Ice Station ss-1

by Matthew Reilly

  Rebound heard the soft footsteps disappear down the long tunnel to his right.

  After a short moment of pause, he raised his Maghook and ventured out into the tunnel after them.

  Schofield fired his Maghook at Latissier.

  The Frenchman ducked fast and the grappling hook thundered over the top of him and flew through the rung-ladder behind him. The hook looped itself over one of the rungs and knotted itself tight against the ladder.

  Schofield threw his Maghook down and raised his crossbow at the same time as Latissier leveled his own at him.

  The two men fired at the same time.

  The arrows whistled through the air, crossing each other in midnight.

  Latissier's arrow slammed into Schofield's armored shoulder plate. Schofield's arrow lodged in Latissier's hand as the big Frenchman covered his face with his forearm. He roared with pain as he frantically began to reload his crossbow with his good hand.

  Schofield quickly looked down at his own crossbow.

  The French crossbows had five circular rubber slots on their sides in which spare arrows were kept for quick reloading. Schofield's crossbow had five empty slots.

  The commando he had taken it from must have used all but the last of his arrows earlier. Now there were none left.

  Schofield didn't hesitate.

  He took five quick steps forward and hurled himself at Latissier. He slammed into the Frenchman and the two soldiers went sprawling onto the catwalk behind the rung-ladder.

  Gant was still lying facedown on the catwalk about five yards away when she saw Schofield tackle Latissier. She leaped to her feet and was about to go over and help him when suddenly another French commando slid down the rung-ladder in front of her and, through a pair of black night-vision goggles, stared right into her eyes.

  Rebound slowly made his way down the long, narrow tunnel.

  There was a door at the very end of the tunnel. The door to the drilling room. It was ajar.

  Rebound listened carefully as he approached the half-open door. He heard soft, shuffling sounds from inside the drilling room. Whoever had run past the storeroom earlier was now inside the drilling room, doing something.

  He heard the man speak softly into a microphone of some sort. He said, "Le piège est tendu."

  Rebound froze.

  It was one of the French commandos.

  Rebound pressed himself flat against the wall next to the door and?still wearing his night-vision goggles?slowly peered around the door frame.

  It was like looking through a video camera. First, Rebound saw the door frame, saw it slide out to the right of his green viewscreen. Then he saw the room open up beyond it.

  And then he saw the man?also wearing night-vision goggles?standing right there in front of him, with a crossbow pointed directly at Rebound's face.

  Even though the French commando standing in front of her was wearing night-vision goggles, Gant could tell that it was the one named Cuvier.

  Jean-Pierre Cuvier. The one who had shot her in the head with his crossbow right at the start of all this. Even now, she could see the tip of that same arrow sticking out from the front of her helmet. The bastard seemed to smile when he realized that he was facing off against the American woman he had shot earlier.

  In a blur of green, he brought his crossbow up and fired.

  Gant was about twenty feet away and she actually saw the arrow dip in the air as it covered the distance between them. She sidestepped quickly, her gun hand flailing behind her, as the arrow thudded into her Maghook and sent it flying from her hand.

  And then, before she knew it, Cuvier was right in front of her with his Bowie knife drawn. He came in fast, his long-bladed hunting knife arcing down toward Gant's throat?

  There came a sudden metallic zing as Cuvier's blade came to a jarring halt.

  Gant had caught his blow with her own knife.

  The two soldiers separated and began to circle each other warily. Cuvier held his knife underhanded. Gant held hers backhanded, SEAL-style. Both still wore their night-vision goggles.

  Suddenly Cuvier lunged and Gant swatted bis blade away. But the Frenchman had a longer reach, and as they separated again he swiped at Gant's goggles and dislodged them from her head.

  For a single terrifying moment Gant saw nothing.

  Just blackness.

  Total blackness.

  In this darkness, without her goggles, she was blind.

  Gant felt the catwalk beneath her vibrate. Cuvier was lunging at her again.

  Still blind, she ducked instinctively, not knowing whether it was the right move or not.

  It was the right move.

  She heard the swish of Cuvier's knife as it sliced through the darkness above her helmet.

  And then she took the opportunity.

  Gant thrust her hands forward in the darkness and grabbed Cuvier by the lapels.

  "You remember giving this to me," she said, picturing the arrow sticking out from the front of her helmet. "Well, now you can have it back."

  And with that Gant rammed her head forward.

  With an explosion of blood, the arrow jutting out from the front of her helmet shot right through Cuvier's left eye and penetrated his brain. The Frenchman let out a hideous, inhuman scream, and Gant felt a wash of warm blood instantly spray all over her face.

  She quickly withdrew the arrow from the French soldier's head and he dropped to the floor, dead.

  While Gant fought with Cuvier, Schofield and Latissier rolled around on the catwalk.

  As they fought, Schofield heard noises everywhere. Voices spoke frantically over his helmet intercom:

  "?They're going round the other side!"

  "?going for the other ladder!"

  Footsteps clanged on the catwalk above him.

  A crossbow fired somewhere nearby.

  Schofield heard a sudden snap as Latissier managed to lock another arrow into the bolt of his crossbow. Schofield quickly elbowed the big Frenchman hard in the face, up under his night-vision goggles, broke his nose. Blood splattered everywhere, all over Schofield's arm, all over the lenses of Latissier's goggles.

  The Frenchman grunted with pain as he flung Schofield away from him, toward the edge of the catwalk. The two men separated, and Latissier?still lying on the catwalk, half-blinded by the splotches of blood on his night-vision goggles? angrily brought his crossbow around toward Schofield's head.

  Schofield was right at the edge of the catwalk, up against the railing. He thought fast.

  He caught Latissier's weapon hand as it came round toward him and then, in a very sudden movement, rolled himself off the edge of the catwalk!

  Latissier had never expected it.

  Schofield kept his grip on Latissier's weapon hand as he fell, and, hanging from it, he swung down onto the empty deck below. Like a cat, Schofield landed on his feet and immediately raised Latissier's crossbow up at the underside of the D-deck catwalk and pulled the trigger.

  Latissier was lying facedown on the catwalk?with his arm stretched awkwardly out over the edge?when the crossbow discharged. At point-blank range, the arrow shot up through a gap in the steel grating, penetrated Latissier's night-vision goggles, and lodged itself right in the middle of the Frenchman's forehead.

  Down in the drilling room, Rebound faced the crossbow-wielding French commando.

  The Frenchman thought he had the upper hand, thought he had Rebound dead to rights. He only forgot one thing.

  Night vision is hell on peripheral vision.

  He was standing too close.

  Which was why he never saw the Maghook that Rebound was holding at his hip.

  Rebound fired. The Maghook shot out from its launcher and slammed into the Frenchman's chest from a range of three feet. There came a series of instantaneous cracks as the French commando's rib cage collapsed in on his heart. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  Rebound took a deep breath, sighed with relief, looked at the drilling room in front of him.

/>   He saw what the Frenchman had been doing and his mouth fell open. And then he remembered what the Frenchman had said earlier.

  "Le piège est tendu."

  Then Rebound looked at the room again.

  And he smiled.

  "South tunnel," Montana's voice said over Schofield's helmet intercom.

  Schofield was down on E-deck now, having swung down there on Latissier's arm. He looked across the pool and saw a black figure running into the south tunnel. It was the last French commando?save for the one who had rappelled down the shaft earlier.

  "I see him," Schofield said, taking off in pursuit.

  "Sir, this is Rebound," Rebound's voice suddenly cut across the airwaves. "Did you just say the south tunnel?"

  "That's right."

  "Let him come," Rebound said firmly. "And follow him down."

  Schofield frowned. "What are you talking about, Rebound?"

  "Just follow him, sir." Rebound was whispering now. "He wants you to."

  Schofield paused for a moment.

  Then he said, "Do you know something that I don't, Corporal?"

  "That I do, sir," came the reply.

  Montana, Snake, and Gant joined Schofield on E-deck, at title entrance to the south tunnel. They'd all heard Rebound over their helmet intercoms.

  Schofield looked at them as he spoke into his helmet mike. "All right, Rebound, it's your call."

  Schofield, Montana, Snake, and Gant edged cautiously down the long southern tunnel of E-deck. At the end of the tunnel they saw a door, saw the silhouette of the last French soldier disappear behind it, a shadow in the green darkness.

  Rebound was right. The soldier was moving slowly. It was almost as if he wanted them to see him go into the drilling room.

  Schofield and the others pressed forward down the tunnel. They were about ten yards away from the door to the drilling room when suddenly a hand reached out from the shadows and grabbed Schofield by the shoulder. Schofield spun instantly and saw Rebound emerge from a cupboard set into the wall. There seemed to be another body in the cupboard behind Rebound. Rebound pressed bis finger against his lips and led Schofield and the others down the tunnel toward the drilling room door.

  "It's a trap," Rebound mouthed as they reached the door.

  Rebound pushed open the door. It creaked loudly as it swung open in front of them.

  The door swung wide and the Marines saw the last Frenchman standing over on the far side of the drilling room.

  It was Jean Petard. He looked forlornly at them. He was caught in a dead end, and he knew it. He was trapped.

  "I . . . I surrender," he said meekly.

  Schofield just stared at Petard. Then he turned to Rebound and the others, as if calling for advice.

  Then he stepped forward into the drilling room.

  Petard seemed to smile, relieved.

  At that moment, Rebound suddenly stuck his arm out in front of Schofield's chest, stopping him. Rebound had never taken his eyes off the Frenchman.

  Petard frowned.

  Rebound stared at him and said, "Le piège est tendu."

  Petard cocked his head, surprised.

  "The trap is set," Rebound said in English.

  And then Petard suddenly averted his gaze and looked at something else, something on the floor in front of him, and his smile went flat. He looked up at Rebound, horrified.

  Rebound knew what Petard had seen.

  He had seen five French words, and as soon as he had seen them, Petard knew that his fight was over.

  Those five words were: BRAQUEZ CE CÔTÉ SUR L'ENEMMI.

  Rebound stepped forward and Petard yelled, "No!" but it was too late. Rebound stepped through the trip wire in front of the door, and the two concave mines in the drilling room exploded with all their terrifying force.

  THIRD INCURSION

  16 June 1130 hours

  The highway stretched away into the desert.

  A thin, unbroken strip of black overlaying the golden-brown floor of the New Mexico landscape. Not a single cloud appeared in the sky.

  A lone car raced along the desert highway.

  Pete Cameron drove, sweating in the heat. The air conditioner in his rented Toyota had long since given up the fight for life, and now the car was little more than an oven on wheels. It was probably ten degrees hotter inside the car than it was outside.

  Cameron was a reporter for the Washington Post, had been for three years now. Before that, he had made a name for himself doing features for the respected investigative-reporting journal Mother Jones.

  Cameron had fitted in well at Mother Jones. The journal has one all-encompassing goal: to expose misleading government reports. Cover-ups. And to a large extent, it had been successful in achieving this goal. Pete Cameron loved it, thrived on it. In his last year at Mother Jones, he had won an award for an article he had written on the loss of five nuclear warheads from a crashed B-2 stealth bomber. The bomber had crashed into the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of Brazil and the U.S. Government had issued a press release saying that all five warheads had been recovered, safely and intact. Cameron had investigated the story, had queried the methods used to find the missing nukes.

  The truth soon emerged. The rescue mission had not been about the recovery of the warheads at all. It had been about recovering all evidence of the bomber. The nuclear warheads had been a secondary priority, and they had never been found.

  It was that article and the award ftiat followed it that had brought Cameron to the attention of the Washington Post. They offered him a job, and he took it with both hands.

  Cameron was thirty years old and tall, really tall?six-feet-five. He had messy sandy-brown hair and wireframe glasses. His car looked like a bomb had hit it?empty Coke cans were strewn about the floor, intermingled with crumpled cheeseburger wrappers; pads and pens and scraps of paper stuck out from every compartment. A pad of Post-its rested in the ashtray. Those that had been used were stuck to the dashboard.

  Cameron drove through the desert.

  His cellular rang. It was his wife, Alison.

  Pete and Alison Cameron were something of celebrities among the Washington press community, the famous?or infamous?husband-and-wife team of the Washington Post. When Pete Cameron had arrived at the Post from Mother Jones three years ago, he had been assigned to work with a young reporter named Alison Greenberg. The chemistry between them had ignited immediately. It was electric. In one week, they were in bed together. In twelve months, they were married.

  "Are you there yet?" Alison's voice said over the speaker phone. Alison was twenty-nine and had shoulder-length auburn hair, enormous sky blue eyes, and a beaming smile that made her face glow. Pete loved it. Alison wasn't conventionally beautiful, but she could stop traffic with that smile. At the moment, she was working out of the paper's D.C. office.

  "I'm almost there," he replied.

  He was on his way to an observatory out in the middle of the New Mexico desert. Some technician at the SETI Institute there had called the paper earlier that day claiming to have detected some chatter over an old spy satellite network. Cameron had been sent to investigate.

  It was nothing new. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, or SETI, picked up stuff all the time. Their radio satellite array was very powerful and extraordinarily sensitive. It wasn't uncommon for a SETI technician, in his search for extraterrestrial transmissions, to "cross beams" with a stray spr satellite and pick up a few garbled words from a restricted military transmission.

  Those pickups were disparagingly labeled "SETI sightings" by the reporters at the Washington Post. Usually they amounted to nothing?just incomprehensible one-word transmissions?but the theory was that maybe, one day, one of those garbled messages would provide the starting point for a story. The kind of story that ended in the word Pulitzer.

  Alison said, "Well, call me as soon as you're done at the institute." She put on a mock-sexy voice. "I have a thing for SETI sightings."

  Cameron s
miled. "Very provocative. Do you do house calls?"

  "You never know your luck in the big city."

  "You know," Cameron said, "in some states, that could qualify as sexual harassment."

  "Honey, being married to you is sexual harassment," Alison said.

  Cameron laughed. "I'll call you when I'm done," he said before hanging up.

  An hour later, Cameron's Toyota pulled into the dusty parking lot of the SETI Institute. There were three other cars parked in the lot.

  A squat two-story office building stood adjacent to the parking lot, nestled in the shadow of a three-hundred-foot-tall radio telescope. Cameron counted twenty-seven other identical satellite dishes stretching away from him into the desert.

  Inside, he was met by a geeky little man wearing a white lab coat and a plastic pocket protector. He said his name was Emmett Somerville and that it was he who had picked up the signal.

  Somerville led Cameron down some stairs to a wide underground room. Cameron followed him silently as they negotiated their way through a maze of electronic radio equipment. Two massive Cray XMP supercomputers took up an entire wall of the enormous subterranean room.

  Somerville spoke as he walked. "I picked it up at around two-thirty this morning. It was in English, so I knew it couldn't be alien."

  "Good thinking," Cameron said, deadpan.

  "But the accent was definitely American, and considering the content, I called the Pentagon right away." He turned to look at Cameron as he walked. "We have a direct number."

  He said it with nerdy pride: The government thinks we're so important that they gave us a direct line. Cameron figured that the number Somerville had was probably the number for the Pentagon's PR desk, a number that SETI could have found by looking up the Department of Defense in the phone book. Cameron had it on his speed-dial.

  "Anyway," Somerville said, "when they said that it wasn't one of their transmissions, I figured it was OK to give you guys at the paper a call."

  "We appreciate it," Cameron said.