Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [141]
‘Mr Riley!’ Barnaby called from the safety of the deck.
‘What?’
‘Rule Britannia, Mr Riley!’
Nero hit the button again and Book’s head and upper body plunged underwater.
No sooner was Book underwater than a line of sharp
white teeth whooshed past his face.
Book’s eyes went wide.
There were so many of them! Killer whales all around him. A slow-moving forest of black and white. The whales seemed to prowl around the water.
And then suddenly Book saw one of them spot him, saw it turn suddenly in the water and come at him – at speed.
Book hung there, upside-down in the water, totally exposed, unable to move.
The killer charged at him.
The SAS commandos cheered when they saw the enormous dorsal fin of the killer make a bee line for the submerged Marine.
In the diving bell, Schofield was glued to the monitor.
‘Come on, Book,’ he said. ‘Tell me you’ve got something up your sleeve.’
Book shook his hands behind his back. The cuffs wouldn’t budge.
The killer came at him.
Fast.
It opened its jaws and rolled onto its side and –
– slid past him, brushing roughly against the side of Book’s body.
The SAS commandos booed.
In the diving bell, Schofield breathed a sighed of relief.
Behind him, Renshaw said softly, ‘It’s over.’
‘What do you mean, it’s over?’
‘Remember what I told you before. They stake their claim with the first pass. Then they eat you.’
Book screamed with frustration under the water.
He couldn’t get his hands free.
Couldn’t . . . get . . . his . . . hands . . . free . . .
And then he saw the killer whale again.
It was coming at him a second time. The same whale.
The killer whale powered through the water, faster this time, moving with purpose, its high dorsal fin cutting hard through the chop.
Book saw its jaws open again, and this time he saw the white teeth and the pink tongue and as it came closer and closer his terror became extreme.
The killer whale didn’t roll sideways this time.
It didn’t brush past him this time.
No, this time, the seventon killer whale ploughed into Book with pulverising force and before Book even knew what had hit him, the big whale’s jaws came crashing down around his head.
Inside the diving bell, Schofield stared at the monitor in silence.
‘Holy Christ,’ Renshaw breathed from behind him.
The image on the screen was absolutely horrifying.
A fountain of blood spewed out from the water. The whale had crunched into Book’s suspended body and consumed his entire upper half. Now it was shaking the corpse violently, trying to wrench it free from the rope – like a great white shark grappling with a piece of meat hung out over the side of a boat.
Schofield didn’t say anything.
He swallowed back the vomit welling in his throat.
Down in the cavern, Montana and Sarah Hensleigh stared at the screen above the keypad. Gant had left them. She had gone back over to the fissure she had found at the other end of the cavern.
Sarah Hensleigh stared at the screen.
24157817 – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
ENTER AUTHORIZED ENTRY CODE
‘It’s a way in,’ she said.
Eight digits were already displayed on the screen. 24157817. Then there were sixteen blank spaces to be filled in with the entry code.
‘Sixteen gaps to fill,’ Montana said. ‘But what’s the entry code?’
‘More numbers,’ Hensleigh said thoughtfully. ‘It’s got to be some kind of numerical code, a code that follows on from the eight numbers already on the screen.’
‘But even if we could figure out the code, how do we insert it into the spaces?’ Montana said.
Sarah Hensleigh leaned forward and pressed the first black button on the keypad.
A number ‘1’ appeared instantly on the screen – in the first blank space.
Montana frowned. ‘How did you know that?’
Hensleigh shrugged. ‘If this thing has instructions written in English, then it’s man-made. Which means this keypad is also man-made. Which means it’s probably just a regular keypad, with numbers set out on it like on a calculator or a telephone. Who knows, maybe the guys who built it just didn’t get round to putting numbers on it.’
Hensleigh