Ice Station

Schofield continued to lie on the cold floor of the wall-less room unable?or just unwilling?to move. And then, gradually, the walls around him began to take shape, and soon Schofield realized that he was lying on the metal decking of E-deck.

The big dog was still standing over him, barking ferociously, snarling. The dog, it seemed, was defending him.

But from what? What could it see that he could not?

And then suddenly the dog turned and ran away and Schofield lay alone on the cold steel deck.

Asleep but awake, unable to move, Schofield suddenly felt vulnerable. Exposed.

Something was approaching him.

It came from the direction of his feet. He couldn't see it, but he could hear its footsteps as they clanged? slowly, one after the other?on the cold steel deck.

And then suddenly it was over him and Schofield saw an evil smiling face appear above his head.

It was Jacques Latissier.

His face was covered in blood, contorted in an obscene sneer. Ragged pieces of flesh hung loosely from an open wound in his forehead. His eyes were alive, burning with hate. The French commando raised his glistening knife so that it was right in front of Schofield's eyes.

And then he brought the knife down in a violent slashing?

'Hey,' someone said gently.

Schofield's eyes darted open and he awoke from his dream.

He was lying on his back. In a bed of some sort. In a room with dazzling white fluorescent lights. The walls were white, too, made of ice.

A man stood over him.

He was a small man, about five-foot-three. Schofield had never seen him before.

The man was short and wiry, and he had two enormous blue eyes that seemed way too big for his small head. Large black bags hung beneath both of his eyes. He had messy brown hair that looked like it hadn't been brushed in months and two huge front teeth that were horribly askew. He wore a Kmart wash-and-wear shirt and a pair of blue polyester trousers; in fact, he looked decidedly underdressed for the near-freezing conditions inside Wilkes Ice Station.

And he was holding something.

A long-bladed scalpel.

Schofield stared at it.

The scalpel had blood on it.

 The man spoke in a flat nasal voice. 'Hey. You're awake.'

Schofield squinted in the light, tried to lift himself up off the bed. He couldn't do it. Something stopped him. He saw what it was.

Two leather straps bound his arms to the sides of the bed. Two more straps bound his legs. When he tried to raise his head to further examine his situation, he found that he couldn't even do that. It, too, was strapped tightly down against the bed.

Schofield's blood went instantly cold.

He was completely tied down.

 'Just hold on a minute,' the short man said in his irritating nasal voice. 'This will only take one ... more ... second.'

He raised his bloody scalpel and ducked out of Schofield's field of vision.

'Wait!' Schofield said quickly.

The short man returned instantly to Schofield's view. He raised his eyebrows questioningly. 'Yes?'

'Where ... where am I?' Schofield said. It hurt to speak. His throat was parched, dry.

The man smiled, revealing his crooked front teeth. 'It's OK, Lieutenant,' he said. 'You're still at Wilkes Ice Station.'

Schofield swallowed. 'Who are you?'

'Why, Lieutenant Schofield,' the man said, 'I'm James Renshaw.'

'Welcome back from the grave, Lieutenant,' Renshaw said as he unbound the leather strap around Schofield's head. He had just finished removing the last three bullet fragments from Schofield's neck with his scalpel.

Renshaw said, 'You know, you were very lucky you were wearing this Kevlar plate inside your collar. It didn't stop the bullet entirely, but it took most of the speed off it.'

Renshaw held up the circular Kevlar insert that had previously been fitted inside Schofield's gray turtleneck collar. Schofield had forgotten all about his neck protector. To him, it was just another part of his uniform. Kevlar neck protectors were issued exclusively to Marine officers, as an extra defense against snipers. Enlisted men received no such protection, since enemy snipers rarely cared for corporals and sergeants.

With the leather strap around his forehead now removed, Schofield raised his head and looked at the Kevlar insert that Renshaw held in his hand.

It looked like a priest's white collar?curved and flat, designed to encircle its wearer's neck while remaining hidden inside his turtleneck collar. On one side of the circular Kevlar insert, Schofield could see a jagged, gaping hole.

The bullet hole.

'That bullet would have killed you for sure if it weren't for your insert,' Renshaw said. 'Would've cut right through your carotid. After that there would have been nothing anyone could have done for you. As it happened, the bullet shattered as it passed through your Kevlar insert, so only a few small fragments of it lodged in your neck. Still, that would have been enough to kill you, and as a matter of fact, I actually think it did, at least for a short time.'

Schofield had stopped listening. He was taking in the room around him. It looked like someone's living quarters. He saw a bed, a desk, a computer, and, strangely, a pair of black-and-white TV monitors mounted on top of two video recorders.

He turned to face Renshaw. 'Huh?'

'Several fragments of the bullet lodged in your neck, Lieutenant. I'm pretty sure?in fact, I'm absolutely certain?that for at least thirty seconds, you lost your pulse. You were clinically dead.'

'What do you mean?' Schofield said. He instinctively tried to raise his hand to feel his neck. But he couldn't move his arm. His arms and legs were still firmly tied down to the bed.

'Oh, don't worry, I fixed it up,' Renshaw said. 'I took the bullet fragments out and I cleaned the wound. You actually got a couple of Kevlar fragments in there, too, but they weren't a problem. In fact, I was just trying to get them out when you woke up.' Renshaw indicated the bloody scalpel on a silver tray next to Schofield's bed. Beside the scalpel lay seven tiny metal fragments, all of them covered in blood.

'Oh, and don't worry about my qualifications,' Renshaw said with a smile. 'I did two years of medicine before I dropped out and took up geophysics.'

'Are you going to untie me?' Schofield said evenly.

'Oh, yeah. Right. Listen. I'm terribly sorry about that,' Renshaw said. He seemed nervous now. 'At first I just had to keep your head still while I extracted the bullet fragments from your neck. Did you know that you move around a lot in your sleep? Probably not. Well, you do. But anyway, to cut to the chase, I figured what with all I have to tell you and all, it would be better if you were, well, a captive audience. So to speak.' Renshaw smiled weakly at the pun he'd just made.

Schofield stared at him, unsure of what to make of this man named James Renshaw. After all, this was the man who only a week before had killed one of his fellow scientists. If nothing else, Schofield was certain of one thing. He did not want to remain tied up at this man's mercy.

'What do you have to tell me?' he said. His eyes swept the room as he spoke. The door on the far side of the room was firmly shut. All of the other walls in the room were ice.

'Lieutenant, what I have to tell you is this: I am not a murderer. I did not kill Bernie Olson.'

Schofield didn't say anything.

He tried to remember what Sarah Hensleigh had told him earlier?way back when he had arrived at Wilkes? about the death of the scientist Bernard Olson.