Matthew Reilly - Ice Station

"Is anyone here a medical doctor?" Schofield asked her.

Sarah shook her head. "No. No, Ken Wishart was the only doctor at the station. But he?" She cut herself off.

"But he what?"

Sarah sighed. "But he was on board the hovercraft that was supposed to be heading back to d'Urville."

Schofield shut his eyes, once again imagined the fate of the five scientists who had been on board the doomed hovercraft.

A voice crackled over his helmet intercom. " Scarecrow, this is Montana ."

"What is it?" Schofield said.

"I've set up the range finders around the outer perimeter just like you wanted. You wanna come up and check it out?"

"Yes, I do," Schofield said. "I'll be up in a minute. Where are you?"

"Southwest corner."

"Wait for me," Schofield said. "Have you had any luck getting through to McMurdo?"

"Not yet. There's a shitstorm of interference on every frequency. I can't get through."

"Keep trying," Schofield said. "Scarecrow, out."

Schofield turned and was about to leave the common room when someone tapped him lightly on the shoulder. He turned. It was Sarah Hensleigh. She was smiling.

"I just remembered," she said. "There is a medical doctor at this station after all."

After the battle was over, the Marines had found the two French scientists, Luc Champion and Henri Rae, cowering in a cupboard in the dining room on A-deck.

They had not offered any resistance. Indeed, as they had been dragged unceremoniously out of the cupboard to face their conquerors the horror on their faces had said it all. They had backed the wrong side in this fight. The men they had deceived were now their captors. The price for their treachery would be high.

Both men had been taken down to E-deck, where they were handcuffed to a pole in plain view. Schofield's team had work to do, and Schofield didn't want to waste any of his manpower guarding the two French scientists. By cuffing the two Frenchmen to a pole out in the open the Marines down on E-deck could work as well as keep an eye on them.

Schofield stepped out onto the B-deck catwalk. He was about to speak into his helmet mike when Sarah Hensleigh came out onto the catwalk behind him.

"I have something I have to ask you," she said. "Something I couldn't ask you back in the common room."

Schofield held up a hand, spoke into his helmet mike: "Rebound. This is Scarecrow. How's Samurai?"

Rebound's voice came in over his earpiece. " I've managed to stop the bleeding for the moment, sir, but he's still pretty bad ."

"Stable?"

"As stable as I'm gonna get him."

"All right, listen. I want you to go down to E-deck and grab that French scientist named Champion, Luc Champion," Schofield said. He looked at Sarah as he spoke. "I've just been informed that our good friend Monsieur Champion is a surgeon."

" Yes, sir ," Rebound said eagerly. He seemed relieved that someone more qualified might be able to take over Samurai's care. But then he seemed to check himself. " Uh, sir ..."

"What is it?"

"Can we trust him?"

"No," Schofield said firmly as he began to climb up the rung-ladder toward A-deck. He motioned for Sarah to follow him up. "Not a whit. Rebound, you just tell him that if Samurai dies, so does he."

"Gotcha."

Schofield reached the top of the rung-ladder and stepped up onto the A-deck catwalk. He helped Sarah up behind him. Almost immediately, he saw Rebound emerge from the dining room doorway not far away and jog for the opposite rung-ladder. He was going down to E-deck to get Champion.

Schofield and Sarah headed for the main entrance to the station. As they walked along the catwalk, Schofield looked down at the station beneath him and thought about his people.

They were scattered everywhere.

Montana was outside. Riley and Gant were down on E-deck, getting the scuba gear ready for the dive to the cave. Snake was smack in the middle, in the alcove on C-deck, fixing the winch controls. And Santa Cruz was nowhere to be seen, since he was off conducting a search of the station for erasers.

Christ, Schofield thought, they were spread all over the place.

Schofield's helmet intercom crackled. It was Santa Cruz.

"What is it, Private?" Schofield said.

"Sir, I've conducted a search of the station and I've found no sign of any erasing device."

"No erasers?" Schofield frowned. "Nothing at all?"

"Not a thing, sir. My guess is they didn't expect things to happen so fast, so they didn't get a chance to lay any."

Schofield thought about that.

Cruz was probably right. The French team's plan had undoubtedly been cut short by Buck Riley's arrival at the station and his accidental discovery of what had really happened to the crashed French hovercraft. The French commandos' plan had been to win the Americans' trust and then shoot them in the back. Since that plan hadn't come to fruition, it was no surprise that they hadn't been able to set any erasers.

" But I did find something, sir ," Santa Cruz said.

"What?"

"I found a radio, sir."

"A radio?" Schofield said dryly. It was hardly a mind-blowing discovery.

"Sir, this ain 't no ordinary radio. It looks like a portable VLF transmitter."

That got Schofield's attention. A VLF, or very low frequency, transmitter is a rare device. It has a frequency range of between 3 kHz and 30 kHz, which, in real terms; amounts to an unbelievably long wavelength. It is so long?or, in radio terms, so "heavy"?that the radio signal travels as a ground signal that follows the curvature of the Earth's surface.

Until only very recently, signals traveling at such low frequencies required very high-powered transmitters, which were, of course, very large and cumbersome. Thus they weren't often used by ground forces. Recent developments in technology, however, had resulted in heavy but nonetheless portable, VLF transmitters. They looked and weighed about the same as the average backpack.

The fact that the French had brought such a transmitter to Wilkes bothered Schofield. There was really only one use for VLF radio signals, and that was?

No, that's ridiculous , Schofield thought. They couldn't have done that .

"Cruz, where did you find it?"

" Down in the drilling room ," Santa Cruz's voice said.

"Are you there now?"

"Yes, sir."

"Bring it out to the pool deck," Schofield said. "I'll come down after I check on Montana outside."

"Yes, sir."

Schofield clicked off his intercom. He and Sarah came to the entrance passageway.

"What are erasers?" Sarah asked.

"What? Oh," Schofield said. He only just remembered that Sarah wasn't a soldier. He took a deep breath. " Eraser is the term used to describe an explosive device that is planted in a battlefield by a covert incursionary force for use in the event that their mission fails. Most of the time, an eraser is set off by a delay switch, which is just an ordinary timer."

"OK, wait a minute. Slow down," Sarah said.

Schofield sighed, slowed down. "Small crack units like these French guys we met tonight usually find themselves fighting in places where they're not supposed to be, right? Like there would probably be an international incident if it could be proved that French troops were in a U.S. research station trying to kill everybody, right?"

"Yeah...."

"Well, there's no guarantee that these crack units are gonna succeed in getting what they came for, is there," Schofield said. "I mean, hey, they might come up against a team of tough hombres like us and wind up dead."

Schofield grabbed a parka off a hook on the wall and began to put it on.