Ice Station Wolfenstein

by Preston; Child

  "We can't just leave without trying to help those men," Fatima was adamant. "We've got to try to help if we can. If I could just get into the labs I could at least try to find an antidote . . . But they're not going to let us anywhere near the labs now. There are soldiers everywhere. Every door. I just don't know how we can do anything."

  Nina got to her feet. "You wait here," she said. "I'm going to get Alexandr"

  Chapter 22

  "SAM, SAM . . ." Purdue chuckled. "What do you take me for? Some kind of evil genius? I'm afraid the truth is less well-organized than that. I'm just interested, that's all. In everything. And everyone. Tell me the truth, if you had the resources to have all of these very interesting people thoroughly investigated, then throw them together in a remote place and see how they interacted—wouldn't you? Wouldn't anyone? I am sorry if it's a little insensitive."

  "A little?" Sam stared at Purdue, incredulous. "That's one way of putting it. Using my life as a soap opera would be another."

  "Then I apologize. Sincerely. Understanding how other people will react to things has never been a strong point of mine. If truth be told, that's why I find these little experiments so interesting."

  Sam scrutinized Purdue's face, searching for any hint of insincerity, anything that would tell him if he was still being toyed with. What is he up to? Sam wondered. He had no idea what to do with the anger that was knotting his stomach. Part of him wanted to lash out, to knock Purdue to the ground and punch him over and over until his face was a bloody pulp for dragging everyone here and putting them in danger, as well as for treating Sam's private life as some kind of entertainment or experiment. Yet at the same time, he couldn't help but see Purdue's point. Perhaps I've just been a journalist too long, he thought, but if I had access to all that information, then . . . yeah. I probably would use it.

  "I've been wondering about a few things," Sam said. "There's a lot about this expedition that doesn't make sense."

  "Then ask questions, Sam," Purdue admonished him. "Surely you know that that's how you find things out. Or have you been getting sucked into the vortex of unnecessary mystery?"

  Sam let the gibe pass, knowing that he had. "Ok. How did you know about this ice station in the first place? You've never explained that."

  "Professional rivalry led me to this place," said Purdue. "I was working on a design for a new type of solar cell that could be used to replace jet and rocket fuel and redefine the way we think about air and space travel. I am still working on it, if truth be told, and when I am done with it you will see space travel become as common as commercial air flights."

  "Really?" Sam tried to hide the note of skepticism in his voice but failed.

  "Yes," Purdue chose to ignore the disbelieving tone. "My research led me to consider the work of Wernher von Braun. It would have been immensely useful for me to have conferred with him, but since he was already dead I decided to track down those who had worked with him instead. This led me to Dr. Lehmann, who first mentioned the existence of this place quite by accident. He tried to pass it off as the ramblings of a senile old man, but I knew I was onto something interesting and that if this was a place where Wernher von Braun continued his work, it was a place I wanted to find. I knew about his work in America, of course, but so little of his truly interesting work is ever discussed! I had some investigations carried out, which led me to Harald Kruger and brought those notebooks into my possession."

  "And you genuinely didn't have them stolen from Nina's flat?"

  Purdue looked wounded. "If I had known that it was Nina who had them, I would simply have asked her to show them to me. She would probably have refused, and I would have found a way to bribe her. She is ambitious. I would have found something she wanted."

  "And if they'd still been with me?"

  "Oh, in that case they would have been spirited out of your home, copied and returned before you were aware that they had gone. My people are very good. Messy break-ins are simply distasteful. That's how I had planned to get copies of the notebooks from Mr. Kruger, until someone with a much less delicate touch got there first. No, Sam, I did not have the notebooks stolen. They were offered to me as a particularly shady private purchase."

  "Who by?"

  "An anonymous individual who approached me via the shadow web. The entire transaction was carried out via intermediaries, and the notebooks were part of a package of materials concerning this place."

  Sam let out a long, low whistle. "The shadow web? Wow."

  Purdue shook his head. "It sounds good, but it is less impressive than you think." He reached into his inside pocket. "Perhaps I should have been more open with you," he said. "Not with the rest of the group—one has to preserve some sense of drama, after all—but with you, and possibly with Nina. Keeping things entirely to myself, usually in order to play games with people, is a failing of mine. So, in the interests of correcting that . . ." He pulled out a small leather document wallet and dropped it in front of Sam. "Here. Perhaps this will be of interest to you. Show it to Nina—if I gave it to her she would assume I had ulterior motives, and she would be correct. Don't show it to Matlock, though. Let this be Nina's to catalogue, write about, or ignore as she pleases."

  With that, Purdue stood up and strolled out of the room, leaving Sam with a head full of questions and an overwhelming sense that he had had all the answers he was going to get. He fumbled with the document wallet until the cords tying it shut were undone. Inside were two items; a letter and a slightly tattered old photograph of a woman in a floral sundress, laughing and holding her hat in place as the wind tried to take it from her head. She was holding the hand of a smiling toddler. On the back of the photograph someone had written "Sabine," which Sam assumed to be the woman's name, and beneath that, "Friedrich." Sam turned his attention to the letter.

  My darling Sabine,

  How many times must I remind you, my love? You must write to me only in English now. We can no longer be German. We must put our old lives, our old identities behind us. Karl and Sabine Witzinger will soon be no more, and we must get used to being Charles and Sally Whitsun. I hope you are being strict about speaking to Frederic only in English. It will be easier for him never to think of himself as German at all.

  I long to be with you, to build a new home for ourselves. With you, my darling, I am certain I can forget the horrors I have seen and the things I have done to spare our family from unwanted attention. I am grateful to have your forgiveness and pray that I shall have God's, since God knows I shall never have my own.

  I pray that I shall be home soon. It should not be much longer. I have done all that has been asked of me, and there is no longer any need for me to be here. My contribution is made. Other men can continue the work from here.

  The letter seemed to end abruptly there. Beneath those paragraphs, it looked as though a new, separate letter began. The handwriting was the same but the color of the ink had changed and the writing was wilder, shakier, as if the letter had been dashed off in a great hurry.

  Darling Sabine,

  If you receive this, rejoice—it means that I have escaped that terrible place and am on my way home to you!

  I am about to embark on a desperate voyage. There are others who are working here against their will, brilliant men whose families were threatened should they refuse to comply. Tonight we shall steal a submarine and strike out for South America, where I shall attempt to post this letter. We may not succeed. We may be shot, we may end up at the bottom of the ocean, we may be arrested the moment we set foot on Argentinean soil—but by God, we will have tried. We cannot do the things that they are asking us to do. I believe that I was put in this world to cure diseases, not create them. Other men may have their price for such things, but I do not.

  If you receive this but I never make it home, know that I died with your image in my mind, your name on my lips and joy in my heart because you were mine. I hope that when you tell Frederic of me, you will speak of a man who finally found the courage
to oppose that which he knew to be wrong. Guide him, my love, and teach him to be a man of honor and bravery.

  I must go now. My hands shake, but not with fear. If I tremble now, it is at the prospect of finally coming home. May God hold you in his keeping and see me safely back to you.

  Your own forever,

  K

  When he had finished reading the letters, Sam stared at them for some time without blinking or seeing. In his mind's eye he pictured Karl Witzinger, perhaps occupying this very room, lying on the bunk and wishing for nothing more than to be home with the woman he loved.

  They had a life planned, Karl and Sabine, he thought. They were building something together, and then . . . I know the end of the story, for him at least. He didn't make it home. She got a letter saying he was dead. I wonder how he died. How she coped. Fuck, I wonder what they were asking him to do here that was so bad he needed to escape. What did he think was worse than working in a concentration camp—was he working on biological weapons? God . . . I wonder what they were trying to do in this place. Will we ever even begin to figure it out?

  Chapter 23

  ALEXANDR TURNED AROUND, or at least turned as far as he could in the tight space, to look at Nina and Fatima. He raised a finger to his lips, but it was hardly necessary. Both women were well aware of the need for silence, especially at this point in their journey. Nina in particular wished that he would skip the dramatic gesture and just get on with leading them through the vents. It was dark and cramped and she was fighting the urge to have a proper claustrophobic meltdown.

  When Alexandr had suggested that they use the air vents to get back into the labs, Nina had laughed. Despite the gravity of their situation, she found the idea of the three of them scrambling through the ventilation system like action heroes irresistibly funny—especially considering her fear of enclosed spaces. It was only when Alexandr dragged the chest of drawers over to the back wall, climbed on top of them and began unscrewing the vent cover that she realized that he was entirely serious.

  She had protested then, saying that he must be mad and that there was no way it would work outside of a movie. But Alexandr had insisted that there was no other way of getting past the soldiers—unless Nina and Fatima were prepared to entertain the idea of killing them, which they were not. Nina did not even want to think about how Alexandr would have attempted to kill the PMCs. If there was anything worse than being trapped in an enclosed space with a crazy guide, it was being trapped in an enclosed space with a homicidal one.

  Inch by inch they crawled right over the top of the PMCs at the end of the corridor. The first problem they ran into was the vent dropping away steeply, plunging downward to serve the other levels. Alexandr peered down into the darkness, muttering something to himself. Then he wriggled a hand down to his pocket and pulled out a tiny obsidian pebble. Carefully he released it and cocked his head to listen as it fell. Just on the edge of hearing, there was a tiny scraping sound wherever the stone touched the metal.

  At the back of the line, Nina heard Fatima gasp then try to stifle it. Nina raised her head just far enough to see Alexandr's feet tipping up and disappearing into the black hole. Neither woman breathed. Then seconds later, they heard the soft, barely audible sound of Alexandr's laugh floating back to them. A sharp intake of breath from Fatima, then she also vanished into the darkness.

  Nina dragged herself forward on her forearms and stared down the shaft. She felt her breathing becoming ragged and short. Adrenaline surged through her veins. All she wanted was to claw at the sheet metal and rip her way out into the cool open air of the corridors. She would take her chances with the soldiers, she would fight her way out if she had to, she would—

  Then the vision of the silent ice station peopled only by skeletons flashed through her mind, and she realized that she had no choice. I feel like I'm going to die in here, she thought. I have no idea how I could plunge head-first down this pipe and not die. But if I don't do this, none of us are making it out of here . . . Forcing herself to take a few deep breaths, she inched toward the edge. She reached down and felt the drop, and suddenly she realized that it was not completely vertical. It fell away at just enough of an incline that she would have some control over the descent. Nina gritted her teeth and hauled herself into the chute.

  "It's a long drop," Alexandr whispered, staring down through the gap left by the ceiling tile he had just removed. "If I can get to the other side I can lower you down part of the way. Wait there."

  Jamming his limbs precariously against the walls of the metal tunnel, he clambered over to the other side of the hole and maneuvered himself around so that he was face to face with Fatima. "Here," he said, holding out his hands to her. "Take my wrists. Bend your knees when you hit the floor."

  Fatima did as she was told, wriggling herself into position over the hole then letting Alexandr lower her as far as he could before she dropped. As soon as Fatima was out of sight, Nina charged forward as best she could in an army crawl, spurred on by the prospect of being in a room rather than a tunnel. She grabbed his wrists and let gravity take her, collapsing gratefully onto the floor as her shaking knees refused to hold her up. A moment later she heard Alexandr drop down behind her.

  "I'll get the lights," Fatima whispered. "They're right over here."

  "No lights!" Alexandr hissed. "They're bound to be patrolling. We need to work as far back within the room as we can, and with just the flashlights. Come with me—and stay down."

  Crouched low, they scurried over to the workbench and sheltered behind it, letting its solid mass conceal them from the eyes of any PMC who might pass the glass door.

  "This is going to be impossible," Fatima sighed. "How am I supposed to do anything if I can't access the bench?"

  "It's only temporary," Alexandr reassured her. "I will figure out something to do with the window."

  "Ok, we'll get to work in the meantime," said Nina, grabbing the pile of notebooks. "Are we in the right lab for the blood samples?"

  "No, they're across the hall."

  "Oh, they bloody would be . . ." Nina rolled her eyes. "Right, I'll be back in a moment."

  "Nina, you should let me—"

  "No, Alexandr, it's fine," she held up a hand. "You sort out the window. Let Fatima get set up. I can do this."

  By the time Nina got back, Fatima was setting up her test tubes on the floor and had a box of samples retrieved from the freezers beside her. Alexandr had found a thick black liquid and was spattering the window with it. Nina handed the vials of blood over to Fatima.

  "So, what's the plan?"

  "I have an idea," said Fatima. "My original plan, before the expedition got hijacked, was to spend some time investigating the antiviral properties of a particular kind of blue algae indigenous to Antarctica. Evidently I'm not the first person to have been interested in it, since we found those samples in the freezers, but whoever was investigating it previously never got to complete their research. I'm going to try to create a vaccine using the algae and Private Hodges' blood samples. It'll be a killed vaccine, so I don't know whether it will save him, but . . . at least we'll have tried. And at least it might protect everyone else. Though I'm not sure that these algae samples are going to be any use after being frozen for so long. What we really need is a live vaccine and fresh algae. Oh, and a few years of peer review and clinical trials would be good, too."

  "I have faith," Nina said, patting her friend on the shoulder. "If anyone can do this, you can. And if not . . . well, like you say, at least we'll know that we didn't go down without a fight, right? And I'll be right here holding the torch."

  Pulling a pair of latex gloves from her pocket and slipping them on, Fatima gritted her teeth and prepared to get to work.

  "Freeze! Hands in the air!"

  The beams of light from the PMCs' helmets crisscrossed in the dark. As Nina slowly got to her feet and put her hands up, her heart began to pound beneath the red dots picking out targets on her chest. Fatima's hands shot up so
fast that she did not even remember to put the pipette she was holding down.

  "What's that in your hand?" Major Alfsson barked. "Drop it, now!"

  "Please," Fatima's voice was rapid, urgent. "Please, let me put it down gently. It's a vaccine."

  Alfsson strode over to her and snatched the pipette from her hand. "A vaccine? What for?"

  "For the virus that Private Hodges and those other two men have. I think—"

  "Two." Under his breath, Alfsson gave a bitter laugh. "You still only know about two."

  "There are more?"

  "That is classified," Alfsson replied. "You must all return to your quarters. Now. Or we will have no choice but to open fire." He took hold of Fatima's arm and began guiding her toward the door.

  "PLEASE!" Fatima cried out in desperation, digging her heels into the floor. "Please! I have something here that might save those men—that might save everybody! Can you at least let me test it?"

  "She has a point," Alexandr chimed in, briefly attracting extra red dots on his abdomen. "Why not let her try?"

  "Surely it has to be better than just letting everyone die without even trying," Nina added.

  Major Alfsson paused, irresolute for just a few seconds. Then with one quick gesture he called off the alert. The red dots disappeared. "You can try," he said, and Nina could hear the resignation in his voice. "Is it ready now?"

  "I think so."

  "Then let's go."

  Fatima gathered up the test tubes and pipettes, arranged them neatly in a freezer box, and let the soldiers escort her, Nina, and Alexandr through the maze of corridors toward the padded room and, she hoped, the proof that they were all saved.