Ice Hunt

“What are you asking?” Jenny said.

“I need someone to come with us who can read the Inuktitut.” His gaze flicked between her and her father. “We must know if there are any directions or hints in the books.”

“You want one of us to go with you?” Jenny stepped in front. “Don’t you think we’ve put our necks out far enough in this matter? Sacrificed enough?”

“And your knowledge could still save lives. Dr. Ogden, his students, and anyone else holed up over there. I won’t force you to come, but I do need you.”

Jenny glanced to her father, then back to Craig. Her eyes were full of suspicion, but she was clearly a woman of strong reserves. “I’ll go under one condition.”

Craig looked relieved.

Jenny patted her empty holster. “I want my goddamn pistol back.”

Craig nodded. “Don’t worry. This time around, we’re all going armed.”

This seemed to relieve her.

Amanda stood to the side as final preparations were made. Through a window, she watched Craig hunch next to Delta One out in the snow. The storm was kicking up again, but she could almost make out their lips. She turned to Lieutenant Commander Sewell. He was overseeing his own men. They would defend the base until the Delta team returned. The entire team was leaving on this last mission.

“Commander Sewell,” she said. “Could I borrow your field binoculars?”

He frowned but passed her his pair from a pocket of his parka.

Amanda focused on Craig and Delta One as they conversed under one of the lamp poles.

“Is everything ready here?” Craig asked.

A curt nod. Amanda read the tension at the corner of Delta One’s eyes. She also read his lips. “All is ready. The Russians will be blamed.”

A figure stepped to her side, startling her. She turned. It was John Aratuk.

“What are you watching?” he asked.

Amanda prepared to answer, ready to voice her fear and suspicions. But as terror iced through her, a new sensation arose—a familiar one.

No…it wasn’t possible.

The tiniest hairs vibrated on her arms. She felt the telltale tingle behind her deafened ears. But it sounded like alarm bells to her now.

Could the grendels have traveled all the way here?

“What’s wrong?” John asked, sensing her panic.

She turned to him, rubbing the tingling hairs on her arms. “Sonar…”

7:31 P.M.

ICE STATION GRENDEL

Matt held the boy’s hand and followed him down the hall, back through the prison wing, and around to the outer circular hall.

“Malinnga!” the boy repeated. Follow me!

Behind Matt, the Russian admiral followed. Viktor Petkov was accompanied by the two armed guards. There was no chance of a quick escape. Matt feared for little Maki’s safety. He would not abandon the boy.

While they passed through the prison section, his fellow captives cast questioning glances toward him. Dr. Ogden’s gaze traveled to the boy. Matt saw the shock of surprise on his face.

Matt clutched the tiny fingers, so warm in his palm. It seemed impossible that this was the same child who’d been frozen in ice only hours ago. He flashed back on his own son, Tyler, walking with him hand in hand. Both boys had died in ice, but now one had returned.

As the two entered the curving wall of tanks, the boy stared at the hazy figures inside. Did he know what they held? Were his own parents inside one of these tanks?

Maki pushed a thumb in his mouth, eyes round and wide. He hurried past, scared.

Petkov spoke behind them. “Does he know where he’s going?”

Matt relayed the question in Inuktitut.

“Ii,” Maki answered around his thumb, nodding his head.

The hall curved to its end. A wall appeared ahead, blocking the way. They had circled the entire level. There was no way forward. No door.

The boy continued toward the passage’s end. To the right, the tanks finally ended. Maki led Matt toward the blank section of wall. It appeared seamless and solid, but the boy’s tiny fingers found a small hidden panel. It swung in, revealing a foot-wide brass control wheel.

Maki played with the panel, swinging it back and forth. He spoke in Inuktitut. Matt translated for Petkov. “He says past here is your secret room.”

The admiral gently moved the boy’s arm out of the way and stared at the brass wheel. He stepped back and waved Matt forward. “Open it.”

Matt bent to the hole and grabbed the wheel. It wouldn’t budge, frozen solid. “I need a crowbar,” he gasped as he struggled.

The boy reached under the wheel and flipped a hidden catch. The wheel immediately spun in his hand, well oiled and preserved.

As the wide handle revolved to a stop, seals popped with a slight hiss. A full section of the wall cracked open. A secret door.

Matt was guided back at gunpoint. Another of the guards stepped forward and pulled the door open.

The cold flowed out as if from an open freezer. Lights flickered on, revealing that it was indeed an icebox inside. Similar to the service huts, it was another room cut directly out of the island. But it was no maintenance closet, but a lab sculpted from the blue ice.

Abutting the three walls were worktables carved from the ice. Shelves of slab ice rose above them, covered with an assortment of stainless-steel equipment: crude centrifuges, measuring pipettes, graduated cyclinders. But the shelves of the back wall, lit by a row of bare lightbulbs, had cored receptacles drilled into them. Inserted into each of the holes were glass syringes, their plungers sticking up. The ice was glassy enough to see through to the amber-colored liquid filling each of the syringe’s chambers. There had to be over fifty of the loaded doses.

Matt stared around as he stepped into the ice lab. Work must have been done in a totally frozen state.

The boy entered, still sucking his thumb. His eyes grew wider. He stared into the room, then back out toward the Russian admiral.

Matt understood his confused expression.

“Papa,” the boy said in Inuktitut, then repeated it in Russian.

Upon the floor slumped a figure, seated, legs out, head lolled. Even through the frost on the features, there could be no doubt who it was. The family’s snow-white hair was unmistakable.

A gasp from Petkov confirmed the identity. He shoved forward, dropping to his knees before the body and reaching out.

The elder Petkov’s face was tinged blue, the clothes frosted with rime and ice. One sleeve had been rolled up. A cracked syringe lay on the floor. Blood trailed from a puncture on the inside of the arm to the needle.