Ice Station Page 7

  ‘Grenade!’

  Riley and Hollywood ran flat out down the northern tunnel of B-deck, and dived around the corner.

  Just as they cleared the corner a booming explosion rocked the ice tunnel behind them. Hard on the heels of the explosion came the concussion wave and then –

  Riley and Hollywood ducked behind the corner as a swarm of dart-like objects shot past them at phenomenal speed and thudded into the opposite wall of the tunnel.

  The two Marines looked at each other in astonishment.

  A fragmentation charge.

  A fragmentation charge is basically a conventional grenade which has been filled with hundreds of tiny pieces of metal – tiny sharp-edged, skewed pieces of metal designed to be as difficult as possible to extract from the human body. When the charge detonates, it sends a wave of these lethal fragments rocketing out in every direction.

  ‘I’ve always said it,’ Riley said wryly as he popped his clip and jammed a fresh magazine into the receiver of his MP-5. ‘Always said it: never trust the fucking French. There’s just something about ’em. Maybe it’s those beady little eyes they all got. Those assholes are supposed to be our goddam allies.’

  ‘Fuckin’ French,’ Hollywood agreed thoughtfully, as he peered around the corner with one eye.

  His jaw dropped. ‘Oh shit –’

  ‘What?’ Riley spun around just in time to see a second grenade bounce around the corner and come to rest five feet away from them.

  Five feet.

  Out in the open.

  There was nowhere to go. They couldn’t get clear. Couldn’t run down the corridor and get away in ti –

  Riley launched himself forward. Toward the grenade. He slid along the frost-covered floor, feet first, soccer-style. When he was within range he let loose with a powerful kick, and sent the grenade skittling back down the north tunnel, back toward the central shaft.

  As Riley kicked the grenade, Hollywood lunged forward and grabbed him by the shoulderplates and yanked him back behind the corner.

  The grenade detonated.

  Another deafening explosion boomed out.

  A new wave of metal shards blasted out from the corridor, whipped past Riley and Hollywood, and slammed into the wall opposite them.

  Hollywood turned and looked at Riley. ‘Fuck my Roman sandals, man, this is some serious fucking catastrophe.’

  Riley was already up on his feet. ‘Come on, we’re not staying here.’

  He looked over toward the other side of the north tunnel and saw Rebound appear at the opposite corner. With him were Corporal Georgio ‘Legs’ Lane and Sergeant Gena ‘Mother’ Newman. They must have come round from the western side of B-deck.

  Riley said, ‘All right everyone, listen up. As far as I’m concerned, this is now a split op. If we cluster and get cornered, we’re all gonna be turned into strawberry fuckin’ donuts. We have to split up. Rebound, Legs, Mother, you head back west, round the outer tunnel. Hollywood and I’ll go east. Once we figure out where we are and what we can do with our position, then we can figure out how the hell we’re going to regroup with the others and nail these fuckers. You all okay with that?’

  There were no objections. Rebound and the others quickly got to their feet and hustled off down the opposite ice tunnel.

  Riley and Hollywood began to run east, following the curve of the outer tunnel.

  As he ran, Riley said, ‘All right, what’s this? B-deck, right. Okay. What’s on B-deck?’

  ‘I don’t –’ Hollywood cut himself off as they cleared the bend in the tunnel and saw what lay ahead of them.

  Both men stopped instantly and immediately felt their blood run cold.

  Schofield fired up into the central shaft of Wilkes Ice Station with his Desert Eagle.

  He and Gant were down on C-deck, inside a room which opened out onto the central catwalk. Schofield stood in the doorway, gun in hand, looking out across the central shaft and up at A-deck.

  Behind him, inside whatever room this was, Gant was down on her haunches, shaking off her dizziness. She had taken off her helmet, revealing a short crop of snow-white, blonde hair.

  Gant looked curiously at her helmet, at the arrow lodged in it. She shook her head, and put the helmet back on, arrow and all. She also donned her anti-flash glasses, concealing much of the thin line of dried blood that ran down from her forehead to her chin. Then she grabbed her MP-5 determinedly and joined Schofield at the doorway.

  ‘You okay?’ Schofield asked over his shoulder, as he aimed his pistol up at A-deck.

  ‘Yeah, did I miss anything?’

  ‘Did you see the part where that bunch of French pricks posing as scientists decided to pull guns on us?’ Schofield fired off another round.

  ‘Yeah, I caught that part.’

  ‘What about the part where we found out that our new friends had six more guys stashed away in their hovercraft.’

  ‘No, missed that.’

  ‘Well that’s the –’ he fired off another angry round ‘– story so far.’

  Gant looked at Schofield. Behind those opaque, silver glasses was a seriously pissed-off individual.

  In fact, Schofield wasn’t really angry at the French soldiers per se. Sure, at first, he’d been annoyed at himself for not picking that the French ‘scientists’ were actually soldiers. But then, they had got to Wilkes first, and they had brought with them two genuine scientists, a particularly clever ploy which had been enough to throw Schofield and his team off the scent.

  What really made him angry, however, was that he’d lost the initiative in this battle.

  The French had caught Schofield and his team off guard, taken them by surprise, and now they were dictating the terms of this fight. That was what really made Schofield pissed.

  He tried desperately to fight his anger. He couldn’t allow himself to be angry. He couldn’t afford to feel that way.

  Whenever he found himself beginning to feel angry or upset, Schofield always remembered a seminar he’d attended in London in late 1996 given by the legendary British commander, Brigadier-General Trevor J. Barnaby.

  A burly man, with piercing dark eyes, a fully shaven head, and a severe, black goatee, Trevor Barnaby was the head of the SAS – had been since 1979 – and was widely regarded as the most brilliant front-line military tactician in the world. His strategic ability with regard to small incursionary forces was extraordinary. When it was executed by the finest elite military unit in the world, the SAS, it was invincible. He was the pride and joy of the British military establishment, and he had never failed on a mission yet.

  In November 1996, as part of a USA–UK ‘knowledge share agreement’ it was decided that Barnaby would give a two-day seminar on covert incursionary warfare to the most promising American officers. In return, the United States would instruct British artillery units on the use of mobile Patriot II missile batteries. One of the officers chosen to attend Trevor Barnaby’s seminar was Lieutenant Shane M. Schofield, USMC.

  Barnaby had had a cocky, hard-edged lecture style that Schofield had liked – a rapid-fire series of questions and answers that had proceeded in a simple, logical progression.

  ‘In any combat exchange,’ Barnaby had said, ‘be it a world war or an isolated two unit stand-off, the first question you always ask yourself is this: what is your opponent’s objective? What does he want? Unless you know the answer to that question, you’ll never be able to ask yourself the second question: how is he going to get it?

  ‘And I’ll tell you right now, ladies and gentlemen, the second question is of far greater importance to you than the first. Why? Because what he wants is unimportant insofar as strategy is concerned. What he wants is an object, that’s all. The worldwide spread of communism. A strategic foothold on foreign territory. The ark of the covenant. Who cares? Knowing of it means nothing, in and of itself. How he plans to get it, on the other hand, means everything. Because that is action. And action can be stopped.

  ‘So, once you have answe
red this second question, then you can proceed to question number 3: what are you going to do to stop him?’

  When he had been speaking about command and leadership, Barnaby had repeatedly stressed the need for cool-headed reason. An angry commander, acting under the influence of rage or frustration, will almost certainly get his unit killed.

  ‘As a leader,’ Barnaby had said, ‘you simply cannot afford to get angry or upset.’

  Recognising that no commanding officer was immune from feeling angry or frustrated, Barnaby had offered his three-step tactical analysis as a diversion from such feelings. ‘Whenever you feel yourself succumbing to angry feelings, go through the three-step analysis. Get your mind off the anger and get it back on the job at hand. Soon, you’ll forget about what pissed you off and you’ll start doing what you’re paid for.’

  And as he stood there in the doorway on C-deck, in the freezing-cold, ice-covered world of Wilkes Ice Station, Shane Schofield could almost hear Trevor Barnaby speaking inside his head.

  Okay, then.

  What is their objective?

  They want the spaceship.

  How are they going to get it?

  They’re going to kill everybody here, grab the spaceship and somehow get it off the continent before anybody even knows it existed.

  All right. But there was a problem with that analysis. What was it – ?

  Schofield thought for a moment. And then it hit him.

  The French had arrived quickly.

  So quickly, in fact, that they had arrived at Wilkes before the United States had been able to get a team of its own there. Which meant they’d been close to Wilkes when the original distress signal had gone out.

  Schofield paused.

  French soldiers had been at d’Urville when Abby Sinclair’s signal had gone out.

  But the distress signal could never have been anticipated. It was an emergency, a sudden occurrence.

  And that was the problem with his analysis.

  A picture began to form in Schofield’s mind: they had seen an opportunity, and they had decided to take it . . .

  The French had had their commandos at Dumont d’Urville, probably doing exercises of some sort. Arctic warfare, or something like that.

  And then the distress signal from Wilkes had been picked up. And suddenly the French would have realised that they had one of their elite military units within six hundred miles of the discovery of an extra-terrestrial spacecraft.

  The prospective gains were obvious: technological advances to be garnered from the propulsion system, the construction of the exterior shell. Maybe even weapons.

  It was an opportunity too good to pass up.

  And the beauty of the plan was that if the French did in fact manage to remove the spacecraft from Wilkes Ice Station, could the American Government realistically go crying to the UN or the French Government and say that France had stolen an alien spacecraft from American custody? You can hardly complain when something you’re not supposed to have in the first place is stolen from you.

  But the French commandos faced two problems.

  Firstly: the American scientists at Wilkes. They would have to be eliminated. There could be no witnesses.

  The second problem was worse: it was almost certain that the United States would dispatch a protective reconnaissance unit to Wilkes. So a clock was ticking. In fact, the French had realised that, in all probability, US troops would arrive at Wilkes before they could get the spaceship off the continent.

  Which meant there would be a firefight.

  But the French were here by chance. They’d had neither the time nor the resources to prepare a full-strength assault on Wilkes. They were a small force facing the probability that the US would arrive on the scene, with a force of greater strength than theirs, before they could make good their escape with the spacecraft.

  They needed a plan.

  And so they’d posed as scientists, concerned neighbours. Presumably with the intention that they would earn the Marines’ trust and then kill them while their backs were turned. It was as good a strategy as any for an impromptu force of inferior strength.

  Which left one further question: how were they going to get the spaceship out of Antarctica?

  Schofield decided that that question could wait. Better to tackle the battle at hand. So we ask again:

  What is their objective?

  To eliminate us and the scientists here at Wilkes.

  How are they going to achieve that?

  I don’t know.

  How would you achieve that?

  Schofield thought about that. I’d probably try to flush us all into the one place. That’d be much more efficient than attempting to search the whole station for us and pick us off one by –

  ‘Grenade!’ Gant yelled.

  Schofield was jolted back to the present as he saw a small black grenade sail out over the A-deck railing and arc down toward him. Six similar grenades went flying down from A-deck and into the three ice tunnels that branched off into B-deck.

  ‘Move!’ Schofield said quickly to Gant as he ducked back inside the doorway and slammed the door shut.

  He and Gant moved to the far side of the room just in time to hear the grenade bounce up against the outside of the thick, wooden door.

  Clunk, clunk.

  And then the grenade exploded. White splinters shot out from the inside of the door as the pointed tips of a hundred jagged metal shards instantly appeared in their place.

  Schofield looked at the door, stunned.

  The whole door, from floor to ceiling, was littered with tiny protrusions. What had once been a smooth wooden surface now looked like some kind of sinister medieval torture device. The whole thing was covered with sharp, spiked pieces of metal that had almost managed to rip right through the thick wooden door.

  Other, similar explosions rang out from the level above Schofield and Gant. They both looked up.

  B-deck, Schofield thought.

  I’d probably try to flush us all into the one place.

  ‘Oh no,’ Schofield said aloud.

  ‘What?’ Gant asked.

  But Schofield didn’t answer. Instead, he quickly yanked opened the destroyed door and looked out into the central shaft of the ice station.

  A bullet immediately rammed into the frost-covered doorframe next to his head. But it didn’t stop him seeing them.

  Up on A-deck, five of the French commandos were on their feet, laying down a suppressing fire over the whole of the station.

  It was cover fire.

  Cover fire for the other five commandos who were at that moment abseiling down from A-deck to B-deck. It was a short, controlled ride, and in a second the five commandos were on the B-deck catwalk, guns up and heading for the tunnels.

  As he saw them, Schofield had a sickening realisation. Most of his Marines were on B-deck, having retreated there after the second French team had charged in through the main entrance of the station.

  And there was another thing.

  B-deck was the main living area of Wilkes Ice Station. And Schofield himself had sent the American scientists back to their quarters while he and his team had gone to meet the newly arrived French hovercraft.

  Schofield stared up at B-deck in horror.

  The French had flushed them all into one place.

  On B-deck, the world suddenly went crazy.

  No sooner had Riley and Hollywood rounded the bend in the ice tunnel than they were confronted by the frightened faces of the residents of Wilkes Ice Station.

  The instant he saw them, Riley suddenly remembered what B-deck was.

  The living area.

  Suddenly, a stream of submachine-gun fire raked the ice wall behind him.

  At the same time, Schofield’s voice came over Riley’s helmet intercom: ‘All units, this is Scarecrow. I have a visual on five hostile objects landing right now on the B-deck catwalk. I repeat, five hostile objects. Marines, if you’re on B-deck, look sharp.’

  Ril
ey’s mind went into overdrive. He quickly tried to remember the floor-plan of B-deck.

  The first thing he recalled was that the layout of B-deck differed slightly from that of the other floors of Wilkes. All of the other floors were made up of four straight tunnels that branched out from the central well of the ice station to meet the circular outer tunnel. But because of an anomalous rock formation buried in the ice around it, B-deck didn’t have a south tunnel.

  It only had three straight tunnels, meaning that the outer, circular tunnel didn’t form a complete circle as it did on every other floor. The result was a dead end at the southernmost point of the outer circle. Riley remembered seeing the dead end before: it housed the room in which James Renshaw was being held.

  Right now, though, Riley and Hollywood found themselves in the outer tunnel, caught on the bend between the east tunnel and the north tunnel. With them were the scientists from Wilkes, who had obviously heard something going on outside, but who had dared not venture beyond the immediate vicinity of their rooms. Among the frightened faces in front of him, Riley saw a little girl.

  Jesus.

  ‘Take the rear,’ Riley said to Hollywood, meaning that part of the outer tunnel which led back to the north tunnel.

  Riley himself began to move past the group of scientists, so that he could take up a position in view of the east tunnel.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen! Could you please move back into your rooms!’

  ‘What’s going on?’ one of the men asked angrily.

  ‘Your friends upstairs weren’t really your friends,’ Riley said. ‘There’s now a team of French paratroopers inside your station and they will kill you if they see you. Now could you please get back in your room.’

  ‘Book! Grenade!’ Hollywood’s voice echoed down the corridor.

  Riley spun to see Hollywood come charging around the bend toward him. He also caught a glimpse of a fragmentation grenade bouncing into the tunnel twenty feet behind him.

  ‘Oh, fuck.’ Riley turned instantly, looking for cover in the opposite direction – in the east tunnel, ten yards away.