“Godspeed?” Sampson raised his brows and finally pulled his foot from the door. It was all Clive could do not to slam it in his face. Christ, Sampson could barely speak English.
“You know. Like, farewell?” He scarcely kept his eyes from rolling. “For your journey across the ice to do God’s work?” All of this was said tongue in cheek, obviously, but Sampson didn’t get it. Everything to him was straightforward. First degree.
“That what this is?” Sampson smiled, his teeth big and bright and especially carnivorous in his now-gaunt face. “Seems more like the devil’s.”
Chapter 41
Day 15—137 Miles to Volkov Station—16 Days of Food Remaining
It was so quiet on the ice, so bright and still, that Coop heard it immediately—the far-off drone of engines.
Within seconds, it grew louder, and when he turned to look at Angel, he could tell that she’d heard it, too.
Her stance was straight, tall, excited. Safety. Civilization. He could read her mind. The phone call worked! Eric got through to Volkov. This was over. Finally. He could understand that relief, especially given the way she’d limped all morning. Clearly, walking in those snowshoes had been harder on her body than skiing.
Which would make running all the more difficult if these didn’t turn out to be allies.
He scanned all three hundred sixty degrees of horizon. Avoiding an enormous crevasse field, along with sastrugi, some as tall and impossible to navigate as ocean waves, had put them slightly off course, which wasn’t a bad thing, given how little he trusted whoever approached.
So, was this help on the way?
Or the opposite?
Louder. Chainsaws busting through a quiet forest, bees swarming, coming together to play an off-key chord.
Something sliced through it. Disquiet, fear, an odd, otherworldly awareness. He couldn’t say what exactly, but suddenly, he was sure—more certain than he’d ever been—that this was not a friendly approach.
Several machines—snowmobiles, he’d guess—coming from the direction of Volkov. It could mean that Eric had gotten his message and had somehow made this happen. But even with his brother’s connections, this was awfully quick.
Everything happened fast, after that, as his old instincts kicked in.
A quick scan of the horizon showed nothing to hide behind, nothing to put between them and whatever weapons those assholes were packing.
The closer the engines got, the stronger the certainty that this was very, very bad.
He slowed his breathing and took another look, a full three sixty, more deliberate this time. Nothing but the Great Wall of Sastrugi that they’d just avoided. They’d have to drag the sled over there and hope for a place to hide on the other side. If they could make it to the forest of frozen wavelike structures, they’d have a chance of going undetected. Slim, but a chance.
“Run!” he bellowed, making sure Angel was with him before he took off with the sled behind him, pushing his body harder than he ever had, stretching his lungs to their maximum capacity. Even that didn’t feel like enough as the droning grew more strident, angrier.
Definitely more than one engine. Snowmobiles, gunning toward them.
He dared a look back, and Angel was right there with him, struggling in those snowshoes, limping but pushing herself as hard as he was. Thank God.
Only a few yards to go. Yoked like a strongman in one of those truck pulls, he forged his way up, up the steep, short slope, to the top, then… His breath left him in a whoosh as he took in the sheer drop on the other side. With adrenaline-enhanced muscles, he grabbed the sled and threw it over, then turned just in time to see one of Angel’s unwieldy snowshoes catch on the uneven ice, forcing her leg out at an unnatural angle.
* * *
I’m fine, Angel chanted in her head. I’ll be fine.
The first step on her bum knee told her otherwise, sending her halfway to the ground with a lung-purging oof before she planted the ski pole and pushed herself to standing.
I’m fine. I’ll be fine.
In front of her, the ice formed a wide, shallow hill that she’d have to climb in order to get to the other side. Nothing to it. Just an anthill, really.
Behind her, the engines grew steadily louder. She refused to look, took a step, and—holy shit. She leaned over her ski pole and threw up onto the pristine ice, the pain like nothing she’d experienced.
She pushed herself back up, though she had no idea how she’d walk.
And then he was there, arm around her waist.
One hopping step at a time, he helped her perch at the top of the sastrugi, lowered himself, then dropped the few feet to the ground, where he held his arms open. “I’ll catch you. Jump!”
She glanced back to see several white-clad figures crouched over their snowmobiles, headed unerringly toward them. The horsemen of the apocalypse. And if she could see their pursuers, they could see her.
If he missed her and she landed on her right leg, the pain would be unbearable.
Eyes fixed on Ford, she scooted to the edge and let go.
Oooomph. Not even a second passed, not even a breath, before he plucked her out of the air and held her tightly in his arms. The contact shoved the breath from her lungs and knocked her leg, turning the edges of her vision black.
“Your knee?” he asked, clearly reading on her face at least a fraction of the pain she was feeling.
It took a great deal of effort to answer. “Yeah.”
“How fucked?”
“Capital F.”
He gave her a quick nod. “They see you?”
“I could see them. And they’re moving fast.”
Another nod. Grim, she thought, although possibly just matter-of-fact, coming from Ford.
“What do we do?”
“You see those lines?” He pointed at a textured area maybe twenty yards ahead.
She nodded. “More sastrugi.”
“No. It’s a crevasse field.”
Crevasse. The word dropped from his lips like an omen. “You’re kidding.”
He grabbed her hand in response and squeezed it, telling her everything she didn’t want to know. Showing her exactly how things would pan out. As she scrolled through the possibilities in her mind, there weren’t many outcomes that involved them getting through this alive.
They could hide here, like sitting ducks, or…
Staring at the lumps and ridges and patterns in the ice, she squeezed him back. Then, nodding once, she grabbed his arm with one hand and her ski pole with her other before setting off for the crevasse field at his side.
And just like that, their mission changed from survival to something much more chilling.
* * *
Day 15—Harper Research and Testing Facility, East Antarctic Ice Sheet
“Who is this?” The voice was deep and authoritative. Decidedly not the director.
“Who is this?” Clive used his world-renowned researcher talking to a minion voice.
“This is Chief Petty Officer Eric Cooper. I’m wondering what the hell an American’s doing answering the phone in an unoccupied Russian research station?”
I could be Canadian was the only thing Clive’s brain provided, but he knew not to say that. It took a few frantic seconds for him to fall on an adequate response.
“Unoccupied Russian station? You must…are, uh, mistaken… Ahem. Sir.” He cleared his throat and tightened his sweaty hand on the receiver. Why, oh why, did he have to answer the damned thing?
“Bullshit. I called Volkov Station. You answered the Volkov line.”
“Well, um, Chief…Officer.” He pushed out a tight, too-high laugh. “I’m afraid you’ve gotten your swords crossed and called Burke-Ruhe.” Clive breathed through the long pause at the other end.
“Ah. My mistake then.” The man appeared
to calm. “Who am I speaking to?”
The question came out so lightly, so innocuously, that Clive didn’t think twice before giving his name.
“Dr. Tenny. You’re a researcher, aren’t you? Who do you work with again? It wouldn’t be Chronos Corporation, would it?”
The hairs on Clive’s body rose and he immediately regretted giving himself away.
“What the hell does the U.S. Navy want with—”
“Not the navy. Me. I want you to listen up, Mr. Tenny.” Clive bit back the automatic Doctor that came to lips. “Listen closely, because this is the only warning you’ll get.” The voice was deeper now, all friendliness gone. “I don’t know what business you and your people have down there, but I know you’re up to something and I know exactly where the phone you’re using is located.” The voice changed again, grew more gravelly, quieter, as if the man on the other end would come through the phone and tear his throat out if he could. “If anything happens to my brother, Dr. Ford Cooper, there’s no place in this world where you’ll be safe from me. I will hunt you down and tear you apart, limb from limb.”
Frantic, Clive ended the call, stood, and backed up to the door, then put his face in his shaking hands, closer to crying than he’d been since losing tenure all those years ago. This was bad. Very, very bad.
The second his hands dropped limply to his sides, his gaze landed on the holding cells, where more than a dozen subjects stood or sat, probably plotting their escape as they angrily awaited their fates. Impossibly, one of them—a hard little gray-haired woman with a square jaw—stared right at him through the two-way mirror, the hatred in her eyes potent enough to make him stumble back.
He had to get out…get away. He needed air.
The damned door wouldn’t open. Had Sampson messed with it somehow? No. No, he’d input the code wrong. Slower, he tried again, finally wrenching it open and practically falling into the hall, where he leaned against the wall, working hard to slow his frantic pulse.
It took a while—three minutes, maybe, to come up with the solution. When he did, it seemed obvious.
He went to open the lab door and paused when he caught sight of his shaking hands. A drink would be welcome. Or two.
And it wouldn’t hurt to be armed for this. Those idiots had surely left a gun behind.
He set off down the hall, eager now that he’d made his decision to set things in motion.
Chapter 42
Shit. Coop stared down into the gaping crevasse. If the entire field was this deep, they were screwed.
The engines grew deafening as he helped Angel limp along the yawning crack, to the end, then to the next crevasse and the next, praying that part of this field would be miraculously shallow.
Finally, he breathed a sigh of relief when the ice opened up to reveal openings that were closer together, narrower. Here, the cracks crisscrossed, the pressure turning the pieces between them into geometrically pleasing chunks, as beautiful as quartz crystals.
And infinitely dangerous.
“Right here.” He glanced back at the sastrugi just as one of the men appeared at the top. Shit. That was definitely a gun in his hand.
As fast as he could, he dumped the sled into the first shallow crevasse, waited to make sure it held, and followed it down, then turned back, arms outstretched.
“Great,” Angel muttered. “Just freaking great.” She dropped, clearly in pain, though the only outward sign was her tight hold on his arm.
He gave her a quick squeeze in return and took stock.
“Are these caves?” She didn’t sound happy about it. No surprise there.
“Yeah. This is good.” He started to move and then paused. “Just don’t lean on the walls.”
She peered around the light blue labyrinth and mumbled something that he couldn’t hear.
Somewhere up there, the last couple of engines shut off. Impossible to tell how many there were in all. Five? Seven?
“This way.” There’d been no time to dump the contents of the sled, so he dragged the whole thing deeper into the crevasse field. Carefully. From the look of them, some of these seracs were a light brush away from becoming an icefall. If one fell, it could turn into an avalanche down here, burying them, along with the virus.
At least they’d take a few of those assholes with them, if they were lucky.
He narrowed his eyes. At the far end of this crevasse was a tunnel. And above them, an ice overhang provided the perfect cover for Angel while he stashed the cores. “Wait under here,” he whispered. “Be right back.”
He dragged the sled into a long cave, glowing pure fluorescent blue at the entrance, turning shadowy the deeper he went. About eight feet in, another crack bisected that one and Coop wasted no time shoving the cores out of sight.
“Ford!” Angel whisper-called. “They’re close!”
After grabbing a couple items from the sled, he ran back, put his arm around her waist, and guided her into one of the side crevasses, then left into another, and down another. Deep into the web of ice. And he and Angel were the spiders.
“Mash-up of my two worst nightmares,” Angel hissed, then glanced at him. Was she smiling under there? “Remix version.”
He grinned unexpectedly, affection tightening his chest. Shit, he had to save her. If not them or the virus, at least her.
“I’m with you this time.”
“Great.” There was definite humor in her voice. “So now I have you to worry about, too.”
That surprised a laugh from him. Even now, running for their lives, she made him laugh.
Shit. Please don’t let that be my last laugh.
By the time they found a spot they could defend, she was trembling. Fear, he thought, not cold.
Well, maybe cold, too.
“You okay?”
“Dandy.”
He huffed out a breath and gathered her close, whispering four words against the side of her face. “Stop, look, listen. Smell.” When he didn’t feel the tension leave her body, he tightened his hands and rasped, “Learned it in the army. Try it. Stop.”
She breathed deeply.
“Look.”
Slowly, her head swiveled, taking in the electric-blue walls around them, then tilted back to look up at the sky.
“Listen,” he whispered into her ear and waited for her breathing to change, to quiet. “Smell.”
It was too cold to smell with sinuses like burnt shells, but he imagined he got a whiff of that soap they’d used back at the hut. He shut his eyes hard as the memory assailed him—her behind the curtain. Warmth and food and the woman of his dreams.
After a few seconds, she nodded, the movement minute against him, then gradually, her shaking eased, while his pulse slowed to an almost normal cadence.
“Okay?” The word wasn’t even a whisper against the fleece covering her face, but she felt it and gave him another nod, shifting up enough to put her mouth close to his, their neck gaiters barring a kiss. “I smell you.”
It was insane how his body reacted to that statement, but he shouldn’t have been surprised.
This was more than chemistry.
Jesus, was this what love felt like? This hot, hard, twanging burn in his muscles—deeper—his bones? Death was here for them—just meters away while they hid in the center of a virtual minefield—and the only thing holding him together was her. Like if he lost her now, he’d be nothing but a Ford soup, melting into the ice to form his own inexplicable layer.
He gripped her harder, pressed her tighter to his chest. Behind the beating of his heart, he heard them, drawing closer. Their feet crunching over the ice. Impatient, he pulled his mask up and over his ears, the better to hear. He shut his eyes and listened, doing his best to separate out the sounds.
Adrenaline flooded his system along with something he’d managed to restrain for so long. Something
hungry and violent. His breathing slowed while the beast inside him grew, taking over his heart and lungs, seeping into his limbs.
One man was close, tromping right toward the crevasse field, though he might not even know it. From up there, without the sun’s shadows providing depth, everything was flat and white. They might not realize that they were about to fall into—
Someone screamed, the terrible sound followed by yelling and running. Mayhem. He and Angel startled, but that was it.
One down. If they were lucky, maybe two.
More voices, orders being shouted, footsteps fanning out. They were harder to distinguish now, coming from all sides. But he thought he heard three? Maybe four?
Another yell led to more movement, and for a few odd moments, Coop could feel the ice on their side, helping them.
Absurd, and yet… He pictured the hidden crevasses that he and Angel had bypassed to get here. At least one man had fallen in.
A shot fired. Then another. Angel’s body jumped at every sound, shuddering by the time it stopped.
Shit. They were close. If those assholes found them, they were sitting ducks. He had to think of a way to draw their attention away from Angel.
With a final squeeze of her shoulder, he stepped into what was essentially a corridor, maybe six feet below the surface.
“I’m unarmed.” Every nerve ending buzzing with energy, Coop eyed the ground above. Hunkered beneath the overhang, he slowly moved until he saw them: four dark-clad silhouettes standing out like giant crows against the blue sky. Or chess pieces, lining up to take down the king and queen.
“No shit.” It was Sampson’s voice. The man on the left. And, judging from the side-to-side sweep of his head, he hadn’t seen Coop.
They’ve got no idea where I am.
He could use that. Trick them, get them turned around—lead them away. He just needed time and a lure strong enough to keep them hooked. Coop hurriedly said, “I’ve got the virus.”
Was there an echo in here? Maybe. It made sense that they wouldn’t be able to pinpoint a sound. He tensed, ready to start moving away from Angel so he could draw danger from her, when he noticed Sampson focusing down toward where she hid—ignoring the bait.
Whiteout Page 24
