Ice Hunt

The peaks were rushing at them. The plane’s speed had hardly slowed. With skis for landing gear, the Otter had no hydraulic brakes—just flaps and friction. She had plenty of the former, little of the latter.

Still, after a decade of mushing in a dog sled, Jenny knew the delicate physics of ice and steel runners.

The Otter continued to skate toward the towering cliffs, sliding toward a certain crash. Jenny had already recognized the inevitable.

She was going to lose her plane.

“This is going to hurt,” she mumbled.

As the plane swept toward the cliff face, she prayed the ice remained slick. Everything depended on her flaps—and timing.

She watched the cliffs grow in front of her. She counted in her head, then at the last moment, she dropped the flaps on the starboard side and continued to brake with the other. The nimble plane fishtailed, spinning around like an Olympic figure skater.

The tail assembly swept backward and struck the cliff, absorbing a fair amount of the impact and tearing away in the process. Jenny jerked in her seat harness as the plane jarred. The wing glanced next, taking more of the impact, crumpling up and away. Then the cabin hit, striking the cliff broadside—but since the worst of the impact had already been absorbed by the tail and wing, their collision was no more than a fender bender.

Everyone was shaken but alive.

Bane climbed back into his seat from the floor, looking none too pleased by the whole experience. Jenny turned to Kowalski. He reached out with both hands, grabbed her cheeks, and kissed her full on the mouth.

“Let’s never fight again,” he said.

Outside, the engine on the crumpled wing broke away and hit the ice.

“We’d better get out of here,” Tom said.

They hauled out of the plane. Before climbing free, Jenny removed some supplies from the emergency locker: a flashlight, a pair of extra parkas and mittens, a large coil of poly-line rope, a flare gun, and a pocketful of extra flares. She glanced to the empty hooks that normally held her service shotgun and silently cursed Sewell for confiscating it.

She exited the broken plane and tossed one of the spare parkas to Kowalski.

“Looks like Christmas came early,” he muttered as he pulled into it. It was too small for his large frame. The sleeves rode four inches up his forearm, but he didn’t complain.

Jenny quaked in the winds, but at least she was sheltered by the cliffs, the worst of the storm blunted. She quickly donned her parka.

Bane trotted around the wreckage, then lifted his leg. His yellow stream misted steamily in the frigid cold.

Kowalski stared a moment. “Damn smart dog. If I had to go, I’d be doing the same thing, too. Remind me from here on out never to get into anything smaller than a 747.”

“Be respectful. She gave all she had to get you here.” Jenny stared at the wreckage, feeling a surprisingly deep pang of regret at the loss.

Tom tugged his parka tighter around his boyish shoulders. “Where now?”

“Off to where we’re not welcome,” Kowalski answered. He pointed to the mountain range. “Let’s see if we can sneak in the back door.”

As they headed off, Jenny asked, “Where does this supposed hidden ventilation shaft lead?”

Tom explained the base’s air circulation system. It functioned without pumps. Shafts were simply drilled from the surface to the deepest levels of the station—even below the station. The colder surface air, being heavier than the warmer air below would sink into these shafts and displace the warmer stagnant air. “This creates a passive circulation system,” Tom finished. “The fresh air is pocketed in a cavern system that wraps around the station. A reservoir of clean air, so to speak. It is then heated through baffles and used to service the station.”

“So the ventilation shaft empties into this cavern system?” Jenny asked.

Kowalski nodded. “We should be safe once we get there.”

Tom agreed. “We call it the Crawl Space.”

2:13 P.M.

ICE STATION GRENDEL

Matt fled with the others down the circular hall as it wound the circumference of this research level. To his right, he marched past the gruesome tanks, one after the other. Matt found himself counting. He was up to twenty-two.

He forced himself to stop. The tanks continued around the bend. There had to be fifty at least. He turned to the other wall of plate steel. It was interrupted by a few windows into offices, some sealed doors, and a few open hatches. He peered through one of these and spotted a hall of small barred cells. And in another, a larger barracks facility.

Here is where they must’ve housed the prisoners, Matt thought. He could only imagine the terror of these folk. Did they know their eventual fate?

Dr. Ogden trailed at Matt’s heels, while Amanda strode ahead of him. The biologist would occasionally rub at the frosted glass of a tank with the cuff of his sleeve, peer inside, and mutter.

Matt shook his head. He hadn’t the stomach for further scientific curiosity. He only wanted to get the hell out of here, back to the Alaskan backcountry, where all you had to fear was a hungry grizzly.

Behind him, a loud clang echoed from the main lab. The Russians were breaking in. After the threat from that icy voice, the group had fled, heading farther into this level.

Bratt led them. “It should be another ten yards or so.” He clutched a set of folded station plans in his hand.

Craig kept peering over the commander’s shoulder at the papers. The schematics came from a material sciences researcher from the NASA group. The scientist had mapped the entire physical plant of the station. Matt prayed the man knew his business.

Greer yelled. He was farther down the hall, scouting ahead. “Over here!” The lieutenant had dropped to one knee. A hatch lay between two tanks. Conduits and piping led out from it and spread to either side, trailing out along floorboards and ceiling to service the awful experiment.

Pearlson indicated a diagram plated to the wall above the hatch. It was the layout of this level. He tapped a large red X on the map. “You are here,” he muttered.

Matt studied the map, then glanced forward and back. They were at the midpoint of the storage hall. Halfway around this level.

Pearlson and Greer set to work unscrewing the panel, using steel scalpels. Around them, everyone carried pilfered weapons found in the labs before they fled: additional scalpels, bone saws, steel hammers, even a pair of meat hooks wielded by Washburn. Matt did not want to speculate on the surgical use of those wicked tools. He himself carried a yard-long length of steel pipe.