Matthew Reilly: Ice Station

"Yeah."

"And I said that it was because her group had used low-audibility breathing gear."

Renshaw said, "Yeah. So did we. And as I recall it, the seals attacked us anyway."

Schofield smiled a crooked smile. "Yeah. I know. But I think I figured out why. We dived at night."

"At night?"

"Yes. And so did your people, and so did Barnaby's men. Your people dived at nine o'clock. Barnaby's at around 8:00 p.m. Gant's team , however, went down at two in the afternoon. They were the only dive team to go down to that cavern in the daytime ."

Renshaw picked up what Schofield was saying. "You think those elephant seals are diurnal?"

"I think that's a good possibility," Schofield said.

Renshaw nodded slowly. It was quite common among unusually aggressive or poisonous animals to operate on what is known as a diurnal cycle. A diurnal cycle is essentially a twelve-hour passive-aggressive cycle?the animal is passive by day, aggressive by night.

"I'm glad you figured that out," Renshaw said. "I'll keep it in mind for the next time I stumble onto a nest of radiation-infected elephant seals who want to defend their territory."

Schofield smiled. The three of them descended the gangway. At the bottom, they were met by a middle-aged Marine Sergeant.

"Lieutenant Schofield," the Sergeant saluted Schofield. "There's a car waiting for you, sir."

"Sergeant. I'm going nowhere but the hospital, to check on Lance Corporal Gant. If anybody wants me to go anywhere else, I ain't going."

"That's OK with me, sir," the Sergeant smiled. "My orders are to take you, Mr. Renshaw, and Miss Hensleigh to wherever you want to go."

Schofield nodded, looked to Renshaw and Kirsty. They shrugged, sure.

"Sounds good to me," he said. "Lead the way."

The sergeant led them to a navy blue Buick with dark tinted windows. He held the car door open and Schofield got in.

A man was already sitting in the backseat when Schofield sat down.

Schofield froze when he saw the gun in the man's hand.

"Have a seat, Scarecrow," Sergeant Major Charles "Chuck" Kozlowski said as Schofleld sat down in the backseat of the Buick. Renshaw and Kirsty got in behind Schofield. Kirsty inhaled sharply when she saw Kozlowski's gun.

Kozlowski was a short man, with a clean-shaven face and thick black eyebrows. He was wearing a khaki Marine day uniform.

The sergeant got into the driver's seat and started the car.

"I'm terribly sorry, Scarecrow," the highest-ranking noncommissioned officer in the Marine Corps said. "But you and your friends here represent a loose end that cannot be allowed to stand."

"And what's that?" Schofield said, exasperated.

"You know about the ICG."

Schofield said, "I told Jack Walsh about the ICG. Are you going to kill him, too?"

"Maybe not immediately," Kozlowski said. "But in good time, yes. You, on the other hand, represent a more immediate threat. We wouldn't want you going to the press, now, would we? No doubt, they will find out about what went on down at Wilkes Ice Station, but the media will get what the ICG tells them, not what you tell them."

"How can you kill your own men?" Schofield said.

Kozlowski said, "You still don't get it, do you, Scarecrow."

"I don't get how you can kill your own men and think you're doing the country a favor."

"Jesus, Scarecrow, you weren't even supposed to be there in the first place ."

That stopped Schofield. "What?"

"Think about it," Kozlowski said. "How did you come to get to Wilkes Ice Station before anybody else?"

Schofield thought back, right to the very beginning. He had been on the Shreveport , in Sydney. The rest of the fleet had gone back to Pearl, but the Shreveport had stayed down there for repairs. It was then that the distress signal had come through.

"That's right," Kozlowski said, reading Schofield's thoughts. "You were in for repairs in Sydney when the Shreveport received the distress signal from Wilkes. And then some dumb-fuck civilian sent you down there right away."

Schofield remembered the voice of the Undersecretary of Defense coming in over the speakers of the briefing room on board the Shreveport , instructing him to go down to Wilkes and protect the spacecraft.

Kozlowski said, "Scarecrow, the Intelligence Convergence Group doesn't set out to kill American units. It exists to protect Americans?"

"From what? The truth?" Schofield retorted.

"We could have had an Army Ranger unit filled with ICG men down at that station six hours after you got there. They could have taken that station? even if the French had already got there?and held it and no American soldiers would have had to have been killed."

Kozlowski shook his head. "But no, you just happened to be in the area. And that's why we stack units like yours with ICG men?for this very eventuality. In a perfect world, the ICG would get there first every time. But if the ICG can't get there first, then we make sure that Reconnaissance Units like yours are properly constituted so as to ensure that whatever information is found at the site stays at the site. For the sake of national security, of course."

"You kill your own countrymen," Schofield said.

"Scarecrow. This didn't have to happen. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. If anything, you got to Wilkes Ice Station too fast. If this had all been done as it should have been done, I wouldn't have to kill you now."

The Buick came to the guard station at the outer fence of the dockyard. A boom gate was lowered in front of it. The driver wound down his window and had a short conversation with the boom gate guard.

And then suddenly the door next to Kozlowski was yanked open from the outside and an armed Naval Policeman appeared in the open doorway with his gun aimed squarely at Kozlowski's head.

"Sir, would you please get out of the car?" Kozlowski's face darkened. "Son, do you have any idea who you are talking to?" he growled.

"No, he doesn't," a voice said from outside the car. "But I do," Jack Walsh said as he appeared outside the open car door.

Schofield, Kirsty, and Renshaw all got out of the car, totally confused. The navy blue Buick was surrounded by a swarm of Naval Police, all with their guns out.

Schofield turned to Walsh. "What's going on? How did you know?"

Walsh nodded over Schofield's shoulder. "Looks to me like you got yourself a guardian angel."

Schofield spun, looked for a familiar face amid the crowd. At first he didn't see a single face that he knew.

And then suddenly he did. But it wasn't a face he expected to see.

There, standing ten yards behind the ring of Naval Police surrounding the Buick, with his hands in his pockets, was Andrew Trent.

As Kozlowski and his driver were taken away in handcuffs, Schofield walked over to Trent.

Standing with Trent were a man and a woman whom Schofield had never met before. Trent introduced them as Pete and Alison Cameron. They were reporters with the Washington Post .

Schofield asked Trent what had happened. How had the Naval Police?backed up by Jack Walsh?known to stop Kozlowski's car?

Trent explained. A couple of days ago, he had seen the amateur footage of the Wasp's damaged flight deck on TV. Trent knew missile damage when he saw it. Then, when he learned that the Wasp was heading back to Pearl?"from a training exercise in the Southern Ocean" .?he jumped on a plane to Hawaii.

The Camerons had come along with him. For if, by some chance, Shane Schofield or, indeed, any survivors from Wilkes Ice Station were on board the Wasp , then it would be the story?and the scoop?of a lifetime. Other reporters saw a damaged flight deck. The Camerons saw the inside running on the Wilkes Ice Station story.