Douglas Preston - The Ice Limit

He waited as the storm grew even stronger. The wind whipped around the bare sides of the shack, howling and crying. He pulled his hood from his head, listening with his naked ear. Then he heard it again: the soft swish and crush of footsteps approaching through the snow.

A faint shadow came into view around the edge of the hut, barely visible in the dim light. Timmer pressed against the shack as it approached. There was the sound of breathing, the thumping of arms as the man hugged himself against the cold.

Timmer spun around the comer, lashing out low with his foot. The figure fell facedown in the snow. In a flash Timmer was on top of him, knee digging into his back, dragging the man into shadow while wrenching back his head. The knife came forward, scoring deeply across the man's neck. Timmer felt the blade grating against the cervical vertebrae. There was a soft gurgle, then a rush of hot blood. Timmer continued to hold the man's head back, letting his life drain into the snow. Then he relaxed his grip and eased the body forward.

Timmer turned the man over and examined his face. He was white, not the mestizo the comandante had told him to watch for. He patted the man's pockets quickly, finding a two-way radio and a small semiautomatic weapon. He slipped them into his pocket, then concealed the body in a nearby drift, sweeping snow over it and smoothing over the area. He cleaned his knife in the snow and carefully buried the bloody mush. The fact that he had seen only one guard did not mean there could not be another.

Moving around the rear of the shack and keeping out of the light, he crept along the edge of the cleared area, following the path the guard had walked. It was most curious: there was nothing here but snow. As he stepped forward again, the ground yielded suddenly beneath one of his snowshoes, and he scrambled backward in surprise. Exploring cautiously, on his hands and knees now, he felt something strange beneath the thin covering of snow. It was not earth, it was not a crevasse; there was a hollow beneath the ground, with some kind of cloth stretched tight across it, held up by spacers.

Carefully, Timmer made his way back to the shadows behind the shack. Before he explored further, he would have to make sure there were no surprises inside. Keeping his knife poised, he crept around to the front, opened the door a crack, and glanced within. It was deserted. He slipped inside and closed the door behind him. He pulled out a small flashlight and swept it around. The beam illuminated nothing but kegs full of nails.

Why would somebody post a guard in front of a useless, empty shack?

Then he noticed something. Quickly, he turned out his light. A faint line of light was coming from the edge of a steel plate beneath one of the kegs.

Moving it aside, Timmer saw a trapdoor of banded metal. He knelt beside it, listening intently for a moment. Then he grasped the door and lifted it gingerly.

After the hours of waiting and watching in the winter night, the fluorescence that streamed up was blinding. He closed the trapdoor again and crouched in the darkness, thinking. Then he removed his snowshoes, concealed them in the far comer of the hut, and opened the door again, waiting a moment for his eyes to adjust. Then, knife in hand, he descended the ladder.

Thirty feet down, he stepped off the ladder into the tunnel. He paused. It was warmer down here, but at first Timmer barely noticed: in the glare of the light he felt exposed and vulnerable. He moved rapidly along the tunnel, keeping low. This was like no gold mine he had ever heard of. In fact, it was like no mine at all.

Reaching a junction, he paused to look around. There was nobody: no sound, no movement. He licked his lips, wondering what to do next.

Then he paused. Up ahead, the tunnel widened. There was an open space ahead, with something very large in it. He crept to the edge of the open area and shined his light around. A giant cart.

Timmer approached it cautiously, creeping along the wall. It was a huge steel flatbed trailer, perhaps a hundred feet long. Mounted to its underside were big tires: hundreds of them, on gleaming titanium axles. His eyes traveled slowly upward. Built on the cart was a complex pyramid of wooden struts and members. And nestled in that was something Timmer had never seen or imagined before. Something huge and red. Something that gleamed with impossible richness in the artificial light of the tunnel.

He looked around again, then approached the cart. Setting one foot on the closest tire, he pulled himself onto the platform, breathing heavily. He was quickly overheating in his heavy snowsuit, but he ignored the discomfort. Overhead, a large tarp was stretched tightly across the open roof: the tarp onto which he had stepped. But Timmer had no interest in this. His eyes were on the thing resting in the huge cradle.

Very carefully, he climbed the wooden struts toward it. There was no doubt about it: this, this was what the Americans had come for. But what was it?

There was no time to waste; there was no time even to hunt for the little mestizo. Comandante Vallenar would want to know about this right away. And yet still Timmer hesitated, balanced on the wooden cradle.

The thing was almost ethereal in its beauty. It was as if it had no surface; as if he could put his hand forward and thrust it right into its ruby depths. As he stared, he thought he could see subtle patterns within, shifting and changing, coruscating in the light. He almost imagined a coldness emanating from it, cooling his overheated face. It was the most beautiful, otherworldly thing he had ever seen.

Without taking his eyes away, Timmer slipped the knife into a pocket, pulled off his glove, and held his hand forward, slowly, almost reverently, toward the rich and shining surface.

Isla Desolación,

11:15 P.M.

SAM MCFARLANE jerked awake, heart pounding. He would have thought it a nightmare, if the sound of the explosion was not still reverberating across the landscape. He stood bolt upright, the chair falling to the floor behind him. From the corner of his eye he saw that Glinn, too, was on his feet, listening. As they met each other's gaze, the lights in the hut winked out. There was a moment of pitch-blackness, and then an emergency light snapped on over the door, bathing the room in pale orange.

"What the hell was that?" McFarlane said. His voice was almost drowned out by a loud gust of wind: the window had been blown out, and snow swirled into the hut, mingling with wooden splinters and shards of glass.

Glinn approached the window and gazed out into the stormy darkness. Then he glanced at Garza. He, too, was on his feet. "Who's got duty?"

"Hill."

Glinn raised a radio. "Hill. This is Glinn. Report." He took his thumb from the transmit button and listened. "Hill!" he called again. Then he switched frequencies. "Forward post? Thompson?" He was answered by a loud hiss of static.

He dropped the radio. "Radio's out, I'm not getting any responses." He turned back to Garza, who was pulling on his snowsuit. "Where are you going?"

"To the electrical hut."

"Negative. We'll go together."

Glinn's tone had become sharper, military. "Yes, sir," Garza replied briskly.

There was a clattering outside, then Amira tumbled in from the communications hut, snow clinging to her shoulders.

"Power's down everywhere," she gasped. "All we've got is the reserve."

"Understood," Glinn said. A small Glock 17 pistol had appeared in his hand. He checked the magazine, then tucked it into his belt.

McFarlane had turned to reach for his own snowsuit. As he thrust his arms into the sleeves, he saw Glinn look at him. "Don't even say it," McFarlane began. "I'm coming with you."

Glinn hesitated, and saw his resolve. He turned to Amira. "You stay here."