Ice Station

Kirsty. Kirsty.

 Where were they keeping her? Schofield didn't know. He presumed somewhere on B-deck, but only because that was where the living quarters were.

He entered the circular outer tunnel of B-deck just in time to see two SAS commandos racing toward him. They raised their machine guns just as Schofield brought both of his guns up and fired them simultaneously. The two SAS men went down in an instant. Schofield didn't miss a step as he strode over their bodies.

He moved swiftly round the circular corridor, looking left, looking right.

Suddenly a door to his left opened and another SAS commando emerged, gun up. He managed to get a shot off before Schofield's guns blasted to life and sent the commando flying back into the room from whence he had come.

Schofield entered the room after him. It was the common room.

He saw Kirsty instantly. He also saw two more SAS commandos who were in the process of shoving the little girl toward the door.

Schofield entered the common room warily, with both of his guns up.

When Kirsty saw Schofield step inside the common room with his two guns raised, she thought she had seen a ghost.

He looked awful.

He was soaked to the skin; his nose was broken; his face was bruised, and his body armor was battered all over.

One of the SAS soldiers behind Kirsty stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Schofield step into the room. He held Kirsty out in front of him, put a gun to her head, used her as a shield.

'I'll kill her, mate,' the commando said calmly. 'I swear to fucking Christ, I'll paint the walls of this room with her brains.'

'Kirsty,' Schofield said as he calmly leveled his pistol at the SAS man's forehead while at the same time aiming his MP-5 at the other SAS commando's brain.

'Yeah,' Kirsty said meekly.

Schofield said evenly, 'Shut your eyes, honey.'

Kirsty shut her eyes and the world went black.

And then suddenly she heard the double boom! boom! of guns being fired and she didn't know whose guns had fired and then she was falling backward, still in the grip of the SAS man who had grabbed hold of her to use as a shield. They hit the floor hard and Kirsty felt the SAS commando's grip loosen.

She opened her eyes.

The two British soldiers were lying on the floor beside her. She saw their feet, their waists, their chests?

'Don't look at them, honey,' Schofield said, moving to her. 'You don't want to see that.'

Kirsty turned around and looked up at Schofield. He picked her up and held her in his arms. Then Kirsty buried her head in his shoulder plate and cried.

'Come on. It's time to get out of here,' Schofleld said gently.

He quickly reloaded his weapons and grabbed Kirsty's hand, and the two of them left the common room.

They raced around the curved outer tunnel, heading for the east passageway. They turned the corner.

And suddenly Schofield stopped.

Mounted on the wall to his left he saw a large rectangular black compartment. Written across it were the words: fuse box.

The fuse box, he thought. This must have been where the French cut the lights earlier....

Schofield got an idea.

He spun where he stood and saw the door leading to the Biotoxin Lab behind him. Next to it he saw a door marked:

STORAGE CLOSET.

Yes.

 Schofield wrenched open the door to the storage closet. Inside it, he saw mops and buckets and old wooden shelves loaded with cleaning agents. He quickly reached up and grabbed a plastic bottle of ammonia from one of the shelves.

Schofield emerged from the closet and hurried over to the fuse box. He yanked open the door and saw a series of wires, wheels, and power units inside.

Kirsty was standing farther down the east tunnel, looking out into the central shaft of the station.

'Hurry up,' she whispered. 'They're coming!'

Schofield heard voices over his newly acquired headset:

'?Hopkins, report?'

'?going after the girl?'

'?perimeter team, return to the station at once. We have a problem here?'

At the fuse box, Schofield quickly found the wire he was looking for. He pulled back the sheath, exposed the copper wire. Then he punched a hole in the plastic ammonia bottle with the butt of his gun and positioned it above the exposed strand of wire. A small trickle of ammonia fluid began to drip slowly out of the bottle, down onto the exposed wire.

The drops of ammonia smacked rhythmically against the wire.

Smack-smack. Smack-smack.

 At that moment, in time with the rhythm of the ammonia drops hitting the exposed wire, every light in the tunnel? indeed, every light in the whole station?began to flicker on and off, like a strobe. On. Off. On. Off.

In the flickering light of the tunnel, Schofield grabbed Kir-sty's hand and took off toward the central shaft. Once they got to the catwalk, they hurried up the nearest rung-ladder to A-deck.

Schofield strode around the A-deck catwalk, heading toward the main entrance to the station. The station around him nickered black and white. Darkness, light, darkness, light.

If he could just get to the British hovercrafts, he thought, he might be able to get away and get back to McMurdo.

There was movement everywhere. Shouts echoed through the station as the shadows of SAS commandos raced around the catwalks in the flickering light, searching for Schofield.

Schofield saw that some of the British commandos had tried to put on night-vision goggles.

But night vision would be useless now. With the station's lights flickering on and off, anyone wearing night- vision goggles would be blinded every time the lights came on?which was every couple of seconds.

They reached the main entrance passageway, just as an SAS soldier came bursting out of it onto the catwalk. The SAS man collided with Schofield, and Schofield was almost bowled over the catwalk's railing.

The SAS man hit the deck, rose to his knees, raised his gun to fire, but Schofield let fly with a powerful kick that connected with the soldier's jaw and sent him crashing down to the catwalk.

Schofield was about to step over the downed soldier's body when suddenly he saw a large black satchel stretched over the man's shoulder. He grabbed it, opened it.

He saw two silver canisters inside the satchel. Two silver canisters with green bands painted around them.

Tritonal 80/20 charges.

 Schofield frowned.

He had wondered earlier why the British would bring Tritonal charges to Wilkes Ice Station. Tritonal was an extremely powerful explosive, usually used for demolition purposes. Why would Barnaby have it here?

Schofield grabbed the satchel off the unconscious man's shoulder.

As he did so, however, he heard shouts coming from inside the entrance passageway. Then he heard footsteps, and the click of safeties being removed from MP-5s.

The SAS commandos outside, the perimeter team...

 They were coming back inside!