Ice Hunt Page 33

  Matt prayed it lasted long enough.

  His prayer was not answered. Footsteps suddenly sounded on the stairs, echoing from above, pounding down toward this level.

  Damn it…

  Matt moved closer, but he kept his head tilted to keep his features hooded. A line of soldiers appeared, bristling with weapons, ready for combat. They barked at him in Russian.

  Too bad he didn’t understand a word of it.

  Instead he hurried forward, feigning panic. He kept his weapon lowered, but his finger remained on the trigger. He pointed his other arm down, frantically motioning toward the lower levels. With all the shouting and noise, the soldiers probably couldn’t tell for sure from which level the gunfire had originated. He tried to indicate it came from farther below.

  To reinforce the act, Matt took a step forward, like he meant to follow the others down.

  The leader of the squad waved him to hold his position, then motioned his squad down the stairs. They continued their dash into the depths of the station.

  Matt backed away as the last man spiraled away into the ice. He let out a loud sigh. His ruse would not last long—but luckily it didn’t have to.

  Bratt appeared at the armory door, both shoulders loaded with weapons. “Quick thinking there.” He nodded to the staircase. He must have been watching from the doorway.

  Behind Bratt, Washburn and Greer exited, similarly loaded, lugging a wooden crate between them.

  “Grenades,” Greer said as he passed, his words bitter. “Now it’s our turn for a surprise or two.”

  Together the group fled back to the electrical suite, then into the generator room. Craig was no longer there. He must have retreated back to the others.

  With a bit of manhandling, they crawled through the vent, hauling their arsenal, dragging the box of grenades behind them.

  Matt led them, carrying the pilfered AK-47 and two additional rifles on his back. His parka pockets were full of ammunition.

  Reaching the end, he rolled out of the duct and into the service cubbyhole. He stood up, his eyes darting around the room.

  The place was empty. The others were gone.

  Washburn came next. Her expression soured. “The reporter must have been spooked by the gunfire. He did what we told him and bugged out with the others.”

  Matt shook his head as the others crawled inside.

  Greer scowled as he eyed the empty room. “I hate this. We go to all the trouble to bring in the party supplies and everyone’s already left.”

  “But where did they go?” Matt asked.

  Bratt had been searching the floor. “I don’t know, but they took the station schematics with them. Our only map to this damn place.”

  3:38 P.M.

  Admiral Petkov followed the young ensign down the hall. He kept his attention away from the frosted tanks with their frozen sentinels inside. He felt the eyes of the dead upon him, sensing the accusations of those unwilling participants in his father’s experiments.

  But those were not the only ghosts who laid claim to the lost base. All the researchers stationed here, including his father, had died—entombed in ice as surely as the poor unfortunates in this hall.

  Among so many ghosts, it was only fitting that the Beliy Prizrak, the White Ghost of the Northern Fleet, should stride these halls now, too.

  Ensign Lausevic led him onward, half stumbling as he tried to hurry but did not want to rush his superior. “I’m not sure what it means, but we thought you should see it for yourself.”

  Viktor waved the man on. “Show me.”

  The curved hall followed the exterior wall of this level. They were almost halfway around when laughter from up ahead trailed back to Viktor. They rounded the curve and spotted a cluster of five soldiers. They had been lounging, one smoking, until the admiral appeared.

  Laughter strangled away, and the group straightened. The cigarette was hastily stamped out.

  The group parted for the admiral. They had been clustered around one of the tanks. Unlike the other dark, frosted vessels, this one glowed from within. The frost had melted and wept down the glass front.

  Victor crossed to it. He felt the heat coming from its surface. A small motor could be heard chugging and wheezing behind it, along with a faint gurgling.

  “We didn’t know what to do,” Lausevic said, running a hand through his black hair.

  Inside the tank, what was once solid ice was now a bath of warm water, gently bubbling, its ice melted by a triple-layered heating mesh that covered the entire back half of the chamber. The mesh was the source of the light. The outer layers glowed with a ruddy warmth, while the deeper levels shone more intensely, brighter.

  “Why wasn’t I alerted to this earlier?” Victor intoned.

  “We thought it was a ploy by the Americans to distract us,” one of the other men said. “It’s right by the duct they fled through.” He pointed to a nearby vent. A bit of smoke from the incendiary grenade still wafted through its opening.

  “We weren’t sure it was important,” Lausevic added.

  Not important? Victor stared at the tank. He was unable to take his eyes from the sight.

  Within the tank, a small boy floated, suspended within the bubbling water. His eyes were closed as if in slumber. His face looked so peaceful, smooth, olive-skinned, framed in a halo of shoulder-length black hair. His limbs floated at his side, angelic and perfect.

  Then his left arm twitched, jerking as if pulled by the strings of an invisible puppeteer.

  The young ensign pointed. “It’s been doing that for the past few minutes. Starting with just a finger twitch.”

  The boy’s leg kicked, spasming up.

  Viktor stepped closer. Could he still be alive? He remembered the missing journals. That was the quest here. To retrieve his father’s notes. To see if the last report made by his father was true. He had read this final report himself, hearing his father’s voice in his head, as if he were speaking directly to his son.

  He remembered the final line: On this day, we’ve defeated death.

  He watched the boy. Could it be true? If so, the stolen notebooks wouldn’t matter. Here was proof of his father’s success. Viktor glanced to the soldiers. He had witnesses to verify it. Though the exact mechanism and procedure were locked in his father’s coded notes, the boy would be living and breathing proof.

  “Is there a way to open the tank?” Viktor asked.

  Ensign Lausevic pointed to a large lever on one side of the tank. It was locked at the upper end marked CLOSED in Russian. The lower end of the levered slot was lettered in Cyrillic: OPEN.

  Viktor nodded to the ensign.

  He stepped forward, gripped the heavy handle with both hands, and tugged. It resisted the ensign’s efforts for a moment. Then, with a loud crack, the lever snapped out. Lausevic used his shoulders to pull the lever and slam it down into the “open” slot.

  Immediately a rush of water sounded, not unlike a toilet flushing. From his position, Viktor saw the grated bottom of the tank open. Water flowed down a drain.

  Caught in the swirling force of the draining water, the boy’s body spun, arms flailed out. His body seemed boneless, limp. He bumped against the glass, the back mesh. Then, as the water drained fully away, he settled in a loose pile on the bottom of the tank, as lifeless as some deep-sea denizen washed up on a beach.

  Then with a soft, damp pop, the seal on the glass released. The entire front of the tank swung open like a door, blowing out compressed air from within. There was a faint hint of ammonia that came with it.

  Lausevic pulled the door aside for the admiral.

  Viktor found himself stepping forward, dropping to his knees beside the naked boy. He reached to the boy’s arm, draped half out the door.

  It was warm, heated by the bubbling bath.

  But there appeared to be no life.

  His hand slipped from wrist to the small fingers. He tried to will the boy back to life. What stories could he tell? Had he known his father? Di
d he know what had happened here? Why the base had gone dead quiet so suddenly?

  It had been the last years of World War II. The Germans were marching into Russia, laying siege to city after city. Then a remote research station in the Arctic went quiet, late reporting in…first one month, then another. But with the war heating up at home, no one had time to investigate. With communication being what it was and travel through the polar region so difficult, there were no resources for a full investigation.

  Another full year passed. Nagasaki and Hiroshima were bombed. Nuclear weaponry became the grand technology, hunted and sought by all. Ice Station Grendel and its research project were now antiquated, not worth the cost or manpower to discover its fate. The currents could have taken the station anywhere. The ice island that berthed it might even have broken apart and sunk, something not uncommon with such floating giants.

  So more years passed.

  The last report of his father, with its wild claims of breaching the barrier between life and death, was dismissed as exaggerated rants and shelved. The only bit of proof was supposedly locked in his journals, lost with the base and its head researcher.

  The secret of life and death.

  Viktor stared down at the slack face of the boy, so peaceful in slumber. Lips a faint blue, face gray and wet. Viktor wiped the face dry with one hand.

  Then small fingers clamped onto his other palm, harder and stronger than Viktor could have imagined.

  He gasped in surprise as the boy’s body suddenly convulsed inside the tank, legs kicking, head thrown back, spine arched up, contorted.

  Water poured from his open mouth, draining down the tank’s grating.

  “Help me get him out!” Viktor yelled, drawing the boy to him.

  Ensign Lausevic squeezed in and grabbed the thrashing legs, getting a good kick to his temple in the process.

  Between the two of them, they hauled the boy out to the hall. His body jerked and thrashed. Viktor cradled his head, keeping him from cracking his skull on the hard floor. The boy’s eyes twitched behind their lids.

  “He’s alive!” one of the other soldiers said, backing a step away.

  Not alive, Viktor silently corrected, but not dead either. Somewhere in between.

  As the convulsions continued, the boy’s skin grew hot to the touch; perspiration pebbled his skin. Viktor knew that one of the main dangers of epileptic patients during violent or prolonged seizures was hyperthermia, a raising of body temperature from muscle contractions that led to brain damage. Was the boy dying, or was his body fighting to warm life back into it, heating away the last dregs of its frozen state?

  Slowly the convulsions faded to vigorous shivering. Viktor continued to hold the boy. Then the boy’s chest heaved up, expanding as if something were going to burst out the rib cage. It held that swelled state, back arched from the floor. Blue lips had warmed to pink, skin flushed from the violence of the seizures.

  Then the boy’s form collapsed in on itself, seeming to cave in, accompanied by a strangled choke. Then he lay still again, back to tired slumber, dead on the floor.

  A pang of regret, mixed inexplicably with grief, ran through Viktor.

  Perhaps this is the best his father had ever achieved, significant but ultimately not successful.

  He studied the boy’s face, peaceful in true death.

  Then the boy’s eyes opened, staring up at him, dazed. His small chest rose and fell. A hand lifted from the floor, then settled back weakly.

  Alive…

  Lips moved. A word was mouthed, groggy, breathless still. “Otyets.”

  It was Russian.

  Viktor stared up at the others, but when he gazed back down at the boy, the child’s eyes were still on him.

  Lips moved again, repeating his earlier word. “Otyets…Papa.”

  Before Viktor could respond, the pounding of many boots suddenly echoed to them. A group of soldiers appeared, armed. “Admiral!” the lieutenant in the lead called out as he approached.

  Viktor remained kneeling. “What is it?”

  The man’s eyes flicked to the naked child on the floor, then back to the admiral. “Sir, the Americans…power’s out on the top level. We think they’re trying to escape the station.”

  Viktor’s eyes narrowed. He stayed at the boy’s side. “Nonsense.”

  “Sir?” Confusion crinkled the officer’s eyes.

  “The Americans are not going anywhere. They’re still here.”

  “What…what do you want us to do?”

  “Your orders have not changed.” Viktor stared into the eyes of the boy, knowing he held the answers to everything. Nothing else mattered. “Hunt them. Kill them.”

  3:42 P.M.

  A level below, Craig crawled down the service tunnel, map crumpled in his hand. The chamber had to be close. The others trailed behind him.

  He paused at a crossroads of ductwork. The intersection was tangled with conduit and piping. He pushed his way through and headed left. “This way,” he mumbled back to the rest of the party.

  “How much farther?” Dr. Ogden asked from the rear of their group.

  The answer appeared just ahead. A dim glow rose through a grated vent embedded in the floor of the ice shaft.

  Craig hurried forward. Once near enough, he lay on his belly and spied through the grate to the room below. Viewed from above and lit by a single bare bulb, the chamber appeared roughly square, plated in steel like the station proper, but this room was empty, long abandoned and untouched.

  It was the best hiding place Craig could think of.

  Out of the way and isolated.

  He wiggled around so he could use his legs to kick the grate loose. The screws held initially, but desperation was stronger than rusted steel and ice. The vent popped open, swinging down.

  Craig stuck his head through to make sure it was clear, then swung his feet around and lowered himself into the room.

  It was not a long drop. The room had flooded long ago. The water had risen a yard into the room, then froze. A few crates and fuel drums were visible, half buried in the ice. A shelving unit stacked with tools rose from the ice pool, its first three shelves anchored below.

  But the most amazing sight was the pair of giant brass wheels on either far wall. They stood ten feet high with thick hexagonal axles attached to massive motors, embedded in the ice floor. The toothed edges of the wheels connected to the grooves of a monstrous brass wall that encompassed one entire side of the room.

  The wheel on the right side lay crooked, broken free from some old blast. Scorch marks were still visible on its brass surface. The dislodged wheel had torn through the neighboring steel wall, cracking through to the ice beyond. Perhaps it was even the source of flooding.

  Craig peered through the crack. It was too dark to see very far.

  “What is this place?” Amanda asked as she landed in a crouch. She stood, staring at the gigantic gearworks.

  Craig turned to her so she could read his lips. “According to the schematics, it’s the control room for the station’s sea gate.” He pointed to a grooved brass wall. “From here, they would lower or raise the gate whenever the Russian submarine docked into the sea cave below.”

  By now the others—Dr. Ogden and his three students—had dropped into the room. They stared around nervously.

  “Will we be safe here?” Magdalene asked.

  “Safer,” Craig answered. “We had to get out of the service ducts. The Russians will be swarming and incinerating their way through there. We’re better off holing up here. This room is isolated well off the main complex. There’s a good chance the Russians don’t even know this place exists.”

  Craig crossed to the single door, opposite the sea gate. There was a small window in it. Beyond he could see the narrow hall that led back to the station. It had flooded almost to the roof. No Russians would be coming from that direction.

  Amanda had to lean in close to read his lips. “What about Matt and the Navy crew?”

  C
raig bit his lip. He had a hard time meeting her eye. “I don’t know. They’ll have to take care of themselves.”

  Earlier, while watching from the electrical room, he had seen Washburn slip and fall, alerting the two Russian guards. The resulting rifle fire had driven him back to the civilian party. Surely Matt and the others were dead or captured. Either way, he couldn’t risk staying around. So he had led their group off—going down rather than up. The gate control room seemed the perfect hiding place.

  Dr. Ogden, along with his graduate students, stepped to join them, careful of the icy floor. “So are we just going to hide here, simply wait for the Russians to leave?”

  Craig shifted aside a wooden box of empty vodka bottles. The last survivors of Ice Station Grendel must have had a party at the end. The bottles clinked as he moved them. Wishing for a stiff drink himself, he sat on one of the crates. “By now, someone must know what’s going on here. Help has to be on its way. All we have to do is survive until then.”

  Amanda continued to stare hard at him, her gaze penetrating. Craig sensed her deep anger. She had not wanted to flee earlier, not without knowing the exact fate of Matt and the Navy crew. But she had been outvoted.

  Craig looked away, unable to face that silent accusation. He needed something to distract himself, something to get all their minds off of their current situation. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out one of the three volumes he had looted from the research laboratory. Here was a puzzle to help them bide their time. Perhaps even one of the scientists might have a clue to deciphering this riddle.

  Amanda’s eyes widened, recognizing the book. “Did you steal that?”

  Craig shrugged. “I took the first volume and the last two.” He slipped the other books from his jacket and passed one to Amanda and one to Ogden. “I figured these were the best. The beginning and the end. Who needs to read the middle?”

  Amanda and Dr. Ogden opened their copies. The biologist’s students peered over their professor’s shoulder.

  “It’s written in gibberish,” Zane, the youngest of the trio of grad students, commented, his face screwed up.

  “No, it’s a code,” Amanda corrected, fanning through the pages.