James Rollins - Ice Hunt

“We have Russian Jews in our own family,” Petkov quietly added.

Matt understood. When it was your people being persecuted, it opened your eyes to the inhumanity of your actions. But understanding wasn’t enough. Vladimir needed a final act of contrition. The world could never benefit from what had been done here. So he and a handful of others made the ultimate sacrifice. They sabotaged their own base: damaging the radios and scuttling the station’s transport sub. Cut off and adrift on currents, they would allow themselves to disappear into the silent Arctic. Several base members attempted an overland escape, but clearly they never made it.

To protect the innocent prisoners here, Vladimir sent them into a frozen sleep.

Matt glanced out to the hall, weighing whether such an act was mercy or further abuse. Still, from the syringe in the scientist’s arm, it was clear that Vladimir took the same medicine. But had it worked?

Petkov mumbled, aghast. “My father destroyed this station. It wasn’t treachery.”

“He had no choice, not if he was to live with himself,” Matt answered. “He had to bury what had been gained so foully.”

Petkov stared down at his father. “What have I done?” he mumbled, and fingered a thick wristwatch on his right arm. Tiny lights blinked on its face. Some form of radio device. “I’ve brought everyone here. Fought to thwart my own father’s sacrifice. To bring his discovery back to light.”

A commotion at the door drew their attention around. A Russian soldier pushed inside, then stood stiffly before the admiral. He spoke rapidly in Russian, clearly agitated.

The admiral answered, climbing to his feet. The soldier fled away.

Petkov turned to Matt. “We’ve just confirmed hearing the bell beat of an approaching helicopter over the UQC hydrophone. It just left the vicinity of the Omega base.”

The Delta Force team, Matt guessed silently. The cavalry was finally en route. But did that mean Jenny was safe? He could only hope.

Petkov motioned to the guards to move Matt out. “My father gave his life to hide his discovery here. I won’t let it be stolen now. I will finish what my father started.” He shoved his coat sleeve over his large wrist radio. “This is not over yet.”

Jenny rode in the back of the Sikorsky Seahawk. She stared outside the window. Not that there was much to see. The rotor wash from the helicopter’s blades whirled snow about the rising craft. They lifted from the ice in a whiteout cloud.

But as they cleared from the surface, the snow fell away. Winds buffeted the Seahawk, but the pilot was skilled, compensating, holding the craft steady.

Craig spoke to Jenny from the front. She couldn’t see him, but his voice reached her through the radio built inside her sound-dampening earphones. “We should be at the station in twenty minutes. If you could continue to read from the last journal, I’ve set your microphone to record. I’ll also listen as we ride. Any clue could mean the difference between success and failure.”

Jenny touched the journal in her lap and glanced across the crew bay. Delta One was strapped in the jump seat, ready to respond with the rest of his twelve-man team at a moment’s notice. The stern man stared dully out at the snowfields.

Jenny followed his thousand-mile gaze. The red buildings of Omega were now a hazy smear on the ice. The sun was near the horizon, still up as the days grew longer, heading toward the round-the-clock sunlight of midsummer.

Would this long day ever end?

She returned to the journal in her lap, ready to continue the translation, but a flash of fire drew her eyes back to the window.

The horizon flared up in a rose of flame and swirling snow.

Then the concussion hit her. Even through the earphones, she heard the low boom. It thudded against her chest, a mule kick.

God…no…no…

Jenny leaned against the straps, pressing toward the window, her eyes open with raw shock. It was too horrible to believe. Her hearing stretched, all sounds hollowing out as something inside her wailed.

The helicopter banked, swinging around.

For a moment the view was gone. Jenny prayed it was not what she feared. Then the fiery tornado reappeared out in the ice fields, a swirling column of flame, twisting on thermals. Where Omega had once stood, flames leaped as high as the retreating helicopter.

Slowly, the blazing cascade fell back earthward, consumed by the winds and snow.

Jenny’s hearing returned. Cries of surprise and dismay spread through the cabin. Men shifted for better views, wearing masks of anger and pain.

Across the frozen wasteland, lit by the smoldering flames, a huge hole smoked like some Arctic volcano. The surrounding ice was covered in burning pools.

There was no sign of Omega. It was obliterated, blasted off the face of the world.

Jenny could not breathe. Her father…all the others…

Craig yelled over the radio on a general channel. “Goddamn it! I thought you said all the Russian booby traps had been disabled!”

A sergeant answered, “They were, sir! Unless…unless I missed one…”

Jenny still could not breathe. Tears welled but remained trapped in her eyelashes. She read the honest surprise in everyone’s face — all except one person.

The Delta Force team leader still stared out at the flaming landscape. His expression had not changed, still stoic, unaffected…not surprised.

He glanced to her.

With dawning horror, Jenny understood the true situation here.

She listened to Craig yell at the sergeant. She heard the lie in his voice. It had all been a setup. The team leaders here were operating under the same guise as the Russians: grab the prize and leave no one to tell the tale. A clean-sweep operation.

No witnesses.

Jenny maintained the fixed look of shock on her face, hiding her comprehension. She stared over at Delta One. He faced her now, trying to read her. She would live only as long as she was useful. Her immediate knowledge of the Inuktitut script was all that stood between her and a bullet in the head.

Craig whispered condolences in her ears, but she remained deaf to him. Instead, she stared down at the book.

From the corner of her eye, flames danced. Tears rolled down her cheek — born of both grief and anger. Papa…

One hand crept to her belt holster. Another promise not kept.

It was still empty.

Matt sat in his cell, having been returned at gunpoint. Oddly the boy had been left with him. The child, Maki, lay curled on the bed, in a cocoon of blankets. Perhaps the admiral had wanted the boy and his translator close by. Matt had not objected to his role as baby-sitter. At the foot of the bed, he kept vigil on the lad, watching the boy sleep, his tiny fingers curled by his lips as if in prayer.

Maki’s features were clearly Inuit: the olive complexion, the ebony hair, the brown almond eyes. As Matt watched over him, he was struck by memories of Tyler, the same dark hair and eyes, like his mother. His heart ached, beyond terror and fear, only a deep sense of loss.

“It’s hard to believe…” Dr. Ogden murmured from the neighboring cell, looking on. Matt had related the findings in Vladimir Petkov’s journal.

Matt merely nodded, unable to take his eyes from the boy.

“What I wouldn’t give to study the boy…maybe a sample of his blood.”