Ice Station

Convergence Group and that it was the office that was in charge of infiltrating American military units.

'Boddington said the ICG was some kind of ultrasecret committee charged with hoarding intelligence. Charged with ensuring that only the right people in the right places knew about certain stuff. That's why they have to infiltrate units like ours. If we're on a mission and we find something we're not supposed to?I don't know, like a crashed space shuttle or something?those ICG guys are there to wipe us out and make sure that we don't tell anybody about what we saw.'

Schofield shook his head. It sounded like a ghost story. Double agents among the troops.

But in the back of his mind there was a single doubt. A doubt that took shape in the form of Andrew Trent's voice screaming over Schofield's helmet radio from inside that Incan temple in Peru: 'They planted men in my unit!... They planted fucking men in my unit!' Andrew Trent was no ghost story.

'Thanks, Mother,' Schofield said as he headed back for the door. 'I better get going.'

'Ah, yes,' Mother said. 'A unit to run. People to organize. Responsibility to take. I wouldn't be an officer for all the money in the world.'

'I wish you'd told me that ten years ago.'

'Ah, yes, but then tonight wouldn't have been anywhere near as much fun. You take care, you hear me, Scarecrow. Oh, and hey,' she said. 'Nice glasses.'

Schofield paused for a moment in the doorway. He realized that he was wearing Mother's antiflash glasses. He smiled. 'Thanks, Mother.'

'Hey, don't thank me,' she said. 'Hell, the Scarecrow without his silver glasses, it's like Zorro without his mask, Superman without his cape. It just ain't right'

'Call me if you need anything,' Schofield said.

Mother gave him a wicked grin. 'Oh, I know what I need, baby,' she said.

Schofield shook his head. 'You never quit, do you?'

Mother smiled. 'You know what?' she said coyly. 'I don't think you realize it when someone has their eye on you, honey.'

Schofield raised an eyebrow. 'Does someone have their eye on me?'

'Oh, yes, Scarecrow. Oh, yes.'

Schofield shook his head, smiled. 'Good-bye, Mother.'

'Good-bye, Scarecrow.'

Schofield left the storeroom and Mother sank back against the wall.

When Schofield was gone, she closed her eyes and said softly to herself, 'Does someone have their eye on you? Oh, Scarecrow. Scarecrow. If only you could see the way she looks at you.'

Schofield stepped out onto the pool deck.

The whole station was deserted. The cavernous shaft was silent. Schofield stared at the pool, at the stationary cable that stretched down into it.

'Scarecrow, this is Fox,' Gant's voice said over his earpiece. 'Are you still up there?'

'I'm still here; where are you?'

'Dive time is fifty-five minutes. We are proceeding up the ice tunnel.'

 'Any sign of trouble?'

'Nothing yet?whoa, wait a minute: who's this?'

'What is it, Fox?' Schofield said, alarmed.

'No. It's nothing,' Gant's voice said. 'It's all right. Scarecrow, if that little girl's up there with you, you might want to tell her that her friend is down here.'

'What do you mean?'

'That fur seal, Wendy, She just joined us in the tunnel. Must have followed us down here.'

 Schofield pictured Gant and the others swimming up the underwater ice tunnel, covered in their mechanical breathing apparatus, while beside them Wendy swam happily, not needing any such equipment.

'How far have you got to go?' Schofield asked.

'Hard to say. We've been going extra slow, just to be careful. I'd say it'll be another five minutes or so.'

'Keep me posted,' Schofield said. 'Oh, and, Fox. Use caution.'

'You got it. Scarecrow. Fox, out.'

 The radio clicked off. Schofield stared at the water in the pool. It was still stained red. At the moment, it was calm, glassy. He took a step forward, toward it.

Something crunched beneath his feet.

He froze, looked down at his boots, bent down.

On the metal deck beneath his feet lay some broken shards of glass. White frosted glass.

Schofield frowned at the glass.

And then, with frightening suddenness, a voice cut across his helmet intercom: 'Scarecrow, this is Snake. I'm on B-deck. I just checked Renshaw's room. There was no answer when I banged on his door, so I busted it open. Sir, there was no one in there. Renshaw is gone. I repeat, Renshaw is gone.'

Schofield felt a chill run down his spine.

Renshaw wasn't in his room.

 He was somewhere inside the station.

Schofield was about to move, about to go and find the others, when he heard a soft puncturelike sound, followed by a faint whistling through the air. There came a sudden thwacking noise, and Schofield immediately felt a stinging, burning sensation on the back of his neck and then, to his horror, he suddenly realized that the thwacking noise had been the sound of something impacting against his neck at extremely high speed.

Schofield's knees buckled. He suddenly felt very weak.

He immediately put his hand to his neck and then held it out in front of his face.

His hand was slicked with blood.

 Blackness slowly overcame him and Schofield dropped to his knees. The world darkened around him, and as his cheek thudded down against the ice-cold steel of the deck Shane Schofield had a single terrifying thought.

He had just been shot in the throat.

 And then suddenly the thought vanished and the world went completely and utterly black.

Shane Schofield's heart...

... had stopped.

FOURTH INCURSION

16 June 1510 hours

Libby Gant swam up the steep underwater ice tunnel.

It was quiet here, she thought, peaceful. The whole world was tinted pale blue.

As she swam, Gant could hear nothing but the soft, rhythmic hiss of her low-audibility breathing gear. There were no other sounds?no whistling noises, no whale song, no nothing.

Gant stared out through her full-face diving mask. In the glare of her halogen dive lantern the icy walls of the tunnel glowed a ghostly blue-on-white. The other divers?Montana, Santa Cruz, and the scientist woman, Sarah Hensleigh? swam alongside her in silence.

All of a sudden the ice tunnel began to widen dramatically and Gant saw several large round holes set into the walls on either side of her.

They were larger than she had expected them to be?easily ten feet in diameter. And they were round, perfectly round. Gant counted eight such holes and wondered what kind of animal could possibly have made them.

And then, abruptly, she forgot about the holes set into the ice walls. Something else had seized her attention.