Ice Station Page 10

  ‘Uh-huh . . .’ Kirsty’s eyes began to wander again.

  ‘Kirsty. Now listen to me, honey. I want you keep your eyes looking right at me now, okay. Right at me.’

  ‘O-kay,’ she said.

  Then she looked down.

  Riley swore.

  Rebound had been less than three yards away from the French commando when he had been taken under. The sheer violence of the Frenchman’s death had scared the living shit out of him.

  Now, the whole pool was silent.

  Rebound hovered in the pool, looking desperately about himself. The water was cold and the bullet wound in his shoulder stung, but he barely even noticed them now.

  Mother was treading water next to him, her face watchful. Waiting, with tense anticipation. Legs’ body floated face-down in the water next to her, a halo of blood slowly fanning out from its head, seeping into the clear, blue water around it.

  The four remaining French commandos were also still in the pool. They completely ignored Rebound and Mother, their battle forgotten, at least for the moment.

  Last of all, Rebound saw the scientists – two women and one man.

  Ten people in all were in the pool, and not one of them moved.

  Not one of them dared to move.

  They had all had seen the French commando go under moments before.

  The lesson: if you don’t move, they might not take you.

  Rebound held his breath as three massive shadows glided slowly through the water beneath him.

  He heard a sudden click, and turned to see Mother holding her MP-5 poised above the surface.

  Jesus, Rebound thought. If there was anyone in the world who had the balls to take down a killer whale with a gun, it had to be Mother.

  More silence.

  Don’t move . . .

  And then suddenly there came an incredible roar as one of the whales exploded out from beneath the surface, right next to Mother.

  It lifted half of its enormous body out of the water, turned onto its side in mid-air, and then ploughed into Legs’ motionless body. There was a series of sickening crunches as it caught the dead body in its mouth and clamped down hard with its teeth, breaking nearly every bone in it. And then the whale’s head went under and its tail appeared, and then the tail disappeared and only frothing water remained.

  And Legs’ body was gone.

  Rebound just stayed where he was, hovering in the water, his mouth agape. And then, slowly, it dawned on him.

  Legs hadn’t been moving.

  An unspoken understanding instantly spread throughout the nine remaining people in the pool.

  The killers didn’t care whether they were moving or not . . .

  The nine people in the pool moved as one, breaking out into frantic swimming strokes as the killer whales rose to the surface beneath them and commenced their feeding frenzy.

  Up on what was left of B-deck, Book Riley swore again.

  When Kirsty had seen the pool, seen the enormous black-and-white shapes in it, her lower jaw had started to quiver. Then, when she saw the first killer leap up out of the water and crunch through Legs’ dead body, she started to hyperventilate.

  ‘OhmyGod, ohmyGod,’ she sobbed.

  Riley began to hurry. He quickly lowered his upper body out over the edge of the down-turned catwalk, so that he was now practically hanging upside-down, reaching for Kirsty with his free right hand.

  Their hands were now only two inches apart.

  He almost had her.

  And then all of a sudden, he heard a soft whooshing sound from somewhere to his left.

  Riley’s head snapped round.

  ‘No . . .’

  The spot fire had ignited the flakes on the railing. The response was instantaneous. A small orange flame began to race along the length of the railing, devouring the dried paint flakes in its path, leaving a tiny trail of fire in its wake.

  Riley’s eyes went wide.

  The trail of fire was rocketing along the length of the railing.

  And heading right for Kirsty’s hand!

  Kirsty was still looking down at the killer whales in the pool. She swung her head up to look at Riley and in an instant their eyes met and Riley saw the absolute terror in her eyes.

  Riley stretched down as far as he could, his whole upper body dangling upside-down, off the down-turned catwalk, in a desperate effort to grab her hand.

  The orange flame raced along the black hand railing, its firetrail lighting up the railing behind it.

  Riley’s hand was an inch away from Kirsty’s.

  He stretched again and felt the tips of his fingers brush against the top of her hand.

  Another inch. Just another inch . . .

  ‘Mister Book! Don’t let me fall!’

  And then suddenly the bright orange line of fire cut across Riley’s field of vision and he yelled in frustration.

  ‘No!’

  The firetrail sped across the railing in front of him, right underneath Kirsty’s hand.

  Riley watched in helpless horror as the little girl squealed with pain, and then did the only thing her body knew to do when it came into contact with fire.

  She let go.

  Kirsty dropped fast.

  But as she did so, Buck Riley released his grip on the catwalk above him and lunged forward after her. He dropped three feet straight down – one arm pointed down, the other pointed up. His lower hand snatched the wool-lined hood of Kirsty’s pink parka, while his upper hand caught the flaming railing behind him.

  Both of their bodies jerked to a sudden halt, and Riley did a jarring 180-degree spin that nearly pulled his arm out of its socket. He was now right-side-up, hanging from the same burning railing that had, only seconds earlier, caused Kirsty to fall.

  And oddly, despite the searing heat seeping through his leather-gloved hand, he managed a relieved smile.

  ‘I gotcha, baby,’ he breathed, almost laughing. ‘I gotcha.’

  Kirsty just hung there below him with her arms held out awkwardly on either side of her body, held up only by Riley’s grip on the wool-lined hood of her parka.

  ‘All right,’ Riley said to himself, ‘how the hell are we gonna get out of this –’

  There came a sudden popping sound and abruptly Kirsty lurched downwards. She only dropped an inch, and for an instant Riley couldn’t understand what had happened.

  Then he saw it.

  His eyes zeroed in on the join between Kirsty’s pink parka and its pink, wool-lined hood.

  Riley’s eyes went wide.

  The hood wasn’t actually part of the parka.

  It was one of those removable hoods that could be connected to the collar of the parka whenever the wearer so desired. It was only attached to Kirsty’s parka by six clasp-like buttons.

  The popping sound that he had heard had been the sound of one of those buttons unclasping.

  Riley began to feel sick.

  ‘Oh, that’s not fair. That’s not fucking fair,’ he said.

  Pop!

  Another button unclasped.

  Kirsty dropped another inch.

  Riley was at a loss. He didn’t know what to do. There was nothing he could do. He was already hanging from the lowest point on the railing, so he couldn’t lower himself any further. And Kirsty was hanging from his other hand, so he couldn’t reach any further either.

  Pop! Pop!

  Two more buttons unclasped and Kirsty screamed in horror as she dropped sharply and then jolted to a sudden stop.

  The pink hood began to stretch. Only two buttons held it to the parka’s collar now.

  Riley thought about swinging Kirsty in toward the C-deck catwalk below them, about four yards away. But he quickly dispelled the thought. The wool-lined hood was now only tenuously connected to the parka. Any movement would almost certainly unclasp the remaining two buttons.

  ‘God damn it!’ Riley yelled. ‘Can’t anybody help me!’

  ‘Hold on!’ another voice yelled from somewhere nearb
y. ‘I’m coming!’

  Riley turned his head, and saw Schofield on the far side of the C-deck catwalk, inside a small alcove of some sort. Next to him was Fox. Schofield seemed to be directing her to go down the nearest rung-ladder and head for the pool deck while he took care of Riley and Kirsty.

  Pop!

  One of the last two buttons snapped open and Riley turned his attention back to Kirsty. Grimacing, he held tight and he looked down at her. The little girl was scared out of her mind. Her eyes were red, filled with tears. She stared into his eyes, and spoke through teary sniffles: ‘I don’t want to die. Oh my God, I don’t want to die.’

  One button left.

  The hood was stretched taut, straining under Kirsty’s weight.

  It wasn’t going to hold . . .

  A second before it happened, Buck Riley felt the weight of the little girl pull on the hood and he said softly, ‘I’m sorry.’

  With a sudden pop, the final button snapped open and Riley watched helplessly as Kirsty fell away from him in a kind of nightmarish slow motion. Her wide eyes looked right into his as she fell, her face the picture of pure, unspeakable terror. Those wide eyes became smaller and smaller, and Buck Riley felt sick to his stomach as he saw the little girl splash into the icy pool fifty feet below.

  The pool at the base of Wilkes Ice Station had become a slaughterhouse. From his alcove on C-deck, Shane Schofield looked down at it in horror.

  Blood had so clouded the icy water that nearly half of the enormous pool was now no more than a maroon haze. Even the massive killer whales disappeared when they swam through the murky patches.

  Schofield surveyed the scene.

  On one side of the pool were the French. They had suffered the worst. They had already lost two men to the killers.

  On the other side of the pool were the two remaining Marines – Rebound and Mother – and the three scientists from Wilkes who had been with Book when B-deck had given way. All five of them were swimming desperately for the metal deck that surrounded the pool.

  It was into this that Schofield saw the tiny, pink-clad figure of Kirsty drop with an ugly splash. She landed back-first, and immediately went under. Her high-pitched scream had followed her all the way down.

  Schofield snapped around to look over at Buck Riley, hanging from the down-turned B-deck railing.

  Their eyes met for an instant. Book looked beaten, dejected, exhausted. His eyes said it all. He couldn’t do any more. He had done all he could.

  Schofield hadn’t.

  He pursed his lips, took in the situation.

  Kirsty was on the far side of the pool, on the other side of the diving bell, out in the open. Everybody else was near the edges of the pool, trying to get out. In their own efforts to escape, none of them had seen her land in the pool.

  As he looked down at the pool, Schofield could hear Montana’s voice on the intercom yelling at Snake and Santa Cruz in their gunless battle with the French soldiers still up on A-deck.

  ‘– Keep ’em moving round south –’

  ‘– Can’t use their guns either –’

  Schofield spun around where he stood, looking for something he could use.

  He was still in the alcove, alone. Moments earlier, he’d sent Gant down to the pool deck, while he’d intended to go over and help Book Riley. But before he’d even had a chance to get over there, the little girl had fallen. And now she was down in the pool.

  Schofield saw the array of buttons on the console behind him, saw some words underneath a lever: DIVING BELL – WINCH.

  No, that was no help.

  But then he saw another, large, rectangular button, on which was written a single word: BRIDGE.

  Schofield stared at the button for a moment, perplexed. And then he remembered. The retractable bridge. This must have been the control switch for the retractable bridge that Hensleigh had told him about earlier, the bridge that extended out from C-deck, out across the open space in the centre of the station.

  Without even thinking, Schofield hit the long rectangular button and immediately he heard a loud, clanking noise from somewhere beneath his feet.

  An engine somewhere within the wall next to him suddenly hummed to life and Schofield watched as a narrow, elongated platform began to extend out over the enormous empty space in the middle of the station.

  On the far side of the shaft, Schofield saw another, identical, platform begin to extend out from underneath the catwalk. Presumably, the two platforms would meet in the middle and form one bridge spanning the width of the station.

  Schofield didn’t miss a beat. He charged onto the bridge as it extended out over the centre of the station. It extended quite quickly, in a telescope-like motion, smaller extensions being born out of larger ones, and fast enough so that it stayed ahead of him as he ran. It wasn’t very wide, only about two feet, and it had no hand railing.

  Schofield ran across the extending bridge as it grew forward in front of him. And then just as his platform was about to join with its twin from the other side, he took a deep breath, increased his speed, and leapt diagonally off the bridge.

  Riley watched in amazement as Schofield sailed through the air, over the massive diving bell, and arced down toward the icy pool.

  He fell fast. But as he did so, Schofield did a strange thing. He raised his right hand and unholstered something from behind his shoulder.

  When he hit the water, his feet entered first – with both legs splayed wide so that he wouldn’t go far underwater – while both of his hands held the object he had pulled from behind his back.

  Kirsty instinctively turned away as the water next to her exploded.

  At first she thought it was one of the killer whales bursting out from beneath the surface to take her under, but as the water fell back down on top of her and she was able to see again, all she saw was a man hovering in the water next to her.

  It was one of the Marines. In fact, it was the one she had met before, the nice one, the leader. The one who wore the cool, reflective silver sunglasses. She tried to remember his name. Seinfeld, she thought, or something like that.

  ‘You okay?’ he said.

  She nodded dumbly.

  His silver glasses hung askew from his nose, dislodged by his landing in the water. He swiped them off quickly and for a brief second Kirsty saw his eyes and she gasped.

  Suddenly one of the killers whooshed past them and Kirsty didn’t care about Schofield’s eyes anymore.

  The towering, black dorsal fin sailed right past both of their faces and then slowly, very slowly, lowered itself into the water until finally the tip of the massive fin dipped below the surface and disappeared.

  Kirsty began to breathe very fast.

  Beside her, Schofield immediately started to look down into the water beneath them. They were treading water in one of the sections of the pool that hadn’t yet been contaminated with blood. The water beneath them was crystal clear.

  Kirsty followed his gaze and looked down into the water beneath her –

  – just in time to see the wide open mouth of the killer whale rushing up at her feet!

  Kirsty screamed like the banshee but beside her, Schofield stayed calm. He quickly lowered his Maghook beneath the surface and for a terrifying half-second, waited until the killer was right up close . . .

  And then he fired.

  The grappling hook, with its bulbous magnetic head, thundered out of its launcher into the water and slammed into the killer whale’s snout, stopping the massive creature dead in its tracks.

  Four thousand pounds per square inch of thrust had launched the grappling hook. Whether or not it had truly been enough to stun a full-grown, seven-ton killer whale wasn’t entirely clear to Schofield. Hell, the whale was probably just shocked that something had dared to fight back.

  Schofield quickly pressed down twice on the trigger of the launcher and the grappling hook immediately began to reel itself in.

  He turned to face Kirsty again. ‘You still in
one piece? Got all your fingers and toes?’

  Kirsty just stared at him, saw those eyes again, nodded dumbly.

  ‘Come on then,’ Schofield said as he pulled her through the water.

  Sarah Hensleigh reached the edge of the pool and clambered up onto the deck as fast as she could. She turned back and saw Conlon and Abby splashing through the water toward her.

  ‘Hurry up!’ Sarah yelled. ‘Hurry up!’

  Abby got there first. Sarah grabbed her hand and yanked her up onto the deck.

  Conlon was still two yards away, swimming hard.

  ‘Come on, Warren!’

  Conlon swam for all he was worth.

  One yard away.

  He looked up desperately at Sarah, and she dropped to her knees at the edge of the deck.

  He got there. Slammed into the metal rim of the deck like a Olympic swimmer hitting the wall at the end of a race. He reached up, grabbed Sarah’s outstretched hand. Sarah was just beginning to haul Conlon up onto the deck when suddenly the water behind him parted and one of the killer whales burst up out of it. The big whale opened its mouth wide and enveloped Conlon’s body from foot to chest.

  Conlon went bug-eyed as the killer clamped down hard on his chest and Sarah tried desperately to hold onto his hand, but the killer was too strong. When it dropped back down into the water it yanked so hard on Conlon’s body that Sarah felt the terrified scientist’s fingernails scratch her skin and draw blood, and then suddenly his hand was out of her grasp and she fell to the deck and watched in horror as Warren Conlon disappeared under the water right in front of her eyes.

  A few yards away, Mother and Rebound were also approaching the deck.

  Rebound swam hard as Mother turned in the water and fired her MP-5 under the surface. One of the first things they teach you at Parris Island, the legendary training camp of the United States Marine Corps, is the resistance that water offers against gunfire. Indeed, the average bullet will lose nearly all of its velocity in less than two metres of water. After that it will just slow to a halt and sink to the bottom.

  Such physical laws, however, didn’t seem to be bothering Mother right now. She just waited until the killers got close and then she fired hard. The bullets appeared to penetrate the outer skin, but they didn’t seem to do much damage. Mother fired and hit, and the killers momentarily darted away, but they always seemed to come back, unhurt, undeterred.