Matthew Reilly - Ice Station

With a short whistle, the lead SAS man caught the attention of the other two commandos in the tunnel. He pointed with two fingers at the dumbwaiter. The other two men understood instantly. They positioned themselves on either side of the dumbwaiter while the leader and the fourth SAS commando aimed their guns at the stainless-steel doors.

The leader nodded quickly and the two men on either side of the dumbwaiter instantly yanked it open, and the leader let rip with a sudden burst of gunfire.

The bare walls of the empty dumbwaiter were ripped to shreds.

Mother squeezed her eyes shut as the SAS commando's gunfire roared loudly less than a foot above her head.

She was sitting in complete darkness, at the base of the dumbwaiter's miniature elevator shaft, curled up in a tight ball, in the crawl space underneath the dumbwaiter.

The dumbwaiter shuddered and shook under the weight of the SAS commando's gunfire. Its walls blew out, and jagged, splintered holes appeared all over it. Dust and wood shavings showered down on Mother, but she just kept her eyes firmly shut.

And then at that moment, as the gunfire echoed loudly in her ears, a jarring thought hit Mother.

They could fire their guns safely inside the station again....

The amount of flammable gas in the station's atmosphere must have dissipated?

And then abruptly the gunfire ceased and the doors of the dumbwaiter closed and all of a sudden there was silence again, and for the first time in three whole minutes Mother let out a breath.

Schofield and Renshaw plummeted down the face of the cliff and plunged into the ocean.

The cold hit them like an anvil, but Schofield didn't care. His adrenaline was pumping and his body heat was already high. Most experts would give you about eight minutes to live in the freezing Antarctic waters. But with his thermal wet suit on and his adrenaline pumping, Schofield gave himself at least thirty.

He swam upward, searching for air, and then suddenly he broke the surface and the first thing he saw was the largest wave he had ever seen in his life bearing down upon him. The wave crashed down against him and drove him? slammed him?back against the base of the ice cliff.

The impact knocked the wind out of him, and his lungs clawed for air.

Suddenly the wave subsided and Schofield felt himself get sucked down into a trough between two waves. He let himself float in the water for a few seconds while he got his breath and his bearings.

The sea around him was absolutely mountainous. Forty-foot waves surrounded him. A mammoth wave smashed into the cliffs twenty yards to his right. Icebergs?some as tall and as wide as New York skyscrapers, others as long and flat as football fields?hovered a hundred yards off the coast, silent sentries guarding the ice cliffs.

Abruptly Renshaw burst up out of the water right next to Schofield. The short scientist immediately began gulping in air in hoarse, heaving breaths. For an instant, Schofield worried about how Renshaw would cope with the extreme cold of the water, but then he remembered Renshaw's Neoprene bodysuit. Hell, Renshaw was probably warmer than he was.

At that moment Schofield saw another towering wave coming toward them.

"Go under!" he yelled.

Schofield took a deep breath and dived, and suddenly the world went eerily silent.

He swam downward, saw Renshaw swimming alongside him, hovering in the water.

And then he saw an explosion of white foam fan out above their heads as the wave on the surface crashed with all its might against the cliff.

Schofield and Renshaw surfaced again.

As he bobbed and swayed in the water, Schofield saw the entire side door of a hovercraft float past him in the water.

"We have to get farther out," he said. "If we stay here any longer, we're gonna get pulverized against these cliffs."

"Where to?" Renshaw said.

"OK," Schofield said. "See that iceberg out there?" He pointed at a large berg that looked like a grand piano on its side, about two hundred yards out from the cliffs.

"I see it."

"That's where we're going," Schofield said.

"All right."

"OK, then. On three. One. Two. Three."

On three, both men drew deep breaths and went under. They kicked off the cliff and breaststroked their way through the clear Antarctic water. Explosions of white foam flared out above their heads as they made their way through the water.

Ten yards. Twenty.

Renshaw ran out of breath, surfaced, took a quick gulp of air, and then went under again. Schofield did the same, clenching his teeth as he, too, ducked beneath the waves again. His newly broken rib burned with pain.

Fifty yards out and the two men broke the surface again. They were beyond the breaking waves now, so they stretched out into freestyle, powering over the vertiginous peaks of the towering forty-foot waves.

At last, they came to the base of the iceberg. It loomed above them, a wall of white, sheer in some places, beautifully curved and grooved in others. Magnificent vaulted tunnels disappeared into the virgin ice.

The big berg leveled off at one point, descending to the ocean, where it formed a kind of ledge. Schofield and Renshaw made for the ledge.

When they got there, they saw that the ledge was actually poised about three feet above the water.

"Push off my shoulder," Schofield said.

Renshaw obeyed and quickly hoisted his left foot onto Schofield's shoulder and pushed off it.

The little man's hands reached up and clasped the ice ledge, and he awkwardly hauled himself up onto it. Then he lay flat on the edge of the ledge and reached back down for Schofield.

Schofield reached up and Renshaw began to haul him up out of the water. Schofield was almost on the ledge when suddenly Renshaw's wet hands slipped off his wrist and Schofield fell clumsily back down into the water.

Schofield plunged underwater.

Silence. Total silence. Like the womb.

The blasting explosions of the waves crashing against the ice cliffs no longer assaulted his ears.

The massive white underbelly of the iceberg filled his vision. It stretched down and down until it disappeared into the cloudy depths of the ocean.

And then suddenly Schofield heard a sound and he snapped upright in the water. The sound traveled well in the water and he heard it clearly.

Vmmmmmm.

It was a low, droning, humming sound.

Vmmmmmm.

Schofield frowned. It sounded almost... mechanical . Like a motorized door opening somewhere. Somewhere close.

Somewhere... behind him.

Schofield spun around instantly.

And then he saw it.

It was so huge?so monstrously huge?that the mere sight of it sent his heart into overdrive.

It was just hovering there in the water.

Silent. Huge .

Looming over Schofield as he hovered in the water alongside the iceberg.

It must have been at least a hundred meters long, its hull black and round. Schofield saw the two horizontal stabilizing fins jutting out from either side of the conning tower, saw the cylindrical snub nose of the bow, and suddenly his heart was pumping very loudly inside his head.

Schofield couldn't believe his eyes.

He was looking at a submarine.

Schofield burst up out of the water.

"Are you all right?" Renshaw asked from up on the ledge.

"Not anymore," Schofield said before he quickly took another breath and submerged again.

The world was silent again.

Schofield swam a little deeper and stared at the massive submarine in awe. It was about thirty yards away from him, but he could see it clearly. The enormous submarine just sat there?completely submerged?hovering in the underwater silence like an enormous, patient leviathan.