Ice Station

'Take heart, Scarecrow. Truth be told, you never could have won this crusade. You were hobbled from the start. Your own men weren't even loyal to you.'

Barnaby turned to look at Snake Kaplan on the far side of the pool. Schofield turned to look, too.

'You'd like to kill him, wouldn't you,' Barnaby said, staring at Snake.

Schofield said nothing.

Barnaby turned, his eyes narrowing. 'You would, wouldn't you?'

Schofield remained silent.

Barnaby seemed to think about something for a moment. When he turned back to face Schofield, he had a glint in his eye.

'You know what?' he said. 'I'm going to give you the chance to do exactly that. A sporting chance, of course, but a chance nonetheless.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, since I'm going to kill you both anyway, I figure I might as well leave it up to the two of you to decide who gets fed to the lions and who dies on his feet.'

Schofield frowned for a second, not understanding, and then he looked back at the pool. He saw the high black dorsal fin of one of the killer whales cut through the water toward him.

The killers were back.

'Unlock him,' Barnaby called to the SAS soldiers guarding Snake. 'Gentlemen, to the drilling room.'

With his hands cuffed firmly behind his back, Schofield was led down the southern tunnel of E-deck. As he walked past the storeroom, he stole a quick glance inside it.

The storeroom was empty.

Mother was gone.

 But Barnaby hadn't said anything about Mother before....

They hadn't found her.

 The SAS men marched Schofield down the long, narrow corridor and shoved him into the drilling room. Schofield stumbled inside and spun around.

Snake was shoved into the drilling room a couple of seconds later. His handcuffs had been removed.

Schofield looked at the drilling room around him. In the center of the room stood the large black core-drilling apparatus. It looked like a miniature oil well, with a long, cylindrical plunger suspended in the middle of a black skeletal rig. The plunger, Schofield guessed, was the part of the machine that drilled down into the ice and obtained the ice cores.

On the far side of the core-drilling machine, however, Schofield saw something else.

A body.

Lying on the floor.

It was the crumpled, blood-smeared body of Jean Petard, untouched since Petard had been shredded by the hailstorm of shrapnel from his own Claymore mines several hours earli?

'Gentlemen,' Barnaby said suddenly from the doorway. It was the only way in or out of the room. 'You are about to fight for the privilege of living. I will return in five minutes. When I return, I expect one of you to be dead. If, after that time, both of you are still alive, I will shoot you both myself. If, on the other hand, one of you is dead, the winner will get to live for a short while and die in a more noble fashion. Any questions?'

Schofield said, 'What about these cuffs?' His hands were still handcuffed behind his back. Snake's were free.

'What about them?' Barnaby said. 'Any more questions?'

There were none.

'Then, do as you will,' Barnaby said before he left the room and closed the door behind him, locking it.

Schofield immediately turned to Snake. 'All right, listen, we have to figure out a way to?'

Snake slammed into Schofield hard.

Schofield was lifted clean off the floor and rammed with stunning force into the wall behind him. He doubled over, gasped for breath, and looked up just in time to see Snake's open palm rushing at his face. He ducked quickly and Snake's hand hit the wall.

Schofield's mind went into overdrive. Snake had just come at him with a standard hand-to-hand combat move?an open-palmed punch that was designed to send the other guy's nose back into his brain, killing him with one hit.

Snake was out to kill him.

In five minutes.

The two men were still close, so Schofield thrust up hard with his knee and caught Snake in the groin. Schofield leaped clear of the wall. Once he was clear of Snake and the wall, he jumped up quickly and brought his cuffed hands forward? under his feet?so that they were now in front of his body.

Snake came at him with a flurry of kicks and punches. Schofield parried each blow with his cuffed hands and the two men parted and began to circle each other like a pair of big cats.

Schofield's mind raced. Snake would want to get him onto the floor. While he remained on his feet, he would be OK? because even with his hands cuffed, he could still parry any blow Snake threw at him. But if they both went to the ground, it would be all over. Snake would have him in no time.

Got to stay off the ground....

Got to stay off the ground....

 The two Marines circled each other?on either side of the black drilling apparatus in the center of the room.

Suddenly Snake grabbed a length of steel from the floor and swung it hard at Schofield. Schofield ducked, too late, and took a glancing blow to the left side of his head. He saw stars for a second and lost his balance.

Snake was on him in an instant, launching himself across the room, tackling Schofield hard, driving him back against the wall.

Schofield's back slammed into a power switch on the wall and instantly, across the room, the vertical plunger on the drilling machine suddenly whirred to life and began to spin rapidly. It emitted a shrill, roaring sound like that of a buzz-saw.

Snake threw Schofield to the ground.

No!

 Schofield hit the ground hard and rolled immediately?

?only to find himself lying face-to-face with Jean Petard.

Or, at least, what was left of Petard's face after it had been ripped to shreds by the blast of the Claymore mines.

And then at that moment?in that fleeting moment?Schofield caught a glimpse of something inside Petard's jacket.

A crossbow.

Schofield reached desperately for the crossbow with his cuffed hands. He got his hands around the grip, got ahold of it, and?

?then Snake crash-tackled him, and both men slid across the floor and slammed into the drilling machine in the center of the room. The sound of the spinning plunger roared in their ears.

Schofield lay on his back, on the floor. Snake knelt astride him.

And in a sudden instant, Schofield saw that he still had the crossbow in his hands. He blinked. He must have kept hold of it when Snake had crash-tackled him.

It was then that Snake hit Schofield with a pulverizing blow.

Schofield heard his nose crack and saw the blood explode outward from his face. His head slammed back against the floor. Hard.

The world spun and for a fleeting instant Schofield blacked out. Suddenly he felt a wave of panic?if he blacked out completely, that would be the end of it. Snake would kill him where he lay.

Schofield opened his eyes again, and the first thing he saw was the spinning plunger of the drilling machine