James Rollins - Ice Hunt

His hand slipped from wrist to the small fingers. He tried to will the boy back to life. What stories could he tell? Had he known his father? Did he know what had happened here? Why the base had gone dead quiet so suddenly?

It had been the last years of World War II. The Germans were marching into Russia, laying siege to city after city. Then a remote research station in the Arctic went quiet, late reporting in…first one month, then another. But with the war heating up at home, no one had time to investigate. With communication being what it was and travel through the polar region so difficult, there were no resources for a full investigation.

Another full year passed. Nagasaki and Hiroshima were bombed. Nuclear weaponry became the grand technology, hunted and sought by all. Ice Station Grendel and its research project were now antiquated, not worth the cost or manpower to discover its fate. The currents could have taken the station anywhere. The ice island that berthed it might even have broken apart and sunk, something not uncommon with such floating giants.

So more years passed.

The last report of his father, with its wild claims of breaching the barrier between life and death, was dismissed as exaggerated rants and shelved. The only bit of proof was supposedly locked in his journals, lost with the base and its head researcher.

The secret of life and death.

Viktor stared down at the slack face of the boy, so peaceful in slumber. Lips a faint blue, face gray and wet. Viktor wiped the face dry with one hand.

Then small fingers clamped onto his other palm, harder and stronger than Viktor could have imagined.

He gasped in surprise as the boy’s body suddenly convulsed inside the tank, legs kicking, head thrown back, spine arched up, contorted.

Water poured from his open mouth, draining down the tank’s grating.

“Help me get him out!” Viktor yelled, drawing the boy to him.

Ensign Lausevic squeezed in and grabbed the thrashing legs, getting a good kick to his temple in the process.

Between the two of them, they hauled the boy out to the hall. His body jerked and thrashed. Viktor cradled his head, keeping him from cracking his skull on the hard floor. The boy’s eyes twitched behind their lids.

“He’s alive!” one of the other soldiers said, backing a step away.

Not alive, Viktor silently corrected, but not dead either. Somewhere in between .

As the convulsions continued, the boy’s skin grew hot to the touch; perspiration pebbled his skin. Viktor knew that one of the main dangers of epileptic patients during violent or prolonged seizures was hyperthermia, a raising of body temperature from muscle contractions that led to brain damage. Was the boy dying, or was his body fighting to warm life back into it, heating away the last dregs of its frozen state?

Slowly the convulsions faded to vigorous shivering. Viktor continued to hold the boy. Then the boy’s chest heaved up, expanding as if something were going to burst out the rib cage. It held that swelled state, back arched from the floor. Blue lips had warmed to pink, skin flushed from the violence of the seizures.

Then the boy’s form collapsed in on itself, seeming to cave in, accompanied by a strangled choke. Then he lay still again, back to tired slumber, dead on the floor.

A pang of regret, mixed inexplicably with grief, ran through Viktor.

Perhaps this is the best his father had ever achieved, significant but ultimately not successful.

He studied the boy’s face, peaceful in true death.

Then the boy’s eyes opened, staring up at him, dazed. His small chest rose and fell. A hand lifted from the floor, then settled back weakly.

Alive…

Lips moved. A word was mouthed, groggy, breathless still. “Otyets.”

It was Russian.

Viktor stared up at the others, but when he gazed back down at the boy, the child’s eyes were still on him.

Lips moved again, repeating his earlier word. “Otyets…Papa.”

Before Viktor could respond, the pounding of many boots suddenly echoed to them. A group of soldiers appeared, armed. “Admiral!” the lieutenant in the lead called out as he approached.

Viktor remained kneeling. “What is it?”

The man’s eyes flicked to the naked child on the floor, then back to the admiral. “Sir, the Americans…power’s out on the top level. We think they’re trying to escape the station.”

Viktor’s eyes narrowed. He stayed at the boy’s side. “Nonsense.”

“Sir?” Confusion crinkled the officer’s eyes.

“The Americans are not going anywhere. They’re still here.”

“What…what do you want us to do?”

“Your orders have not changed.” Viktor stared into the eyes of the boy, knowing he held the answers to everything. Nothing else mattered. “Hunt them. Kill them.”

A level below, Craig crawled down the service tunnel, map crumpled in his hand. The chamber had to be close. The others trailed behind him.

He paused at a crossroads of ductwork. The intersection was tangled with conduit and piping. He pushed his way through and headed left. “This way,” he mumbled back to the rest of the party.

“How much farther?” Dr. Ogden asked from the rear of their group.

The answer appeared just ahead. A dim glow rose through a grated vent embedded in the floor of the ice shaft.

Craig hurried forward. Once near enough, he lay on his belly and spied through the grate to the room below. Viewed from above and lit by a single bare bulb, the chamber appeared roughly square, plated in steel like the station proper, but this room was empty, long abandoned and untouched.

It was the best hiding place Craig could think of.

Out of the way and isolated.

He wiggled around so he could use his legs to kick the grate loose. The screws held initially, but desperation was stronger than rusted steel and ice. The vent popped open, swinging down.

Craig stuck his head through to make sure it was clear, then swung his feet around and lowered himself into the room.

It was not a long drop. The room had flooded long ago. The water had risen a yard into the room, then froze. A few crates and fuel drums were visible, half buried in the ice. A shelving unit stacked with tools rose from the ice pool, its first three shelves anchored below.

But the most amazing sight was the pair of giant brass wheels on either far wall. They stood ten feet high with thick hexagonal axles attached to massive motors, embedded in the ice floor. The toothed edges of the wheels connected to the grooves of a monstrous brass wall that encompassed one entire side of the room.

The wheel on the right side lay crooked, broken free from some old blast. Scorch marks were still visible on its brass surface. The dislodged wheel had torn through the neighboring steel wall, cracking through to the ice beyond. Perhaps it was even the source of flooding.

Craig peered through the crack. It was too dark to see very far.

“What is this place?” Amanda asked as she landed in a crouch. She stood, staring at the gigantic gearworks.

Craig turned to her so she could read his lips. “According to the schematics, it’s the control room for the station’s sea gate.” He pointed to a grooved brass wall. “From here, they would lower or raise the gate whenever the Russian submarine docked into the sea cave below.”

By now the others — Dr. Ogden and his three students — had dropped into the room. They stared around nervously.

“Will we be safe here?” Magdalene asked.

“Safer,” Craig answered. “We had to get out of the service ducts. The Russians will be swarming and incinerating their way through there. We’re better off holing up here. This room is isolated well off the main complex. There’s a good chance the Russians don’t even know this place exists.”