Ice Hunt

Flanked by the two guards, Matt was led deeper into the heart of Level Four. Rather than going out to the encircling hall with their dreaded tanks, Matt was led to an inner hall. The passage ended at a solitary room.

He was waved inside.

Matt stepped through the door into a small office, exquisitely appointed in mahogany furniture: wide desk, open shelves, cabinets. There was even a thick bearskin rug on the floor. Polar bear. Its head still attached.

The first sight that drew his eye was of a small boy, dressed in a baggy shirt. It fit him like a full-length robe. He knelt on the rug and was petting the polar bear’s head, whispering in its ear.

The boy glanced up to him.

Matt gasped and tripped on the edge of the rug, going down on one knee. He could not mistake that face.

One of the guards barked at him in Russian, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck.

Matt was too stunned to respond.

A new voice spoke, cold and commanding. Matt raised his eyes, focusing on the room’s other occupant. He stood up from the leather chair he had been sitting on and waved the guard away.

The man was tall, six-foot-five, broad of shoulder, wearing a black uniform. But his most striking features were his pale white hair and storm-gray eyes. Those eyes pierced through him now.

“Please take a seat,” the man said in perfect English.

Matt found himself rising, obeying reflexively. But once up, he refused to sit. He knew who stood behind the desk. The leader of the Russian forces.

The door to the office clicked shut behind him, but one guard remained in the room. Matt also spotted the pistol holstered at the leader’s hip.

Hard gray eyes stared back at him. “My name is Admiral Viktor Petkov. And you are?”

Matt spotted his wallet resting atop the desk. There was no reason to lie. It would get him nowhere. “Matthew Pike.”

“Fish and Game?” This was spoken with thick doubt.

Matt kept his voice firm. “That’s what my papers say, don’t they?”

One eye twitched. Clearly the Russian admiral was not someone who was faced with insolence very often. His voice steeled. “Mr. Pike, we can do this civilly or—”

“What do you want?” He was too tired to play the cordial adversary. He was no James Bond.

The admiral’s pale face colored, his lips thinning.

Before anything more could be said, the child rose from his seat on the rug and wandered over to the older man. The admiral’s eyes tracked the Inuit lad. The boy touched his hand.

“That’s the child from the ice tanks,” Matt said, unable to keep the true amazement from his voice.

The admiral’s hand curled around the tiny fingers, protective. “The miracle of my father’s research here.”

“Your father?”

Petkov nodded. “He was a great man, one of Russian’s leading Arctic scientists. As the head of this research station here, he was delving into the possibility of suspended animation and cryogenic freezing.”

“He experimented on human subjects,” Matt accused.

Petkov glanced down to the boy. “It is easy to judge now. But it was a different time. What is considered myerzost, or an ‘abomination,’ today was science back then.” His words grew softer, half ashamed, half proud. “Back in my father’s time, between the two World Wars, the dynamics of the world were tenser. Every country was trying to discover the next innovation, the next bit of technology to revolutionize their economies. With war pending, world tensions high, the ability to preserve life on the battlefield could make a difference between victory and defeat. Soldiers could be frozen until their wounds could be attended to, organs could be preserved, entire armies could be put into cold storage. The possibilities for medical uses and military innovations were endless.”

“So your government forced some of your own native peoples into servitude here. To be experimental guinea pigs.”

Petkov’s eyes narrowed. “You truly don’t know what was going on here, do you?”

“I don’t know a goddamn thing,” Matt admitted.

“So you don’t know where my father’s stolen journals are? Who has taken them?”

Matt thought about lying, but he was not feeling particularly protective of Craig Teague. “They’re gone.”

“In the iceboat that escaped.”

Escaped? Dare he hope? Jenny was supposedly on that boat. He struggled to find his voice. “They got away?”

Petkov stared tightly at him, as if trying to weigh the risk of telling the truth, too. Perhaps he heard the pleading in Matt’s voice or maybe he simply considered Matt no threat. Either way, he answered the question. “They outran my men and reached Omega.”

Matt stepped back and sank into the seat he had refused a moment ago. Relief washed through him. “Thank God. Jen…my ex-wife was on that boat.”

“Then she’s in more danger than you.”

Matt’s brow pinched, tensing again. “What do you mean?”

“This isn’t over. Not for any of us.” Petkov’s gaze flicked to the boy. “This ice station. It’s not a Russian research base.”

Matt felt a heavy weight settle in his gut.

Petkov’s eyes returned to Matt. “It’s American.”

6:16 P.M.

OMEGA DRIFT STATION

Jenny climbed from the skate boat, her feet settling to the ice. She stared over at the ruin of the nearby polynya. It was blasted, stained with black soot and rusty trails of oil. Fires still burned within the wreckage of two helicopters crumpled on the ice. The air reeked of smoke and fuel.

The thunderous whump of the lone remaining helicopter echoed over the frozen terrain as it circled to land near the iceboat. Amanda busied herself with securing the boat, tying down the sails and finding a spare set of wooden chocks to brace the runners. She glanced over her shoulder as the Sikorsky Seahawk glided out of the blowing winds and settled to the ice.

Craig crossed toward the helicopter, leaning against the rotor wash. He held his throat mike under his chin as he spoke to the Delta Force leader inside the craft.

From out of the cluster of Jamesway huts, a group of soldiers in white snow gear ambled out, weapons in hand, but not raised. They were taking no chances with the Russians so near.

One of the men approached the two women by the boat. “Ma’am, if you’ll follow me, I’ll get you inside with the others. The Russians planted a slew of incendiary devices throughout the base. We don’t know if any of them are booby-trapped.”

Jenny nodded, glad to follow, but fearful to discover the fate of her father. Was he okay?

They wound back through the nest of buildings. The snowfall had stopped, but the winds continued to gust fiercely through the Jamesway huts. Jenny almost lost her footing, too worried with her goal so close. As they walked, she knew where they were being taken. To the same barracks from which she and Kowalski had escaped.

This thought generated more tears. She had thought herself done crying on the boat ride here, relieved, but at the same time full of grief. Kowalski was missing. Tom was most likely dead. Bane, too. And Matt…

Now all were gone.

She needed someone to still be alive.

Her pace hurried as the guard opened the door to the hut. Jenny crossed through, followed by Amanda. The soldier walked them down the hall to the double doors leading to the barracks.

Jenny noted the two armed soldiers posted by the doorway.

“For your protection,” their escort said as he led them past. “We’re trying to keep everyone in one place until we know the base is safe. And with the Russians entrenched only thirty miles away, nowhere else is safe.”