Ice Hunt (58 page)

With time ticking down, the party had fled into the submarine.

As soon as all were aboard, Greg had ordered the submarine to crash-dive. The
Polar Sentinal
fell away like a brick. They were at forty fathoms when the Russian V-class incendiaries blew off the top of their world.

Amanda had been in Cyclops at the time. She had witnessed the blinding flash, the impossible sight of flames shooting down through the water. The submarine had been rocked, shoved deep, but with the insulation of almost three hundred feet of water, they had survived, no more than rattled.

Greg had then related her father’s frantic VLF message, his warning about the ultimate mission of the Delta strike team. “I was already here, planning a rescue attempt under the Russians’ noses. I never imagined that I’d have to rescue you from our own forces.” This last was spoken bitterly.

He had also shared the news about her father’s medical condition. A heart attack. But he was recovering well in the naval hospital on Oahu. “Even before he’d let them treat him, he insisted the warning be sent first.”

The timing had saved them.

Now once again, the
Polar Sentinel
spied from below. This time the submarine hovered beside the inverted mountain of ice that hid Ice Station Grendel. Through the DeepEye’s penetrating sonar, they had watched the assault upon the buried station. It was eerie watching the silent play unfold on the screen, the ghostly images of men and gunfire.

Then the explosion erupted, appearing as a wash of yellow on the monitor.

It slowly cleared.

Greg squeezed her knee, indicating he wanted to speak to her. She turned and looked at him. “I don’t know what we can do to help,” he said. “It looks like the entrance collapsed. They’re trapped in there.”

Over Greg’s shoulder, a figure stirred, moving forward. “Jenny.” It was the woman’s father. He pointed to the screen and tapped one of the phantoms, the form billowy from the sonar. “That’s my daughter.”

Amanda glanced back to him. “Are you sure?”

He leaned forward and ran his finger down the figure’s lower half. “She broke her leg when she was twenty-two. They had to pin it back together.”

Amanda focused the DeepEye slightly. The old man could be right. The penetrating sonar was similar to X rays. And there appeared to be a distinct metallic density in the lower extremities. It could be her.

She turned to John and read the raw fear in his face. He
knew
it was his daughter. Amanda struggled to think of some other way to rescue Jenny and any other folk trapped between the two forces.

Greg pointed to the monitor. Throughout the upper levels of the station, spats of yellow appeared on the monitor. She didn’t have to read his lips to know what it was.
Gunfire
.

A large flare of amber flashed midlevel in the station.

She turned to him.

“Grenade,” he mouthed.

She turned back as flashes and flares continued to descend into the depths of the station.

It was all out-war.

8:22 P.M.
ICE STATION GRENDEL

Another grenade exploded, rocking the floor under Jenny. In her arms, she held the Inuit boy. He screamed and sobbed, covering his ears, squeezing his eyes tightly closed. She rocked him as she crouched.

Matt hovered over them both, a rifle in his hand.

Screams and shouts wafted up the central shaft, along with billows of smoke and soot. Fires were raging somewhere below. Most of the base was steel, brass, and copper. But a significant part of its infrastructure was straw and flammable composites.

It was burning.

Even if the Delta Force team could commandeer the station, what then? They would either die in flames or be buried in the ice as the station collapsed.

And then there was always the third possibility.

Hovering amid the column of smoke, the large titanium sphere rested on the elevator platform. One of the soldiers, a demolition expert, knelt in front of an open hatch at the bottom of the sphere. He had been studying it for the past ten minutes, tools spread at his knees, untouched. It was not a good sign.

Craig barked at her shoulder as the gunfire ebbed below. He was yelling into his radio while he surveyed the level. Two other Delta Force soldiers held positions by the shaft. The remainder of the squad continued its guerrilla war down below.

Lowering his throat mike, Craig stepped to them. He eyed the collapsed exit. “There’s no way for the few men left above to dig us out. It would take days. Any attempt to blast a way through with a missile would just get us all killed.”

“So what are they going to do?”

Craig closed his eyes, then opened them. He stared over to the bomb. “I ordered them to stand down, to retreat thirty miles off. I can’t risk losing the journals.”

“Thirty miles?” Matt asked. “Isn’t that overkill?”

Craig nodded to the device being examined over the shaft. “It’s nuclear. That’s as much as Sergeant Conrad can tell us right now. Unless we can deactivate it…” He shrugged.

Jenny had to give the guy credit. He was one cold fish. Even in their current straits, his mission was his first priority.

Matt continued to watch over them, eyes sweeping all around. “The shooting…I think it’s slowing…”

Jenny realized he was right. She cradled the boy. The gunfire had died to sporadic bursts.

Over by the central shaft, the two guards stirred. One yelled back to them. “Friendlies coming up!”

A pair of Delta Force team members clambered up the steps. They led a Russian soldier, hands on top of his head, at gunpoint. A young man, no older than eighteen, he blinked at the blood that ran down his face. Soot covered his clothes.

One of his captors snapped at him in Russian. He dropped to his knees. The other came to report to Craig. “They’re surrendering. We’ve another two prisoners on Level Three.”

“And the others?”

“Dead.” The soldier glanced back to the stairwell. The gunfire had ended. “We cleared all the tiers, except for Level Four. Men are sweeping it now.”

“What about Admiral Petkov?” Matt asked.

The man nudged the prisoner. Weak with terror and loss of blood, he fell on his side, afraid even to lower his hands to catch himself. “He says that the admiral fled into Level Four. But so far, we’ve not found him. The prisoner might be lying. He may need a little encouragement.”

Before the matter could be addressed, Sergeant Conrad approached from his examination of the nuclear bomb.

Craig turned his full attention toward the man. “Well?”

The soldier shook his head. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. As far as I can tell, it’s a low-yield nuclear device. Minimal radiation risk. But it’s certainly no standard bomb. I’m guessing more of a disrupter of some type. Like the EM-pulse weapons under development. The explosive capability is small for a nuclear weapon, but its energy could generate a massive pulse. But I don’t think it’s an
electromagnetic
pulse. Something else. I don’t know what.”

Matt interrupted his report. “You said the explosion would be
small
. That’s the part I want to know about. How small?”

He was answered with a shrug. “Small for a
nuclear
device. But it’ll crack this island like a hard-boiled egg. If it blows, we’re all dead, no matter what pulse it sends out.”

“Can you deactivate it?”

The sergeant shook his head. “The trigger is based on subsonics. It’s tied to an external detonator. Unless we can get the abort code to turn this thing off, this baby’s going to blow in”—he checked his watch—“in fifty-five minutes.”

Craig rubbed his left temple. “Then we need to find the admiral. He’s our only chance.” His gaze settled on the frightened youth at his feet. He nodded to the soldier who had kicked the man. “Find out what he knows.”

The prisoner must have understood. He babbled in Russian, terrified, his hands still on his head.

Matt stepped between the prisoner and the soldier. “Don’t bother. I can find Petkov. I know where he must be holed up.”

Craig turned to him. “Where?”

“Down on Level Four. I’ll have to show you.”

Craig narrowed his eyes, glancing between the youth and the shaft. “All right. I doubt this fellow knows anything anyway.” He pulled out his pistol and shot the man in the head.

The retort was loud in the silent station. Skull, brains, and blood splattered across the floor.

“Jesus Christ!” Matt yelled, stumbling back as the blast echo died. “Why did you do that?”

Craig’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t play me for a fool, Matt. You know why.” He headed toward the shaft, waving for a pair of soldiers to flank him. “It’s either us or them. Pick sides and let’s go.”

Matt remained frozen but stared toward Jenny, who had twisted from the body, shielding the boy.

The gunshot had sent the boy into another bout of wailing. Jenny held him tightly.

Matt stepped over and leaned down, hugging them both. “Go,” she whispered, defying her own heart’s desire. She wanted him to stay with them. “But watch your back.”

A small nod. He understood her. The biggest danger right now was the bomb. Once that was nullified, they’d find some way to survive both the Russians and the Delta Force strike team.

Matt stood, shouldering his rifle.

Jenny closed her eyes, not wanting to see him leave. But as he stepped away, she opened her eyes. She watched his every movement: the set of his shoulders, the length of his stride. She drank him in, not knowing if she’d ever see him again, regretting the waste of bitter years.

Then they were gone. Two guards watched the shaft. Otherwise she was alone with the gently sobbing boy. She comforted him, as she had not been able to comfort Tyler. She ran fingers through his hair, whispered wordless sounds to soothe.

Across the way, the two guards by the stairs talked softly together. There was no more gunfire, no more explosions. Smoke still hazed the level. Through the oily fog, the lone beacon still shone, beating like a titanium heart, counting down.

As she cradled the boy, a voice whispered behind her, ghostly and vague. She was not even sure she heard it. Then her name was spoken.

“Jenny…can you hear me?”

She cautiously glanced behind her. She did not recognize the voice. It came from an overturned set of electronics.

“Jenny, it’s Captain Perry of the
Polar Sentinel
.”

8:32 P.M.
USS
POLAR SENTINEL

Perry stood in the communication shack by the bridge. He spoke into the UQC underwater telephone. “If you can hear me, move toward the sound of my voice.”

As he waited, he switched to the shipboard intercom. He hailed the Cyclops chamber. “John, can Amanda see Jenny on the monitor? Is your daughter responding?”

A short pause, then an answer came through. “Yes!” He heard a father’s hope in the man’s voice.

For the past five minutes, they had waited, spying with the DeepEye until Jenny was alone. Earlier, Perry had eavesdropped on communication between the station and the
Drakon
through the underwater phone. He had hoped the rubber landline that draped into the ocean had not been severed by the blast.

“Jenny, we can see you with our sonar. Is there any way you can transmit? There should be a receiver. Just like an old-fashioned phone. If you find it, simply talk into it.”

Perry waited, praying. He didn’t know what help they could offer, but he needed to know the situation in the station to formulate a plan.

The line remained quiet.

C’mon…we need some break. A bit of luck
.

The silence stretched.

8:33 P.M.
ICE STATION GRENDEL

Jenny clutched the telephone receiver in her hand. Tears of frustration welled in her eyes. The cord was cut. There was no way to communicate out. She wanted to bang the handset on the ground in frustration. Instead she simply set it down.

So far the two guards remained busy with their own discussion. She kept one arm around little Maki, not wanting to attract attention.

The captain’s voice returned.
“There must be a problem at your end. But we’re monitoring all means of communication coming from the station. We have all our ears up. You simply need to find a radio of any sort. Even a walkie-talkie. Our ears are very good out here. Get to it. But don’t let any of the Delta team see you.”

Jenny closed her eyes.

“Just know we’re watching you. We’ll do what we can to help.”

She listened to his confidence, but it shed from her like water off a seal’s fur. Even if she could reach a radio, what good would it do? How could they help?

She stared at the blue lights circling around and around the titanium sphere. A sense of despair and hopelessness settled over her. She was too tired to fight any longer. She had been up almost two days straight. The constant terror and tension had burned all substance from her. She felt hollow and empty.

Then a new voice whispered from the tiny speaker.
“Jenny, we’re here. We won’t leave until we get you all out of there.”
She barely heard the words, it was the voice that held her attention: the familiar slight slurring, the drawled consonance.

“Amanda…” She was naming a ghost.

“I have someone who wants to speak to you.”

There was a pause during which Jenny sought to make sense of it all.

“Honey…Jen…”

Tears flowed, filling the hollow space in her heart. “Papa!”

Her outburst drew the guards’ attention. She leaned over the boy, speaking to him, covering her mistake.

Behind her, her father spoke to her…alive!
“Do as Captain Perry says,”
he urged her.
“We won’t leave you.”

Jenny hunched over the boy, rocking, hiding her sobs. Her father still lived. The miracle of it pushed back her despair. She would not give up.

She lifted her head and stared over to the dead Russian teenager. From the upper pocket of his fatigues, a black walkie-talkie protruded.