Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [140]
On the screen, he saw the same view of E-deck that he had seen when he was in Renshaw’s room earlier. The view from the camera on the underside of the retractable bridge on C-deck, looking straight down on E-deck.
Schofield froze.
He saw people on the screen.
SAS troops with guns. Snake still cuffed to the pole. And Trevor Barnaby, pacing slowly around E-deck.
And there was one other person.
There on the deck, down at Barnaby’s feet, having his feet tied up, was Book Riley.
‘All right, hoist him up,’ Barnaby said, once Nero had finished tying the Maghook’s cable around Book’s ankles.
Somebody else had already splayed out the Maghook’s rope and tossed its launcher over the retractable bridge on C-deck, creating a pulley-like mechanism.
Nero took the launcher from one of the other British commandos and wedged its grip between two rungs of the rung-ladder between E-deck and D-deck. Then he pressed the black button on the launcher that reeled in the rope.
As a result of the pulley mechanism – the rope being stretched taut over the bridge on C-deck – Book was suddenly lifted off the deck by his ankles. His hands were still cuffed behind his back. He swung out over the pool and dangled helplessly – head-down – in the air above the water.
‘What the hell are they doing?’ Renshaw asked as he and Schofield stared at the black-and-white monitor.
On the monitor they could see Book dangling directly beneath them, hanging from his own Maghook out over the water.
At that moment, the diving bell rocked slightly, and Schofield grabbed the wall to steady himself.
‘What was that?’ Renshaw said quickly.
Schofield didn’t have to answer him.
The answer lay right outside the windows of the slow-moving bell.
Several large dark shapes rose through the water all around the diving bell, their distinctive black-and-white outlines all too familiar.
The pod of killer whales.
They were heading up toward the station.
The first dorsal fin pierced the surface of the water and a murmur went up among the twenty or so SAS troops gathered around the pool on E-deck.
Book was still dangling upside-down above the pool. He saw it, too: the enormous black outline of a killer whale gliding slowly through the water beneath him. Book began to wriggle, but it was no use – his hands were firmly cuffed, his feet firmly bound.
His dogtags began to slip over his head. A couple of seconds later they dropped off his chin and plonked down into the water and sank fast.
Barnaby watched the killer whales from the poolside deck. ‘This should make things very interesting.’
At that moment, one of his corporals came up to him. It was the same corporal who had reported to him before. ‘Sir, the Tritonal charges are all set.’
The corporal offered Barnaby a small black unit the size of a thick calculator. It had a numbered keypad on it. ‘The detonation unit, sir.’
Barnaby took it. ‘How are the outer markers looking?’
‘We have five men stationed along the outer perimeter monitoring the horizon with laser rangefinders, sir. Last check, there was no one within fifty miles of this place, sir.’
‘Good,’ Barnaby said. ‘Good.’
He turned his attention back to the pool and the American Marine hanging helplessly above it.
‘Gives us a little time for some R&R,’ Barnaby said.
‘Jesus, can’t this thing go any faster,’ Schofield said as he stared at the depth counter. It ticked slowly downward as they rose through the water. They were still 190 feet from the surface. Still at least seven minutes away.
Schofield watched the image of Book on the screen.
‘Shit!’ Schofield said. ‘Shit!’
‘Mr Nero,’ Barnaby said.
Nero pressed a button on the Maghook’s launcher and suddenly, the Maghook began to play out its rope and Book began to descend toward the pool, head-first.
The water beneath him was choppy. Killer whales sliced through it in every direction. Suddenly, one of them rose above the surface beneath Book and blew a spray of water out of its blowhole.
Book’s head descended toward the water. He was one foot above it when he jolted to