Ice Station Page 11

  Rebound hit the deck and was about to climb up onto it when he turned and saw Mother behind him.

  She was looking down to her left, her gun arm jolting repeatedly as she fired at something under the water. And then suddenly her gun arm stopped its jolting movement and Mother looked confused. Her gun wasn’t firing anymore.

  Frozen ammo.

  Rebound watched as Mother shook her MP-5 in disgust, as if shaking it would somehow make it work again.

  It was then that Rebound saw an ominous dark shadow slithering upwards underneath the surface, silently approaching Mother from her right.

  ‘Mother! Check right!’

  Mother heard him and spun instantly and saw the killer whale rising beneath her. Her gun now useless, Mother just pivoted in the water and lifted her legs up sharply and the killer barrelled past her, missing her feet by inches.

  But then, just when Rebound thought it had passed Mother by, the killer whale abruptly changed course and broke the surface of the water and wrapped its jaws around Mother’s gun hand.

  Mother yelled in pain and released her MP-5, yanking her hand free just as the whale bit down on the gun.

  A gash of red appeared instantly above her wrist. Blood slicked her entire forearm.

  But her hand was still there.

  Mother didn’t care. Now gunless, she just swam like hell for the water’s edge.

  Rebound hoisted himself onto the deck and turned and urged Mother on.

  ‘Move it, Mother! Pick it up, baby!’

  Mother swam.

  Rebound knelt at the edge of the deck.

  Black shadows cut back and forth behind Mother’s frantically swimming frame.

  Black shapes everywhere. Too many of them.

  And then, suddenly, it dawned on Rebound.

  Mother wasn’t going to get to the deck in time.

  Then, as if right on cue, a massive black silhouette appeared in the water right behind Mother’s frantically kicking legs.

  It closed in slowly, through the rippling translucent water, and Rebound saw a pink slit appear across its enormous black-and-white jawline.

  Its mouth was opening.

  Teeth appeared and Rebound felt his blood run cold.

  Through the crystalline water he saw the black shadow slowly rise and rise behind Mother until it overtook her legs and allowed them to kick inside its wide open mouth.

  And then with an ominous sense of finality, the big whale’s jaws closed slowly around Mother’s knees.

  The jolt that Mother experienced was incredible in its ferocity.

  Rebound watched in horror as the killer whale yanked her under. The water around Mother started to froth and bubble and blood began to fan out, but Mother was struggling fiercely, putting up a hell of a fight.

  Suddenly, she broke the surface and so did the killer. Somehow, during their underwater scuffle, Mother must have managed to get one of her legs free from the killer’s jaws, because now she was using it to kick down hard on the big whale’s snout.

  ‘You motherfucker!’ she screamed. ‘I’m gonna fucking kill you!’ But it had her by the other leg and it wasn’t letting go.

  Abruptly, Mother shot forward in the water, raising a wash of white waves in front of her. The whale was pushing her forward, toward Rebound and the deck.

  And then – clang! – Mother slammed down hard against the edge of the deck and, amazingly, managed to get a handhold on the metal grating.

  ‘Fucking kill you! You son of a bitch!’ Mother yelled through clenched teeth.

  Rebound dived forward and grabbed Mother’s hand as she grimly held the deck and struggled with the killer whale in a tug-of-war over her own body.

  Then Rebound saw Mother draw her powerful Colt automatic pistol from its holster and level it at the killer whale’s head.

  ‘Oh, fuck me . . .’ Rebound said.

  ‘You want to eat something, baby?’ Mother said to the whale. ‘Eat this.’

  She fired.

  A small blast of yellow light flared out from the muzzle of Mother’s gun as the flash of her pistol ignited the gaseous air around her. Both she and Rebound were hurled a full five yards backwards onto the deck by the concussion wave.

  The whale wasn’t so lucky. As soon as the bullet entered its brain, the killer convulsed violently backwards, snapping upward. Then it just fell limply back into the water amid a cloud of its own blood, its final prize – garnered in the split second before it died – a portion of Mother’s left leg. Everything from the left knee down.

  Schofield and Kirsty were still out in the middle of the pool, caught halfway between the diving bell in the centre and the deck twenty-five feet away.

  With their backs pressed against each other, they both looked fearfully about themselves. The water around them was ominously still. Quiet. Calm.

  ‘Mister,’ Kirsty said, her voice barely a whisper. Her jaw was quivering, a combination of fear and cold.

  ‘What?’ Schofield kept his eyes trained on the water around him.

  ‘I’m scared.’

  ‘Scared?’ Schofield said, not exactly hiding his own fear very well. ‘I didn’t think kids these days were afraid of anything. Don’t they have this kind of stuff at Sea World –’

  At that moment, one of the killer whales shot up out of the water right in front of Schofield. It rose out of the water and arced down fast, heading right for him and Kirsty!

  ‘Go under!’ Schofield yelled as he saw the two rows of jagged white teeth open wide in front of him.

  Schofield held his breath and ducked underwater, pulling Kirsty down with him.

  The world suddenly went silent as the killer whale’s immense white underbelly thundered over the top of them at incredible speed. It brushed roughly against the top of Schofield’s helmet as it pounded back into the water right above their heads.

  Schofield and Kirsty burst back up above the surface, gasped for air.

  Schofield quickly looked left: saw Rebound and Mother on the deck. Looked right: saw Sarah and Abby, also safely up on the deck, quickly moving away from the edge.

  He spun around: saw another Frenchman get yanked under. The two remaining French commandos were just reaching the edge of the pool. They’d had to swim further than everyone else, having landed closest to the middle of the pool.

  Serves them right, Schofield thought.

  He looked up: and immediately saw the retractable bridge that spanned the width of the station from either side of C-deck.

  Just then, a deafening explosion boomed out from the alcove on the C-deck catwalk, and an unbelievably huge tongue of fire shot out over the whole of the central shaft of the station.

  Schofield knew what had happened immediately – the French soldiers up on A-deck, deprived of the use of their guns, were now tossing grenades down into the shaft. Sharp thinking. A grenade detonating in this flammable atmosphere would do twice as much damage as it would normally. Their first target, Schofield noticed, had been the alcove he and Gant had been hiding in before.

  Suddenly something emerged from the fireball that had consumed the alcove.

  It was large and grey, square-shaped, and it tumbled end-over-end out into the central shaft of the station. It fell fast, cutting through the air, its immense weight driving it downwards. With a thunderous crash, the four-hundred-pound ejection seat that had been sitting in front of the console in the C-deck alcove came smashing down onto the deck that surrounded the pool at the bottom of the station. It weighed so much and it landed so hard that it dented the thick metal deck when it hit.

  Despite the chaos all around him, Shane Schofield kept his eyes locked on the retractable bridge three storeys above him. He took in the distance.

  Thirty feet. Maybe thirty-five.

  He wasted no time, raised his Maghook, flicked a switch marked ‘M’ with his thumb – and saw a red light on the head of the grappling hook activate – aimed and fired.

  The grappling hook shot up into the air. However,
this time, the claws of the hook didn’t spring outward. This time it was set on magnet.

  The bulbous magnetic head of the Maghook thunked into the underside of the retractable steel bridge, and stuck there.

  Schofield did some quick calculations in his head. ‘Shit,’ was all he said when he finished.

  Then he handed the launcher to Kirsty and said, ‘Three words, honey: don’t let go.’

  She took the launcher in both hands and looked at Schofield, puzzled.

  Schofield smiled at her reassuringly. ‘Just hold on.’

  Then he pressed down firmly on a small black button on the grip of the Maghook.

  Suddenly, Kirsty flew up out of the water as the Maghook reeled her upwards like some bizarre kind of fishing rod.

  She was light, so the Maghook had little difficulty whisking her up to the bridge. Schofield knew it would have been considerably slower if his weight were also being –

  A killer whale shot up out of the water after Kirsty.

  Schofield’s jaw dropped as he saw the massive whale lift its entire body out of the water in a magnificent vertical leap.

  Kirsty was still moving rapidly upward, pulled up by the Maghook. She looked down and saw the whale emerge from the water beneath her like the Devil coming out of Hell itself. Saw it come roaring up toward her, its body rotating as it rose into the air.

  And then all of a sudden Kirsty came to a jarring halt.

  The whale kept coming upward.

  Kirsty squealed in surprise, looked up, and saw that she had hit the underside of the bridge.

  She couldn’t go any further up!

  The whale opened its jaws wide as it reached the zenith of its leap . . .

  Kirsty gripped the Maghook as hard as she could and quickly brought her legs up tightly against her chest just as the killer’s teeth jammed shut with a loud crunch, coming together barely a foot below her butt, the lowest part of her body.

  Kirsty watched as the huge black-and-white whale fell away beneath her, diminishing in size until it disappeared back into the pool below. The animal must have been at least thirty feet long, and it had lifted its entire body vertically out of the wat –

  Suddenly a hand appeared in front of Kirsty’s face and she almost had a heart attack, almost let go of the Maghook.

  ‘It’s okay,’ a voice said. ‘It’s me.’

  Kirsty looked up and found herself looking into the friendly eyes of the Marine she knew as Mr Book. She took his hand and he hauled her up onto the retractable bridge.

  She was breathing heavily, almost crying. Buck Riley held her, looked at her in amazement. After a second, Kirsty reached into her pocket and pulled out a plastic puffer for her asthma.

  She drew in two long puffs, and caught her breath. When, finally, she was able to speak she looked at Riley, shook her head, and said, ‘They definitely don’t have that at Sea World.’

  Schofield was still down in the pool. Two of the killer whales circled him ominously. Schofield noticed that these two appeared to be smaller than the other killers. Juveniles, maybe.

  Schofield tilted his head upward, and yelled, ‘Book! I need my Maghook!’

  Up on the bridge, Riley immediately dropped to his belly and leaned out over the edge of the narrow metal platform. He reached out underneath the platform and tried to deactivate the magnet on Schofield’s grappling hook.

  ‘I need it now, Book!’ Schofield’s voice sailed up through the shaft of the ice station.

  ‘I’m trying! I’m trying!’ Riley said.

  ‘Try faster!’

  Riley stretched his arm out under the platform, tried to reach the switch marked ‘M’ on the grip that activated and deactivated the Maghook’s powerful magnet.

  As he did so, however, a strange thing happened.

  For a brief second, Riley could have sworn that he heard Kirsty speaking to someone on the bridge above him.

  ‘Help the diver, Wendy. Help the diver.’

  Riley blinked to himself. Must be hearing things.

  Down in the pool, Schofield thought it was all over. The two killers on either side of him were closing in as they circled, shutting off any possible escape route.

  Suddenly one of them seemed to break out of its circle and swing around. Schofield swallowed. It was coming round for the kill.

  The killer turned in a slow, wide arc until it was pointing right at Schofield. Its body was only a foot or so beneath the surface, and its high dorsal fin sliced easily through the waves in the pool. It was moving at such powerful speed that it created a rolling bow wave in front of its submerged, black-and-white head.

  The bow wave raced across the water, on a collision course with Shane Schofield.

  Schofield looked around himself. There was nowhere to go this time, no weapon to use.

  Out of sheer desperation he pulled out his Desert Eagle pistol, raised it above the water.

  If it had to come to this, he thought, then it had to come to this.

  The killer charged toward him.

  And then suddenly, a black missile-like object plunged into the water right in front of Schofield’s face, right in between him and the killer whale.

  Whatever it was, it was so sleek that it entered the water with barely even a splash, and once in, it zoomed away from him at phenomenal speed.

  Both killers saw it instantly and immediately lost interest in Schofield. Even the one that had been charging at him only seconds before abruptly altered its path and raced off in pursuit of this new quarry.

  Schofield was stunned. What had it been? It had looked almost like a . . . a seal of some sort.

  And then, miraculously a Maghook dropped into the water right in front of Schofield.

  Schofield grabbed it before it sank and immediately looked upward. Up on the bridge, he saw Book Riley lying on his belly, with one arm stretched out underneath the bridge.

  Schofield looked at the Maghook and suddenly felt a new lease of life come over him.

  Just then, a small, pointed black head popped up out of the water right in front of him and he fell backwards in surprise.

  It was Wendy. Kirsty’s little Antarctic fur seal.

  Her cute red collar glistened with wetness and her soft black eyes looked right into his. If it were possible, Schofield could have sworn that the little seal was smiling – having a ball of a time swimming around in the pool, evading the less agile killer whales.

  Then he realised. Wendy must have been the object that had dived into the pool in between him and the charging killer whale.

  Suddenly Wendy’s head snapped left.

  She’d heard something, sensed something.

  Then she gave what looked like a final, happy nod to Schofield before she ducked back under the water and sped off down the length of the pool.

  She swam fast. Speeding just underneath the surface of the water like a tiny black torpedo. Cutting left, ducking right, and then disappearing suddenly as she dropped into a steep vertical dive. No sooner had she moved than three black dorsal fins appeared behind her and immediately gave chase, before they them-selves vanished beneath the surface in hot pursuit.

  Schofield took the opportunity and swam for the nearest edge. He was three feet from the deck when a sudden surge of water rocked him and Schofield rolled in the water as the giant body of one of the killers swept past him at a frightening speed. Schofield immediately tensed for another fight but the whale just barrelled past him, in search of the elusive Wendy.

  Schofield breathed again, swam forward, and grabbed hold of the deck. He climbed up out of the water, and saw the battered ejection seat lying crumpled on its side on the deck in front of him. Schofield turned around, surveyed the chaos around him.

  Sarah and Abby were long out of the water and were now hurrying into the tunnels of E-deck. Not far from them were Rebound and Mother. Rebound was kneeling over Mother. He appeared to be applying pressure to a wound of some kind on Mother’s leg.

  On the other side of the pool,
Schofield saw the two surviving French commandos, also safely out of the water. Soaking wet, they were just getting to their feet on the deck. One of them saw Schofield and began to reach for his crossbow.

  Just then, a sudden movement caught Schofield’s eye and he turned and saw a familiar black shadow whipping down the length of the pool.

  Wendy.

  Three larger black-and-white shapes raced through the water behind her. The killers in pursuit.

  Wendy was travelling at tremendous speed, just below the surface. Her flippers would occasionally sweep backwards with a powerful stroke and then fall in by her sides so that her body remained as streamlined as possible. She looked like a bullet shooting through the pool, alternately appearing and disappearing in the murky red clouds that stained the icy water.

  She was heading for the deck, for that part of the deck on which the two French commandos stood. And she wasn’t slowing down.

  In fact, it looked to Schofield like she was picking up speed as she sped toward the deck with the three black-and-white spectres racing through the water behind her.

  Schofield then watched in amazement as, within a metre of the deck, Wendy suddenly launched herself out of the water. It was a flat, graceful leap, and she landed smoothly on her belly on the deck and slid forward a full three metres. She slid right past the two bewildered Frenchmen standing next to her.

  But she didn’t stop there. No sooner had she stopped sliding than she was up on her fore-flippers and galloping as fast as she could, away from the water’s edge.

  For a fleeting instant, Schofield wondered why she would do that. Surely once you were out of the water, you were safe from the killers.

  And then Schofield discovered why Wendy did what she did.

  Like a demon rising from the depths, one of the pursuing killer whales roared out of the water and hurled its massive body up onto the deck, landing on the thick metal grating with an enormous crash. The huge whale slid fast across the deck, carried forward by the weight of its own inertia. It rolled smoothly onto its side as it moved, so that its jaws opened vertically, and then, with almost effortless grace, it caught one of the Frenchmen in its mouth and bit down hard.