Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [144]
Pete Cameron waited for Trent to say something more, but he didn’t. And then suddenly, Trent looked up into Cameron’s eyes.
‘Son of a bitch,’ Trent said. ‘Scarecrow’s down there.’
‘What do you mean?’ Alison said a few minutes later. ‘You think there are Marines down at that station?’
‘We think so, yes,’ Cameron said, excited.
‘Jesus, there’s a secondary team en route, too,’ Trent said, looking down at the notes again. ‘Shit.’
Trent turned to Cameron. ‘Hang up for a second. I have to make a phone call.’
Cameron told Alison he’d call her back.
Trent quickly dialled a number. Cameron just watched him.
‘Yes, hi, Personnel, please,’ Trent said into the phone. He waited a second, then said, ‘Yes, hi, I was wondering if you could tell me where I could find Lieutenant Shane Schofield, please. It’s a family emergency. Yes, I’ll hold.’
Trent waited a full minute before someone returned to the line.
‘Yes, hi,’ Trent said. ‘What – oh, I’m his brother-in-law, Michael.’ There was a pause. ‘Oh, no,’ Trent said softly. ‘Oh my God. Yes, thank you. Goodbye.’
Trent practically slammed the phone down. He turned to Cameron. ‘Holy shit.’
‘What?’
‘According to the United States Marine Corps Personnel Department, First Lieutenant Shane M. Schofield died in a training accident in the South Pacific at 0930 hours yesterday morning. Arrangements are being made to contact his family right now.’
Cameron frowned. ‘He’s dead?’
‘According to them he is,’ Trent said softly. ‘But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true, now does it.’ Trent paused. ‘The secondary team . . .’
‘What about it?’
‘There’s a secondary team on its way to Wilkes Ice Station right now, right?’
‘Yeah . . .’
‘And according to the United States Marine Corps, Shane Schofield is already dead, right?’
‘Yeah . . .’
Trent thought about that for a long moment. Then he looked up suddenly. ‘Schofield’s found something. They’re gonna kill him.’
Cameron got Alison back on the phone.
‘Quick, send it through now,’ he said.
‘All right. All right. Just hold on a second, honey buns,’ Alison said. Cameron heard the clicking of computer keys at the other end of the line.
‘Okay, I’m sending it through now,’ Alison said.
On the far side of the living room, Trent flicked on his computer. He clicked through several screens, came to his e-mail screen.
A small information bar at the bottom of the screen blinked:
YOU HAVE NEW MAIL.
trent clicked on the ‘open’ icon.
A list appeared immediately on the screen:
ALL-STATES LIBRARY DATABASE
SEARCH BY KEYWORD
SEARCH STRING USED: LATITUDE – 66.5°
LONGITUDE 115° 20’ 12”
NO. OF ENTRIES FOUND: 6
TITLE AUTHOR LOCATION YEAR
DOCTORAL THESIS LLEWELLYN, D.K. STANFORD, CT 1998
DOCTORAL THESIS AUSTIN, B.E. STANFORD, CT 1997
POST-DOCTORAL THESIS HENSLEIGH, S.T. USC, CA 1997
FELLOWSHIP GRANT RESEARCH PAPER HENSLEIGH, B.M. HARVARD, MA 1996
‘THE ICE CRUSADE – REFLECTIONS ON A YEAR SPENT IN ANTARCTICA’
HENSLEIGH, B.M.
HARVARD, MA
AVAIL: AML
1995
PRELIMINARY SURVEY WAITZKIN, C.M. LIBCONG 1978
* * *
It was the list Alison had got from the All States Database. The list of every work that referred to Latitude – 66.5° and Longitude 115° 20’ 12”.
‘All right,’ Pete said.
‘What are you going to do with it?’ Alison’s voice said over the speaker phone.
‘We’re gonna use this list to find their addresses,’ Trent said, typing quickly at the keyboard. ‘The e-mail addresses of the academics down in Antarctica, so we can send a message to Schofield.’
‘We figure that most university professors have e-mail,’ Pete said, ‘and we’re hoping that Wilkes Ice Station is patched in to a satellite phone so that the message can get through.’
Suddenly Trent said, ‘All right, I got one! Hensleigh, Sarah T. The e-mail address is at USC in California, but it’s been routed to an external address: sarahhensleigh@wilkes. edu.us. That’s it!’
Trent typed some more.
‘All right,’ he said a minute later. ‘Excellent. They’ve got a universal address down