Ice Hunt

He stared over to the neighboring cells. Though he had been dazed when brought down here, he knew where he was. He had glimpsed the line of cells when fleeing from the Russians earlier. He was back on Level Four, in the containment cells that must have once housed the poor folk frozen in the tanks.

Each cell was a cage of bars. The only solid wall was the one at the back of the cell. No privacy. No toilets. Just a rusted bucket in the corner. The only other furniture in the room was a steel cot. No mattress.

He sat on the bed now, holding his head in his hands. The concussion of the grenade still throbbed behind his ears. His jaw ached from the strike of a rifle butt to his face. His nose still leaked blood. But he wasn’t sure if it was from the blast or the pistol whipping.

“Are you all right?” his neighbor asked from the adjacent cell.

He tried to remember the boy’s name. One of the biologists. He couldn’t think straight yet. “…mm fine,” he mumbled.

Sharing the boy’s cell were the other two biologists: Dr. Ogden and the girl. He vaguely wondered where the other student was. Hadn’t there been a third? He groaned. What did it matter?

“Pike,” a firmer voice said behind him. He twisted around.

In the other cell, Washburn stood by the front bars. Her lower lip was split, her left eye swollen shut.

“What happened to Commander Bratt?” she asked.

He simply shook his head. His brain rattled inside. Nausea washed over him. He swallowed back bile.

“Shit…” Washburn murmured.

They were the only survivors.

Ogden stepped to the bars that separated their two cells. “Mr. Pike…Matt…there’s something you should know. Your wife…”

Frowning, Matt’s head sprang up. “What…what about her?”

“She was with us,” Ogden said. “I saw her, that CIA guy, and Dr. Reynolds fleeing in a boat.”

Matt heard the bitterness in the other’s voice, but he could not comprehend what the biologist was saying. There were too many things that made no sense. He recalled seeing the ice racer chased by two hover-cycles. “Jenny…”

Ogden told him his story.

Matt did not want to believe the man, but he remembered Bane’s sudden appearance…and end. His fingers crept over his face both to hide his grief and hold it back. Jenny…she had been so close. What had happened to her?

Ogden continued, his voice dropping to a whisper, “I speak some Russian. I overheard what the guards were saying when they were searching us. They’re looking for some books. Books that the CIA guy took with him.”

“I heard the same,” Washburn said, edging closer, keeping her words low.

Matt frowned. “What CIA guy?”

One of the students answered. Matt finally remembered his name. Zane. The boy mumbled, “He said his name was Craig Teague.”

Stunned, Matt felt a surge of heat flow through him. He blustered for a moment, trying to find his tongue. “Craig…Teague is CIA?”

Ogden nodded. “Sent here to secure the Russian data on suspended animation and escape.”

Matt thought back on all his dealings with the supposed reporter. All along, he had sensed some deeper strength in the man, some hidden well of resourcefulness that would shine through occasionally. But he had never even suspected…

Matt clenched a fist. He had saved the jackass’s life and this is how he repaid him. “Goddamn bastard…”

“What do we do now?” Washburn asked.

Matt had a hard time concentrating, balanced between fury and fear for Jenny.

“Why are they keeping us here?” Washburn continued.

Before anyone could answer, the guardroom door swung open. It was the pair of guards who had left with their identification papers. They pointed and spoke to the lone armed guard. The group approached Matt’s cell. “You come with us,” one said in halting English.

The guard keyed open the lock and pulled the door wide. The other two bore pistols in their hands. Matt judged what it would take to make a grab for one of the weapons. He stood. His legs wobbled under him. He almost fell. So much for a full frontal attack.

He was waved out at the point of a pistol.

I guess this answers Washburn’s question. They were going to be interrogated. And after that? Matt eyed the pistol. The prisoners’ usefulness would surely be at an end. They had seen too much. There was no way they would be allowed to live.

Flanked by the two guards, Matt was led deeper into the heart of Level Four. Rather than going out to the encircling hall with their dreaded tanks, Matt was led to an inner hall. The passage ended at a solitary room.

He was waved inside.

Matt stepped through the door into a small office, exquisitely appointed in mahogany furniture: wide desk, open shelves, cabinets. There was even a thick bearskin rug on the floor. Polar bear. Its head still attached.

The first sight that drew his eye was of a small boy, dressed in a baggy shirt. It fit him like a full-length robe. He knelt on the rug and was petting the polar bear’s head, whispering in its ear.

The boy glanced up to him.

Matt gasped and tripped on the edge of the rug, going down on one knee. He could not mistake that face.

One of the guards barked at him in Russian, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck.

Matt was too stunned to respond.

A new voice spoke, cold and commanding. Matt raised his eyes, focusing on the room’s other occupant. He stood up from the leather chair he had been sitting on and waved the guard away.

The man was tall, six-foot-five, broad of shoulder, wearing a black uniform. But his most striking features were his pale white hair and storm-gray eyes. Those eyes pierced through him now.

“Please take a seat,” the man said in perfect English.

Matt found himself rising, obeying reflexively. But once up, he refused to sit. He knew who stood behind the desk. The leader of the Russian forces.

The door to the office clicked shut behind him, but one guard remained in the room. Matt also spotted the pistol holstered at the leader’s hip.

Hard gray eyes stared back at him. “My name is Admiral Viktor Petkov. And you are?”

Matt spotted his wallet resting atop the desk. There was no reason to lie. It would get him nowhere. “Matthew Pike.”

“Fish and Game?” This was spoken with thick doubt.

Matt kept his voice firm. “That’s what my papers say, don’t they?”

One eye twitched. Clearly the Russian admiral was not someone who was faced with insolence very often. His voice steeled. “Mr. Pike, we can do this civilly or—”