Half ready to spring into action, half paralyzed by fear, she willed the scream down and listened.
It took a while for Alex to respond and she couldn’t make out the word. Maybe “okay,” though it might just have been an expelled breath.
“Cool.” Sampson’s voice turned those fine standing hairs to ice picks. “Here.” Footsteps crunched. “Let’s get you…”
The rest of the sentence was lost, but she didn’t need to hear it to know what was happening.
“These five?” A pause. “You’re sure about that?”
“If there are more, I don’t—” Alex coughed long and hard before speaking again. “Don’t know. But we all got a chance to see them. They were so…extraordinary.” Another cough. “See? There.”
“Right.” A pause. “And these numbers right here? That’s the date?”
“Y-yes.”
“Great, that works!” Sampson said this like they’d just made lunch plans for next Tuesday. “Now, kneel.”
“I c-c—”
“Do it,” Sampson said, all friendliness gone. She pictured him putting a hand to Alex’s shoulder and pushing. “If that fucker hadn’t gone out on the ice again today, we’d have the damned thing already. Ford motherfucking Cooper. Dude is—”
He abruptly stopped speaking. The clomp of footsteps told her he, or someone, had moved a short distance away. “Go ahead,” Sampson said in a completely different voice. Deep, all business. After a long pause, he asked, “How many missing? This is confirmed?” Another pause. “Shit. Can’t contain the whole group here and the aircraft’s just for today. We’ve got to get to the Facility.” He might have listened again before uttering a curt, “Good. Ignore those assholes and tell the pilot they’re all accounted for. Tell them…I’m the operations manager, dammit. And if I want to hire her on for another damn season, I can. Tell them to take off without her.” He paused, then in a louder voice clearly meant for his companions as opposed to whoever was on the other end of the headset, said, “Summer plane’s taking off right now. Missing the cook, apparently.”
The plane was leaving already? How was that possible? She hadn’t even heard it land.
No. Oh, please, don’t leave me here. Angel opened her mouth and shut it tight, not trusting herself to keep quiet as the unmistakable drone of the plane’s engine cut through the corrugated metal and layers of snow overhead to reach her sensitive ears.
“All right. Let’s do this now.”
A few seconds ticked by, as hopelessness and fear warred with Angel’s need to intervene. To help Alex. To stop these monsters.
She had to do something. There was no choice, was there? She either did something to stop them or… Without waiting for that thought to gel, she set the can down, quietly, so quietly, and scooted along the wall. Slowly, carefully, breath held. If she could get a look at them, maybe she could find a way to intervene.
“I said kneel.” How could Sampson sound so casual?
“Please don’t.”
Her heartbeat picked up, frantic. What was happening? Faster, she sidestepped until she couldn’t move farther without going out into the open, and bent forward. Alex said something, his words coming at her as an incomprehensibly jumbled flurry.
The prickle she’d felt earlier buzzed to life again, heating her face, slicking clammy sweat wherever fabric rubbed skin.
There, three top-lit silhouettes. One doubled over on the ground, his arms thrown up to protect himself.
She watched in slow-motion horror as Sampson reached out. For a few seconds, it looked like he planned to give the cowering man his blessing. But then the gun materialized—long and thin and deadly. Was that a silencer? She’d never seen one in real life, but it sent something visceral through her. Please, no. Please.
He pressed it to Alex’s head and, without ceremony, pulled the trigger. The resulting pop seemed too small to kill a man, to cut him off midplea. How could something so quick, so casual, end a life?
Disbelief. White noise. Nothing for a handful of seconds but void, filling her brain like television fuzz.
Suspended on that spinning sphere of shock, she couldn’t move, couldn’t get air, couldn’t believe what had just happened.
And then, with warp speed, reality hit her, as painful and real as a cast-iron pan to the face. Her entire frame heaved. She had to keep the scream inside, so she shoved her gloved fist into her mouth and stared at the ice-coated wall opposite, deaf but for the buzzing in her ears. It was a trick of her eyesight, she knew, or her brain probably, but the ice, like cloud shapes, offered up an elephant, its trunk raised. Beneath it was a cherry. No, a double. Double cherry. The kind she’d hung over her ears as a kid to make round, shiny, ripe earrings.
“All right. You acquire the samples.” Sampson didn’t sound like a man who’d just committed murder.
“Yes, sir,” said the other one. She couldn’t even be sure who it was at this point. Didn’t want to turn and look at what they’d done.
“Bring them to the surface. We’re moving out now.” He switched to that other voice. “Alpha Team, you are a go in five.”
Go? Go where?
Oh God, she couldn’t think, couldn’t figure any of this out.
The plane was gone, and she had no idea what she’d find up there. Was she alone with these murderers?
She squeezed her eyes shut, only to be assailed by Alex’s death again—that smooth, snakelike movement that had changed the scene from benediction to condemnation. The point of no return. The moment her life went from complicated to nightmarish. Worse, because she’d always woken up from nightmares.
But this wasn’t a dream.
Now poor Alex would never speak again. Never breathe, never eat or see his sweet little girl, and all she could do was find cloud shapes in the ice.
No. No, that wasn’t all she could do. She was alive, wasn’t she? She had no idea what or how or if she’d die in the process, but she was going to find some way to stop these men. Now.
* * *
Something wasn’t right.
Coop already knew that, but he hadn’t seen Cortez out here—or any sign of him on the ice at all—and as he drove on, the feeling of unease grew and ripened inside him like a rotten fruit about to explode.
A lot of vehicles seemed out of commission lately, so he’d been forced to bring the big PistenBully out to fix the drill he’d been unable to repair on-site. He’d have to haul it back and pull it apart. Besides, he’d figured he’d be able to bring Cortez back if his friend had run into an issue. Now he pushed the machine as fast as it would go, wishing he’d taken a snowmobile instead.
He approached his field research site, watching the horizon…and pulled to a stop.
He confirmed his current coordinates on the GPS unit and looked up again.
Usually, he’d see his site from here. Today, there was nothing.
Twenty minutes later, he pulled up beside his site.
Or what had been his site.
He threw open the door and jumped to the ice. Nothing remained but a hole in the ground, along with a few discarded items—including the bright-red tent that had protected his drill through all kinds of weather.
His drill, dammit. His life’s work. He’d designed and built the damned thing. He’d dug the hole and put it in the ground.
Jesus, who the hell would steal another scientist’s work, not to mention the tools they needed to do their work?
He picked up the tent and threw it to the side. They hadn’t just taken his drill; they’d slashed the fabric, smashed the rest of his on-site gear to smithereens, and ground it all into the ice in what felt like a deliberate insult.
Whoever had done this didn’t just want to steal from him, they wanted to screw him. Hard.
Head thrumming with foreboding, he climbed back into the tractor and set off for the next
site on his route.
Chapter 7
This was fear. Not her usual fear of being alone in the arches or the uneasiness of staring across the ice and knowing she meant nothing at all.
This was terror that had changed her for good. It sparked things she’d never be able to control on her own, ignited entirely new systems in her body, rearranged them into popping, cracking networks of reactivity. Synapses? Was that the word? Or just nerves that she was no longer in command of. Like when a driving instructor took over the car, she felt a weird sort of relief. I don’t have to do anything. I’m not in charge anymore.
The other man—who looked like Ben Wong, another of the new crew members—went to one side of the arch and returned dragging something big, which he flopped down onto the floor. A shipping case, maybe?
Then, once he’d lined it up, he pulled a long metal tube from its slot along the wall and dropped it into the box with a loud thud.
“Watch out with those,” Sampson said, sounding peeved. “No payload, no pay, remember.”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. We’ve gotta move.” He spoke into whatever communication device they were using. “Bravo Team, to the generators.”
Sampson headed away from her, leaving behind the inanimate lump that was once Alex Stickley without so much as a backward glance.
Angel looked on as terror stoked something inside her. Energy? Courage? She wasn’t sure, but it ran through her body like a jolt of electricity.
Whatever it was spurred her to step over her half-empty sled, careful to walk on her tiptoes.
Angel’s eyes slid to the side, where bags of rice filled most of the metal shelves. Farther up, where Ben worked, was nothing but row after row of those metal tubes. Could Ben see her crouched down here? Maybe not. Maybe her silhouette blended in with the bulk supplies.
Once all five cylinders were loaded into the case, Ben grabbed the handle and started pulling—right toward Angel. She popped back behind the shelf and waited, wishing she could roll herself into a tiny ball, but she was stuck in this too-tight, too-visible place.
Please don’t see me. He walked closer. She couldn’t move, could only listen to the fingernail-on-the-chalkboard sound of plastic scraping over concrete. It was a horrible sound. But not the worst. She couldn’t think of that other sound—the sound of gunfire, of death—or she’d do something stupid.
And suddenly, holy crap, he was right there. Close enough to touch, if she slid her hand from the back of the shelf, over the rice, and out to where he stood, in the center of the arch. And here she was, trying to meld with the wall, shaking like a jackhammer. She ignored a lancing pain in her knee and did her best not to breathe, to stop the shaking. To stop existing, if she could.
How can he not hear me?
He stilled. This is it. I’m dead.
Every muscle tightened in anticipation of whatever he’d do or say. She couldn’t kick him from here, but if she shoved some of the food aside, she could maybe hit his crotch and—
“Still in the arch. Headed out.” He paused, clearly listening, while Angel used everything she had not to breathe a sigh of relief. “Shit. Yeah. Okay. I’ll intercept them.” Dropping the handle, he took off at a jog, back toward where he’d come from, then around the corner.
Before she even realized what she’d planned, Angel’s lizard brain took over, some prehistoric, instinctive part of her she’d never had to tap into.
Run.
Mustering every ounce of her courage, she stepped out from her hiding place, turned, and almost tripped over the silver shipping case. She stared at it, then, like a zombie, reached out and flipped open the top to see the dull gleam of metal.
Run! The fear voice was right. She should go…
Almost calmly, she turned and eyed the row of cylinders lining the wall farther up the arch.
And then she was walking—only not to safety, the place where the arch opened up onto the bright outdoors, but toward those other tubes, following in Ben Wong’s footsteps.
What the hell am I doing?
She slid a tube out. Whoa. Heavy. Still, she could do it. She would do it, because if these men were willing to kill for these, then she sure as hell didn’t want them in their hands. Bending her knees, she grabbed another and humped them back to the shipping container. Crap. She hadn’t thought this through.
Doesn’t matter. Do it.
Somewhere in the distance, she heard Ben talking. Was he talking to friend or foe? Should she yell? No. No, she’d seen the carnage these people were capable of. She’d make it worse if she wasn’t careful.
First do this, then find a way to warn the others.
As fast as she could, she pulled the cylinders from the case and slid them under the shelves. The fifty-pound bags of rice that drooped over the edge like fat, juicy steaks hanging over the rim of a too-small plate hid them perfectly.
Once it was empty, she loaded the case up with the first two cylinders she’d grabbed. Crap. There was a label, right? She dropped to her knees and felt around until she found a tube and pulled it out, then took a deep breath before yanking off her gloves and working at the sticker with her ragged fingernail.
Relief flooded her when it came off easily. She slapped it over the sticker on one of the new tubes, and did the same with the second.
In the distance, Ben laughed, the sound resonating in that weird way the arches had, echoey but also swallowed by the ice. Was he coming back?
Don’t come back. Don’t come back, she mouthed silently as she raced to pull more dummy samples, hauled them back and placed them in the case painfully slowly, so as not to make a sound. Finally, she went through the whole cycle for the last cylinder. Now for stickers. One…two… She worked to peel off the last sticker, breathing so hard now that she almost didn’t hear the exterior handle’s telltale squeak.
For a split second, she couldn’t move.
But when that door opened, whoever was there would see her, clear as day. Maybe it was someone she could trust, but if it wasn’t…
Forget the last sticker. With one hand, she slammed the cover shut, gave herself up to that lizard brain, and ran like hell.
Something cracked in the distance, everything shook, and the arch went dark.
* * *
Gone. Every one of his drills. Into thin air.
And nobody at base was answering. Not the station manager, not Jameson, not the communications office…nobody. Which made zero sense. Somebody should pick up. Coop had tried putting a call through to McMurdo, but the sky had chosen that moment to cloud over and he couldn’t get a goddamn signal. He needed to tell somebody what was going on, so they could stop whoever was responsible before they left the continent.
But who the hell was behind this?
None of the researchers, because it wouldn’t make sense when they shared scientific data freely between them. Just recently, in fact, he’d pulled probably the most interesting core samples of his career and shared them with pretty much every researcher here.
Operations staff was even less likely to be interested in what he was doing out here. The mechanics would have the know-how to pull the drills apart, but with their sixteen-hour, six-day-a-week schedules, they lacked opportunity to do so. The same went for kitchen staff, fuelies, and sanitation folks.
Was it pure, angry sabotage?
He squinted hard out the windshield, willing the machine to go over twelve miles per hour.
The new guys had done it. Had to be. He should’ve listened to his gut about them. Not that it would’ve changed a thing.
An image of that blood came to him again. Jesus, he hoped Cortez was all right. If only he’d busted through his door last night.
If only he’d been paying more attention, he would’ve noticed trouble before it fell all around him. Somebody’d asked him about his drills recently. Who
was that? Alex? No. No, it had been one of the new guys. Ben something. He’d claimed to have an interest in engineering, said someone had mentioned Coop’s drills. Damn it. Was he the guy behind this? Or that whole group?
Those assholes had never fit in here from the moment they’d arrived. Cleaners and mechanics, ostensibly, along with the new operations manager. But he’d seen the way their eyes took in a room. Cautious. Hypervigilant. And more than a little arrogant.
In hindsight, that arrogance was particularly telling. Not to mention worrisome.
He was grinding his teeth now, fighting the urge to get out and run. No matter how slow this machine felt, he couldn’t outrun—
Something cracked beyond the engine’s low rumble, and seconds later a gray smudge appeared on the horizon.
What the hell?
He yanked off his sunglasses, rubbed his eyes, and squinted in the direction of the Burke-Ruhe Research Station, where a plume of black smoke reached up into the white antarctic sky.
Chapter 8
Angel had never stared into such complete darkness, never strained to hear a sound in such absolute silence. Was that an explosion? Was it the power plant?
Please, God, what’s happening?
“Got company!” Sampson’s yell broke through the silence, stern and matter-of-fact. Through the pounding in her ears, Angel couldn’t tell which direction his voice had come from.
She slid around until she found a spot behind another shelving unit filled with big cardboard boxes. Toilet paper, she remembered. Great weapon to have at a time like this. For a split second, the idea of mummifying Sampson almost made her laugh.
Light sliced open the dark, solid as a knife through butter, blinding her, while footsteps converged from both ends of the arch.
They were coming for her.
Go!
It was some sixth sense that led her to the wall, instead of straight down the arch, and pure instinct that sent her to the low wooden door leading to the ice tunnels. Jameson had shown her around once. He loved it down here, had even hand-carved a few of the passages himself, but to her, they’d felt like a frigid tomb. Didn’t matter. She needed a place to hide.
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