Ice Station

Shhhhhhhhhh.

 'That's the sound of the solar flare,' Abby said. 'But if you wait just... a... few... seconds ...'

Abruptly the shooshing sound cut off and there was silence.

'And there it is,' Abby said. 'There's your break, Lieutenant. Go for it.'

Schofield sat down at the console and grabbed the microphone.

He hit the talk button, but just as he was about to speak, a strange high-pitched whistling sound suddenly blared out from the wall-mounted speakers. It sounded like feedback, interference.

Schofield released the microphone instantly, looked at Abby. 'What did I do? Did I press something?'

Abby frowned, flicked a couple of switches. 'No. You didn't do anything.'

'Is it the solar flare? Could you have got the timing wrong?'

'No,' Abby said firmly.

She flicked some more switches.

Nothing happened.

The system didn't seem to be responding to what she was doing. The high-pitched whistling sound filled the radio room. Abby said, 'There's something wrong; this isn't interference from the flare. This is something else. This is different. It's almost as if it's electronic. As though someone was jamming us....'

Schofield felt a chill run up the length of his spine. 'Jamming us?'

'It's as if there's someone between us and McMurdo, stopping our signal getting through,' Abby said.

'Scarecrow...,' a voice said from somewhere behind Schofield.

Schofield spun.

It was Rebound.

He was standing in the doorway to the radio room.

'I thought I told you to stay down with?'

'Sir, you better see this,' Rebound said. 'You better see this now.' He held up his left hand.

In it was the portable viewscreen that Schofield had brought inside from the hovercrafts earlier. The small TV screen that displayed the findings of the two range finders mounted on top of the hovercrafts outside. Rebound crossed the radio room quickly and handed the screen to Schofield. Schofield looked at the screen and his eyes instantly widened in horror.

'Oh, Christ,' he said. The screen was filled with red blips. They looked like a swarm of bees, converging on a point; were all approaching the center of the screen. Schofield counted twenty red blips. Twenty....

All of them converging on Wilkes Ice Station. 'Good God....'

And then suddenly he heard a voice. A voice that made his blood run cold. It came from the speakers that lined the walls of the radio room. Loud and hard, as if it were a message from God himself.

'Attention, Wilkes Ice Station. Attention,' the voice said.

It was a crisp voice, clipped and cultured.

'Attention American forces at Wilkes Ice Station. As you will now no doubt be aware, your communication lines have been intercepted. It is no use attempting to contact your base at McMurdo?you will not get through. You are advised to lay down your arms immediately. If you do not lay down your defenses before our arrival, we will be forced to make an offensive entry. Such an entry, ladies and gentlemen, will be painful.'

Schofield's eyes went wide at the sound of the voice. The English accent was all too apparent.

It was a voice that Schofield knew well. A voice from his past.

It was the voice of Trevor Barnaby. Brigadier General Trevor J. Barnaby of Her Majesty's SAS.

FIFTH INCURSION

16 June 1551 hours

'Oh, Jesus,' Rebound said.

'How long till they get here?' Book asked.

Schofield's eyes were glued to the portable viewscreen. He looked at the box at the bottom of the screen. In it was a wire-frame picture of a hovercraft. The wire-frame hovercraft rotated within the box. Beneath it were the words: BELL TEXTRON SR.N7-S?LANDING CRAFT AIR CUSHIONED (UK).

'It's the SAS,' Rebound said in disbelief. 'It's the fucking SAS.'

'Take it easy, Rebound,' Schofield said. 'We're not dead yet.'

He turned to Book. 'Thirty-four miles out. Coming in at eighty miles an hour.'

'Definitely not friendly,' Book said.

Schofield said, 'Thirty-four miles at eighty miles an hour. That gives us, what?'

'Twenty-six minutes,' Abby said quickly.

'Twenty-six minutes.' Schofield swallowed. 'Shit.'

The room fell silent.

Schofield could hear Rebound's breathing. He was breathing fast, hyperventilating.

Everyone watched Schofield, waited for him to make the call.

Schofield took a deep breath, tried to evaluate the situation. The SAS?the British Special Air Service, the most dangerous special forces unit in the world?was on its way to Wilkes Ice Station right now.

And it was being led by Trevor Barnaby?the man who had taught Shane Schofield everything he knew about covert incursionary warfare. The man who in the eighteen years he had been in command of the SAS had never once failed in a mission.

On top of all that, Barnaby was also jamming Schofield's radio, stopping him from getting in contact with McMurdo. Stopping him from making contact with the only people in the world who were capable of taking out the French warship that was hovering off the coast, waiting to launch its missiles at Wilkes Ice Station.

Schofield checked his stopwatch. It read:

2:02:31

2:02:32

2:02:33

Shit, he thought.

Less than an hour until they launched.

Shit. It was all happening too fast. It was as if the whole world were closing in around him.

Schofield looked at the range finder viewscreen again, looked at the swarm of dots approaching Wilkes Ice Station.

Twenty hovercrafts, he thought. Probably two or three men in each. That meant a minimum of fifty men.

Fifty men.

 And what did Schofield have?

Three good men in the station proper. Three more down in the cave. Mother down in the storeroom and Snake handcuffed to a pole on E-deck.

The situation didn't just look bad.

It looked hopeless.

Either they stayed here and fought a suicidal battle with the SAS, or they ran?made a break for McMurdo in the hovercrafts?and brought back reinforcements later.

There really was no choice at all.

Schofield looked up at the small group gathered around him.

'All right,' he said. 'We get out of here.'

Schofield's feet clanged loudly as they landed hard on the cold metal floor of E-deck. Schofield strode quickly across the deck toward the south tunnel and Mother's storeroom.