Schofield looked around himself as he spoke. He couldn't see Kirsty anywhere.
'Listen, Fox, I have to go,' he said.
'You, too. Scarecrow, out.'
Schofield spun instantly. 'Where's the girl!' he yelled.
He received no reply.
Just then he saw Abby emerge from her room. She was hurriedly putting on a heavy blue parka.
'Abby! Where's Kirsty?' he called.
'I think she went back to her room!'
'Where is her room?'
'Down the tunnel! On the left!' Abby yelled, pointing down the tunnel behind Schofield.
Schofield ran down the outer tunnel of B-deck, looking for Kirsty.
Twelve minutes to go.
He threw open every door he came to.
First door. A bedroom. Nothing.
Second door. Locked. A three-ringed biohazard sign on it. The Biotoxin Laboratory. Kirsty wouldn't be in there.
Third door. Schofield threw it open.
And suddenly he stopped.
Schofield hadn't seen this room before. It was a walk-in freezer of some sort, the kind used for storing food.
There were three bodies in the room.
Samurai, Mitch Healy, and Hollywood. They all lay on their backs, face-up.
After the battle with the French, Schofield had ordered that the bodies of his fallen men be taken to a freezer of some sort, where they were to be kept until they could be returned home for a proper burial. This was obviously where the bodies had been taken.
There was, however, a fourth body in the freezer room. It lay on the floor next to Hollywood's body, and it had been covered over with a brown hessian sack.
Schofield frowned.
It couldn't have been one of the French soldiers, because they had not been moved from where they lay?
And then he suddenly Schofield remembered.
It was Bernard Olson.
The scientist James Renshaw was said to have killed several days before Schofield and his team had arrived at Wilkes. The residents of Wilkes must have placed his body in here.
Schofield checked his watch.
Eleven minutes.
And then suddenly he remembered something that Renshaw had said to him after he had woken up inside his room, bound to the bed. When Renshaw had released Schofield he had asked him to do something odd. He had asked him?if he ever got the chance?to check Olson's body, in particular the tongue and the eyes.
Schofield didn't understand what the dead man's tongue and eyes had to do with anything. But Renshaw had insisted that they would prove his innocence.
Ten and a half minutes.
But then, Renshaw
Schofield hurried into the freezer room and fell to his knees beside the brown hessian sack. He swept it off the body.
Bernard Olson stared up at him with cold, lifeless eyes.
He was an ugly man?fat and bald, with a pudgy, wrinkled face. His skin was bone white in color.
Schofield didn't waste any time. He checked the eyes first.
They were deeply red around the rims, inflamed. Horribly bloodshot.
Then he turned his attention to the dead man's mouth.
The mouth was shut. Schofield tried to open it, but the jaw was locked firmly in place. It wouldn't open an inch.
Schofield leaned closer and prized the dead man's lips apart so that he could examine the tongue.
The lips came apart.
'Urghhh,' he winced as he saw it. He swallowed quickly, held back the nausea.
Bernie Olson had bitten his own tongue off.
For some reason, before he had died, Bernie Olson had bitten down hard with his teeth, clamping them shut. He had bitten down so hard that he had cut his own tongue in half.
Ten minutes.
Schofield ran for the door, and as he passed Mitch Healy's body on the way out, he grabbed the dead Marine's helmet from the floor.
Schofield emerged from the freezer room just as Kirsty came running down the outer tunnel of B-deck.
'I had to get a parka,' she said apologetically. 'My other one got wet?'
'Come on,' Schofield said, grabbing her hand and pulling her down the tunnel.
As they turned into the tunnel that led to the central shaft, Schofield heard someone shout, 'Wait for me!'
It was Renshaw. He was hurrying as fast as his little legs would carry him, racing around the curved outer tunnel toward Schofield and Kirsty. He was dressed in a heavy blue parka, and he was carrying a thick book under his arm.
'What the hell were you doing?' Schofield said.
'I had to get this,' Renshaw said, indicating the book under his arm as he ran past Schofield and headed for the central well.
Schofield and Kirsty followed. 'What the hell is in there that's so important?' Schofield yelled.
Renshaw called back, 'My innocence!'
Outside the station, snow was flying horizontally.
It assaulted Schofield's face?bounced off his silver glasses?as he emerged from the main entrance with Kirsty and Renshaw by his side.
Eight minutes to go.
Until the SAS arrived.
The two white Marine hovercrafts were already parked outside the main entrance to the station. Book and Rebound stood beside the two big vehicles, hustling the residents of Wilkes onto Rebound's white hovercraft.
Schofield's plan was simple.
Rebound's hovercraft would be the transport. It held six people, so it would be used to carry all of the residents of Wilkes?Abby, Llewellyn, Harris, Robinson, and Kirsty? plus Rebound himself.
Book and Schofield would ride shotgun, defending the transport craft as it raced eastward and attempted to outrun the SAS hovercrafts speeding toward Wilkes Ice Station.
Book would drive the second Marine hovercraft, Schofield the French unit's orange hovercraft. James Renshaw, Schofield decided, would ride with him.
Schofield saw Rebound slam the sliding door of his hovercraft, saw Book leap up onto the skirt of his hovercraft and disappear inside the cabin. Book reemerged a second later with a large black Samsonite trunk in his hands and hurled the big black trunk across the snow toward Schofield. It landed with a loud thud.
