Ice Station, page 19
Schofield was slowly beginning to believe what Sarah was saying.
Sarah said, ‘That cavern down there is fifteen hundred feet below sea level, that’s two-and-a-half thousand feet below the average land level of Antarctica. The ice down there is easily four hundred million years old. If it’s upthrusted ice from deeper down – ice that was raised by an earthquake or something – then it could be a lot, lot older.
‘I think that whatever is down there is something that was frozen a long time ago. A long time ago. It could be alien, it could be human, from human life that existed on this planet millions of years ago. Either way, Lieutenant, it’ll be the greatest palaeontological discovery this world has ever known and I want to see it.’
Sarah stopped, took a deep breath.
Schofield just stood there, silent.
Sarah spoke softly. ‘Lieutenant, this is my life. This is my whole life. Whatever’s down there is perhaps the greatest discovery in the history of mankind. I’ve been studying my whole life for this –’
Schofield looked curiously at her and she cut herself off, sensing that he was about to speak.
‘What about your daughter?’ he said.
Sarah cocked her head. She hadn’t expected him to ask that.
Schofield said, ‘You’re willing to leave her up here alone?’
‘She’ll be safe,’ Sarah said evenly. Then she smiled. ‘She’ll be up here with you.’
Schofield hadn’t seen Sarah Hensleigh smile before. It illuminated her face, lit up the whole room.
Sarah said, ‘I’ll also be able to identify our divers who went down to that cave before, which might be –’
Schofield held up his hand. ‘It’s all right, you convinced me. You can go. But you use our scuba gear. I don’t know what happened to your people down there before, but I have a sneaking suspicion that whatever’s down there heard the noise of their breathing gear and I don’t want the same thing to happen to us.’
‘Thank you, Lieutenant,’ Sarah said seriously. ‘Thank you.’ Then she took off the glistening silver locket that she wore around her neck and offered it to Schofield. ‘I’d better not dive with this on. Can you keep it for me until I get back?’
Schofield took the locket, put it in his pocket. ‘Sure.’
Just then, there came a sudden groaning sound from the pool to Schofield’s left.
Schofield spun, just in time to see an enormous black shadow rise to the surface of the pool amid a cloud of frothing white bubbles.
At first Schofield thought the black shadow was one of the killer whales, returning to the pool in search of more food. But whatever it was, it wasn’t swimming. It was just floating, rising up and up toward the surface.
And then the enormous black object breached the surface with a loud shooshing sound. Waves and bubbles shot out from every side of it. White froth expanded all around it. Narrow rivulets of blood snaked their way through the froth. The massive black object bobbed on the surface. Everyone on the deck took a step forward.
Schofield stared at the black object in awe.
It was a killer whale.
But it was dead. Well and truly dead. The huge black-and-white carcass just floated limply in the water, alongside the deck. It was one of the larger ones, too, possibly even the male of the pack. It must have been at least thirty feet long. Seven tons in weight.
At first Schofield thought it must have been the killer whale that Mother had shot in the head during the battle – since that was the only whale that he knew for sure was dead. He quickly changed his mind.
This dead whale had no visible wound in its head. The one Mother had shot would have had a hole the size of a basketball in its skull. This one’s forehead was unmarked.
And there was another thing.
This one had floated to the surface.
An animal killed in water will initially float, until its body fills with water. Only then will it sink. The killer whale that Mother had killed would have long since sunk to the bottom. This whale, on the other hand, had been killed recently.
The dead carcass rolled slowly in the water. Schofield and the other Marines on the deck just stared at it, entranced.
And then, slowly, it rolled belly-up and Schofield saw the great whale’s white underbelly and his jaw dropped.
Two long bloody gashes ran down the length of the big whale’s underbelly.
They ran in parallel. Two jagged, uneven slashes that ran all the way up the centre of the whale’s body, from its mid-section to its throat. Sections of the big whale’s intestines had fallen out through the gashes – long, ugly, cream-coloured coils that were as thick as a man’s arm.
They weren’t clean cuts either, Schofield saw. Each gash was a tear, a rip. Something had punctured the whale’s belly and then ripped up the entire length of its body, tearing the skin apart.
Everyone on the deck stared at the bloody carcass, the understanding visible on their faces.
There was something down in that water.
Something that had killed a killer whale.
Schofield took a deep breath and turned to face Sarah. ‘Want to reconsider?’ he said.
Sarah stared at the dead killer whale for a few seconds. Then she looked back at Schofield.
‘No,’ she said. ‘No way.’
Schofield paced nervously around the pool deck, alone.
He watched as in the middle of the pool the winch’s cable plunged into the water. At the end of that cable was the diving bell, and inside the diving bell were three of his Marines plus Sarah Hensleigh. The cable entered the water at a steady speed, as fast as it could go.
The winch had been lowering the diving bell into the water for almost an hour now. Three thousand feet was a long way, almost a kilometre, and Schofield knew it would take some time before it reached that depth.
Schofield stood on the deserted deck. Twenty minutes earlier, he had sent Book, Snake and Rebound topside to try to raise McMurdo Station on the portable radio again – he had to know when a full-strength American force was going to arrive at Wilkes.
Now he stood alone on E-deck, the station around him silent save for the rhythmic mechanical thumping of the winch mechanism up on C-deck. The repetitive thump-thump-thump of the winch had an almost soothing effect on him.
Schofield pulled Sarah Hensleigh’s silver locket out of his pocket. It glistened in the white fluorescent light of the station. He turned it over in his hand. There was some writing engraved on the back of it –
And then suddenly there came a noise and Schofield’s head snapped round. It had only lasted for an instant, but Schofield had definitely heard it.
It had been a voice. A male voice. But a voice that had been speaking in . . .
. . . French.
Schofield’s eyes fell instantly upon the VLF transmitter that sat on the deck a few feet away from him.
Suddenly, the transmitter emitted a shrill whistling sound. And then the voice came again.
‘La hyène, c’est moi, le requin,’ the voice said. ‘La hyène, c’est moi, le requin. Présentez votre rapport. Je renouvele. Présentez votre rapport.’
Rebound, Schofield thought. Shit. I need Rebound. But he was outside with the others and Schofield needed a French speaker now.
‘Rebound,’ Schofield said into his helmet mike.
The reply came back immediately. ‘Yes, sir?’ Schofield could hear the swirling wind in the background.
‘Don’t say a word, Rebound. Just listen, okay,’ Schofield said, pressing a button on his belt that kept his helmet microphone switched on. He leaned in close to the VLF transmitter so that his helmet mike was near the transmitter’s speaker.
The French voice came again.
‘La hyène. Vous avez trois heures pour présenter votre rapport. Je renouvele. Vous avez trois heures pour présenter votre rapport. Si vous ne le présentez pas lorsque l’heure nous serons contraint de lancer l’engine d’efface. Je renouvele. Si vous ne le présentez pas lorsque l’heure nous serons contraint de lancer l’engine d’efface. C’est moi, le requin. Finis.’
The signal cut off and there was silence. When he was sure that it was finished, Schofield said, ‘Did you get all that, Rebound?’
‘Most of it, sir.’
‘What did they say?’
‘They said: Hyena. You have three hours to report. If you do not report by that time we will be compelled to launch the “l’engine d’efface,” the erasing device.’
‘The erasing device,’ Schofield said flatly. ‘Three hours. You sure about that, Rebound?’
Schofield grabbed his wristwatch as he spoke. It was an old Casio digital. He started the stopwatch on it. The seconds began to tick upward.
‘Very sure, sir. They said it all twice,’ Rebound said.
Schofield said, ‘Good work, Private. All right. Now all we have to do is figure out where these guys are –’
‘Uh, excuse me, sir?’ It was Rebound again.
‘What is it?’
‘Sir, I think I have an idea where they might be.’
‘Where?’
‘Sir, at the end of that transmission we just heard, they said “c’est moi le requin”. Now, I missed the start of the transmission. Did they say that at the very beginning? “C’est moi le requin”?’
Schofield didn’t know, he didn’t speak French. It had all sounded the same to him. He tried to replay the radio message in his head. ‘They may have,’ he said. ‘No, wait, yes. Yes, I think they did say that. Why?’
Rebound said, ‘Sir, “le requin” is French for “shark”. “C’est moi le requin” means “This is Shark”. You know, like a military codename. The French unit here at the station was called “Hyena” and that one we just heard was called “Shark”. You know what I’m thinking, sir –’
‘Oh, damn,’ Schofield said.
‘That’s right. I’m thinking they’re out on the water somewhere. Somewhere off the coast. I’ll bet you a million bucks that “Shark” is a warship or something sailing off the coast of Antarctica.’
‘Oh, damn,’ Schofield said again, this time with feeling.
It made sense that whoever sent that message was a ship of some kind. And not just because of its code-name. As Schofield knew, because of their extraordinarily long wavelengths, VLF transmissions were commonly used by surface vessels or submarines out in the middle of the ocean. That was why the French commandos had brought the VLF transmitter with them. To keep in contact with their warship off the coast.
Schofield started to feel ill.
The prospect of a frigate or a destroyer patrolling the ocean a hundred miles off the coast was bad. Very bad. Especially if it was aiming some kind of weapon – in all likelihood, a battery of nuclear-tipped cruise missiles – at Wilkes Ice Station.
It had never occurred to Schofield that the French might not bring an erasing device with them, but would rather leave it with an outside agent – like a destroyer off the coast – with instructions to fire upon the station if that destroyer did not receive a report by a given time.
Shit, Schofield thought. Shit. Shit. Shit.
There were only two things in the world that could stop the launch of that erasing device. One, a report coming in from twelve dead Frenchmen sometime within the next three hours. That wasn’t going to happen.
Which meant the second option was the only option.
Schofield had to get in contact with the US forces at McMurdo Station. And not just to find out when American reinforcements would be arriving at Wilkes. No, now he had to tell the Marines at McMurdo about a French warship sailing somewhere off the coast with a battery of cruise missiles trained on Wilkes Ice Station. It would then be up to the people at McMurdo to take out that warship – within three hours.
Schofield keyed his mike again. ‘Book, you hear all that?’
‘Yeah,’ Buck Riley’s voice said.
‘Any luck with McMurdo?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Keep trying,’ Schofield said. ‘Over and over. Until you get them on the line. Gentlemen, the stakes in this game have just been raised. If we don’t get through to McMurdo in less than three hours, we’re all gonna be vaporised.’
‘Scarecrow, this is Fox,’ Gant’s voice said. ‘I repeat. Scarecrow, this is Fox. Hey, Scarecrow? Are you out there?’
Schofield was out on the pool deck on E-deck, watching the cable descend into the pool, thinking about cruise missiles. It had been about ten minutes since he had heard the transmission from the French vessel, ‘Shark’. Book, Rebound and Snake were all still outside trying to raise McMurdo.
Schofield keyed his mike. ‘I hear you, Fox. How are you doing down there?’
‘We are coming to three thousand feet. Preparing to stop the cable.’
There was a short pause.
‘Okay. We are stopping the cable . . . now.’
As Gant said the word ‘now’, the cable plunging into the water suddenly jolted to a stop. Gant had stopped its descent from inside the diving bell.
‘Scarecrow, I have the time as 1410 hours,’ Gant said. ‘Please confirm.’
‘I confirm the time as 1410 hours, Fox,’ Schofield said. It was standard deep-diving practice to confirm the time at which a dive was to start. Schofield didn’t know that he was following exactly the same procedure that the scientists from Wilkes had followed only two-and-a-half days earlier.
‘Copy time at 1410 hours. Turning over to self-contained air. Preparing to leave the diving bell.’
Gant kept Schofield updated on the dive.
The four divers – Gant, Montana, Santa Cruz and Sarah Hensleigh – turned over to self-contained air without incident and left the diving bell. A few minutes later, Gant reported that they had found the entrance to the underwater ice tunnel, and that they were beginning their ascent.
Schofield continued to pace around the deck, deep in thought.
He thought about the divers from Wilkes who had disappeared down in the cavern, about the cavern itself and what was in it, about the French and their snatch-and-grab effort to seize whatever was down there, about erasing devices being fired from warships off the coast, about the possibility that one of his own men had killed Samurai, and about Sarah Hensleigh’s smile. It was all too much.
His helmet intercom crackled to life. ‘Sir, Book here.’
‘Any luck?’
‘Not a goddam thing, sir.’
For the last quarter of an hour, Book, Snake and Rebound had been trying to raise McMurdo Station on the unit’s portable radio. They were doing it from just outside the main entrance to the station, as if being outside the structure might somehow help the signal get through.
‘Interference?’ Schofield asked.
‘Mountains of it,’ Book said sadly.
Schofield thought for a moment. Then he said, ‘Book. Cancel that option and come back inside. I want you to go and find the scientists who are still here. I think they’re in that common room on B-deck. See if you can find out if any of them are familiar with the radio system here.’
‘I copy that, sir.’
Book’s voice switched off and Schofield’s intercom was silent again. Schofield stared at the pool of water at the base of the station and resumed his thoughts.
He thought about Samurai’s death and who could have done it. At the moment, he trusted only two people: Montana and Sarah Hensleigh, since they had been with him when Samurai had been murdered. They were the only two people whom Schofield knew for certain were not involved in Samurai’s murder. As far as everybody else was concerned, they were all under suspicion.
Which was why Schofield had decided to keep Book, Snake and Rebound all together. If one of them was the killer, he wouldn’t be able to kill again with the other two around . . .
Suddenly, a new thought hit Schofield and he keyed his mike again. ‘Book, you still out there?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Book, while you’re down on B-deck, I want you to ask those scientists something else,’ Schofield said. ‘I want you to ask if any of them knows anything about weather.’
The radio room at Wilkes Ice Station is situated in the south-east corner of A-deck, directly across the shaft from the dining room. It houses the station’s satellite telecommunications gear and short range radio transmitters. Four radio consoles – each consisting of a microphone, a computer screen and keyboard, and some frequency dials – were in the room, two to each side.
Abby Sinclair was sitting at one of the radio consoles when Schofield entered the radio room.
The first thing Schofield noticed was that Abby Sinclair had not borne the recent events at Wilkes Ice Station at all well. Abby was a pretty woman in her late thirties, with long, frizzy brown hair, and large brown eyes. Long, vertical streaks of black mascara ran down from beneath both of her eyes. They reminded Schofield of the two scars that cut down across his own eyes – now hidden once again, behind his opaque silver glasses.
Next to Abby stood the three other Marines – Riley, Rebound and Snake. Abby Sinclair was the only scientist in the room.
Schofield turned to Book. ‘Nobody knows anything about weather?’
‘On the contrary,’ Book said. ‘You’re in luck. Lieutenant Shane Schofield, I’d like you to meet Miss Abby Sinclair. Miss Sinclair is both the radio expert at this station and its resident meteorologist.’
Abby Sinclair said, ‘Actually, I’m not the real radio expert. Carl Price was, but he . . . disappeared down in the cave before. I just help him out with the radio gear, so I guess I’m it now.’
Schofield smiled reassuringly at her. ‘That’s good enough for me, Miss Sinclair. Is it okay if I call you Abby?’
She nodded.
Schofield said, ‘All right. Abby, I have two problems, and I’m hoping that you can help me with both of them. I need to get in contact with my superiors at McMurdo as soon as possible. I need to tell them what’s happened here so that they can send in the cavalry, if they haven’t done so already. Now, we’ve been trying to raise McMurdo on our portable radio, but we can’t get through. Question One: does the radio system here work?’
