Matthew Reilly - Ice Station

Kirsty nodded. "That's right. This station is only about a hundred yards away from the ocean, and the ice shelf out that way isn't very deep, maybe five hundred feet. The killers just swim in under the ice shelf and surface here inside the station."

Gant looked down at the two killer whales on the far side of the pool. They seemed so calm, so cold, like a pair of hungry crocodiles searching for their next meal.

Then, their survey complete, the two killer whales slowly began to submerge. In a moment they were gone, replaced by two sets of ripples. Their eyes had remained open the whole way down.

"Well, that was sudden," Gant said.

Her eyes moved from the now-empty pool to the diving platform beside it. She saw Montana emerge from the south tunnel with some scuba tanks slung over his shoulders. Sarah Hensleigh had told them that there was a small goods elevator in the south tunnel?a "dumbwaiter"?that they could use to bring their diving gear down to E-deck. Montana had been using it just now.

Gant's gaze moved to the other side of the platform, where she saw Schofield standing with his head bowed, holding a hand to his ear, as though he were listening to something on his helmet intercom. And then suddenly he was heading toward the nearest rung-ladder, speaking into his helmet mike as he walked.

Gant watched as Schofield stopped at the base of the rung-ladder on the far side of the station and turned to look directly at her. His voice crackled over her helmet intercom. " Fox. Hollywood. A-deck. Now ."

As she hastened toward the rung-ladder nearest her, Gant spoke into her helmet mike. "What is it, sir?"

Schofield's voice was serious. " Something just set off the trip wire outside. Snake's up there. He says it's a French hovercraft ."

Snake Kaplan drew a bead on the hovercraft.

The lettering on the side of the vehicle glowed bright gfeen in his night-vision gunsights. It read: DUMONT D'URVILLE? 02.

Kaplan was lying in the snow on the outskirts of the station complex, bracing himself against the driving wind and snow, following the newly arrived hovercraft through the sights of his Barrett M82A1A sniper rifle.

Gunnery Sergeant Scott "Snake" Kaplan was forty-five years old, a tall man with dark, serious eyes. Like most of the other Marines in Schofield's unit, Kaplan had customized his uniform. A weathered tattoo of a fearsome-looking cobra with its jaws bared wide had been painted onto his right shoulder plate. Underneath the picture of the snake were the words: KISS THIS.

A career soldier, Kaplan had been with the Marine Corps for twenty-seven years, during which time he had risen to the magic rank of Gunnery Sergeant, the highest rank an enlisted Marine can reach while still getting his hands dirty. Indeed, although further promotion was possible, Snake had decided to stay at Gunnery Sergeant rank, so that he could remain a senior member of a Marine Force Reconnaissance Unit.

Members of Recon Units don't care much for discussions about rank. Membership in a Marine Force Reconnaissance Unit alone gives one privileges to which even some officers cannot lay claim. It is not unknown, for instance, for a four-star General to consult a senior Recon member on matters of combat technique and weaponry. Indeed, Snake himself had been approached on several such occasions. And besides, since most of those who were selected for the Recons were Sergeants and Corporals anyway, rank wasn't really an issue. They were with the Recons, the elite of the United States Marine Corps. That was rank in itself.

Upon the unit's arrival at Wilkes Ice Station, Snake had been put in charge of setting up the laser trip wire on the landward side of the station, about two hundred meters out. The trip wire was not really that much different from the range finder units on the hovercrafts. It was merely a series of boxlike units through which a tiny invisible laser beam was directed. When something crossed the beam, it triggered a flashing red light on Kaplan's forearm guard.

Moments ago, something had crossed the beam.

From his post on A-deck, Kaplan had immediately radioed Schofield, who, sensibly, had ordered a visual check. After all, it might have just been Buck Riley and his team, returning from their check of that disappearing signal. Schofield had set follow-up time at two hours, and it had been nearly that long since Schofield's team had arrived at the station. Buck Riley and his crew were due here any minute now.

Only this wasn't Buck Riley.

" Where is it, Snake ?" Schofield's voice said over Snake's helmet intercom.

"Southeast corner. Coming through the outer circle of buildings now." Snake watched as the hovercraft slowly made its way through the station complex, carefully negotiating its way between the small snow-covered structures.

"Where are you?" Snake asked as he stood, picked up his rifle, and started jogging back through the snow toward the main dome.

" I'm at the main entrance ," Schofield's voice said. " Just inside the front door. I need you to take up a covering position from the rear ."

"Already on it."

With the driving snow, visibility was limited, so the hovercraft proceeded slowly through the complex. Kaplan hurried along parallel to it, a hundred yards away. The vehicle came to a halt outside the main dome of the ice station. It was slowly beginning to lower itself from its cushion of air when Shake dropped into the snow forty meters away and began to set up his sniper rifle.

He had just put his eye to his telescopic sight when the side door of the hovercraft slid open and four figures stepped out of it into the snowstorm.

"Good evening," Schofield said with a crooked smile.

The four French scientists just stood there in the doorway to the ice station, dumbstruck. They stood in two pairs, with each pair carrying a large white container between them.

In front of them stood Schofield, with his MP-5 held casually by his side. Behind Schofield stood Hollywood and Montana, with their MP-5s raised to shoulder height and their eyes looking straight down the barrels of their guns. Guns that were pointed right at their new visitors.

Schofield said, "Why don't you come inside."

"The others are safely back at d'Urville," the leader of this new group said as he sat down at the table in the dining room alongside his French colleagues. Like the others, he had just passed a thorough pat-down search.

He had a lean face, hollow, with sunken eyes and high cheekbones. He had said his name was Jean Petard, and Schofield recognized the name from his list. He also remembered the short bio that had appeared under the name. It had said that Petard was a geologist, studying natural gas deposits in the continental shelf. The names of the other three Frenchmen were also on the list.

The four original French scientists were also there in the dining room?Champion, Latissier, Cuvier, and Rae. The remaining residents of Wilkes were now back in their quarters. Schofield had ordered that they remain there until he and his squad had checked out the occupants of this newly arrived hovercraft. Montana and Lance Corporal Augustine "Samurai" Lau, the sixth and last member of Schofield's team, stood guard by the door.

"We hurried back as fast as we could," Jean Petard added. "We brought fresh food and some battery-powered blankets for the return trip."

Schofield looked over at Libby Gant. She was over by the far wall of the dining room, examining the two white containers the Frenchmen had brought with them.

"Thank you," Schofield said, turning back to face Petard. 'Thank you for all you have done. We arrived here only several hours after you did and the people here have told us how good you have been to them. We thank you for your efforts."