Ice Station, page 30
The hovercraft continued to fall through the air, rear-end first. The grappling hook found a purchase on the clifftop and suddenly it snapped to a halt and held, and its rope went instantly taut –
– and Schofield and Renshaw, at the other end of the rope, suddenly shot up out of the falling hovercraft.
The hovercraft fell away beneath them – fell and fell – before it smashed loudly against the white-tipped waves one hundred and fifty feet below them.
Schofield and Renshaw swung back in toward the cliff-face. The hovercraft had launched itself a good distance from the cliff, so they had a long way to swing back, and when they hit the cliff-face, they hit it hard.
The impact with the cliff jarred Renshaw’s grip on Schofield’s waist and he fell for an instant, grabbing Schofield’s right foot at the very last moment.
The two men hung there for a full minute, halfway down the sheer vertical cliff-face, neither one of them daring to move.
‘You still there?’ Schofield asked.
‘Yeah,’ Renshaw said, petrified.
‘All right, I’m going to try and reel us up, now,’ Schofield said, shifting his grip on his launcher slightly so that he could press down on the black button that reeled in the rope without collapsing the grappling hook.
Schofield looked up at the cliff-edge high above them. It must have been at least a hundred and fifty feet away. Schofield figured he must be hanging at the full length of his Maghook’s rope –
It was then that Schofield saw him.
A man. Standing up on the clifftop, peering out over the edge, looking down at Schofield and Renshaw.
Schofield froze.
The man was wearing a black balaclava.
And he was holding a machine-gun in his hand.
‘Well?’ Renshaw said from down near Schofield’s feet. ‘What are you waiting for?’ From his position, Renshaw wasn’t able to see the SAS commando up on the clifftop.
‘We’re not going up anymore,’ Schofield said flatly, his eyes locked on the black-clad figure at the top of the cliff.
‘We’re not?’ Renshaw said. ‘What are you talking about?’
The SAS commando was looking directly down at Schofield now.
Schofield swallowed. Then he glanced down at the smashing waves a hundred and fifty feet below him. When he looked up again, the SAS commando was pulling a long, glistening knife from its sheath. The commando then bent down over the Maghook’s rope at the top of the cliff.
‘Oh, no,’ Schofield said.
‘Oh, no what?’ Renshaw said.
‘Are you ready to go for a ride?’
‘No,’ Renshaw said.
Schofield said, ‘Breathe all the way down, and then at the last second, take a deep breath.’ That was what they told you when you jumped out of a moving helicopter into water. Schofield figured the same principle applied here.
Schofield looked up again at the SAS commando at the top of the cliff. He was about to cut the rope.
‘All right,’ Schofield said. ‘Let’s cut the crap. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna wait for you to cut my rope. Renshaw, are you ready? We’re going.’
And at that moment, Schofield pressed down twice on the trigger of the Maghook.
At the top of the cliff the claws of the grappling hook responded immediately and collapsed inward, and in doing so, they lost their purchase on the snow. The hook slithered out over the edge of the cliff, past the bewildered SAS commando, and Schofield, Renshaw and the Maghook fell – together – down the cliff-face and into the crashing waves of the Southern Ocean below.
In the silence of the ice cavern, Libby Gant just stared at the semi-eaten bodies that lay draped over the rocks in front of her.
Since they had arrived in the cavern about forty minutes ago, the others – Montana, Santa Cruz and Sarah Hensleigh – had barely even looked at the bodies. They were all totally engrossed in the big black spacecraft on the other side of the underground cavern. They walked around it, under it, peered at its black metal wings, tried to look in through the smoked-glass canopy of its cockpit.
After Schofield had informed Gant of the impending arrival of the British troops and his own plan to flee, she had set up two MP-5s on tripods, facing the pool at the end of the cavern. If the SAS tried to enter the cavern, she would pick them off one-by-one as they broke the surface.
That had been half an hour ago.
Even if the SAS had arrived at Wilkes Ice Station by now, it would still take them another hour to lower someone down in the diving bell and a further hour to swim up the underwater ice tunnel to the cavern.
It was a waiting game now.
After Gant had set up the tripods, Montana and Sarah Hensleigh had gone back to examining the spacecraft. Santa Cruz had stayed with Gant a while longer, but soon he, too, went back over to look at the fantastic black ship.
Gant stayed with the guns.
As she sat there on the cold, icy floor of the cavern, she gazed at the dismembered bodies on the far side of the pool. The amount of damage that had been done to the bodies had stunned her. Heads and limbs missing; whole sections of flesh literally chewed to the bone; the whole scene itself soaked in blood.
What on earth could have done it? Gant thought.
As she thought about the bodies, Gant’s gaze wandered over to the pool. She saw the round holes in the ice walls above it – the enormous, ten-foot holes. They were identical to the ones she had seen in the underwater ice tunnel on the way here.
Gant had a strange feeling about those holes, about the bodies, about the cave itself. It was almost as if the cave were some kind of –
‘This is absolutely incredible,’ Sarah Hensleigh said as she came over and stood beside Gant. Hensleigh hurriedly brushed a strand of long dark hair from her face. She was practically brimming with excitement at the discovery of the spaceship.
‘It has no markings on it whatsoever,’ she said. ‘The whole ship is completely and utterly black.’
Gant didn’t care much for Sarah Hensleigh right now. In fact, she didn’t care much for the spaceship, either.
In fact, the more she thought about it – about the spaceship and the cavern and the half-eaten bodies and the SAS up in the station – Gant couldn’t help but think that there was no way in the world that she would ever be leaving Wilkes Ice Station alive.
The SAS team’s entry into Wilkes Ice Station was fast and fluid – professional.
Black-clad men charged into the station with their guns up. They fanned out quickly, moved in pairs. They opened every door, checked every room.
‘A-deck, clear!’ one voice yelled.
‘B-deck, clear!’ another voice yelled.
Trevor Barnaby strode out onto the A-deck catwalk and surveyed the abandoned station like a newly crowned king looking out over his domain. Barnaby looked down upon the station with a cold, even gaze. A thin smile creased his face.
The SAS troops made their way down to E-deck, where they found Snake and the two French scientists handcuffed to the pole. Two SAS commandos covered them while more black-clad troops poured down the rung-ladders and disappeared inside the tunnels of E-deck.
Four SAS commandos raced into the south tunnel. Two took the doors to the left. Two took the doors to the right.
The two on the right came to the first door, kicked it in, looked inside.
A storeroom. Battered wooden shelves. Some scuba-diving tanks on the floor.
But empty.
They moved down the corridor, guns up. It was then that one of them saw the dumb waiter, saw the two stainless steel doors glistening in the cold white light of the tunnel.
With a short whistle, the lead SAS man caught the attention of the other two commandos in the tunnel. He pointed with two fingers at the dumb waiter. The other two men understood instantly. They positioned themselves on either side of the dumb waiter while the leader and the fourth SAS commando aimed their guns at the stainless steel doors.
The leader nodded quickly and the two men on either side of the dumb waiter instantly yanked it open, and the leader let rip with a sudden burst of gunfire.
The bare walls of the empty dumb waiter were instantly ripped to shreds.
Mother squeezed her eyes shut as the SAS commando’s gunfire roared loudly less than a foot above her head.
She was sitting in complete darkness, at the base of the dumb waiter’s miniature elevator shaft, curled up in a tight ball, in the crawlspace underneath the dumb waiter.
The dumb waiter shuddered and shook under the weight of the SAS commando’s gunfire. Its walls blew out, and jagged, splintered holes appeared all over it. Dust and wood shavings showered down on Mother, but she just kept her eyes firmly shut.
And then at that moment, as the gunfire echoed loudly in her ears, a jarring thought hit Mother.
They could fire their guns safely inside the station again . . .
The amount of flammable gas in the station’s atmosphere must have dissipated –
And then abruptly the gunfire ceased and the doors of the dumb waiter closed and all of a sudden there was silence again and for the first time in three whole minutes, Mother let out a breath.
Schofield and Renshaw plummeted down the face of the cliff and plunged into the ocean.
The cold hit them like an anvil, but Schofield didn’t care. His adrenalin was pumping and his body heat was already high. Most experts would give you about eight minutes to live in the freezing Antarctic waters. But with his thermal wetsuit on and his adrenalin pumping, Schofield gave himself at least thirty.
He swam upward, searching for air, and then suddenly he broke the surface and the first thing he saw was the largest wave he had ever seen in his life bearing down upon him. The wave crashed down against him and drove him – slammed him – back against the base of the ice cliff.
The impact knocked the wind out of him and Schofield’s lungs clawed for air.
Suddenly the wave subsided and Schofield felt himself get sucked down into a trough between two waves. He let himself float in the water for a few seconds while he got his breath and his bearings.
The sea around him was absolutely mountainous. Forty-foot waves surrounded him. A mammoth wave smashed into the cliffs twenty yards to his right. Icebergs – some as tall and as wide as New York skyscrapers; others as long and flat as football fields – hovered a hundred yards off the coast, silent sentries guarding the ice cliffs.
Suddenly Renshaw burst up out of the water right next to Schofield. The short scientist immediately began gulping in air in hoarse, heaving breaths. For an instant, Schofield worried about how Renshaw would cope with the extreme cold of the water, but then he remembered Renshaw’s neoprene bodysuit. Hell, Renshaw was probably warmer than he was.
At that moment Schofield saw another towering wave coming toward them.
‘Go under!’ he yelled.
Schofield took a deep breath and dived, and suddenly the world went eerily silent.
He swam downwards; saw Renshaw swimming alongside him, hovering in the water.
And then Schofield saw an explosion of white foam fan out above their heads as the wave on the surface crashed with all its might against the cliff.
Schofield and Renshaw surfaced again.
As he bobbed and swayed in the water, Schofield saw the entire side door of a hovercraft float past him in the water.
‘We have to get further out,’ Schofield said. ‘If we stay here any longer, we’re gonna get pulverised against these cliffs.’
‘Where to?’ Renshaw said.
‘Okay,’ Schofield said. ‘See that iceberg out there?’ He pointed at a large berg that looked like a grand piano on its side, about two hundred yards out from the cliffs.
‘I see it.’
‘That’s where we’re going,’ Schofield said.
‘All right.’
‘Okay, then. On three. One. Two. Three.’
On three, both men drew deep breaths and went under. They kicked off the cliff and breaststroked their way through the clear Antarctic water. Explosions of white foam flared out above their heads as they made their way through the water.
Ten yards. Twenty.
Renshaw ran out of breath, surfaced, took a quick gulp of air and then went under again. Schofield did the same, clenching his teeth as he too ducked beneath the waves again. His newly broken rib burned with pain.
Fifty yards out and the two men broke the surface again. They were beyond the breaking waves now, so they stretched out into freestyle, powering over the vertiginous peaks of the towering forty-foot waves.
At last, they came to the base of the iceberg. It loomed above them, a wall of white, sheer in some places, beautifully curved and grooved in others. Magnificent vaulted tunnels disappeared into the virgin ice.
The big berg levelled off at one point, descending to the ocean where it formed a kind of ledge. Schofield and Renshaw made for the ledge.
When they got there, they saw that the ledge was actually poised about three feet above the water.
‘Push off my shoulder,’ Schofield said.
Renshaw obeyed, and quickly hoisted his left foot onto Schofield’s shoulder and pushed off it.
The little man’s hands reached up and clasped the ice ledge and he awkwardly hauled himself up onto it. Then he lay flat on the edge of the ledge and reached back down for Schofield.
Schofield reached up and Renshaw began to haul him up out of the water. Schofield was almost on the ledge when suddenly, Renshaw’s wet hands slipped off his wrist and Schofield fell clumsily back down into the water.
Schofield plunged underwater.
Silence. Total silence. Like the womb.
The blasting explosions of the waves crashing against the ice cliffs no longer assaulted his ears.
The massive white underbelly of the iceberg filled his vision. It stretched down and down until it disappeared into the cloudy depths of the ocean.
And then suddenly Schofield heard a sound and he snapped upright in the water. The sound travelled well in the water and he heard it clearly.
Vmmmmmm.
It was a low, droning, humming sound.
Vmmmmmm.
Schofield frowned. It sounded almost . . . mechanical. Like a motorised door opening somewhere. Somewhere close.
Somewhere . . . behind him.
Schofield spun around instantly.
And then he saw it.
It was so huge – so monstrously huge – that the mere sight of it sent Schofield’s heart into overdrive.
It was just hovering there in the water.
Silent. Huge.
Looming over Schofield as he hovered in the water alongside the iceberg.
It must have been at least a hundred metres long, its hull black and round. Schofield saw the two horizontal stabilising fins jutting out from either side of the conning tower, saw the cylindrical snub nose of the bow and suddenly his heart was pumping very loudly inside his head.
Schofield couldn’t believe his eyes.
He was looking at a submarine.
Schofield burst up out of the water.
‘Are you all right?’ Renshaw asked from up on the ledge.
‘Not anymore,’ Schofield said before he quickly took another breath and submerged again.
The world was silent again.
Schofield swam a little deeper and stared at the massive submarine in awe. It was about thirty yards away from him but he could see it clearly. The enormous submarine just sat there – completely submerged – hovering in the underwater silence like an enormous, patient leviathan.
Schofield looked it over, looked for the signature features.
He saw the narrow conning tower; saw the four torpedo ports on the bow. One of the torpedo ports, he saw, was in the process of opening. Vmmmmm.
And then Schofield saw the colours painted on the forward left-hand side of the bow – saw the three vertical shafts of colour – blue–white–red.
He was looking at the French flag.
Renshaw watched as Schofield burst up out of the water again.
‘What are you doing down there?’ he asked.
Schofield ignored him. Instead, he thrust his left arm out of the water and examined his watch.
The stopwatch read:
2:57:59
2:58:00
2:58:01
‘Oh, Jesus,’ Schofield said. ‘Oh, Jesus.’
In the bedlam of the hovercraft chase, he had completely forgotten about the French warship hovering off the coast of Antarctica, waiting to fire its missiles at Wilkes Ice Station. Its codename, he recalled, was ‘Shark’.
It was only now, though, that Schofield realised he had made a mistake. He had jumped to the wrong conclusion. ‘Shark’ wasn’t a warship at all.
It was a submarine.
It was this submarine.
‘Quickly,’ Schofield said to Renshaw. ‘Get me out.’
Renshaw thrust his hand down and Schofield clasped it firmly. Renshaw hauled Schofield up as quickly as he could. When he was high enough, Schofield grabbed hold of the ice ledge and hauled himself up onto it.
Renshaw had half-expected Schofield to drop down onto the ice and catch his breath as he himself had done, but Schofield was up on his feet in an instant.
In fact, no sooner was he up on the ledge than he was running – no sprinting – out across the flat expanse of the iceberg.
Renshaw gave chase. He saw Schofield hurdle an ice-mound as he bounded for the edge of the iceberg about thirty metres away. There was a slight incline which Schofield ran up, toward the edge of the iceberg. On the other side of the incline, Renshaw saw, was a sheer ten-metre drop down to the water below.
As he ran, Schofield checked his stopwatch. The seconds continued to tick upward, toward the three hour mark.
Toward firing time.
2:58:31
2:58:32
2:58:33
Schofield was thinking as he ran.
It’s going to destroy the station. Destroy the station.
Going to kill my Marines. Kill the little girl . . .
