgot about the British missile as he scratched desperately for a handhold.

Just as his feet were about to hit the speeding ground, Book got a grip on a tie-down stud on the skirt of Rebound's hovercraft and he looked up just in time to see the British missile slam into the rear of his recently abandoned hovercraft and blow it to smithereens.

"Have you got him?" Schofield said into his helmet mike.

Schofield was still racing along in front of Rebound's hovercraft?still travelling backward. He could see Rebound's transport speeding across the ice plain behind him.

"We got him," Rebound replied. "He's inside."

"Good," Schofield said.

It was then that Schofield heard the gunfire.

His head immediately snapped left and he saw them.

It was the same British hovercraft that had blasted open the side of Book's hovercraft. Only now it had a fearsome-looking general-purpose machine gun?or "Gimpy" as it is known?sticking out of its open side door. The large heavy-duty machine gun was mounted on a tripod, and Schofield saw a three-foot tongue of fire flare out from its barrel as it emitted a deafening ungodly roar.

Rebound's hovercraft took the brunt of the machine gun's fury. Sparks and bullet holes and cracks and puncture marks burst out all over it.

A thin line of black smoke began to rise up from the rear of Rebound's hovercraft. The hovercraft visibly began to slow.

"Scarecrow!" Rebound yelled. "We've got a serious problem here!"

"I'm coming!" Schofield said.

"I'm hit bad and slowing down! I need to off-load some weight so I can maintain my speed!"

Schofield was thinking fast. He was still traveling backward across the ice plain. Rebound's hovercraft was off to his right, the British hovercraft off to his left.

At last, Schofield said, "Mr. Renshaw ..."

"What?"

"Take the wheel."

"What?" Renshaw said.

"It's just like driving a car, only with a little less responsiveness," Schofield said.

Renshaw stepped into the driver's seat, took hold of the steering yoke.

"Now, shut your eyes," Schofield said.

"Huh?"

"Just do it," Schofield said as he calmly raised his MP-5 ...

... and blasted the forward windshield of his own hovercraft!

Renshaw covered his eyes as shards of glass exploded out all around him. When he opened his eyes again he had a completely clear view of the two hovercrafts speeding along the ice plain "behind" him.

"OK," Schofield said, "pull us over in front of the black one."

Renshaw gently applied pressure to the steering yoke. The hovercraft slid smoothly over to the left, so that it was in front of the black British hovercraft that was blasting away at Rebound's hovercraft.

"All right," Schofield said. "Hold it here."

Schofield wrapped the shoulder strap of his MP-5 around his neck and pulled the slide on his Desert Eagle automatic pistol, cocking it.

"All right, Mr. Renshaw. Hit the brakes."

Renshaw looked up at Schofield in surprise. "What?"

And then he realized what Schofield was doing.

"Oh, no. You can't be serious?"

"Just do it," Schofield said.

"All right...."

Renshaw shook his head, and then, after taking a deep breath, he jammed both of his feet down as hard as he could on the brake pedal of the hovercraft.

Schofield's hovercraft lost all of its forward momentum in an instant and the British hovercraft behind it slammed into it at full speed and the two hovercrafts collided nose-to-nose.

Renshaw braced himself for the impact, and when it came it jolted him back into his seat. When he looked up, however, he couldn't believe his eyes. He saw Schofield climbing out through the shattered forward windshield of their hovercraft and up onto its hood.

The two hovercrafts made for an incredible sight They were now joined at their noses, both traveling forward. The only thing was, one was pointed forward while the other was pointing backward.

In three fluid steps the small figure of Schofield danced across the forward hood of the leading orange hovercraft and leaped across onto the hood of the pursuing black hovercraft.

Schofield's feet pounded against the forward hood of the British hovercraft. Horizontal snow pelted against his back as he blasted away at the forward windshield of the British hovercraft with his MP-5. The windshield shattered and Schofield saw the driver go down in a fountain of blood.

But there were still two more men inside the cabin who any second now would be turning their guns on him.

Schofield ran forward and leaped onto the roof of the speeding hovercraft just as a volley of bullets shot out from inside the cabin.

He slid feet-first across the roof of the British hovercraft. The left-hand door of the hovercraft was still open, and Schofield rolled onto his stomach and reached over the edge of the roof with his MP-5 and jammed it in through the open side door. He pulled the trigger and fired blindly at his unseen enemy.

His MP-5 went dry, and Schofield listened and waited. If either of the two SAS commandos had survived his barrage of gunfire, then they would be up any second now.

No one came out of the hovercraft.

The deafening machine-gun fire from the tripod-mounted machine gun had ceased. The only sound that Schofield heard was the whistling of the wind as it sped past his ears.

Schofield swung himself down and in through the open side door of the British hovercraft.

None of the SAS commandos had survived his assault. The three men all lay on the floor of the cabin, covered in blood.

Schofield stepped over to the driver's chair.

"Mr. Renshaw, can you hear me?" he said.

Inside the orange French hovercraft, James Renshaw was gripping the steering yoke so hard his fingers were turning white. His hovercraft was still traveling backward at incredible speed.

"Yeah, I hear you," Renshaw said into his oversized helmet's microphone.

"You're gonna have to swing her around," Schofield's voice said. "I need you to help Rebound. He needs to offload some of his people so he can maintain a decent speed. I need you to take a couple of people off his hovercraft."

"I can't do that!" Renshaw said. "You do it."

"Mr. Renshaw..."

"All right. All right."

Schofield's voice said, "Now, do you want me to take you through it?"

"No," Renshaw said. "I can do this."

"Then do it. I gotta go," Schofield's voice said quickly.

And with that, Renshaw saw Schofield's newly acquired black British hovercraft peel off to the left and head toward Rebound's wounded hovercraft.

"All right," Renshaw said to himself as he gripped the steering yoke even more firmly in his hands. "I can do this. I saw him do it before; it can't be that hard. Slingshot...."

Renshaw slipped the hovercraft into neutral, and he felt the big vehicle lose a little bit of speed.

"OK," he said. "Here we go...."

He yanked his steering yoke hard to the right.

The hovercraft immediately spun laterally on its axis and Renshaw yelled, "Aaaahhhhh!!" as the whole vehicle snapped around in a sharp one-eighty and then all of a sudden it was facing forward again and he swung the steering yoke back in the other direction and suddenly the vehicle was steady again and?good God?traveling forward.

Renshaw was stunned. He jammed the hovercraft back into high gear.

"Holy shit," he said. "I did it! I did it!"

"Mr. Renshaw," Schofield's voice said in his ear. "I've seen kids on snowbikes do better slingshots than that. Now, if you don't mind, would you kindly shut up and get your ass over here. Rebound needs our help."

Schofield's hovercraft came alongside Rebound's.

Both hovercrafts looked like hell. Rebound's was pockmarked all over with bullet holes. Schofield's had no front windshield.

The three remaining British hovercrafts circled all around them, cut across in front of them, swung in behind them.

Schofield brought his hovercraft closer to Rebound's, so that his open left-side door was directly opposite Rebound's open right-side door.

Schofield yelled, "OK! Send two of your passengers over to me! Renshaw'll be over in a second! He can take two more!"

"Ten-four, Scarecrow," Rebound's voice replied.

Schofield hit the cruise control button on his dashboard and hurried back into the cabin of the hovercraft. He came to the open side door and looked across the gap between the two speeding hovercrafts. He saw Book standing in the doorway of the speeding white hovercraft, eight feet away. He had Kirsty with him.

"OK!" Schofield yelled into his helmet mike as Rebound brought his hovercraft closer. "Send her over!"

Book edged out onto the skirt of his hovercraft, gently bringing Kirsty with him. The little girl looked scared to death as she stepped out into the freezing, speeding wind.

Schofield ventured out onto his own skirt, his arms outstretched.

"Come on, honey!" he called. "You can do it!"

Kirsty tentatively stepped forward.

The ground raced by beneath them.

"Reach out! Reach out! And jump now!" Schofield yelled. "I'll catch you!"

Kirsty jumped.

A timid, little girl's jump.

Schofield lunged forward and clutched hold of her parka and pulled her inside the cabin of his speeding black hovercraft.

Once they were safely inside, he asked, "Are you OK?"

As Kirsty opened her mouth to answer him, the whole hovercraft was rocked by a ferocious impact. The two of them were both thrown against the frame of the open doorway. Kirsty screamed as she fell out through the door, but Schofield threw out his hand and snatched her gloved hand just in time.

They'd been rammed from the right. Schofield snapped round to see what had hit them.

Another British hovercraft.

Schofield pulled Kirsty back inside the cabin and braced himself for the next impact.

It never came.

Instead, the whole right-hand side of his hovercraft's cabin simply exploded inward.

Kirsty screamed and Schofield dived on top of her, shielding her from the flying debris. He tried to peer out through the smoke to see where the British hovercraft was, to see what its owners were doing.

But he couldn't see the hovercraft.

He just saw smoke and haze.

And then, after a moment, Schofield heard the thud of feet landing on the skirt of his hovercraft and he felt a knot tighten in his stomach as he saw two wraithlike figures emerge from the smoke and enter his cabin with their guns raised.

The two SAS commandos emerged from the smoky haze. Schofield was on the ground, covering Kirsty, totally exposed.

"Scarecrow! Duck!" Book's voice shouted loudly in his ear.

Schofield ducked and immediately heard the sharp whoosh! whoosh! of two bullets flying low over his head and the first SAS man dropped like a stone?shot by Book, from the other hovercraft.

The second SAS commando was momentarily startled, and that was all Schofield needed. He sprang to his feet like a cat and tackled the SAS man and both men went flying against the dashboard of the hovercraft.

The ensuing hand-to-hand fight was all one-way traffic.

The SAS guy was all over Schofield. One hit to his injured throat and Schofield couldn't breathe, another to the rib cage and Schofield heard one of his ribs snap. He doubled over and the SAS man grabbed him by his collar and belt and hurled him out through the destroyed forward windscreen of the speeding hovercraft.

Schofield thudded against the forward hood of the hovercraft. His body ached; he couldn't breathe. He coughed up blood as he looked up?

?just in time to see the SAS commando reach for his holster and draw his service pistol.

At the sight of the gun, suddenly Schofield's breath came back to him and everything became clear.

Speeding hovercraft.

Man, gun.

Certain death.

His body aching, Schofield rolled forward, toward the rounded bow of the hovercraft. The black rubber skirt dropped away in front of him. The ground rushed by beneath it at seventy miles an hour.

You are going to die....

Schofield found a handhold and quickly lowered his feet over the bow of the speeding hovercraft. His feet touched the speeding earth and skipped up off the surface.

The SAS man in the cabin seemed to be amused by what Schofield was doing, and he paused for a fraction of a second as he leveled his automatic pistol at Schofield's head.

Schofield?his face bruised, his teeth bloody, his body bent over the inflated skirt at the bow of the hovercraft? looked up at the SAS commando and smiled. He saw the SAS commando smile back at him: And then he saw him raise his gun a little higher.

At that moment, Schofield ducked his head beneath the skirt of the hovercraft. He heard the gun go off, heard the bullet ping off the top of the skirt.

Schofield was hanging off the bow of the speeding hovercraft now, pressing his body against the inflated rubber skirt. His feet were dragging on the ground as it rushed by beneath him at incredible speed.

Suddenly he heard a sound and he looked up and saw the SAS man standing above him, on the forward hood of the hovercraft, looking down at him, with his gun still in his hand.

And as the SAS commando raised his gun to fire, Shane Schofield knew there was only one thing he could do. He released his grip on the inflated rubber skirt and disappeared under the bow of the hovercraft.

The sound of the turbofans was absolutely ear-shattering.

Schofield's helmet slammed down against the ground, and Schofield slid on his back underneath the hovercraft.

The rush of air and the deafening roar of the four turbofans above him was like being in a wind tunnel. Schofield saw the inflated insides of the skirt, saw the rapidly rotating blades of the turbofans?

And then he shot out from underneath the speeding hovercraft, and the deafening roar of the turbofans was gone as he slid on his back across the flat, icy plain behind the hovercraft he had been standing on only moments before.

Schofield didn't waste any time.

He rolled onto his stomach as he aquaplaned across the ice, and in one swift movement he drew his Maghook from behind his back and looked up at the rear of the hovercraft as it sped away from him. He raised the Maghook and fired.

The bulbous magnetic head of the Maghook flew through the air, its tail of rope unspooling wildly behind it. The magnet thudded into the metal wall of the cabin just above the hovercraft's skirt and stuck, and Schofield was suddenly yanked forward behind the speeding hovercraft.

He was now being dragged across the ice plain behind the speeding hovercraft, like a nailing water-skier trying desperately to get back on his feet again.

And then abruptly the ground all around Schofield was raked with gunfire.

Schofield spun to look behind him.

A second British hovercraft was right behind him!

It was bearing down on him, as if it were about to trample him.

Schofield rolled onto his back?holding onto his Mag-hook's launcher with one hand?as he was dragged behind the first hovercraft. With his free hand, he drew his Desert Eagle and fired back at the pursuing hovercraft. The Desert Eagle boomed, ripped open several holes in the skirt of the speeding hovercraft.

But the hovercraft didn't slow down.

It was almost on him.

It only had to get over him and then slow down slightly, and then the hovercraft would lower itself and he would be chopped to shreds by the turbofans underneath it.

The turbofans underneath it....

Schofield desperately searched his brain for something, anything, anything that he could use to?

His helmet.

Still being dragged behind the first hovercraft, Schofield quickly holstered his gun and yanked off his helmet.

He would have to get this just right. It would have to be bouncing, bouncing high, so that it would get caught up in the fan blades of the pursuing hovercraft.

Schofield tossed his helmet behind him.

The helmet flew through the air?it seemed to float for an eternity?and then it bounced on its dome and the pursuing hovercraft roared over the top of it.

Schofield guessed that the helmet must have bounced up into the forward fan of the hovercraft, because in that moment, in that sudden, shocking instant, the whole hovercraft just snapped over on itself and did a complete seventy-mile-an-hour cartwheel?it just flipped over on itself and came slamming down hard on its own cabin. The battered hovercraft slid across the flat icy ground?on its roof, right behind Schofield?for about fifty yards before it ground to a halt and shrank into the distance behind him.

Schofield rolled back over onto his stomach. His body bounced roughly on the hard, icy ground as it was dragged along behind the first hovercraft at phenomenal speed. Tiny flecks of kicked-up ice assaulted his silver antiflash glasses.

Then he hit the black button on his Maghook?the button that reeled in the hook without demagnetizing it?and the Maghook began to reel itself in, drawing Schofield forward, toward the rear of the speeding hovercraft, until at last he reached the black rubber skirt. The wind from the hovercraft's rear turbofan blasted his face, but Schofield didn't care. He grabbed hold of a tie-down stud on top of the skirt and hauled himself up onto the hovercraft.

Five seconds later, he was standing in the open left-hand side doorway of the hovercraft. He got there just in time to see the SAS commando slap Kirsty hard across the face and send her crashing to the floor.

"Hey!" Schofield called.

The SAS man turned and saw him, and a sneer formed around his mouth.

"Kirsty," Schofield said, never once taking his eyes off the British commando. "Cover your eyes, honey."

Kirsty covered her eyes.

The SAS commando stared at Schofield for a long moment. They just stood there, in the cabin of the speeding hovercraft, like two gunfighters facing off against each other on a deserted western street

And then in a sudden blur of movement the SAS man went for his gun.

Schofield went for his.

Both guns came up fast, but only one went off.

"You can open your eyes now," Schofield said as he stepped forward?over the body of the dead SAS commando?and bent down beside Kirsty.

Slowly, Kirsty opened her eyes.

Schofield saw the bruise forming around her left cheekbone. "Are you all right?" he said kindly.

"No," she said, tears welling in her eyes. She pulled her asthma puffer out from her pocket and took two deep, sobbing puffs on it.

"Me neither," Schofield said, taking the asthma puffer from her and gulping down a couple of puffs himself before putting the puffer in his pocket.

Then he stood up and grabbed the steering vane of the British hovercraft. As he drove, he popped the clip of his Desert Eagle and jammed in a fresh magazine.

Kirsty stepped up alongside him. "When you ... when you went under the hovercraft," she said, "I thought... I thought you were dead."

Schofield jammed his pistol back into its holster and looked down at Kirsty. He saw the tears in her eyes.

As he looked down at her, Schofield realized that he was still wearing his silver antiflash glasses. He took the silver glasses off and crouched down in front of Kirsty.

"Hey," he said. "It's OK. It's all right. I'm not going to die on you.I am not going to die on you." Schofield smiled. "I mean, hey, I can't die. I'm the hero of this story."

Despite herself, Kirsty smiled. Schofield smiled, too.

And then, to his surprise, Kirsty stepped forward and hugged him. Schofield returned her hug.

As he held her, though, he heard a strange noise. A noise that he had not heard before.

It was a loud, rhythmic, crashing noise.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

It sounded to Schofield like?

Like waves crashing on a beach.

With a sickening rush, Schofield realized where they were. They were near the cliffs. Their evasive maneuvers during the hovercraft chase had taken them out near the sheer three-hundred-foot cliffs that towered over the bay. The loud, booming noise that he was hearing was the sound of the mountainous waves of the ocean smashing against the ice cliffs.

He was still holding Kirsty in his arms. As he held her, though, something behind her caught his eye.

Attached to the side of the British hovercraft's dashboard was a small compartment, mounted on the wall. Its door hung ajar. Inside the compartment, Schofield could see two silver canisters. They were each about a foot long, and cylindrical in shape. Each silver canister had a wide green band painted across its midsection. Schofield saw some lettering stencilled onto the side of one of the silver canisters: TRITONAL 80/20.

Tritonal 80/20? he thought. Why on earth would the British bring that to Wilkes?

Tritonal 80/20 was a highly concentrated explosive poxy? a highly combustible liquid filler that was used in air-launched drop bombs. Tritonal wasn't nuclear, but when it blew, it blew big and it blew hot. One kilogram of the stuff? the amount contained in each of the canisters Schofield was now looking at?could level a small building.

Schofield released Kirsty gently, put his glasses back on, and moved toward the compartment near the dashboard. He pulled one of the silver-and-green canisters from it.

He came back to Kirsty. "Are you all right, now?"

"Yeah," she said.

"Good," Schofield said, sliding the Tritonal charge into one of his long thigh pockets. "Because I really have to get back to?"

Schofield never saw it coming.

The impact threw him off his feet.

His whole hovercraft lurched suddenly to the left.

He looked out through the gaping hole in the right-hand side of his speeding hovercraft and saw one of the two remaining British hovercrafts racing across the ice plain right alongside him!

It rammed them again.

Hard.

So hard, in fact, that Schofield felt his hovercraft slide sideways, to the left.

"What the?" he said aloud.

He looked left and in a sudden terrifying instant he realised what they were doing.

"Oh, no," he said. "Oh, no...."

They were trying to ram him off the cliff.

Schofield began to wrestle with the steering vane of his hovercraft, but it was no use.

There was nowhere he could go.

With no room to move?no room to get a run-up?he just found himself shunting the speeding British hovercraft ineffectually.

The British hovercraft rammed them again, and Schofield snapped to look forward. He saw the cliff edge racing by less than ten yards off to his left. He caught a glimpse of tiny white-crested waves beyond it. They were a long way down.

Then he looked out to his right, out through the hole in the side of his speeding hovercraft, and saw the black British hovercraft whipping across the ice plain beside him. He saw it widen the gap between the two hovercrafts and then suddenly rush back in at them.

The two hovercrafts collided again and Schofield felt his hovercraft jolt farther toward the edge.

Five yards to go.

The two hovercrafts raced along the edge of the cliff top, three hundred feet above the churning white waves of the Southern Ocean.

Schofield was still watching the British hovercraft alongside him.

As it widened the gap between the two hovercrafts once more?like a boxer pulling his arm back in preparation for the next blow?suddenly Schofield saw another hovercraft materialize in the distance beyond the black British hovercraft.

He blinked.

It was the orange French hovercraft.

The orange hovercraft? Schofield thought.

But the only person in that hovercraft was ...

Renshaw.

Schofield saw the gaudy orange hovercraft pull alongside the speeding British hovercraft. Now there were three hovercrafts travelling side by side along the edge of the ice cliff!

Suddenly the British hovercraft rammed them again and ihe skirt of Schofield's hovercraft jutted out over the edge of the cliff. Large chunks of snow were thrown off the edge. They became tiny specks of white as they disappeared into the churning foam of the sea three hundred feet below.

"Come on." Schofield suddenly grabbed Kirsty's hand.

"What are we?"

"We're leaving," he said.

Schofield pulled Kirsty over to the gaping hole in the right-hand side of his hovercraft.

He saw the British hovercraft pull away from them again, preparing itself for the killing blow.

Schofield swallowed. He would have to time this just right....

He drew his Desert Eagle pistol.

The British hovercraft rushed in toward them.

The two hovercrafts collided, and in that instant Schofield leaped across onto the skirt of the British hovercraft, pulling Kirsty with him.

They landed on the skirt of the speeding British hovercraft just as their own went careering off the edge of the cliff. The empty hovercraft rolled through the air for an instant before it plummeted three hundred feet straight down. It hit the water with a stunning impact and smashed into a thousand pieces.

Schofield and Kirsty never stopped moving.

They skipped across the roof of the British hovercraft, and as they did so Schofield pointed his pistol straight down and fired three quick shots into the roof beneath him, and then suddenly they were on the other side of the hovercraft and Schofield could see Renshaw's hovercraft in front of them.

The orange hovercraft swung in closer just as Schofield and Kirsty leaped off the skirt of the British hovercraft. They landed safely on the skirt of Renshaw's craft, and it instantly peeled away from the black British hovercraft.

Schofield looked back at the British hovercraft?saw a star of blood on the forward windshield. Someone inside the hovercraft was still moving, clambering forward in an attempt to grab the steering vane.

Schofield figured that he must have hit the driver and now whoever was still in there was desperately trying to regain control of the?

Too late.

The British hovercraft looked like a stunt car leaping off a ramp as it shot off the edge of the cliff. It sailed through the air for a moment?soaring high?before gravity took its course and the hovercraft began to arc downward. Schofield caught a fleeting glimpse of the man inside it as the hovercraft dropped below the edge of the cliff top and disappeared forever.

Schofield turned to see the sliding side door of the orange hovercraft open in front of him and he saw Renshaw's smiling face appear.

"Can I drive this thing or what?" Renshaw said.

Now there was only one British hovercraft remaining. Outnumbered now by two-to-one it kept its distance.

Schofield grabbed Renshaw's Marine helmet and put it on. He keyed the helmet mike. "Rebound, you still out there?

"Yeah."

"Is everyone OK?"

"More or less."

"What about the hovercraft?" Schofield asked.

"She's a bit beat up, but she's OK. We've got full power again," Rebound's voice said.

"Good," Schofield said. "Good. Listen, if we take care of this last guy, do you think you can get a head start and make it to McMurdo?"

"We'll get there."

"All right, then," Schofield said as he looked down at Kirsty. "Stand by. You're about to get another passenger."

Schofield got Renshaw to pull his hovercraft alongside Rebound's transport. He wanted to put Kirsty on the transport and then send it on its way to McMurdo while he and Renshaw took care of the last British hovercraft.

The two speeding hovercrafts came together.

Both side doors slid open.

Book appeared in the side door of Rebound's transport raft. Schofield stood with Kirsty in the door of the orange French hovercraft opposite him.

The last British hovercraft hovered ominously behind them, two hundred yards astern.

"OK, let's go," Book's voice said in Schofield's earpiece.

Schofield said to Kirsty, "You ready?"

"Uh-huh," she said.

They stepped out onto the skirt together.

In the cabin of the transport craft, Rebound was keeping a wary eye on the British hovercraft.

It just seemed to sit there, watching them.

"What are you doing, you son of a bitch?" Rebound said aloud.

Book yelled, "OK, send her over!"

Schofield and Kirsty edged forward, toward the edge of their hovercraft's skirt The wind buffeted them relentlessly.

On the other skirt in front of them, Book reached for Kirsty's outstretched hands. Schofield held her from behind. The transfer was almost complete?

And then suddenly Rebound's voice burst across their helmet intercoms: "Oh, fuck! It just launched!"

Schofield and Book both snapped around at the same time.

They saw the smoke trail first.

It spiraled through the air. A thin white vapor trail.

And in front of it... a missile.

Its source?the last British hovercraft.

It was another Milan antitank missile, and it stayed low, close to the ground. It rocketed through the air, covering the distance between them fast, and then suddenly, with shocking intensity, it slammed into the back of Schofield's orange hovercraft and detonated.

The hovercraft jolted ferociously with the impact, and Schofield lost his grip on Kirsty and fell back into his hovercraft's cabin. As he fell backward he looked up, and the last thing he saw before he hit the floor of the cabin was a fleeting glimpse of Book?lunging forward, off balance? desperately trying to get hold of Kirsty's hands as she fell down in between the two speeding hovercrafts.

Book and Kirsty fell.

The black rubber skirt of one of the hovercrafts filled Book's field of vision as he tumbled down between the two hovercrafts.

He held Kirsty by the hand, and as they fell he pulled her close to his body and rolled in the air so that when they hit the ground he would take the brunt of the fall.

And then suddenly, concussively, they hit the speeding ground.

"Book is down! Book is down!" Rebound's voice yelled loudly in Schofield's earpiece. "The little girl fell with him!"

Schofield's hovercraft shot across the ice plain, totally out of control.

The missile's impact to the rear of the hovercraft had destroyed its rear fan and half its tail rudder, causing the hovercraft to fishtail wildly and shoot left?and head straight for the cliff edge.

Renshaw grappled desperately with the steering yoke, but with its tail rudder half-destroyed, the hovercraft would only turn left. Renshaw heaved on the steering yoke, and gradually the hovercraft began to turn in a slow, wide arc so that it was now careering across the cliff tops back toward Wilkes Ice Station!

"Rebound!" Schofield yelled into his helmet mike, ignoring Renshaw's efforts to keep control of the hovercraft.

"What?"

"Get out of here!"

"What!"

Schofield said fiercely, "We've been hit bad over here! We're fucked; our game's over. Go! Get to McMurdo! Get help! You're the only chance we've got!"

"But what about?"

"Go!"

"Yes, sir."

At that moment, Renshaw said, "Ah, Lieutenant..."

Schofield wasn't listening. He was watching Rebound's hovercraft as it sped away in the other direction, into the driving snow.

Then he looked out through the side window of his destroyed hovercraft and saw in the distance a small dark lump on the ice plain.

Book and Kirsty.

"Lieutenant..."

Schofield saw the last British hovercraft approach Book and Kirsty, saw it slow to a halt beside Book's doubled-over body. Black-clad men got out of the hovercraft

Schofield just stared. "Damn."

Beside him, Renshaw was wrestling with the steering yoke. "Lieutenant! Hold on!'

At that moment, as Renshaw pulled on it, the steering yoke snapped and broke and suddenly the hovercraft spun laterally to the left and performed a slingshot, and in an instant Schofield and Renshaw were traveling backward again.

"What the hell are you doing!" Schofield yelled.

"I was trying to avoid that!' Renshaw yelled as he pointed out through the destroyed rear end of the hovercraft?the end that was now their leading edge.

Schofield followed Renshaw's finger and his eyes widened.

They were hurtling?in reverse?toward the edge of the cliff.

"Why can't this fucking day just end," Schofield said.

"I think it's about to," Renshaw said flatly.

Schofield shoved Renshaw out of the driver's seat and slid into it. He began to pump the brake pedal.

No response.

The hovercraft continued to rush toward the edge.

"I tried that!" Renshaw said. "No brakes!"

The hovercraft raced toward the cliff edge, traveling backward, totally out of control.

Schofield grabbed the broken steering vane. No steering either.

They would have to jump?

But the thought came too late.

The cliff edge rushed toward them, too fast.

And then all of a sudden they ran out of ground and Schofield felt his stomach lurch sickeningly as the hovercraft shot out from the cliff top and flew out at incredible speed into the clear, open sky.

SIXTH INCURSION

16 June 1635 hours

The hovercraft fell through the air, rear end first.

Inside the cabin, Schofield snapped around in his chair to look out through the shattered forward windshield of the hovercraft. He saw the cliff edge high above him getting smaller and smaller as it got farther and farther away.

In the seat beside him, Renshaw was hyperventilating. "We're gonna die. We are really gonna die."

The hovercraft went vertical?its tail pointing down, its nose pointing up?and suddenly Schofield saw nothing but sky.

They were falling fast.

Through the side window of the hovercraft, Schofield saw the vertical cliff face streaking past them at phenomenal speed.

Schofield grabbed his Maghook and put his nose in Renshaw's face, silencing him. "Grab my waist and don't let go."

Renshaw stopped his whimpering and stared at Schofield for a second. Then he quickly wrapped his arms around his waist. Schofield raised his Maghook above his head and fired it up through the destroyed forward windshield of the falling hovercraft.

The Maghook shot through the air in a high arc?its steel grappling hook snapping open in midflight, its rope splaying out in a crazy, wobbling line behind it.

The hook came down hard on the edge of the cliff top and then slid quickly backward toward the edge, its claws digging into the snow.

The hovercraft continued to fall through the air, rear end first. The grappling hook found a purchase on the cliff top and suddenly it snapped to a halt and held, and its rope went instantly taut?

?and Schofield and Renshaw, at the other end of the rope, suddenly shot up out of the falling hovercraft.

The hovercraft fell away beneath them?fell and fell? before it smashed loudly against the white-tipped waves one hundred and fifty feet below them.

Schofield and Renshaw swung back in toward the cliff face. The hovercraft had launched itself a good distance from the cliff, so they had a long way to swing back, and when they hit the cliff face they hit it hard.

The impact with the cliff jarred Renshaw's grip on Schofield's waist and he fell for an instant, grabbing Schofield's right foot at the very last moment.

The two men hung there for a full minute, halfway down the sheer vertical cliff-face, neither one of them daring to move.

"You still there?" Schofield asked.

"Yeah," Renshaw said, petrified.

"All right, I'm going to try and reel us up now," Schofield said, shifting his grip on his launcher slightly so that he could press down on the black button that reeled in the rope without collapsing the grappling hook.

Schofield looked up at the cliff edge high above them. It must have been at least a hundred and fifty feet away. He figured they must be hanging at the full length of his Mag-hook's rope?

It was then that Schofield saw him.

A man. Standing up on the cliff top, peering out over the edge, looking down at them.

Schofield froze.

The man was wearing a black balaclava.

And he was holding a machine gun in his hand.

"Well?" Renshaw said from down near Schofield's feet. "What are you waiting for?" From his position, Renshaw wasn't able to see the SAS commando up on the cliff top. "We're not going up any more," Schofield said flatly, his eyes locked on the black-clad figure at the top of the cliff.

"We're not?" Renshaw said. "What are you talking about?"

The SAS commando was looking directly down at Schofield now.

Schofield swallowed. Then he glanced down at the smashing waves a hundred and fifty feet below him. When he looked up again, the SAS commando was pulling a long, glistening knife from its sheath. The commando then bent down over the Maghook's rope at the top of the cliff.

"Oh, no," Schofield said.

"Oh, no, what?" Renshaw said.

"Are you ready to go for a ride?"

"No," Renshaw said.

Schofield said, "Breathe all the way down, and then at the last second, take a deep breath." That was what they told you when you jumped out of a moving helicopter into water. Schofield figured the same principle applied here.

Schofield looked up again at the SAS commando at the top of the cliff. He was about to cut the rope.

"All right," Schofield said. "Let's cut the crap. I'll be damned if I'm gonna wait for you to cut my rope. Renshaw, are you ready? We're going."

And at that moment, Schofield pressed down twice on the trigger of the Maghook.

At the top of the cliff the claws of the grappling hook responded immediately and collapsed inward, and in doing so they lost their purchase on the snow. The hook slithered out over the edge of the cliff, past the bewildered SAS commando, and Schofield, Renshaw, and the Maghook fell? together?down the cliff face and into the crashing waves of the Southern Ocean below.

In the silence of the ice cavern, Libby Gant just stared at the semi-eaten bodies that lay draped over the rocks in front of her.

Since they had arrived in the cavern about forty minutes ago, the others?Montana, Santa Cruz, and Sarah Hensleigh? had barely even looked at the bodies. They were all totally engrossed in the big black spacecraft on the other side of the underground cavern. They walked around it, under it, peered at its black metal wings, tried to look in through the smoked-glass canopy of its cockpit.

After Schofield had informed Gant of the impending arrival of the British troops and his own plan to flee, she had set up two MP-5s on tripods, facing the pool at the end of the cavern. If the SAS tried to enter the cavern, she would pick them off one by one as they broke the surface.

That had been half an hour ago.

Even if the SAS had arrived at Wilkes Ice Station by now, it would still take them another hour to lower someone down in the diving bell and a further hour to swim up the underwater ice tunnel to the cavern.

It was a waiting game now.

After Gant had set up the tripods, Montana and Sarah Hensleigh had gone back to examining the spacecraft. Santa Cruz had stayed with Gant a while longer, but soon he, too, went back over to look at the fantastic black ship.

Gant stayed with the guns.

As she sat there on the cold, icy floor of the cavern, she gazed at the dismembered bodies on the far side of the pool.

The amount of damage that had been done to the bodies had stunned her. Heads and limbs missing, whole sections of flesh literally chewed to the bone, the whole scene itself soaked in blood.

What on earth could have done it? Gant thought.

As she thought about the bodies, her gaze wandered over to the pool. She saw the round holes in the ice walls above it?the enormous ten-foot holes. They were identical to the ones she had seen in the underwater ice tunnel on the way here.

Gant had a strange feeling about those holes, about the bodies, about the cave itself. It was almost as if the cave were some kind of?

"This is absolutely incredible," Sarah Hensleigh said as she came over and stood beside Gant. Hensleigh hurriedly brushed a strand of long dark hair from her face. She was practically brimming with excitement at the discovery of the spaceship.

"It has no markings on it whatsoever," she said. "The whole ship is completely and utterly black."

Gant didn't care much for Sarah Hensleigh right now. In fact, she didn't care much for the spaceship either.

In fact, the more she thought about it?about the spaceship and the cavern and the half-eaten bodies and the SAS up in the station?Gant couldn't help but think that there was no way in the world that she would ever be leaving Wilkes Ice Station alive.

The SAS team's entry into Wilkes Ice Station was fast and fluid?professional.

Black-clad men charged into the station with their guns up. They fanned out quickly, moved in pairs. They opened every door, checked every room.

"A-deck, clear!" one voice yelled.

"B-deck, clear!" another voice yelled.

Trevor Barnaby strode out onto the A-deck catwalk and surveyed the abandoned station like a newly crowned king looking out over his domain. He looked down upon the station with a cold, even gaze. A thin smile creased his face.

The SAS troops made their way down to E-deck, where they found Snake and the two French scientists handcuffed to tihe pole. Two SAS commandos covered them while more black-clad troops poured down the rung-ladders and disappeared inside the tunnels of E-deck.

Four SAS commandos raced into the south tunnel. Two took the doors to the left. Two took the doors to the right

The two on the right came to the first door, kicked it in, looked inside.

A storeroom. Battered wooden shelves. Some scuba-diving tanks on the floor.

But empty.

They moved down the corridor, guns up. It was then that one of them saw the dumbwaiter, saw the two stainless-steel doors glistening in the cold white light of the tunnel.

With a short whistle, the lead SAS man caught the attention of the other two commandos in the tunnel. He pointed with two fingers at the dumbwaiter. The other two men understood instantly. They positioned themselves on either side of the dumbwaiter while the leader and the fourth SAS commando aimed their guns at the stainless-steel doors.

The leader nodded quickly and the two men on either side of the dumbwaiter instantly yanked it open, and the leader let rip with a sudden burst of gunfire.

The bare walls of the empty dumbwaiter were ripped to shreds.

Mother squeezed her eyes shut as the SAS commando's gunfire roared loudly less than a foot above her head.

She was sitting in complete darkness, at the base of the dumbwaiter's miniature elevator shaft, curled up in a tight ball, in the crawl space underneath the dumbwaiter.

The dumbwaiter shuddered and shook under the weight of the SAS commando's gunfire. Its walls blew out, and jagged, splintered holes appeared all over it. Dust and wood shavings showered down on Mother, but she just kept her eyes firmly shut.

And then at that moment, as the gunfire echoed loudly in her ears, a jarring thought hit Mother.

They could fire their guns safely inside the station again....

The amount of flammable gas in the station's atmosphere must have dissipated?

And then abruptly the gunfire ceased and the doors of the dumbwaiter closed and all of a sudden there was silence again, and for the first time in three whole minutes Mother let out a breath.

Schofield and Renshaw plummeted down the face of the cliff and plunged into the ocean.

The cold hit them like an anvil, but Schofield didn't care. His adrenaline was pumping and his body heat was already high. Most experts would give you about eight minutes to live in the freezing Antarctic waters. But with his thermal wet suit on and his adrenaline pumping, Schofield gave himself at least thirty.

He swam upward, searching for air, and then suddenly he broke the surface and the first thing he saw was the largest wave he had ever seen in his life bearing down upon him. The wave crashed down against him and drove him? slammed him?back against the base of the ice cliff.

The impact knocked the wind out of him, and his lungs clawed for air.

Suddenly the wave subsided and Schofield felt himself get sucked down into a trough between two waves. He let himself float in the water for a few seconds while he got his breath and his bearings.

The sea around him was absolutely mountainous. Forty-foot waves surrounded him. A mammoth wave smashed into the cliffs twenty yards to his right. Icebergs?some as tall and as wide as New York skyscrapers, others as long and flat as football fields?hovered a hundred yards off the coast, silent sentries guarding the ice cliffs.

Abruptly Renshaw burst up out of the water right next to Schofield. The short scientist immediately began gulping in air in hoarse, heaving breaths. For an instant, Schofield worried about how Renshaw would cope with the extreme cold of the water, but then he remembered Renshaw's Neoprene bodysuit. Hell, Renshaw was probably warmer than he was.

At that moment Schofield saw another towering wave coming toward them.

"Go under!" he yelled.

Schofield took a deep breath and dived, and suddenly the world went eerily silent.

He swam downward, saw Renshaw swimming alongside him, hovering in the water.

And then he saw an explosion of white foam fan out above their heads as the wave on the surface crashed with all its might against the cliff.

Schofield and Renshaw surfaced again.

As he bobbed and swayed in the water, Schofield saw the entire side door of a hovercraft float past him in the water.

"We have to get farther out," he said. "If we stay here any longer, we're gonna get pulverized against these cliffs."

"Where to?" Renshaw said.

"OK," Schofield said. "See that iceberg out there?" He pointed at a large berg that looked like a grand piano on its side, about two hundred yards out from the cliffs.

"I see it."

"That's where we're going," Schofield said.

"All right."

"OK, then. On three. One. Two. Three."

On three, both men drew deep breaths and went under. They kicked off the cliff and breaststroked their way through the clear Antarctic water. Explosions of white foam flared out above their heads as they made their way through the water.

Ten yards. Twenty.

Renshaw ran out of breath, surfaced, took a quick gulp of air, and then went under again. Schofield did the same, clenching his teeth as he, too, ducked beneath the waves again. His newly broken rib burned with pain.

Fifty yards out and the two men broke the surface again. They were beyond the breaking waves now, so they stretched out into freestyle, powering over the vertiginous peaks of the towering forty-foot waves.

At last, they came to the base of the iceberg. It loomed above them, a wall of white, sheer in some places, beautifully curved and grooved in others. Magnificent vaulted tunnels disappeared into the virgin ice.

The big berg leveled off at one point, descending to the ocean, where it formed a kind of ledge. Schofield and Renshaw made for the ledge.

When they got there, they saw that the ledge was actually poised about three feet above the water.

"Push off my shoulder," Schofield said.

Renshaw obeyed and quickly hoisted his left foot onto Schofield's shoulder and pushed off it.

The little man's hands reached up and clasped the ice ledge, and he awkwardly hauled himself up onto it. Then he lay flat on the edge of the ledge and reached back down for Schofield.

Schofield reached up and Renshaw began to haul him up out of the water. Schofield was almost on the ledge when suddenly Renshaw's wet hands slipped off his wrist and Schofield fell clumsily back down into the water.

Schofield plunged underwater.

Silence. Total silence. Like the womb.

The blasting explosions of the waves crashing against the ice cliffs no longer assaulted his ears.

The massive white underbelly of the iceberg filled his vision. It stretched down and down until it disappeared into the cloudy depths of the ocean.

And then suddenly Schofield heard a sound and he snapped upright in the water. The sound traveled well in the water and he heard it clearly.

Vmmmmmm.

It was a low, droning, humming sound.

Vmmmmmm.

Schofield frowned. It sounded almost... mechanical. Like a motorized door opening somewhere. Somewhere close.

Somewhere... behind him.

Schofield spun around instantly.

And then he saw it.

It was so huge?so monstrously huge?that the mere sight of it sent his heart into overdrive.

It was just hovering there in the water.

Silent. Huge.

Looming over Schofield as he hovered in the water alongside the iceberg.

It must have been at least a hundred meters long, its hull black and round. Schofield saw the two horizontal stabilizing fins jutting out from either side of the conning tower, saw the cylindrical snub nose of the bow, and suddenly his heart was pumping very loudly inside his head.

Schofield couldn't believe his eyes.

He was looking at a submarine.

Schofield burst up out of the water.

"Are you all right?" Renshaw asked from up on the ledge.

"Not anymore," Schofield said before he quickly took another breath and submerged again.

The world was silent again.

Schofield swam a little deeper and stared at the massive submarine in awe. It was about thirty yards away from him, but he could see it clearly. The enormous submarine just sat there?completely submerged?hovering in the underwater silence like an enormous, patient leviathan.

Schofield looked it over, looked for the signature features.

He saw the narrow conning tower, saw the four torpedo ports on the bow. One of the torpedo ports, he saw, was in the process of opening. Vmmmmm.

And then he saw the colors painted on the forward left-hand side of the bow?saw the three vertical shafts of color: blue-white-red.

He was looking at the French flag.

Renshaw watched as Schofield burst up out of the water again.

"What are you doing down there?" he asked.

Schofield ignored him. Instead, he thrust his left arm out of the water and examined his watch.

The stopwatch read:

2:57:59

2:58:00

2:58:01

"Oh, Jesus," he said. "Oh, Jesus."

In the bedlam of the hovercraft chase, he had completely forgotten about the French warship hovering off the coast of Antarctica, waiting to fire its missiles at Wilkes, Ice Station. Its code name, he recalled, was Shark.

It was only now, though, that Schofield realized he had made a mistake. He had jumped to the wrong conclusion. Shark wasn't a warship at all.

It was a submarine.

It was this submarine.

"Quickly," Schofield said to Renshaw. "Get me out"

Renshaw thrust his hand down and Schofield clasped it firmly. Renshaw hauled him up as quickly as he could. When he was high enough, Schofield grabbed hold of the ice ledge and hauled himself up onto it.

Renshaw had half-expected Schofield to drop down onto the ice and catch his breath as he himself had done, but Schofield was up on his feet in an instant.

In fact, no sooner was he up on the ledge than he was running?no, sprinting?out across the flat expanse of the iceberg.

Renshaw gave chase. He saw Schofield hurdle an ice mound as he bounded for the edge of the iceberg about thirty meters away. There was a slight incline that Schofield ran up, toward the edge of the iceberg. On the other side of the incline, Renshaw saw, was a sheer ten-meter drop down to the water below.

As he ran, Schofield checked his stopwatch. The seconds continued to tick upward, toward the three-hour mark.

Toward firing time.

2:58:31

2:58:32

2:58:33

Schofield was thinking as he ran.

It's going to destroy the station. Destroy the station.

Going to kill my Marines. Kill the little girl...

Got to stop it.

But how? How does a man destroy a submarine?

And then suddenly he remembered something.

He unshouldered his Maghook as he ran. Then he quickly hit the button marked M and saw the red light on the Maghook's magnetically charged head come to life.

Then he pulled a silver canister from his thigh pocket. It was the foot-long silver canister with the green band painted around it that he had found inside the British hovercraft.

The Tritonal 80/20 high-powered explosive charge.

Schofield looked at the silver-and-green canister as he ran. It had a stainless-steel pneumatic lid on it. He turned the lid and heard a soft hiss! The lid popped open and he saw a familiar digital timing display next to an arm-disarm switch. Since it was a demolition device, a Tritonal charge could be disarmed at any time.

Twenty seconds, he thought. Just enough time to get clear.

He set the timer on the Tritonal charge for twenty seconds and then held the silver canister out above the bulbous magnetic head of his Maghook. Immediately the steel cylinder thunked down hard against the powerful magnet and stuck to it, caught in its vicelike magnetic grip.

Schofield was still running hard, sprinting across the rugged landscape of the iceberg.

Then he came to the edge of the iceberg, and without so much as a second thought, he hit it at full speed and leaped off it, out into the air.

Schofield flew through the air in a long, wide arc?hung there for a full three seconds?before he splashed down hard, feetfirst, into the freezing-cold water of the Southern Ocean one more time.

Bubbles flew up all around him, and for a moment Schofield saw nothing. And then suddenly the bubbles cleared and he found himself hovering in the water right in front of the gargantuan steel nose of the French submarine.

Schofield checked his watch.

2:58:59

2:59:00

2:59:01

One minute to go.

The outer doors of the torpedo tube were fully open now. Schofield swam toward it The torpedo tube opened wide in front of him, ten yards away.

This had better work, Schofield thought as he raised his Maghook, with the Tritonal charge attached to its head. He pressed the arm-disarm switch on the Tritonal charge.

Twenty seconds.

Schofield fired the Maghook.

The Maghook shot out from its launcher, leaving a thin trail of white bubbles in its wake. It sliced through the water toward the open torpedo port...

... and hit the steel hull of the submarine just below the torpedo port with a loud metallic clunk! The Maghook?with the live Tritonal charge attached to it?bounced off the thick steel hull of the sub and began to sink limply into the water.

Schofield couldn't believe it.

He'd missed!

Shit! his mind screamed. And then suddenly another thought hit him.

The people inside the sub would have heard it. Must have heard it.

Schofield quickly hit the black button on his grip that reeled the Maghook in, hoped to hell that it got back to him before twenty seconds expired.

Have to get another shot.

Have got to get another shot.

The Maghook began to reel itself in.

And then suddenly Schofield heard another noise.

Vmmmmmm.

Off to his left, on the other side of the bow, one of the other torpedo doors was opening!

This door was smaller than the one Schofield had tried to shoot his Maghook into.

Smaller torpedoes, Schofield thought. Ones that are designed to kill other subs, not whole ice stations.

And then with a sudden whoooosh! a compact white torpedo whizzed out from the newly-opened torpedo port and rolled through the water toward Schofield.

Schofield couldn't believe it.

They had fired a torpedo at him!

The Maghook returned to its launcher and Schofield quickly pressed the arm-disarm switch on the Tritonal charge?with four seconds to spare?just as the torpedo shot past his waist, its wash knocking him over in the water.

Schofield breathed with relief. He was too close. The torpedo hadn't had time to get a lock on him.

It was then that the torpedo slammed into the iceberg behind him and detonated hard.

Renshaw was standing on the edge of the iceberg, looking down into the water, when the torpedo hit, about twenty yards away.

In an instant, a whole segment of the iceberg exploded in a cloud of white and just fell away into the ocean like a landslide, cut clean from the rest of the massive berg.

"Yikes," Renshaw breathed in awe.

And then suddenly he saw Schofield surface about twenty yards out, saw him gulp in a lungful of air, and then he saw the lieutenant go under again.

With the sound of the torpedo's explosion still reverberating through the water all around him, and a large slice of the iceberg plunging into the water behind him, Schofield aimed his Maghook at the torpedo port a second time.

2:59:37

2:59:38

2:59:39

Once again, he pressed the arm switch on the Tritonal charge?twenty seconds?and fired.

The Maghook shot through the water ...

... hung there for a long time ...

... and then disappeared inside the torpedo port.

Yes!

Schofield quickly pressed the button marked "m" on his grip, and inside the torpedo tube the magnetic head of the Maghook responded immediately by releasing its grip on the silver-and-green Tritonal charge.

Then Schofield reeled in the Maghook, leaving the Tritonal charge inside the torpedo tube. And then he swam. Swam for all he was worth.

Inside the torpedo room of the French submarine, the world was deathly silent. A young Ensign called the countdown.

"Vingt secondes de premier lancer," he said. Twenty seconds to primary launch. Twenty seconds to the launch of the eraser, a nuclear-tipped Neptune-class torpedo.

"Dix-neuf... dix-huit... dix-sept..."

From the iceberg Renshaw saw Schofield break the surface, saw him swimming frantically through the water, Maghook in hand.

The French Ensign's count continued. "Dix ... neuf... huit... sept..."

Schofield was swimming hard, trying to put as much distance between himself and the sub as he could, because if he was too close when the Tritonal charge went off, the implosion would suck him right in. He'd been ten yards away when he'd fired the Tritonal charge. Now he was twenty yards away. He figured twenty-five and he would be OK.

Renshaw was yelling at him, "What the hell is happening!"

"Get away from the edge!" Schofield yelled as he swam. "Move!"

"Cinq ... quatre ... trois ..."

The French Ensign's count never got beyond "three." Because at that moment?at that terrible, stunning moment?the Tritonal charge inside the torpedo tube suddenly went off.

From where Renshaw stood, the underwater explosion was absolutely spectacular, and all the more so because it was unexpected.

It was instantaneous. The dark shadow under the surface that was the French submarine spontaneously erupted into an enormous cloud of white. An immense spray of water fifty feet high and two hundred feet long shot up out of the water and fell slowly back down to earth.

From water level, Schofield saw a horde of monstrous blue bubbles suddenly begin to billow out from a gaping hole in the bow of the submarine, like tentacles reaching out for him. And then just as suddenly they began to retrace their steps and, with terrifying force, the bubbles shot back in toward the submarine and Schofield suddenly felt himself getting sucked back toward the sub.

Implosion.

At that moment, the massive French sub collapsed in on itself like a great big aluminium can and the suction from the implosion ceased. Schofield felt the water's grip on him relax, and he let himself float to the surface. The submarine was gone.

A few minutes later, Renshaw pulled him out of the water and dragged him up onto the iceberg.

Schofield dropped down onto the ice?breathing hard, soaking wet, freezing cold. He was gasping for breath, his body overwhelmed with fatigue, and at that moment?with the French submarine destroyed and himself and Renshaw hopelessly marooned on an iceberg?the only thing in the world that Shane Schofield wanted to do was sleep.

In the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., the NATO conference reconvened.

George Holmes, the U.S. representative, leaned back in his chair as he watched Pierre Dufresne, the head of the French delegation, stand to speak.

"My fellow delegates, ladies and gentlemen," Dufresne began, "the Republic of France would like to express its total aid unconditional support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, this fine organization of nations that has served the West so well for almost fifty years ..."

The speech dragged on, extolling the virtues of NATO and fiance's undying loyalty to it. George Holmes shook his head. All morning, the French delegation had been calling recesses, stalling the conference, and now, all of a sudden, they were pledging their undying loyalty to the organization. It didn't make sense.

Dufresne, finished speaking, sat down. Holmes was about to turn and say something to Phil Munro when suddenly the British delegate to the conference?a well-groomed statesman named Richard Royce?pushed his chair back and stood up. "Ladies and gentlemen," Royce said in a very articulate London accent, "if I may beg your indulgence, the British delegation requests a recess."

At that very same moment, directly across the road from the Capitol Building and the NATO conference, Alison Cameron was entering the atrium of the Library of Congress. Comprised of three buildings, the Library of Congress is the largest library in the world. In fact, its goal upon its founding was to be the single largest repository of knowledge in the world. That is what it is.

Which was why Alison was not surprised to learn that the object of her search?the mysterious 1978 "Preliminary Survey" by C. M. Waitzkin?was to be found at the Library of Congress. If any library was going to have it, the Library of Congress would be it.

Alison waited at the Inquiries Desk as one of the library's attendants went down to the stack to get the survey for her. The Library of Congress was a closed-stack library, which meant that the staff got the books for you. It was also a non-circulating library, which meant that you were not allowed to take books out of the building.

The attendant was taking a while, so Alison began to browse through another book she had bought on the way to the library.

She looked at the cover. It read:

THE ICE CRUSADE:

REFLECTIONS ON A YEAR SPENT IN

ANTARCTICA

DR. BRIAN HENSLEIGH

Professor in Geophysics, Harvard University

Alison scanned the introduction.

Brian Hensleigh, it appeared, was the head of Harvard University's geophysics faculty. He was into ice core research?a study that involved extracting cylindrical ice cores from the continental ice shelves in Antarctica and then examining the air that had been trapped inside those ice cores thousands of years before.

Apparently, so the book said, ice core research could be used to explain global warming, the greenhouse effect, and the depletion of the ozone layer.

In any case, it appeared that for the whole of 1994 this Hensleigh fellow had worked at a remote research station in Antarctica collecting ice core samples.

The name of that research station was Wilkes Ice Station.

And its location: latitude minus 66.5 degrees, longitude 115 degrees, 20 minutes, and 12 seconds east.

At that moment, the attendant returned and Alison looked up from the book.

"It's not there," the attendant said, shaking her head.

"What?"

"I checked it three times," the attendant said. "It's not on the shelf. 'Preliminary Survey' by C. M. Waitzkin, 1978. It's not there."

Alison frowned. This was unexpected.

The attendant?her name badge said her name was Cindy? shrugged helplessly. "I don't understand it. It's just... gone."

Alison felt a sudden rush of excitement as something occurred to her.

"If it's not there, wouldn't that mean that someone is reading it right now?" she asked.

Cindy shook her head. "No, the computer says that the last time it was loaned out to anybody was in November 1979."

"November 1979," Alison said.

"Yeah, spooky, huh?" Cindy looked about twenty years old, a college student no doubt. "I got the name of the borrower if you're interested. Here." She handed Alison a slip of paper.

It was a photocopy of a Request Form, similar to the one Alison herself had filled out to get the survey.

The Library of Congress obviously kept every form on file?probably for exactly this situation.

On the Request Form, in the box marked "Name of Person Requesting Item," was a name:

O. NIEMEYER

"It happens," Cindy the attendant was saying. "This Niemeyer guy probably liked it so much that he just walked out with it. We didn't have magnetic tags on our books back then, so he probably just slipped out past the guards."

Alison ignored her.

She just stood there, entranced by the Request Form in her hand, by this twenty-year-old piece of evidence that had been sitting in a filing cabinet somewhere in the depths of the Library of Congress, waiting for this day.

Alison's eyes glowed as they stared at the words:

O. NIEMEYER

Brigadier General Trevor Barnaby walked across the pool deck of Wilkes Ice Station. He'd been in control of Wilkes Ice Station for a little over an hour now, and he was feeling confident.

Only twenty minutes ago he had sent a team of fully armed divers down in the station's diving bell. But it would be at least ninety minutes before they reached the underground cave. Indeed, the diving bell's cable was still plunging into the pool at the base of the station right now.

Barnaby himself was dressed in a black thermal wet suit. He planned to go down to the underground cave with the second team?to see for himself what was really down there.

"Well now," he said as he saw Snake and the two French scientists handcuffed to the pole. "What have we here? Why, if it isn't Sergeant Kaplan." By the look on his face, Snake was obviously surprised that Barnaby knew who he was.

"Gunnery Sergeant Scott Michael Kaplan," Barnaby said. "Born: Dallas, 1953; enlisted in the United States Marine Corps at age eighteen in 1971; small arms expert; hand-to-hand combat expert; sniper. And as of 1992, under suspicion by British Intelligence as a member of the American spy agency known as the Intelligence Convergence Group.

"I'm sorry, what is it that they call you? Snake, isn't it. Tell me, Snake, is this a common occurrence for you? Does your commanding officer often chain you to poles, leaving you at the mercy of the incoming enemy?"

Snake didn't say anything.

Barnaby said, "I would hardly have thought that Shane Schofield would be the kind of master to chain up his loyal squad members. Which means there must be some other reason why he chained you up, n'est-ce pas?" Barnaby smiled. "Now, whatever could that reason be?"

Snake still said nothing. Every now and then, his eyes would steal a look at the diving bell's cable as it plunged into the pool behind Barnaby.

Barnaby turned his attention to the two French scientists. "And who might you be?" he asked.

Luc Champion blurted out indignantly, "We are French scientists from the research station Dumont d'Urville. We have been detained here against our will by American forces. We demand that we be released in accordance with international?"

"Mr. Nero," Barnaby said flatly.

A mountain of a man stepped out from behind Barnaby and stood next to him. He was at least six-foot-five, with broad shoulders and impassive eyes. He had a scar that ran down from the corner of his mouth to his chin.

Barnaby said, "Mr. Nero, if you please."

The big man named Nero calinly raised his pistol and fired at Champion from point-blank range.

Champion's head exploded. Blood and brains instantly splattered against the side of Snake's face.

Henri Rae, the second French scientist, began to whimper.

Barnaby turned to face him. "Are you French, too?"

Rae began to sob.

Barnaby said, "Mr. Nero."

Rae saw it coming and he screamed, "No!" just as Nero raised his gun again and a moment later the other side of Snake's face was splattered all over with blood.

In the pitch-darkness of the crawl space at the base of the elevator shaft, Mother snapped up at the sound of the gunshots.

Damn it, she thought. She must have blacked out again.

Got to stay awake, she thought.

Got to stay awake....

Mother stared at the clear plastic fluid bag she had brought with her. It was connected by a tube to an intravenous drip that was stuck into her arm.

The fluid bag was now empty.

Had been for the last twenty minutes.

Mother began to shiver. She felt cold, weak. Her eyelids began to close.

She bit her tongue, trying to force her eyes open with the jolt of pain.

It worked for the first few times. And then it didn't.

Alone at the base of the elevator shaft, Mother lapsed into unconsciousness.

Out on E-deck, Trevor Barnaby stepped forward, his eyes narrowing. "Sergeant Kaplan. Snake. You've been a naughty boy, haven't you?"

Snake said nothing.

"Are you ICG, Snake? A turncoat? A traitor to your own unit? I bet the Scarecrow wasn't too pleased when he found out. Is that why he chained you to a pole and left you here for me?"

Snake swallowed.

Barnaby stared at him coldly. "It's what I would have done."

At that moment, a young SAS corporal came up behind Barnaby. "Sir."

"Yes, Corporal."

"Sir, the charges are being set around the perimeter."

"At what range?"

"Five hundred yards, sir. In an arc, like you ordered."

"Good," Barnaby said. Soon after he had arrived at Wilkes, Barnaby had ordered that eighteen Tritonal charges be placed in a semicircular arc on the landward side of the station. They were to have a special purpose. A very special purpose.

Barnaby said, "Corporal, how long do you expect the laying of the charges to take?"

"Allowing for the drilling, sir, I'd say another hour."

"Fine," Barnaby said. "When they're all set, bring me the detonation unit."

"Yes, sir," the corporal said "Oh, and, sir, there's one other thing."

"Yes."

"Sir, the prisoners who fell from the American hovercraft have just arrived. What should we do with them?"

Barnaby had already been told via radio of the soldier and the little girl who had fallen from one of the escaping hovercrafts and been picked up by his men.

"Take the girl to her quarters. Keep her there," Barnaby said. "Bring the Marine to me."

Libby Gant was standing in a dark corner of the underground cavern, alone. The beam of her flashlight illuminated a small horizontal fissure in the ice wall.

The fissure was at ground level, at the point where the ice wall met the floor. It was about two feet high and stretched horizontally for about six feet.

Gant crouched on her hands and knees and peered down into the horizontal fissure. She saw nothing but darkness. There did, however, appear to be empty space in there?

"Hey!"

Gant turned.

She saw Sarah Hensleigh standing underneath the spacecraft at the other end of the cavern, over by the pool, waving her arms.

"Hey!" Hensleigh called excitedly. "Come and have a look at this."

Gant walked over to the big black spaceship. Montana was already there when she arrived. Santa Cruz was standing guard over by the pool.

"What do you think of that?" Hensleigh pointed at something on the underbelly of the ship.

Gant saw it, frowned. It looked like a keypad of some sort.

Twelve buttons, arranged in three columns, four buttons per column, with what looked like a rectangular screen at the top of it.

But there was something very odd about this "keypad."

There were no symbols on any of the keys.

Like the rest of the ship, the keypad was completely and utterly black?black buttons on a black background.

And then Gant saw that there was one button that did have markings on it. The second button in the middle column had a small red circle printed on it.

"What do you think it is?" Montana asked.

"Who knows," Hensleigh said.

"It could be a way to open it up," Gant suggested.

Hensleigh snorted. "Not likely. Do you know any aliens that use keypads?"

"I don't know any aliens." Gant said. "Do you?"

Hensleigh ignored her. "There's no telling what it is," she said. "It could be an ignition key, or a weapons system..."

"Or a self-destruct mechanism," Gant said dryly.

"I say we just press it and find out," Hensleigh said.

"But which button do we press?" Montana said.

"The one with the circle on it, I suppose."

Montana pursed his lips in thought. He was the senior man down here. It was his call. He looked to Gant.

Gant shook her head. "We're not here to see what it does. We're just here to hold it until the cavalry arrives."

Montana looked to Santa Cruz, who had come over from the pool to look.

"Press it," Cruz said. "If I'm gonna buy it for this fuckin' thing, I wanna see what's inside it."

Montana turned back to face Sarah Hensleigh. She nodded. "Let's see what it does."

At last, Montana said, "OK. Press it."

Sarah Hensleigh nodded and took a deep breath. Then she stretched out with her hand and pressed the button with the red circle on it.

At first, nothing happened.

Sarah Hensleigh lifted her finger off the keypad and looked up at the spaceship above her, as if she expected it to take off or something.

Suddenly there came a soft harmonic tone, and the screen above the keypad began to glow.

And then another second later, a sequence of symbols appeared across the screen.

"Oh, shit" Montana said.

"What the ..." Hensleigh said.

The screen read:

"Numbers?" Montana said.

"English?" Sarah Hensleigh said. "What the hell is this thing?"

For her part, Gant just shook her head. And as she walked away from the "spaceship" she began to laugh softly.

Schofield and Renshaw lay flat on their backs of the cold hard surface of the iceberg, listening to the rhythmic sound of the waves crashing against the ice cliffs two hundred yards away.

They just lay there for a while, catching their breath.

After a few minutes, Schofield reached around with his hand until he found a small black unit attached to his waist. He pressed a button on the unit.

Beep!

"What are you doing?" Renshaw said, not looking up.

"Initializing my GPS unit," Schofield said, still lying on his back. "It's a satellite location system that uses the Navistar Global Positioning System. Every Marine has one, for use in emergencies. You know, so people can find us if we end up on a life raft out in the middle of the ocean. I figured this wasn't too much different," he sighed. "In a dark room on a somewhere, a flashing red dot just appeared on someone's screen."

"Does that mean they're gonna come for us?" Renshaw asked.

"We'll be long dead by the time anybody gets here. But they'll at least be able to find our bodies."

Renshaw said, "Oh, great. It's nice to see my tax dollars at work. You guys build a satellite location system so that they can find my body. Wow."

Schofield turned to look at Renshaw. "At least I can leave a note attached to our bodies telling whoever finds us exactly what happened at the station. At least then they'll know the truth. About the French, about Barnaby."

Renshaw said, "Well, that makes me feel better."

Schofield propped himself up on his elbow and looked out toward the cliffs. He saw the mountainous waves of the Southern Ocean smash against them and explode in spectacular showers of white.

Then, for the first time, he took in the iceberg around him.

It was big. In fact, it was so big it didn't even rock in the heavy seas. Above the surface, the whole thing must have been at least a mile long. Schofield couldn't even begin to guess how large it was under the surface.

It was roughly rectangular in shape, with an enormous white peak at one end. The rest of the iceberg was uneven and cratered. It looked to Schofield like a ghostly white moonscape.

He stood up.

"Where are you going?" Renshaw said, not getting up. "You gonna walk home?"

"We should keep moving," Schofield said. "Keep warm for as long as we can and, while we're at it, see if there's some way we can get back to the coast."

Renshaw shook his head and reluctantly got to his feet and followed Schofield out across the uneven surface of the iceberg.

They trudged for almost twenty minutes before they realized they were going in the wrong direction.

The iceberg stopped abruptly and they saw nothing but sea stretching away to the west. The nearest iceberg in that direction was three miles away. Schofield had hoped they might be able to "iceberg-hop" back to the coast. It wouldn't happen in this direction.

They headed back the way they had come.

They made very slow going. Icicles began to form around Renshaw's eyebrows and lips.

"You know anything about icebergs?" Schofield asked as they walked.

"A little."

"Educate me."

Renshaw said, "I read in a magazine once that the latest trend among assholes with too much money is 'iceberg climbing.' Apparently it's quite popular among mountaineer types. The only problem is that eventually your mountain melts."

"I was thinking about something a little more scientific," Schofield said. "Like, do they ever float back in toward the coast?"

"No," Renshaw said. "Ice in Antarctica moves from the middle out. Not the other way round. Icebergs like this one break off from coastal ice shelves. That's why the cliffs are sheer. The ice overhanging the ocean gets too heavy and it just breaks off, becoming"?Renshaw waved his hand at the iceberg around them?"an iceberg."

"Uh-huh," Schofield said as he trudged across the ice.

"You get some big ones, though. Really big ones. Icebergs bigger than whole countries. I mean, hell, take this baby. Look how big she is. Most large icebergs live for about ten or twelve years before they ultimately melt and die. But given the right weather conditions?and if the iceberg were big enough to begin with?an iceberg like this could float around the Antarctic for up to thirty years."

"Great," Schofield said dryly.

They came to the spot where Renshaw had hauled Schofield out of the water after Schofield had destroyed the French submarine.

"Nice," Renshaw said. "Forty minutes of walking and we're back where we started."

They started up a small incline and came to the spot where the French submarine's torpedo had hit the iceberg.

It looked like a giant had taken a huge bite out of the side of the iceberg.

The large landslide of ice that had just fallen away under the weight of the explosion had left a huge semicircular hole in the side of the berg. Sheer vertical walls stretched down to the water ten meters below.

Schofield looked down into the hole, saw the calm water lapping up against the edge of the enormous iceberg.

"We're gonna die out here, aren't we?" Renshaw said from behind him.

"I'm not."

"You're not?"

"That's my station and I'm gonna get it back."

"Uh-huh." Renshaw looked out to sea. "And do you have any idea as to exactly how you're gonna do that?"

Schofield didn't answer him.

Renshaw turned around. "I said, how in God's name do you plan to get your station back when we're stuck out here!"

But Schofield wasn't listening.

He was crouched down on his haunches, looking down into the semicircular hole the torpedo had carved into the iceberg.

Renshaw came over and stood behind him.

"What are you looking at?"

"Salvation," Schofield said. "Maybe."

Renshaw followed Schofield's gaze down into the semicircular hole in the iceberg and saw it immediately.

There, embedded in the ice a couple of meters down the sheer, vertical cliff face, Renshaw saw the distinctive square outline of a frozen glass window.

Schofield tied their two parkas together and, using the two jackets as a rope, got Renshaw to lower him down to the window set into the ice cliff.

Schofield hung high above the water, in front of the frozen glass window. He looked at it closely.

It was definitely man-made.

And old, too. The wooden panes of the window were weathered and scarred, bleached to a pale gray. Schofield wondered how long the window?and whatever structure it was attached to?had been buried inside this massive iceberg.

The way he figured it, the blast from the submarine's torpedo must have dislodged the ten meters or so of ice in from of the window, exposing it. The window and whatever it was attached to, had been buried deep within the iceberg.

Schofield took a deep breath. Then he kicked hard, shattering the window.

He saw darkness beyond the now-open window, a small cave of some sort.

He pulled a flashlight from his hip pocket and, with a final look up at Renshaw, swung himself in through the window and into the belly of the iceberg.

The first thing Schofield saw through the beam of his flashlight was the upside-down words:

HAPPY NEW YEAR 1969!

WELCOME TO LITTLE AMERICA IV!

The words were written on a banner of some sort. It hung limply:?upside down?across the cave in which Schofield now stood.

Only it wasn't a cave.

It was a room of some sort?a small wooden-walled room, completely buried within the ice.

And everything was upside down. The whole room was inverted.

It was a strange sensation, everything being upside-down. It took Schofield a second to realize that he was actually standing on the ceiling of the underground room.

He looked off to his right. There seemed to be several other rooms branching off from this one?

"Hello down there!" Renshaw's voice sailed in from outside.

Schofield poked his head out through the window in the ice cliff.

"Hey, what's happening? I'm freezing my nuts off out here," Renshaw said.

"Have you ever heard of Little America IV?" Schofield asked.

"Yeah," Renshaw said. "It was one of our research stations back in the sixties. Floated out to sea in '69 when the Ross Ice Shelf calved an iceberg nine thousand square kilometers big. The Navy looked for it for three months, but they never found it."

"Well, guess what," Schofield said. "We just did."

Cloaked in three thick woolen blankets, James Renshaw sat down on the floor of the main room of Little America IV. He rubbed his hands together vigorously, blew on them with his warm breath, while Schofield?still dressed in his waterlogged fatigues?rummaged through the other rooms of the darkened inverted station. Neither man dared to eat any of the thirty-year-old canned food that lay strewn about the floor.

"As I remember it, Little America IV was kind of like Wilkes," Renshaw said. "It was a resource exploration station, built into the coastal ice shelf. They were after offshore oil deposits buried in the continental shelf. They used to lower collectors all the way to the bottom to see if the soil down there contained?"

"Why is everything upside-down?" Schofield asked from the next room.

"That's easy. When this iceberg calved, it must have flipped over."

"The iceberg flipped over?"

"It's been known to happen," Renshaw said. "And if you think about it, it makes sense. An iceberg is top-heavy when it breaks off the mainland, because all the ice that's been living underwater has been slowly eroded over the years by the warmer seawater. So unless your iceberg is perfectly balanced when it breaks free from the mainland, the whole thing tips over."

In the next room, Schofield was negotiating his way through piles of rusty overturned junk. He stepped around a large, cylindrical cable spooler that lay awkwardly on its side. Then he saw something.

"How long did you say the Navy looked for this station?" Schofield asked.

"About three months."

"Was that a long time to look for a lost station?"

In the main room, Renshaw shrugged. "It was longer than usual. Why?"

Schofield came back in through the doorway. He was carrying some metal objects in his hands.

"I think our boys were doing some things down here that they weren't supposed to," Schofield said, smiling.

He held up a piece of white cord. It looked to Renshaw like string that had been covered over with white powder.

"Detonator cord," Schofield said as he tied the white powdery cord in a loop around his wrist. "It's used as a fuse for close-quarter explosives. That powdery stuff you see on it, that's magnesium-sulfide. Magnesium-based detonator cords burn hot and fast?in fact, they burn so hot that they can cut clean through metal. It's good stuff; we sometimes use it today.

"And see this." Schofield held up a rusted pressurized canister. "VX poison gas. And this"?he held up another tube? "sarin."

"Sarin gas?" Renshaw said. Even he knew what that was. Sarin gas was a chemical weapon. Renshaw recalled an incident in Japan in 1995 when a terrorist group had detonated a canister of sarin gas inside the Tokyo subway. Panic ensued. Several people were killed. "They had that stuff in the sixties?" he asked.

"Oh, yes."

"So you think this station was a chemical weapons facility?" Renshaw asked.

"I think so, yes."

"But why? Why test chemical weapons in Antarctica?"

"Two reasons," Schofield said. "One: Back home, we keep nearly all of our poison gas weapons in freezer storage, because most poison gases lose their toxicity at higher temperatures. So it makes sense to do your testing in a place that's cold all year round."

"And the second reason?"

"The second reason is a lot simpler," Schofield said, smiling at Renshaw. "Nobody's looking."

Schofield headed back into the next room. "In any case," he said as he disappeared behind the doorway, "none of that's really much use to us right now. But they do have something else back here that might be helpful. In fact, I think it might just get us back in the game."

"What is it?"

"This," Schofield said as he reappeared in the doorway and pulled a dusty scuba tank out into view.

Schofield set to work calibrating the thirty-year-old scuba gear. Renshaw was tasked with cleaning out the breathing apparatus?the mouthpieces, the valves, the air hoses.

The compressed air mix was the main risk. After thirty years of storage, there was a risk that it had gone toxic.

There was only one way to find out.

Schofield tested it?he took a deep inhalation and looked at Renshaw. When he didn't drop dead, he declared the air OK.

The two men worked on the scuba gear for about twenty minutes. Then, as they were nearing readiness, Renshaw said quietly, "Did you ever get to see Bernie Olson's body?"

Schofield looked over at Renshaw. The little scientist was bent over a pair of mouthpieces, washing them out with seawater.

"As a matter of fact, I did," Schofield said softly.

"What did you see?" Renshaw said, interested.

Schofield hesitated. "Mr. Olson had bitten his own tongue off."

"Hmmm."

"His jaw was also locked rigidly in place and his eyes were heavily inflamed?red-rimmed, bloodshot."

Renshaw nodded. "And what were you told happened to him?"

"Sarah Hensleigh told me you stabbed him in the neck with a hypodermic needle and injected liquid drain cleaner into his bloodstream."

Renshaw nodded sagely. "I see. Lieutenant, could you have a look at this please?" Renshaw pulled a waterlogged book from the breast pocket of his parka. It was the thick book that he had taken from his room when they had evacuated the station.

Renshaw handed it to Schofield. Biotoxicology and Toxin-Related Illnesses.

Renshaw said, "Lieutenant, when someone poisons you with drain cleaner, the poison stops your heart, just like that. There's no struggle. There's no fight. You just die. Chapter 2."

Schofield flipped the water-soaked pages to chapter 2. He saw the heading: "Toxin-Related Instantaneous Physiological Death."

He saw a list of what the author had called "Known Poisons." In the middle of the list, Schofield saw "industrial cleaning fluids, insecticides."

"The point is," Renshaw said, "there are no outward signs of death by such a poison. Your heart stops; your body just stops." Renshaw held up his finger. "But not so certain other toxins," he said. "Like, for instance, sea snake venom."

"Sea snake venom?" Schofield said.

"Chapter 9," Renshaw said.

Schofield found it. "Naturally Occurring Toxins?Sea Fauna."

"Look up sea snakes," Renshaw said.

Schofield did. He found the heading: "Sea Snakes?Toxins, Symptoms and Treatment."

"Read it," Renshaw said.

Schofield did.

"Out loud," Renshaw said.

Schofield read, "The common sea snake (Enhydrina schis-tosa) has a venom with a toxicity level three times that of the king cobra, the most lethal land-based snake. One drop (0.03 mL) is enough to kill three men. Common symptoms of sea snake envenomation include aching and stiffness of muscles, thickening of the tongue, paralysis, visual loss, severe inflammation of the eye area and dilation of the pupils, and, most notably of all, lockjaw. Indeed, so severe is lockjaw in such cases, that it is not unknown for victims of sea snake envenomation to?"