Matthew Reilly - Ice Station

The dead carcass rolled slowly in the water. Schofield and the other Marines on the deck just stared at it, entranced.

And then, slowly, it rolled belly-up and Schofield saw the great whale's white underbelly and his jaw dropped.

Two long bloody gashes ran down the length of the big whale's underbelly.

They ran in parallel. Two jagged uneven slashes that ran all the way up the center of the whale's body, from its mid-section to its throat. Sections of the big whale's intestines had fallen out through the gashes?long, ugly cream-colored coils that were as thick as a man's arm.

They weren't clean cuts either, Schofield saw. Each gash was a tear, a rip. Something had punctured the whale's belly and then ripped up the entire length of its body, tearing the skin apart.

Everyone on the deck stared at the bloody carcass, the understanding visible on their faces.

There was something down in that water.

Something that had killed a killer whale.

Schofield took a deep breath and turned to face Sarah. "Want to reconsider?" he said.

Sarah stared at the dead killer whale for a few seconds. Then she looked back at Schofield.

"No," she said. "No way."

Schofield paced nervously around the pool deck, alone.

He watched as in the middle of the pool the winch's cable plunged into the water. At the end of that cable was the diving bell, and inside the diving bell were three of his Marines plus Sarah Hensleigh. The cable entered the water at a steady speed, as fast as it could go.

The winch had been lowering the diving bell into the water for almost an hour now. Three thousand feet was a long way, almost a kilometer, and Schofield knew it would take some time before it reached that depth.

Schofield stood on the deserted deck. Twenty minutes earlier, he had sent Book, Snake, and Rebound topside to try to raise McMurdo Station on the portable radio again?he had to know when a full-strength American force was going to arrive at Wilkes.

Now he stood alone on E-deck, the station around him silent save for the rhythmic mechanical thumping of the winch mechanism up on C-deck. The repetitive thump-thump-thump of the winch had an almost soothing effect on him.

Schofield pulled Sarah Hensleigh's silver locket out of his pocket. It glistened in the white fluorescent light of the station. He turned it over in his hand. There was some writing engraved on the back of it?

And then suddenly there came a noise and Schofield's head snapped round. It had only lasted for an instant, but he had definitely heard it.

It had been a voice. A male voice. But a voice that had been speaking in...

.. . French .

Schofield's eyes fell instantly upon the VLF transmitter that sat on the deck a few feet away from him.

Suddenly the transmitter emitted a shrill whistling sound. And then the voice came again.

" La hyène, c'est moi, le requin ," the voice said. " La hyène, c'est moi, le requin. Présentez votre rapport. Je renouvele. Présentez votre rapport ."

Rebound , Schofield thought. Shit. I need Rebound . But he was outside with the others and Schofield needed a French speaker now.

"Rebound," Schofield said into his helmet mike.

The reply came back immediately. " Yes, sir ?" Schofield could hear the swirling wind in the background.

"Don't say a word, Rebound. Just listen, OK," Schofield said, pressing a button on his belt that kept his helmet microphone switched on. He leaned in close to the VLF transmitter so that his helmet mike was near the transmitter's speaker.

The French voice came again.

"La hyène. Vous avez trois heures pour présenter votre rapport. Je renouvele, Vous avez trois heures pour présenter votre rapport. Si vous ne le presentez pas lorsque I'heure nous serons contraint de lancer l'engine d'efface. Je renouvele. Si vous ne le présentez pas lorsque I'heure nous serons contraint de lancer l'engine d'efface. C'est moi, le requin. Finis."

The signal cut off and there was silence. When he was sure that it was finished, Schofield said, "Did you get all that, Rebound?"

"Most of it, sir."

"What did they say?"

" They said: Hyena. You have three hours to report. If you do not report by that time we will be compelled to launch the 'l'engine d'efface,' the erasing device ."

"The erasing device," Schofield said flatly. "Three hours. You sure about that, Rebound?"

Schofield grabbed his wristwatch as he spoke. It was an old Casio digital. He started the stopwatch on it. The seconds began to tick upward.

" Very sure, sir. They said it all twice ," Rebound said.

Schofield said, "Good work, Private. All right. Now all we have to do is figure out where these guys are?"

" Uh, excuse me, sir ?" It was Rebound again.

"What is it?"

"Sir, I think I have an idea where they might be."

"Where?"

" Sir, at the end of that transmission we just heard, they said 'c'est moi, le requin'. Now, I missed the start of the transmission. Did they say that at the very beginning? 'C'est moi, le requin' ?"

Schofield didn't know; he didn't speak French. It had all sounded the same to him. He tried to replay the radio message in his head. "They may have," he said. "No, wait, yes. Yes, I think they did say that. Why?"

Rebound said, " Sir , le requin is French for 'shark .' 'C'est moi le requin' means 'this is Shark.' You know, like a military code name. The French unit here at the station was called Hyena and that one we just heard was called Shark. You know what I'm thinking, sir ?"

"Oh, damn," Schofield said.

" That's right. I'm thinking they're out on the water somewhere. Somewhere off the coast. I'll bet you a million bucks that Shark is a warship or something sailing off the coast of Antarctica ."

"Oh, damn ," Schofield said again, this time with feeling.

It made sense that whoever sent that message was a ship of some kind. And not just because of its code name. As Schofield knew, because of their extraordinarily long wavelengths, VLF transmissions were commonly used by surface vessels or submarines out in the middle of the ocean. That was why the French commandos had brought the VLF transmitter with them. To keep in contact with their warship off the coast.

Schofield started to feel ill.

The prospect of a frigate or a destroyer patrolling the ocean a hundred miles off the coast was bad. Very bad. Especially if it was aiming some kind of weapon?in all likelihood, a battery of nuclear-tipped cruise missiles?at Wilkes Ice Station.

It had never occurred to him that the French might not bring an erasing device with them but would rather leave it with an outside agent?like a destroyer off the coast?with instructions to fire upon the station if that destroyer did not receive a report by a given time.

Shit , Schofield thought. Shit. Shit. Shit .

There were only two things in the world that could stop the launch of that erasing device. One, a report coming in from twelve dead Frenchmen sometime within the next three hours. That wasn't going to happen.

Which meant the second option was the only option.

Schofield had to get in contact with the U.S. forces at McMurdo Station. And not just to find out when American reinforcements would be arriving at Wilkes. No, now he had to tell the Marines at McMurdo about a French warship sailing somewhere off the coast with a phalanx of cruise missiles trained on Wilkes Ice Station. It would then be up to the people at McMurdo to take out that warship? within three hours.

Schofield keyed his mike again. "Book, you hear all that?"