Ice Station (35 page)

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 leveled 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 traveled 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
motorized 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 his 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 meters long, its hull black and
round. Schofield saw the two horizontal stabilizing 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 he saw the colors painted on the forward left-hand side of
the bow—saw the three vertical shafts of color: 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,” he 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 code name, he
recalled, was Shark.

It was only now, though, that Schofield realized 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 him 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 meters away. There was a
slight incline that Schofield ran up, toward the edge of the iceberg.
On the other side of the incline, Renshaw saw, was a sheer ten-meter
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...

Got to stop it.

But how? How does a man destroy a submarine?

And then suddenly he remembered something.

He unshouldered his Maghook as he ran. Then he quickly hit the button
marked M and saw the red light on the Maghook's magnetically
charged head come to life.

Then he pulled a silver canister from his thigh pocket. It was the
foot-long silver canister with the green band painted around it that
he had found inside the British hovercraft.

The Tritonal 80/20 high-powered explosive charge.

Schofield looked at the silver-and-green canister as he ran. It had a
stainless-steel pneumatic lid on it. He turned the lid and heard a
soft hiss! The lid popped open and he saw a familiar digital
timing display next to an arm-disarm switch. Since it was a demolition
device, a Tritonal charge could be disarmed at any time.

Twenty seconds, he thought. Just enough time to get
clear.

He set the timer on the Tritonal charge for twenty seconds and then
held the silver canister out above the bulbous magnetic head of his
Maghook. Immediately the steel cylinder thunked down hard against the
powerful magnet and stuck to it, caught in its vicelike magnetic grip.

Schofield was still running hard, sprinting across the rugged
landscape of the iceberg.

Then he came to the edge of the iceberg, and without so much as a
second thought, he hit it at full speed and leaped off it, out into
the air.

Schofield flew through the air in a long, wide arc—hung there
for a full three seconds—before he splashed down hard,
feetfirst, into the freezing-cold water of the Southern Ocean one more
time.

Bubbles flew up all around him, and for a moment Schofield saw
nothing. And then suddenly the bubbles cleared and he found himself
hovering in the water right in front of the gargantuan steel
nose of the French submarine.

Schofield checked his watch.

2:58:59

2:59:00

2:59:01

One minute to go.

The outer doors of the torpedo tube were fully open now. Schofield
swam toward it The torpedo tube opened wide in front of him, ten yards
away.

This had better work, Schofield thought as he raised his
Maghook, with the Tritonal charge attached to its head. He pressed the
arm-disarm switch on the Tritonal charge.

Twenty seconds.

Schofield fired the Maghook.

The Maghook shot out from its launcher, leaving a thin trail of white
bubbles in its wake. It sliced through the water toward the open
torpedo port...

... and hit the steel hull of the submarine just below the
torpedo port with a loud metallic clunk! The
Maghook—with the live Tritonal charge attached to
it—bounced off the thick steel hull of the sub and began to sink
limply into the water.

Schofield couldn't believe it.

He'd missed!

Shit! his mind screamed. And then suddenly another thought
hit him.

The people inside the sub would have heard it. Must have
heard it.

Schofield quickly hit the black button on his grip that reeled the
Maghook in, hoped to hell that it got back to him before twenty
seconds expired.

Have to get another shot.

Have got to get another shot.

The Maghook began to reel itself in.

And then suddenly Schofield heard another noise.

Vmmmmmm.

Off to his left, on the other side of the bow, one of the other
torpedo doors was opening!

This door was smaller than the one Schofield had tried to shoot his
Maghook into.

Smaller torpedoes, Schofield thought. Ones that are
designed to kill other subs, not whole ice stations.

And then with a sudden whoooosh! a compact white torpedo
whizzed out from the newly-opened torpedo port and rolled through the
water toward Schofield.

Schofield couldn't believe it.

They had fired a torpedo at him!

The Maghook returned to its launcher and Schofield quickly pressed the
arm-disarm switch on the Tritonal charge—with four seconds to
spare—just as the torpedo shot past his waist, its wash knocking
him over in the water.

Schofield breathed with relief. He was too close. The torpedo
hadn't had time to get a lock on him.

It was then that the torpedo slammed into the iceberg behind him and
detonated hard.

Renshaw was standing on the edge of the iceberg, looking down into the
water, when the torpedo hit, about twenty yards away.

In an instant, a whole segment of the iceberg exploded in a cloud of
white and just fell away into the ocean like a landslide, cut clean
from the rest of the massive berg.

“Yikes,” Renshaw breathed in awe.

And then suddenly he saw Schofield surface about twenty yards out, saw
him gulp in a lungful of air, and then he saw the lieutenant go under
again.

With the sound of the torpedo's explosion still reverberating
through the water all around him, and a large slice of the iceberg
plunging into the water behind him, Schofield aimed his Maghook at the
torpedo port a second time.

2:59:37

2:59:38

2:59:39

Once again, he pressed the arm switch on the Tritonal
charge—twenty seconds—and fired.

The Maghook shot through the water ...

... hung there for a long time ...

... and then disappeared inside the torpedo port.

Yes!

Schofield quickly pressed the button marked “m” on his grip,
and inside the torpedo tube the magnetic head of the Maghook responded
immediately by releasing its grip on the silver-and-green Tritonal
charge.

Then Schofield reeled in the Maghook, leaving the Tritonal charge
inside the torpedo tube. And then he swam. Swam for all he
was worth.

Inside the torpedo room of the French submarine, the world was deathly
silent. A young Ensign called the countdown.

“Vingt secondes de premier lancer,” he said. Twenty seconds
to primary launch. Twenty seconds to the launch of the eraser, a
nuclear-tipped Neptune-class torpedo.

“Dix-neuf... dix-huit... dix-sept...”

From the iceberg Renshaw saw Schofield break the surface, saw him
swimming frantically through the water, Maghook in hand.

The French Ensign's count continued. “Dix ... neuf... huit...
sept...”

Schofield was swimming hard, trying to put as much distance between
himself and the sub as he could, because if he was too close when the
Tritonal charge went off, the implosion would suck him right in.
He'd been ten yards away when he'd fired the Tritonal charge.
Now he was twenty yards away. He figured twenty-five and he would be
OK.

Renshaw was yelling at him, “What the hell is happening!”

“Get away from the edge!” Schofield yelled as he swam.
“Move!”

“Cinq ... quatre ... trois ...”

The French Ensign's count never got beyond “three.”
Because at that moment—at that terrible, stunning
moment—the Tritonal charge inside the torpedo tube suddenly went
off.

From where Renshaw stood, the underwater explosion was absolutely
spectacular, and all the more so because it was unexpected.

It was instantaneous. The dark shadow under the surface that was the
French submarine spontaneously erupted into an enormous cloud of
white. An immense spray of water fifty feet high and two hundred feet
long shot up out of the water and fell slowly back down to earth.

From water level, Schofield saw a horde of monstrous blue bubbles
suddenly begin to billow out from a gaping hole in the bow of the
submarine, like tentacles reaching out for him. And then just as
suddenly they began to retrace their steps and, with terrifying force,
the bubbles shot back in toward the submarine and Schofield
suddenly felt himself getting sucked back toward the sub.

Implosion.

At that moment, the massive French sub collapsed in on itself like a
great big aluminium can and the suction from the implosion ceased.
Schofield felt the water's grip on him relax, and he let himself
float to the surface. The submarine was gone.

A few minutes later, Renshaw pulled him out of the water and dragged
him up onto the iceberg.

Schofield dropped down onto the ice—breathing hard, soaking wet,
freezing cold. He was gasping for breath, his body overwhelmed with
fatigue, and at that moment—with the French submarine destroyed
and himself and Renshaw hopelessly marooned on an iceberg—the
only thing in the world that Shane Schofield wanted to do was sleep.

In the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., the
NATO conference reconvened.

George Holmes, the U.S. representative, leaned back in his chair as he
watched Pierre Dufresne, the head of the French delegation, stand to
speak.