Ice Station

his kid.'

Renshaw laughed sadly. 'And then that drunk driver skipped the curb and killed Brian and in one fell swoop Sarah lost Brian and got the kid she never wanted.'

Schofield asked. 'So why doesn't she like you!'

 Renshaw laughed again. 'Because I told Brian not to marry her.'

Schofield shook his head. Obviously there had been a lot more going on at Wilkes Ice Station before he and his Marines had arrived than initially met the eye.

'You ready with those mouthpieces?' he asked.

'All set.'

'This conversation is to be continued,' Schofield said as he got to his feet and began to shoulder into one of the scuba tanks.

'Wait a second,' Renshaw said, standing. 'You're going back in there now? What if you get killed going back in? Then there'll be nobody left who believes my story.'

'Who said I believed your story?' Schofield said.

'You believed it. I know you believed it.'

'Then it looks like you'd better come with me. Make sure I don't get killed,' Schofield said as he walked over to the window set into the iceberg and looked out through it.

Renshaw paled. 'OK, OK, let's just slow down for a second here. Have you given any thought to the fact that there is a pod of killer whales out there? Not to mention some kind of seal that kills killer whales?'

But Schofield wasn't listening. He was just staring out through the window set in the ice. In the distance to the southwest?at the top of one of the nearby ice cliffs?he saw a faint intermittent green flash. Flash-flash. Flash- flash. It was the green beacon light mounted on top of Wilkes Ice Station's radio antenna.

'Mr. Renshaw. I'm going back in there... with or without you, whatever might be in the way.' Schofield turned to face him.

'Come on. It's time to retake Wilkes Ice Station.'

Wrapped in two layers of oversized 1960s-era wet suits, Schofield and Renshaw swam through the icy silence, breathing with the aid of their thirty-year-old scuba gear.

They both had the same length of steel cable tied around their waists?cable that stretched all the way back to the large cylindrical spooler inside Little America IV, about a mile to the northeast of Wilkes Ice Station. It was a precaution, in case either of them got lost or separated and had to get back to the station.

Schofield held a harpoon gun that he had found inside the Little America station out in front of him.

The water around them became crystal clear as they swam underneath the coastal ice shelf and into a forest of jagged stalactites of ice.

Schofield's plan was that they would swim under the ice shelf?depending on how deep it went?and come up inside Wilkes Ice Station. Outside, he had taken his bearings from the position of the green beacon light atop the station's radio antenna. He figured that if he and Renshaw could keep swimming in the general direction of the beacon, once they went under the ice shelf they would eventually be able to spot the pool at the base of the station.

Schofield and Renshaw were in a world of white. Ghostly-white ice formations?like mountain peaks turned upside-down?stretched downward for nearly four hundred feet.

Schofield frowned inside his diving mask. They would have to go quite a way down before they could come up again inside the station.

The two of them swam down the side of one of the enormous ice formations. Through his mask, the only thing Schofield could see was a wall of solid white ice.

After a while, they came to the bottom of the ice formation?the pointed 'peak' of the inverted mountain. Schofield slowly swam underneath the peak, and the wall of white glided out of his view?

?and he saw it

His heart nearly skipped a beat.

It was just hanging there in the water in front of him, suspended from its winch cable, making its slow journey back up toward the station.

The diving bell.

Heading back up toward the station.

 And then Schofield realized what that meant.

The British had already sent a team down to investigate the cavern.

 Schofield hoped to hell that his Marines down in the cavern were ready.

As for him and Renshaw, they had to get to that diving bell. It was a free ride up to Wilkes Ice Station that Schofield did not want to miss.

Schofield spun in the water to signal Renshaw. He saw the short scientist behind him, swimming underneath the inverted mountain peak. He signaled for Renshaw to pick up the pace and the two men hurried through the water toward the diving bell.

'How many are down there?' Barnaby asked softly.

Book Riley didn't say a word.

Book was on his knees, with his hands cuffed behind his back. He was down on E-deck, by the pool. Blood poured out from his mouth. His left eye was half-closed, puffed and swollen. After falling from the speeding hovercraft with Kirsty, Book had been brought back to Wilkes. As soon as he had arrived at the station, he had been taken down to E-deck to face Barnaby.

'Mr. Nero,' Barnaby said.

The big SAS man named Nero punched Book hard in the face. Book fell to the deck.

'How many?' Barnaby said. He was holding Book's Maghook in his hand.

'None!' Book yelled through bloody teeth. 'There's no one down there. We never got a chance to send anyone down there.'

'Oh, really,' Barnaby said. He looked at the Maghook in his hands thoughtfully. 'Mr. Riley, I find it very difficult to believe that a commander of the caliber of the Scarecrow would neglect to make the task of sending a squad down to that cave the very first thing that he did once he got here.'

'Then why don't you ask him?'

'Tell me the truth, Mr. Riley, or very soon I am going to lose my temper and feed you to the lions.'

'There's no one down there,' Book said.

'OK,' Barnaby said, turning abruptly to face Snake. 'Mr. Kaplan,' he said. 'Is Mr. Riley telling me the truth?'

Book looked up sharply at Snake.

Barnaby said to Snake, 'Mr. Kaplan, if Mr. Riley is lying to me, I will kill him. If you lie to me, I will kill you.'

Book looked up at Snake with wide, pleading eyes.

Snake spoke. 'He's lying. There are four people down there. Three Marines, one civilian.'

'You son of a bitch!' Book said to Snake.

'Mr. Nero,' Barnaby said, tossing Book's Maghook to Nero. 'String him up.'

Schofield and Renshaw surfaced together inside the slow-moving diving bell.

They climbed up out of the water and stood on the metal deck that surrounded the small pool of water at the base of the spherical diving bell.

Renshaw removed his mouthpiece, gasped for breath. Schofield scanned the interior of the empty diving bell, looking for weapons, looking for anything.

He saw a digital depth counter on the far wall. It was ticking downward as the diving bell ascended: 360 feet. 359 feet. 358 feet.

'A-ha,' Renshaw said from the other side of the bell.

Schofield turned. Renshaw was standing in front of a small TV monitor that was attached to the wall high up