Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [147]
The nitrogen charge exploded.
Supercooled liquid nitrogen splattered everything in sight. The gooey, blue poxy smacked against the boulders the Marines were hiding behind, splattered against the walls of the cavern. Some of it even hit the big black ship standing in the middle of the enormous cave.
It was the perfect diversion.
Because no sooner had the nitrogen charge gone off than the first SAS commando was charging out of the water with his gun pressed to his shoulder and his finger jamming down on the trigger.
The diving bell was almost at the surface now. It continued its slow rise upward.
An angry commander, acting under the influence of rage or frustration, will almost certainly get his unit killed.
Trevor Barnaby’s words echoed inside Shane Schofield’s head. Schofield ignored them.
After he had seen Barnaby feed Book Riley to the killer whales, his anger had become intense. He wanted to kill Barnaby. He wanted to rip his heart out and serve it up to him on a –
Schofield untied the length of cable wrapped around his waist and ripped the two bulky sixties wetsuits off his body. Then he grabbed his MP-5 and chambered a round. If he didn’t kill Barnaby, then he was damn well going to take out as many of them as he could.
As he readied his gun, Schofield saw a small Samsonite carry case on one of the shelves of the diving bell. He opened it. And saw a row of blue nitrogen charges sitting in a cushioned interior, like eggs in an egg-box.
The SAS must have left them here when they went down to the cave, Schofield thought as he grabbed one of the nitrogen charges and put it in his pocket.
Schofield looked outside. The killer whales, it seemed, had disappeared for the moment. For a brief instant, Schofield wondered where they had gone.
‘What are you doing?’ Renshaw said.
‘You’ll see,’ Schofield said as he stepped around the circular pool at the base of the diving bell.
‘You’re going out there?’ Renshaw said in disbelief. ‘You’re leaving me here?’
‘You’ll be okay.’ Schofield tossed Renshaw his Desert Eagle pistol. ‘If they come for you, use that.’
Renshaw caught the gun. Schofield didn’t even notice. He just turned around, and without even a second glance back at Renshaw, stepped off the metal deck of the diving bell and dropped into the water.
The water was near-freezing but Schofield didn’t care.
He kept hold of the diving bell and climbed up one of its exterior pipes, pulled himself up onto its spherical roof.
They were almost up at the station now.
And as soon as they got there, Schofield thought, as soon as they broke the surface, he was going to let rip with the most devastating burst of gunfire the SAS had ever seen – aimed first and foremost at Trevor J. Barnaby.
The diving bell rose through the water, approaching the surface.
Any second now, Schofield thought as he gripped his MP-5.
Any second . . .
The diving bell broke the surface with a loud splash.
And there, standing on top of it, holding onto its winch cable, dripping with water, was Lieutenant Shane Schofield, with his MP-5 raised.
But Schofield didn’t fire.
He blanched.
The whole of E-deck was lined with at least twenty SAS troopers. They stood in a ring around the pool, surrounding the diving bell.
And they all had their guns trained on Shane Schofield.
Barnaby stepped out from the southern tunnel, smiling. Schofield turned and saw him, and as he did so, he cursed himself, cursed his anger, cursed his impulsiveness, for he knew now that in the heat of the moment, in the pure anger that he had felt following Book’s death, he had just made the biggest mistake of his life.
Shane Schofield tossed his MP-5 over to the deck. It clattered against the metal decking. The SAS commandos caught hold of the diving bell with a long hook and pulled it through the water toward the deck.
Schofield’s mind was working again, and with crystal clarity. In the moment that he had broken the surface and seen the SAS troops with their guns pointed at him, his senses had returned with all their force.
He hoped to hell that Renshaw was keeping