James Rollins - Ice Hunt

Amanda worked the boat’s foot pedals, sweeping them back and forth at erratic intervals. It slowed the boat’s forward progress, but they couldn’t count on pure speed to escape the minirockets or the cycles. The best course was a crooked, jagged path, to make them as hard a target as possible.

Amanda concentrated on the landscape ahead of them. Jenny and Craig had rolled to their bellies and watched behind her. They kept their faces turned so she could read their lips when needed.

Jenny mouthed to her, “Damn fancy sailing.”

She allowed a grim smile to form, but they weren’t safe yet.

Craig wiggled around and extracted his hidden radio earpiece. He pushed it in place, then pulled up the collar of his parka. His lips were covered as he spoke.

Amanda could not read what he said, but she could imagine he was frantically calling in help from the Delta Force unit. Craig was free of the station. The “football” he carried was safely away from the Russians’ clutches for the moment. Craig dared not risk a fumble and interception so late in the game. Not when he was so close to the goal.

Jenny waved to her, pointing back. Trouble .

Amanda swiveled in her seat. The hovercraft to the right was angling closer, swinging in, blazing across the flat snowscape.

She turned back around and straightened the boat, speeding faster now, taking advantage of a fiercer gusting of wind. She tried to put more distance between the boat and the cycle.

Jenny’s lips moved. “They’re lining up to fire again.”

Amanda peeked back over a shoulder. The rider on their tail was bent over his bike, as was his passenger. They had to be pushing the limits of their cycles.

She would have to do the same.

Amanda glanced to her boat’s laser speedometer. She was clocking up toward sixty. The fastest she had ever sailed this craft.

She tried to ignore the danger and focused on the boat under her: fingers on ropes, toes on foot pedals, palm on the keel bar. She felt the winds tugging at the sails, at the boat. She attuned her entire form to match the racer. She extended her senses outward, listening with the boat in a way only someone deaf could. Through her connection, she heard the whistle of the runners, the scream of winds. Her handicap became her skill.

She eked out more speed, watching the speedometer climb past sixty…sixty-five…

“They’re firing!” Jenny shouted soundlessly at her.

…seventy…seventy-five…

A flash of fire struck to the right; ice shattered skyward. Amanda shifted the boat, turning the sails to catch the blast’s force.

…eighty…

They struck a lip of ice. The boat jumped high in the air, like a Wind-surfer catching the perfect wave. Fire exploded under them, taking out the ridge.

But the boat flew clear and away. Amanda lifted in her seat, but still trimmed her sail to carry them level. They hit the ice again, skating at impossible speeds.

…ninety…ninety-five…

Ice again rained down around them, but they were beyond the worst of the blast area. The boat flew across the ice, one with the storm, one with its pilot.

Craig pointed an arm. “Christ, they’re turning back. You did it!”

Amanda didn’t even bother to glance around. She knew she had succeeded. The racer skated, barely touching the ice now. She let the craft glide, blown by the storm. Only as their speed began to edge downward on its own did she touch the brake.

From the flaccid response of the handle, she immediately recognized the danger. The last jump had shattered the ice brake.

She continued to pump the handle. No response. She tried to reef the sail a bit, but the winds had too tight a grip. The ropes were taut bands of iron, jammed in their racks. The boat was not built for these speeds.

The others saw her struggle, eyes widening.

The winds gusted up. The needle on the speedometer crept up again. …ninety-five…one hundred…

That was as high as the speedometer could read.

They rocketed over the frozen plain. They were at the mercy of the storm winds, flying headlong out into the ice, at speeds at which a single mistake could kill.

There was only one course left to them.

Something Amanda loathed to do.

She yelled to the others. “We need an ax!”

Near to blacking out, Matt faced the rising pod of grendels. They circled up from below, slow, patient. They were in no hurry. Like Matt, they knew he could not escape. He was trapped between the ice above and the teeth below.

He remembered Amanda’s trick of luring the monsters away with her helmet and heating mask. If he could only find a way to bait them away…something hot…something bright…

Then a thought struck him. Something forgotten .

He pawed into the pocket of his parka, praying it hadn’t fallen loose, an object he had nabbed from the severed hand of a Russian soldier while fleeing the ice station. It was still there.

He pulled out the black pineapple. It was one of the Russians’ incendiary grenades, the same as had killed Pearlson.

As Matt’s vision tunneled from lack of oxygen, he flipped up the trigger guard and pressed the button that glowed beneath it. He stared at the closest grendel, a white shadow spiraling upward, and dropped the grenade toward it, trusting the explosive’s weight to carry it down into the depths.

It dropped quickly, rolling down toward the waiting pod.

Unsure of the timer on the grenade, Matt curled into a tight ball. He covered his ears and exhaled all the stale air out of his chest, leaving his mouth open afterward. Seawater swamped into his throat. He kept one eye toward the rising sea monster.

The grendel nosed the grenade as it rolled past, nudging it.

Matt closed his eyes. Please…

Then the world below blew with blinding fire. Matt saw it through his closed eyelids at the same time as the concussion wave struck him like a Mack truck, driving him upward, collapsing his chest, squeezing his skull in a vise grip. He felt a wash of fiery heat, searing his frozen limbs.

Then his body was blown upward. As the ice roof shattered with the explosion, he flew into open air, limbs flailing. He took one shuddering breath, caught a glimpse of the open ice plains, then fell back toward the sea, now covered in block and brash. Fire danced over the surface in oily patches.

Matt hit the water, sank, then sputtered up, dazed, his head throbbing. He paddled leadenly in the wash.

Ahead, a large form hummocked out of the depths, sluicing ice and flames from its back. It was pale white. Black eyes stared at him.

Matt scrambled away.

Then the bulk rolled…and sank down into the sea.

Dead .

Shaking from both cold and terror, Matt stared up at the column of steam rising into the air. So much for his clandestine escape. As he searched for a way to climb out, figures appeared at the edge of the pit.

Russians.

Rifles pointed at him.

Matt clung to a chunk of ice. He was out of tricks.

Staying low, Jenny freed the ice ax trapped under her body. As she lifted up, she peeked beyond the boat’s rail at the landscape whipping by. They were flying under the full force of the storm. Winds screamed. The hiss of the runners sounded like an angry nest of snakes under the keel. The vibrations through the hull set her skin to itching.

The ax in one hand, Jenny clung to the handrail with the other. She felt like she’d be kited off the shallow deck at any moment. “What do you want me to do?” she yelled into the wind.