Something moved over the geologist’s headlamp, casting a shadow over the ceiling. Something large, hunched…
She now held her flashlight with both hands, pointing it like a weapon. It was surely just Connor. But being deaf, she had no way of knowing for sure. Maybe he was calling out to her…
Terror tightened her belly.
The shadow drew closer.
Amanda didn’t wait.
She bolted across the ice, fleeing along Lacy’s bloody track, aiming for the only means of escape. She dove belly first onto the ice. The wind was knocked out of her. She didn’t care. She slid toward the dark sewer drain, flashlight pointed forward.
Then she was gone.
The slot swallowed her away.
The momentum of her slide carried her several feet down the drain. Illuminated by her flashlight, the low ceiling drew upward. She scrambled up to her knees as she slowed, spinning slightly on the ice.
The sloped floor dumped into a hollow space. She sat up. The roof here was high enough to stand if she ducked her head, but she remained seated. Her flashlight waved around the room.
It was a dead end…in
Across the bowled floor of the hollow, bones lay everywhere: cracked, splintered, some bleached white, some yellowed. Empty skulls, human and animal, gleamed. Femurs, ribs, scapulas.
One word rang in her head.
In a back corner lay a crumpled form, bent and broken, unmoving, festooned in a red, white, and blue Thinsulate outfit. Frozen blood pooled around the shape.
She had found Lacy.
Matt fought the two guards who flanked him in the backseat of the Sno-Cat. “We have to go back!” he yelled.
An elbow struck him across the bridge of the nose. Stars and pain blinded him, knocking him back into his seat. “Stay seated, or we’ll handcuff you.” Lieutenant Mitchell Greer grimaced and rubbed his elbow.
The other guard, a bullnecked seaman by the name of Doug Pearlson, had drawn his pistol. It was presently pointed at the roof of the Cat, but the threat was plain.
“Matt, calm down,” Craig said from the front seat.
“We have our orders,” the driver, a petty officer, said.
A minute ago, Lieutenant Commander Sewell had radioed their vehicle. He had ordered them to continue to the Russian ice station immediately. The commander had been unable to raise the station himself, and warning of the Russian ambush had to be relayed.
Then an explosion had cut off communication. It was a close hit, sounding at their heels. The ice shook under the Cat’s treads. All eyes searched behind. Gunfire sounded in the distance.
But the threatening storm had rolled in early, squalling up snow in a ground blizzard. All attempts to raise the other Sno-Cat failed. Fear for Jenny and her father had driven Matt to attempt to commandeer their vehicle, but he was outmanned and outgunned.
There was still no sign of the trailing vehicle.
“Try them again then!” Matt snapped, blinking back tears from the pain of his bruised nose. He could taste blood in the back of his mouth.
The driver shook his head and unhooked the radio. “Cat Two, this is Cat One. Respond. Over.” He held the receiver up.
“It could just be a local blind spot,” the driver said. “We see that up here. Sometimes you can communicate with someone halfway across the globe, but not in your own backyard.” He shrugged, bouncing slightly as the Cat rode over a series of ice ridges.
Matt didn’t believe a word of it. Jenny was in trouble. He knew it down to the soles of his feet. But by now, they were a couple miles ahead of her Sno-Cat. Even if he broke out of here, he wasn’t sure he could make it to her in time to help.
“I’m sure she’s okay,” Craig said, trying to meet his eyes.
Matt held back his retort.
The Sno-Cat trundled straight through the blizzard, heading farther and farther from the woman he once loved. Maybe still loved.
Jenny must have blacked out. One moment the Sno-Cat was toppling around her; the next ice water burned through her jeans, startling her to full alert. She shoved up and quickly took in her surroundings.
The Cat was upside down. Water filled the lower foot of the cabin. The motor still grumbled, vibrating the upended vehicle. The roof light glowed in the waters below her, grimly illuminating the tableau.
Her father was rising from the floor, cradling his wrist.
“Papa?” She shuffled across the roof toward him.
“Mmm, okay,” he mumbled. “Jammed my hand.”
His eyes glanced to the driver. The man lay facedown in the water. His head bent unnaturally backward. “Neck’s broken,” her father said.
The other two guards were fighting the door.
Fernandez slammed his shoulder against the handle. It didn’t budge. The pressure outside the half- submerged Cat held the doors shut. “Fuck!” He limped back on one foot, blood from the gunshot wound trailing through the waters around him.
“Try to find something to smash a window,” Fernandez barked. The whites of his eyes glowed in the watery light.
Jenny stepped toward them. “How about this?” She reached behind the other guard’s back and slipped out his sidearm. Turning, she thumbed the safety and fired into the Cat’s windshield, crackling the Arctic safety glass and tearing it partly away.
“Yeah,” Fernandez said, nodding. “That’ll do.”
The guard retrieved his gun and holstered it, scowling at her.
“Don’t take offense at Kowalski here,” Fernandez said, and waved them forward. “Joe doesn’t like folks touching his things.”
They ducked under the seats.
Kowalski kicked out the remaining glass.
The open water churned and frothed inside the pit. Ice blocks and cakes bobbed in the mix.
“Out of the frying pan…” Fernandez mumbled.
“Make for that crack in the wall,” Jenny said, pointing to a crumbled section that looked climbable.
“Ladies first,” Kowalski offered.
They were now thigh-deep in the water. Jenny pushed out on numb legs. The searing cold cut through her as she fell into the sea. She fought her body’s natural reflex to curl against the frigid water. Seawater froze at 28.6 degrees F. This felt a million degrees colder, so cold it burned. She kicked and pawed chunks of ice out of the way. Slowly she swam across the few yards to the ice slope and pulled herself into the crack, numb fingers scrabbling for purchase.
Once out of the water, she glanced back. The others followed. Kowalski tried to help Fernandez, but he was shoved away.
Behind them, the idling Sno-Cat tipped nose first, then sank into the blue depths. Its lights trailed down into the darkness. For a moment, Jenny saw the pale face of the driver pressed against the glass. Then the Sno-Cat and its lone passenger disappeared.
Jenny helped her father climb from the water into the cracked section of the wall. The slot was jagged with blocks and dagger-sharp protrusions, but the obstacles offered a natural ladder to climb out of the pit.
