Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [150]
– then Snake crash-tackled into him, and both men slid across the floor and slammed into the drilling machine in the centre of the room. The sound of the spinning plunger roared in their ears.
Schofield lay on his back, on the floor. Snake knelt astride him.
And in a sudden instant, Schofield saw that he still had the crossbow in his hands. He blinked. He must have kept hold of it when Snake had crash-tackled him.
It was then that Snake hit Schofield with a pulverising blow.
Schofield heard his nose crack and saw the blood explode outwards from his face. His head slammed back against the floor. Hard.
The world spun and for a fleeting instant Schofield blacked out. Suddenly Schofield felt a wave of panic – if he blacked out completely, that would be the end of it. Snake would kill him where he lay.
Schofield opened his eyes again and the first thing he saw was the spinning plunger of the drilling machine hovering three feet above his head!
It was right over the top of him!
Schofield saw the leading edge of the spinning cylinder – the sharply serrated leading edge – the edge that was designed to cut down through solid ice.
And then suddenly Schofield saw Snake move in front of the plunger, his face contorted with anger, and then Schofield saw Snake’s fist come rushing down at his face.
Schofield tried to raise his hands in his defence but they were still cuffed together, pinned underneath
Snake’s body. Schofield couldn’t get them up –
The blow hit home.
The world became a blur. Schofield struggled desperately to see through the haze.
He saw Snake draw his hand back again, preparing for what would no doubt be the final blow.
And then Schofield saw something off to the right.
The switch on the wall that had started the drilling machine. Schofield saw three big round buttons on the switch panel.
Black, red and green.
And then, with startling clarity, the words on the black button suddenly came into focus.
‘LOWERDRILL’.
Schofield looked up at Snake, saw the rapidly spinning plunger right above his head.
There was no way Schofield could shoot Snake with the crossbow, but if he could just angle his hands slightly, he might be able to . . .
‘Snake, you know what?’
‘What?’
‘I never liked you.’
And with that Schofield raised his cuffed hands slightly, aimed his crossbow at the big black button on the wall, and fired.
The arrow covered the distance in a millisecond and . . .
. . . hit the big black button right in its centre – pinning it to the wall behind it – just as Schofield thrust his head clear of the drilling machine and the plunger, spinning at phenomenal speed, came rushing down into the back of Snake’s head.
Schofield heard the sickening crunch of breaking bone as Snake’s whole body was yanked violently downwards – head-first – by the weight of the plunger and then suddenly, grotesquely, the plunger – its shrill buzzing filling the room – carved right through Snake’s head and a flood of thick red-and-grey ooze poured out from his skull and then with a final sprack! the plunger popped out through the other side of Snake’s head and continued on its way down into the ice hole beneath it.
Still somewhat dazed from the fight, Schofield rose to his knees. He turned away from the hideous sight of Snake’s body pinned underneath the blood-spattered drilling machine and quickly put the crossbow in his thigh pocket. Then he spun and quickly began looking about himself for any kind of weapon he could use –
Schofield’s eyes fell instantly on the body of Jean Petard, lying on the floor nearby.
Still breathing hard, Schofield crawled over to it, knelt beside it. He began rifling through the dead Frenchman’s pockets.
After a few seconds, Schofield pulled a grenade out from one of Petard’s pockets. It had writing on it: M8A3-STN.
Schofield knew what it was instantly.
A stun grenade. A flasher.
Like the one the French commandos had used earlier that morning. Schofield put the stun grenade into his breast pocket.
The door to