Ice Hunt

“Sir?” Confusion crinkled the officer’s eyes.

“The Americans are not going anywhere. They’re still here.”

“What…what do you want us to do?”

“Your orders have not changed.” Viktor stared into the eyes of the boy, knowing he held the answers to everything. Nothing else mattered. “Hunt them. Kill them.”

3:42 P.M.

A level below, Craig crawled down the service tunnel, map crumpled in his hand. The chamber had to be close. The others trailed behind him.

He paused at a crossroads of ductwork. The intersection was tangled with conduit and piping. He pushed his way through and headed left. “This way,” he mumbled back to the rest of the party.

“How much farther?” Dr. Ogden asked from the rear of their group.

The answer appeared just ahead. A dim glow rose through a grated vent embedded in the floor of the ice shaft.

Craig hurried forward. Once near enough, he lay on his belly and spied through the grate to the room below. Viewed from above and lit by a single bare bulb, the chamber appeared roughly square, plated in steel like the station proper, but this room was empty, long abandoned and untouched.

It was the best hiding place Craig could think of.

Out of the way and isolated.

He wiggled around so he could use his legs to kick the grate loose. The screws held initially, but desperation was stronger than rusted steel and ice. The vent popped open, swinging down.

Craig stuck his head through to make sure it was clear, then swung his feet around and lowered himself into the room.

It was not a long drop. The room had flooded long ago. The water had risen a yard into the room, then froze. A few crates and fuel drums were visible, half buried in the ice. A shelving unit stacked with tools rose from the ice pool, its first three shelves anchored below.

But the most amazing sight was the pair of giant brass wheels on either far wall. They stood ten feet high with thick hexagonal axles attached to massive motors, embedded in the ice floor. The toothed edges of the wheels connected to the grooves of a monstrous brass wall that encompassed one entire side of the room.

The wheel on the right side lay crooked, broken free from some old blast. Scorch marks were still visible on its brass surface. The dislodged wheel had torn through the neighboring steel wall, cracking through to the ice beyond. Perhaps it was even the source of flooding.

Craig peered through the crack. It was too dark to see very far.

“What is this place?” Amanda asked as she landed in a crouch. She stood, staring at the gigantic gearworks.

Craig turned to her so she could read his lips. “According to the schematics, it’s the control room for the station’s sea gate.” He pointed to a grooved brass wall. “From here, they would lower or raise the gate whenever the Russian submarine docked into the sea cave below.”

By now the others—Dr. Ogden and his three students—had dropped into the room. They stared around nervously.

“Will we be safe here?” Magdalene asked.

“Safer,” Craig answered. “We had to get out of the service ducts. The Russians will be swarming and incinerating their way through there. We’re better off holing up here. This room is isolated well off the main complex. There’s a good chance the Russians don’t even know this place exists.”

Craig crossed to the single door, opposite the sea gate. There was a small window in it. Beyond he could see the narrow hall that led back to the station. It had flooded almost to the roof. No Russians would be coming from that direction.

Amanda had to lean in close to read his lips. “What about Matt and the Navy crew?”

Craig bit his lip. He had a hard time meeting her eye. “I don’t know. They’ll have to take care of themselves.”

Earlier, while watching from the electrical room, he had seen Washburn slip and fall, alerting the two Russian guards. The resulting rifle fire had driven him back to the civilian party. Surely Matt and the others were dead or captured. Either way, he couldn’t risk staying around. So he had led their group off—going down rather than up. The gate control room seemed the perfect hiding place.

Dr. Ogden, along with his graduate students, stepped to join them, careful of the icy floor. “So are we just going to hide here, simply wait for the Russians to leave?”

Craig shifted aside a wooden box of empty vodka bottles. The last survivors of Ice Station Grendel must have had a party at the end. The bottles clinked as he moved them. Wishing for a stiff drink himself, he sat on one of the crates. “By now, someone must know what’s going on here. Help has to be on its way. All we have to do is survive until then.”

Amanda continued to stare hard at him, her gaze penetrating. Craig sensed her deep anger. She had not wanted to flee earlier, not without knowing the exact fate of Matt and the Navy crew. But she had been outvoted.

Craig looked away, unable to face that silent accusation. He needed something to distract himself, something to get all their minds off of their current situation. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out one of the three volumes he had looted from the research laboratory. Here was a puzzle to help them bide their time. Perhaps even one of the scientists might have a clue to deciphering this riddle.

Amanda’s eyes widened, recognizing the book. “Did you steal that?”

Craig shrugged. “I took the first volume and the last two.” He slipped the other books from his jacket and passed one to Amanda and one to Ogden. “I figured these were the best. The beginning and the end. Who needs to read the middle?”

Amanda and Dr. Ogden opened their copies. The biologist’s students peered over their professor’s shoulder.

“It’s written in gibberish,” Zane, the youngest of the trio of grad students, commented, his face screwed up.

“No, it’s a code,” Amanda corrected, fanning through the pages.

Craig cracked the third volume that still rested in his lap. He stared at the opening line.

“But what’s this script?” Craig asked. “It’s clearly not Russian Cyrillic.”

Amanda closed her book. “All the journals are like this. It’ll take a team of cryptologists to decipher them.”

“But why code it at all?” Craig asked. “What were they hiding?”

Amanda shrugged. “You may be reading too much into the code. For centuries, scientists have been paranoid about their discoveries, hiding their notes in arcane manners. Even Leonardo da Vinci wrote all his journals so that they could only be read when reflected in a mirror.”