Ice Claw

There was no echo to his voice. The walls were closer here, muffling his words. Max listened. No response. He ran on. The air suddenly became freezing cold. He had stepped into the blue glow. He shuddered. It was an ice grotto. Max walked on, gripping the axe in his hand more tightly. Something was wrong here. It felt as though the ice was going to close around him, blocking the way out.

That was when he saw Sayid.

And knew his best friend was dead.

Tishenko had given his final orders. The Citadel was guarded by twenty of his most faithful gunmen and a skeleton staff of scientists monitoring the equipment. Those who stayed awaited, with an almost fanatical zeal, the moment when the surge of power would create life. For many it was the culmination of years of devotion to creating a scientific miracle in an environment far removed from a sneering world. Fedir Tishenko was the chosen one for them.

Tishenko stood alone inside the caged control room at the top of one of the two custom-built forty-meter- high towers that Max had glimpsed from the mountain. Lightning danced and clawed at the structures, but he was perfectly safe. The latticed steelwork crackled with high-voltage energy, but inside the cage lightning could not touch him. It was the only place where the electrical field was zero.

Lightning coursed down through superconducting coils entwined about the towers. Each coil was made up of nine thousand filaments, each one-tenth the thickness of a human hair. Supercharged energy slammed its power into the underground acceleration chamber cut into the base of the mountain. The energy charges built up a huge source of millions and millions of volts, jamming particles together like nose-to-tail traffic on a packed motorway. When the massive power of cosmic high-energy particles seethed through the storm, delivering a lightning strike into his waiting hands, he would slam it into the particle accelerator like a high-speed van plowing into a traffic jam.

The big bang.

Sayid was suspended in a block of ice, as if he were floating in a deep sea. His eyes were closed, his lips slightly parted. A look of anguish creased his face. Perhaps there had been a moment before he slipped into unconsciousness when he tried to push away those constricting walls of ice.

This chamber must be where Tishenko froze the animals. Cryogenic gas for deep-freezing was used to keep powerful heat conductors for the particle accelerator at manageable levels. Sayid had been slowly frozen to death.

Max pressed his face against the ice. He’d failed to save his friend. It was all his fault. He could trace back every inch of their journey and chastised himself for allowing Sayid to tag along.

A surge of violent, uncontrollable anger erupted. Max hacked the axe again and again into the ice. He stopped himself. It was a useless waste of energy. Sayid was embedded too deeply. Max swore at his own childish tantrum. Anger had blinded him to his friend’s intelligence and courage. Sayid had believed in him right until the end. Sayid’s hands pressed against the ice, and Max saw the unmistakable message written on his left palm. It was slightly blurred because of the ice, but it could be seen by its thick black lettering-an indelible-ink pen:

CUT BEARD CLAW

Cut bears claw? Max said it over and over in his head. He knew that Sayid had cracked the code, that the piece of paper with the magic square decoded the numbers on the crystal. Sayid had both. And in those last minutes before he died he had believed that Max would find him.

“Well done, mate. You’re a bloody genius. And I’m not leaving you in there. I’m gonna get you home to your mum. I promise,” Max muttered.

Bear’s claw? Where? How? Polar bear? Frozen bear? It defied understanding, but if this was Zabala’s coded message, then it was vital. Max clambered up behind the ice cage that held Sayid, his hand seeking out the fat warm pipe. He turned off the valve; the pressure gauge dropped. Balancing his feet against lower pipe work and his back against the rock face, he swung the ice axe as hard as he could.

Water spurted from the gash, power-washing over the ice. Max had ruptured the pipe carrying geothermal water from deep below the ground. Its heat dissipated on the ice, steam filling the room.

Max heard echoes of gunfire and small rapid explosions. The lights went out. For a few seconds it was pitch- black, and then a dull glow tried to lessen the darkness as an emergency generator kicked into life.

There was an attack going on inside the mountain. Max watched the ice melt away slowly, but it would still take time to release Sayid’s body. Something rumbled above his head. It sounded like automatic doors being closed and then the final thump as they locked. Soft, deceptive gunfire carried down the hoist shaft. That meant the fight had moved farther away. If demolitions were being used and created any major malfunctioning of Tishenko’s equipment everything could blow up inside the mountain anyway-without Tishenko’s lightning surge.

This place could end up as a tomb for both Sayid and Max.

Max was dripping wet; steam soaked through his clothing. Sayid’s body had not moved as the hot water continued to gush over the ice block. The water flooded the passageway, spilling down the hoist shaft. Max heard someone crying for help. Farentino.

The hoist still worked, and as it slowed its descent into the caged area, Max jumped clear. Farentino was at the front of his cage shouting, his arms jammed through the bars. Fumes and smoke from damaged machinery were beginning to fill the cavern.

“Max! Thank God! Get me out of here! Hurry. There’s shooting. Someone is attacking.”

Max looked around the area carved from the rock face. There was still a tunnel-boring machine; maybe he could cut through the wall of rock. No, that’d take too long. Max felt as though the whole mountain were on top of his head. Any serious flooding or damage and it would shatter. The tunnels and caves cut into it over the last twenty years would have weakened the inherent structure.

“My mother!” Max demanded.

“I’ll tell you everything, but we have to get away, Max. You see that, don’t you? There is no time.”

Max grabbed Farentino’s wrist and tore free the Rolex.

“What are you doing?”

Max snapped the expensive watch onto his own arm. It was 10:46. Just under one hour to get Sayid’s body out of the mountain and stop Tishenko.

“In five seconds I’m smashing the bolt free from that polar bear’s cage. You won’t be going anywhere, Farentino, you scum. I want to know how my mother died.”

“All right, all right. She was in the jungle. Something went horribly wrong.”

“What went wrong?” Max yelled.

“I don’t know. Please, Max, get me out.”

“Tell me! What happened?”

Farentino’s tone changed. The defeated man’s face looked defiant in its anger. “You want to know the ugly truth? All right! Your father abandoned her. She was sick, she was dying and he ran!”

“Liar!”

Farentino sensed he had the upper hand. He had an emotional hold over Max that no one had ever had before. “She died alone, Max, because your father saved himself!”

“My father wouldn’t do that! Not my dad!”

“He did it and he can’t live with the shame! Why do you think he stuck you away in that boarding school? Why do you see so little of him? Why? Because he knows he killed your mother!”

His words struck Max like an assassin’s knife ripping into his chest.

“Why should I believe you? You’ve betrayed everyone who ever trusted you!”

Farentino lowered his voice. “Because I loved her. I loved your mother with all my heart. But she would not leave your father for me.”

Max didn’t move. He couldn’t. Farentino gently touched his arm and spoke quietly. “Get me out, Max, and I will tell you everything. Please. I promise.”

Max had to break through the crippling numbness that gripped him. Gunfire rattled on one of the levels above. It was close. The smell of gunsmoke and cordite clung to the air, stinging eyes and throat. It snapped Max back. He felt cold, but it wasn’t the temperature. It was his heart.