Ice Station (26 page)

“Are you going to untie me?” Schofield said evenly.

“Oh, yeah. Right. Listen. I'm terribly sorry about
that,” Renshaw said. He seemed nervous now. “At first I just
had to keep your head still while I extracted the bullet fragments
from your neck. Did you know that you move around a lot in your sleep?
Probably not. Well, you do. But anyway, to cut to the chase, I figured
what with all I have to tell you and all, it would be better if you
were, well, a captive audience. So to speak.” Renshaw
smiled weakly at the pun he'd just made.

Schofield stared at him, unsure of what to make of this man named
James Renshaw. After all, this was the man who only a week before had
killed one of his fellow scientists. If nothing else, Schofield was
certain of one thing. He did not want to remain tied up at
this man's mercy.

“What do you have to tell me?” he said. His eyes swept the
room as he spoke. The door on the far side of the room was firmly
shut. All of the other walls in the room were ice.

“Lieutenant, what I have to tell you is this: I am not a
murderer. I did not kill Bernie Olson.”

Schofield didn't say anything.

He tried to remember what Sarah Hensleigh had told him
earlier—way back when he had arrived at Wilkes—about the
death of the scientist Bernard Olson.

Sarah had said that on the night Olson was killed, Renshaw had been
heard arguing loudly with him. It was after that argument that Renshaw
had stabbed Olson in the throat with a hypodermic syringe filled with
liquid drain cleaner. Then he had injected the contents of the syringe
into Olson's bloodstream. The other residents of Wilkes had found
Olson dead soon after, with the syringe hanging loosely from his neck.

“Do you believe me?” Renshaw said in a low voice, eyeing
Schofield suspiciously.

Schofield still said nothing.

“Lieutenant, you have to believe me. I can only imagine
what you've been told, and I know it must look bad, but you have
to listen to me. I didn't do it. I swear, I
didn't do it. I could never do something like that.”

Renshaw took a deep breath, spoke slowly.

“Lieutenant, this station is not what it appears to be. Things
have been happening here—strange things—long
before you and your men got here. You can't trust anyone at this
station, Lieutenant.”

“But you expect me to trust you?” Schofield said.

“Yes. Yes, I do,” Renshaw said pensively. “And that
obviously creates a problem, doesn't it? After all, as far as
you're concerned, four days ago I killed a man with a hypodermic
needle filled with industrial-strength Drano. Right? Hmmm.”
Renshaw took a step forward, toward Schofield. “But I intend to
rectify this situation, Lieutenant Schofield. Conclusively. Which is
why ... I'm going to do this.”

Renshaw stood right next to the bed, towering over Schofield, his eyes
hard.

Schofield tensed. He was totally defenseless. He had no idea what
Renshaw was about to—

Snap! The leather strap around Schofield's left arm
suddenly went limp and fell to the floor. A second later, the strap
around his right arm did the same.

His arms were free again. Renshaw had released the leather straps that
had bound them to the bed.

Schofield sat up as Renshaw moved farther down the bed and undipped
the clasps that fastened the straps around his legs.

For a long moment, Schofield just stared at him. Finally, he said,
“Thank you.”

“Don't thank me, Lieutenant,” Renshaw said.
“Believe me. And promise me this: promise me that when this is
all over, you'll check out Bernie Olson's body. Look at his
tongue and his eyes. They will explain everything. You're my only
hope, Lieutenant. You're the only person who can prove my
innocence.”

Now that he was free to move again, Schofield sat up on the bed. He
touched his neck. It throbbed with pain. He looked at his throat in a
nearby mirror. Renshaw had sutured the wound well. Nice, close
stitches.

Renshaw offered him a rectangular length of adhesive gauze.
“Here. Put this on over the stitches. It'll act like a
Band-Aid, keep the wound tightly closed.”

Schofield took the adhesive gauze and fastened it firmly over the
wound on his neck. He looked down at the rest of his body. Renshaw had
removed most of his body armor— he was dressed only in his
full-body camouflage fatigues, with his gray turtleneck shirt
underneath. He was still wearing his boots and his battered ankle/knee
guards. His weapons— his pistol, his knife, his MP-5 and his
Maghook—and his silver antiflash glasses all sat on a table on
the far side of the room.

Schofield saw the room's closed door again, and something twigged
in his memory. He remembered being told that the door to Renshaw's
room had been sealed shut, riveted to its frame by Renshaw's
fellow scientists. But he also remembered something else, something
that someone had said only moments before he had been shot Something
about Renshaw's door being broken down....

Suddenly Schofield asked, “How did I get here?”

“Oh, easy. I just stuffed your body inside the dumbwaiter and
sent it up to this level,” Renshaw said.

“No, I mean, I thought you were locked in this room? How did you
get out?”

Renshaw offered him a sly smile. “Just call me Harry
Houdini.”

Renshaw crossed to the other side of the room and stood in front of
the two television monitors. “Don't worry, Lieutenant.
I'll show you how I got out of here in a minute. But first,
I've got something here that I think you'll want to see.”

“What?”

Renshaw smiled again. The same sly smile as before.

“How would you like to see the man who shot you?” he said.

Schofield stared at Renshaw for a long moment.

Then, slowly, he swung his legs off the bed. His neck stung, and he
had a monster of a headache from the concussion. He walked gingerly
across the room and stood next to Renshaw in front of the two
television monitors.

“Aren't you cold?” he asked, looking at Renshaw's
rather casual attire.

Renshaw pulled open his shirt, Superman-style, revealing a blue wet
suit-like undergarment. “Neoprene bodysuit,” he said
proudly. “They use 'em on the shuttle, for space walks and
the like. It could be a hundred below in here and I wouldn't
notice it.”

Renshaw flicked on one of the monitors, and a black-and-white image
appeared on the screen.

The image was grainy, but after a few seconds Schofield realized what
he was looking at.

It was a view of the pool at the base of the ice station.

It was a strange view, however—taken from an overhead camera
somewhere—one that looked directly down on a section of
the pool and its surrounding deck.

“This is a live feed,” Renshaw said. “It comes from a
camera mounted on the underside of the bridge that spans C-deck. It
looks straight down on the pool.”

Schofield squinted as he looked at the black-and-white image on the
screen.

Renshaw said, "The scientists who work at this station come down
on six-monthly rotations, so we just inherit each other's rooms.
The guy who had this room before me was a crazy old marine biologist
from New Zealand. Strange guy. He just loved killer whales,
couldn't get enough of them. God, he'd watch them for hours,
liked to watch them when they came up for air inside the station. Gave
them names and everything. God, what was his name ... Carmine
something.

“Well, anyway, old Carmine attached a camera to the underside of
the bridge—so he could keep an eye on the pool from his room.
When he'd see them on his monitor, he'd hustle on down to
E-deck and watch them up close. Hell, sometimes the old bastard would
watch 'em from inside the diving bell, so he could get right up
close.”

Renshaw looked at Schofield and laughed. “I guess you're the
last person in the world I should be talking to about having a
close look at killer whales.”

Schofield turned, remembering the terrifying battle with the killer
whales earlier. “You saw all that?”

“Did I?” Renshaw asked. “Are you kidding? You bet I saw
it. Hell, I got it all on tape. I mean, yikes, did
you see those big bastards? Did you see the way they hunted?
Did you see the complexity of their hunting behavior? Like
the way they would always make a pass by their intended victim
before they came in for the kill?”

“I must have missed that,” Schofield said flatly.

“I tell you, they did it. Every time. Every single time. I've
read about it before. You know what I think it is? It's the whale
staking his claim. It's the whale telling all the other whales
that this person is his kill. Hey, I could show it to you if
you—”

“You said there was something else I should see,” Schofield
said. “Something about the man who shot me.”

“Oh, yeah, right. Right. Sorry.” Schofield just
stared at Renshaw as the little man grabbed a videocassette and thrust
it into the second video recorder. He was a strange man. Manic,
nervous, and yet obviously very intelligent. And he talked a lot. It
seemed that when he spoke, it all just came gushing out. Schofield
found it difficult to determine exactly how old he was. He could have
been anything from twenty-nine to forty.

“That's it!” Renshaw exclaimed suddenly.

“What? What's it?” Schofield said.

“Yaeger. Carmine Yaeger. That was his name.”

“Play the video, would you,” Schofield said, exasperated.

“Oh, yeah, right.” Renshaw hurriedly hit the PLAY button on
the VCR.

An image came up on the second monitor. It was almost identical to the
one that was on the first monitor, from the same high-mounted camera
looking down on the pool and its surrounding deck.

There was only one difference.

On the second monitor's screen, someone was standing on the deck.

Schofield stared at the screen intently.

The person on the screen was a man, one of the Marines. He was alone.

Schofield couldn't tell who it was because the camera was
positioned directly above him. All he could see was the top of the
man's helmet and his armored shoulder plates.

And then suddenly the man looked up, slowly scanning the shaft of the
station, and Schofield saw his face.

He frowned.

He was looking at his own face.

Schofield turned immediately to Renshaw. “When did you record
this—”

“Just keep watching.”

Schofield turned back to the screen.

He saw himself stop next to the pool and speak into his helmet mike.
There was no sound; he could just see his own mouth moving. He stopped
talking and took a step across the deck.

And then he stopped.

He had stepped on something.

Schofield saw himself bend down and examine some broken glass on the
deck. He seemed to look about him. And then suddenly his head cocked
to the side. He was listening to something. Listening to someone
speaking over his helmet intercom.

The Shane Schofield on the screen then stood up and was starting to
turn when suddenly his whole body jolted violently and a small spray
of blood exploded out from his neck. He stopped instantly and swayed
slightly, and then he raised his hand to his neck and held it out in
front of his face. It had blood all over it.

And then his knees buckled and he fell in a heap to the deck. He just
lay there on the deck, motionless.

Schofield stared at his own image on the screen.

He had just seen himself get shot....

He turned to Renshaw.

Renshaw just nodded back at the screen. “There's more,”
he said quietly. “A lot more.”

Schofield swung back to face the screen.

He saw his own body lying on the pool deck, unmoving. It lay there for
a while.

Nothing happened.

And then suddenly someone stepped into the frame.

Schofield felt his adrenaline rush as he watched the screen. He was
about to see the person who had shot him.

The first thing he saw was the helmet.

It was another Marine.

A man. Schofield could tell by the way he walked. But he couldn't
see his face.

The Marine walked slowly over to Schofield's unmoving body. He was
in no hurry. He pulled his automatic pistol from his holster as he
approached Schofield's body, pulled back the slide, cocking the
gun.

Schofield stared at the screen intently.

The Marine, his face still obscured by his helmet, bent down over
Schofield's body and placed two fingers on Schofield's
blood-covered throat.

“He's checking your pulse,” Renshaw whispered.

That was exactly what he was doing, Schofield saw. The Marine on the
screen waited several seconds with his fingers on Schofield's
neck.

Schofield didn't take his eyes off the screen.

The Marine on the screen stood up, satisfied that Schofield had no
pulse. He uncocked his pistol, put it back in its holster.

“And... look at that,” Renshaw said. “There's
nothing there.” Renshaw turned to face Schofield.
“Lieutenant, I do believe your heart just stopped beating.”

Schofield didn't even look at Renshaw as he spoke. His eyes were
glued to the screen.

“Now look at what he does here,” Renshaw said. 'This is
his fatal mistake...."

Schofield watched as on the screen the Marine—his face still
masked by his helmet—shoved Schofield's dead body across the
deck with his foot.

He was shoving the body toward the pool.

After two strong kicks, Schofield's body was lying on the edge of
the deck, right next to the water. The Marine then pushed
Schofield's body one last time with his foot and the body fell
limply into the water.

“He doesn't know it,” Renshaw said, “but that guy
just kick-started your heart.”

“How?”

“The way I figure it, that water's so cold, it acted like a
defibrillator—you know, those electric-shock paddles they use on
TV to restart peoples' hearts. The shock your body received when
it hit that water—and let me tell you, that would have been one
hell of a shock to a body that wasn't prepared for
it—was enough to jolt your heart back into action.”