Matthew Reilly - Ice Station

A crossbow.

Schofield reached desperately for the crossbow with his cuffed hands. He got his hands around the grip, got ahold of it, and?

?then Snake crash-tackled him, and both men slid across the floor and slammed into the drilling machine in the center of the room. The sound of the spinning plunger roared in their ears.

Schofield lay on his back, on the floor. Snake knelt astride him.

And in a sudden instant, Schofield saw that he still had the crossbow in his hands. He blinked. He must have kept hold of it when Snake had crash-tackled him.

It was then that Snake hit Schofield with a pulverizing blow.

Schofield heard his nose crack and saw the blood explode outward from his face. His head slammed back against the floor. Hard.

The world spun and for a fleeting instant Schofield blacked out. Suddenly he felt a wave of panic?if he blacked out completely, that would be the end of it. Snake would kill him where he lay.

Schofield opened his eyes again, and the first thing he saw was the spinning plunger of the drilling machine hovering three feet above his head!

It was right over the top of him!

He saw the leading edge of the spinning cylinder?the sharply serrated leading edge, the edge that was designed to cut down through solid ice.

And then suddenly he saw Snake move in front of the plunger, his face contorted with anger, and then he saw Snake's fist come rushing down at his face.

Schofield tried to raise his hands in his defense but they were still cuffed together, pinned underneath Snake's body. He couldn't get them up?

The blow hit home.

The world became a blur. Schofield struggled desperately to see through the haze.

He saw Snake draw his hand back again, preparing for what would no doubt be the final blow.

And then Schofield saw something off to the right.

The switch on the wall that had started the drilling machine. He saw three big round buttons on the switch panel.

Black, red and green.

And then, with startling clarity, the words on the black button suddenly came into focus.

LOWER DRILL.

Schofield looked up at Snake, saw the rapidly spinning plunger right above his head.

There was no way Schofield could shoot Snake with the crossbow, but if he could just angle his hands slightly, he might be able to...

"Snake, you know what?"

" What ?"

"I never liked you."

And with that Schofield raised his cuffed hands slightly, aimed his crossbow at the big black button on the wall, and fired.

The arrow covered the distance in a millisecond and... ... hit the big black button right in its center? pinning it to the wall behind it?just as Schofield thrust his head clear of the drilling machine and the plunger, spinning at phenomenal speed, came rushing down into the back of Snake's head.

Schofield heard the sickening crunch of breaking bone as Snake's whole body was yanked violently downward?headfirst?by the weight of the plunger and then suddenly, grotesquely, the plunger, its shrill buzzing filling the room, carved right through Snake's head and a flood of thick red-and-gray ooze poured out from his skull and then with a final sprack ! the plunger popped out through the other side of Snake's head and continued on its way down into the ice hole beneath it.

Still somewhat dazed from the fight, Schofield rose to his knees. He turned away from the hideous sight of Snake's body pinned underneath the blood-spattered drilling machine and quickly put the crossbow in his thigh pocket. Then he spun and began looking about himself for any kind of weapon he could use?

His eyes fell instantly on the body of Jean Petard, lying on the floor nearby.

Still breathing hard, Schofield crawled over to it, knelt beside it. He began rifling through the dead Frenchman's pockets.

After a few seconds, he pulled a grenade out from one of Petard's pockets. It had writing on it: M8A3-STN.

Schofield knew what it was instantly.

A stun grenade. A flasher.

Like the one the French commandos had used earlier that morning. Schofield put the stun grenade into his breast pocket

The door to the drilling room burst open. Schofield instantly fell back to the floor, tried to look tired, wounded.

Two SAS commandos stormed into the drilling room with their guns up. Trevor Barnaby strode in behind them.

Barnaby winced when he saw Snake's body lying flat on the floor, face-down, with its head positioned underneath the large black drilling apparatus?complete with a gaping red hole right through the middle of it

"Oh, Scarecrow," Barnaby said. "Did you have to do that to him?"

Schofield was still breathing hard, and he had tiny flecks of blood splattered all over his face. He didn't say anything.

Barnaby shook his head. He almost seemed disappointed that Schofield hadn't been killed by Snake.

"Get him out of here," Barnaby said quietly to the two SAS men behind him. "Mr. Nero."

"Yes, sir."

"String him up."

Down in the cave, another battle was under way.

No sooner had the first SAS diver stepped out of the water than a second SAS man was up and standing in the shallows behind him.

The first SAS commando stormed out of the water, firing hard. The second man followed him up, sloshing through the knee-deep water with his gun up when suddenly? whump !? he was violently yanked beneath the surface of the water.

The first commando?up on dry land and oblivious to the fate that had befallen his partner?snapped to his right and drew a bead on Montana, just as Gant bobbed up from behind her boulder and took him out from the left.

Gant turned, saw more SAS commandos surfacing in the pool with their sea sleds.

Then suddenly something else caught her eye.

Movement.

A large black object just slid out from one of the wide ten-foot holes in the ice wall above the pool and dropped smoothly into the water.

Gant's jaw dropped.

It was an animal of some sort.

But it was so huge . It looked like ... like a seal . A great, big, enormous seal.

At that moment, another massive seal emerged from a second hole in the ice wall. And then another. And another. They just slid out from their holes and splashed down into the pool, raining down on the team of SAS divers from every side.

Gant just watched them with her mouth wide open.

The pool was a broiling froth now, choppy and frothy. Suddenly another SAS diver went under, replaced by a slick of his own blood. And then abruptly the man next to him fell forward in the water as one of the enormous seals plowed into him from behind and drove him under. Gant saw the animal's glistening wet back rise above the water for an instant before it submerged on top of the British soldier.

A couple of SAS divers made it to land. But the seals just followed them right out of the water. One diver was on his hands and knees, clawing his way across the ice, trying desperately to get away from the water's edge, when a giant seven-ton seal launched itself out of the pool right behind him.

The massive creature landed on the ice a bare two feet behind him, and the earth shook beneath its weight. The big seal then lumbered forward and clamped its jaws shut around the SAS man's legs. Bones crunched. The man screamed.

And then, before he even knew what was happening, the big seal began to eat him.

Roughly, with great slashing bites. The high-pitched tearing sound of flesh being ripped from bone filled the cavern.

Gant stared at the scene in silent awe.

The SAS men were screaming. The seals were barking. Several of mem began eating their victims while they were still alive .

Gant just stared at the seals. They were huge. At least as big as killer whales. And they had bulbous round snouts that she had seen in a book once.