Ice Station

'All right, let go!' he yelled.

The others immediately let go of the falling metal catwalk.

They hovered in the water as the catwalk disappeared into the gloom beneath them.

Schofield swam over to the ice wall.

A large, round hole had been burrowed into it. It looked like a tunnel of some sort, a tunnel that descended into aiky darkness.

Wendy swam up alongside Schofield and disappeared inside the dark tunnel. She popped out again several seconds later.

Schofield hesitated.

Renshaw must have seen the doubt in his eyes. 'What choice do we have?' he said.

'Right,' Schofield said, pulling out his flashlight. He clicked it on. Then he kicked with his feet and swam into the tunnel.

The tunnel was narrow, and it meandered steeply downward. Schofield swam in the lead, with Kirsty behind him and Renshaw bringing up the rear. Since they were swimming downward, they made swift progress. They just allowed the lead weights on their weight belts to pull them down.

Schofield swam cautiously. It was quiet here, like a tomb....

And then suddenly Wendy whipped past him from behind and darted off down the tunnel in front of him.

Schofield looked at his depth gauge.

They had reached a thousand feet.

Dive time was twelve minutes.

'Bigbird, this is Blue Leader. Target is now in missile range. I repeat. Target is now in missile range. Preparing to launch AMRAAM missiles.'

'You may fire when ready, Blue Leader.'

 'Thank you, Bigbird. All right, people. I have missile lock. Missile bay is open. Target appears to be unaware of our presence. OK. This is Blue Leader, Fox One.. .fire!'

The squadron leader jammed down on bis trigger.

At that moment, a long, sleek AIM-120 AMRAAM missile slid out from the missile bay of the F-22 and shot forward after its prey.

The British fighter saw the missile on its scopes straightaway.

The greatest problem for stealth aircraft is that although an aircraft itself may be invisible to radar, any missiles hanging from its wings will not be invisible. Hence, all stealth aircraft like the F-22, the F-117A stealth fighter, and the B-2A stealth bomber carry their missiles internally.

Unfortunately, however, as soon as a missile is fired, it will be seen instantly on radar. Which meant that the moment the F-22 launched its AMRAAM missile at the E-2000 over the horizon, the British plane saw the missile on its scopes.

The British pilot gave himself one minute at the most.

'General Barnaby! General Barnaby! Report!'

There was no reply.

Which was strange, because Brigadier General Barnaby knew that this time?2200 hours to 2225 hours?was a designated contact time, one of only two times a break in the solar flare would permit radio contact. Barnaby had reported in at 1930, another designated contact time, right on schedule.

The British pilot tried the secondary frequency. Still no luck. He tried to hail Nero, Barnaby's second in command.

Still no luck.

'General Barnaby! This is Backstop. I am under attack! I repeat, I am under attack! If you do not answer me in the next thirty seconds, I will have to assume that you are dead and pursuant to your orders I will have no choice but to fire upon the station.'

The British pilot looked at his missile light?it was blinking. He had already preset the coordinates of Wilkes Ice Station into the guidance computer of his AGM-88/HLN cruise missile.

The designator letters on the missile said it all.

AGM stood for air-to-ground missile, H for high-speed, and L for long-range. N however, had a special meaning.

It stood for nuclear.

Thirty seconds expired. Still no word from Barnaby.

'General Barnaby! This is Backstop! I am launching the eraser... now/' The British pilot hit his trigger, and a split second later the nuclear-tipped cruise missile attached to the end of his wing streaked away from his plane.

The missile only just got away, for a bare two seconds later?just as the British pilot was reaching for his ejection lever?the American AMRAAM missile slammed into the back of the E-2000 and blew it and its pilot out of the sky.

The American pilots saw the bright orange explosion on the night horizon, saw the blip on their scopes disappear.

A couple of them cheered.

The squadron leader smiled as he looked at the orange fireball on the horizon. 'SEAL team, this is Blue Leader. The bogey has been eliminated. I repeat, the bogey has been eliminated. You are free to enter the station. You are free to enter the station.'

Inside the SEAL hovercraft, the squadron leader's voice echoed through the speaker: 'You are free to enter the station. You are free to enter the station.'

The SEAL commander said, 'Thank you, Blue Leader. All units, be aware. SEAL team is switching over to closed-circuit channels for the assault on the station.'

He clicked off his radio, turned to his men.

'All right, people. Let's go fuck somebody up.'

Out over the Southern Ocean, the F-22 squadron leader continued to look out through his canopy at the remains of the British E-2000. Thin orange firetrails descended slowly down to earth like cheap fireworks.

Consumed as he was with this sight, the squadron leader didn't notice a new, smaller blip appear on his radar screen? a blip heading south, toward Antarctica?until almost thirty seconds later.

'What the hell is that?' he said.

'Oh, Jesus,' someone else said. 'It must have got a missile off before it was hit!'

The squadron leader tried to raise the SEAL team again, but this time he couldn't get through. They'd already switched over to closed-circuit channels for their assault on Wilkes Ice Station.

The main doors to the station exploded inward and the SEAL team stormed inside with their guns blazing.

It was a textbook-perfect entrance. The only problem was, the station was empty.

Schofield looked at his depth gauge: 1470 feet.

He pushed on and a few minutes later, he emerged from the narrow shortcut tunnel and found himself inside a wider, ice-wafted tunnel.

He knew where he was instantly, even though he had never been here before.

On the far side of the underwater ice tunnel he saw a series of round ten-foot holes carved into the tunnel walls. Sarah Hensleigh had told him about them before. And Gant had mentioned them as well, when she had