Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [153]
His head entered the murky red water first. Then his shoulders. Then his chest, his stomach, his elbows . . .
But then, just as Schofield’s wrists were about to go under, Schofield quickly twisted the cigarette in his fingers and pointed it toward the loop of magnesium detonator cord that he had now looped around the chain-link of his handcuffs.
Schofield had seen the detonator cord when he had been standing on the deck only moments before. He had forgotten that he’d tied a loop of it around his wrist back in Little America IV. The SAS, when they had frisked him and relieved him of all his weapons earlier, must have missed it, too.
The burning tip of the cigarette touched the detonator cord a split second before Schofield’s wrists disappeared below the surface.
The detonator cord ignited instantly, just as Schofield’s wrists disappeared into the inky red water.
It burned bright white, even under the water, and cut through the chain-link of Schofield’s handcuffs like a knife through butter. Suddenly Schofield’s hands broke apart, free.
At that moment, a pair of jaws burst through the red haze around Schofield’s head and Schofield saw the enormous eye of a killer whale looking right at him. And then suddenly, it disappeared back into the haze and was gone.
Schofield’s heart was racing. He couldn’t see a thing. The water around him was impenetrable. Just a murky cloud of red.
And then suddenly a series of bizarre-sounding clicks began to echo through the water around him.
Click-click.
Click-click.
Schofield frowned. What was it? The killers?
And then it hit him.
Sonar.
Shit!
The killer whales were using sonar clicks to find him in the murky water. Many whales were known to use sonar – sperm whales, blue whales, killers. The principle was simple: the whale made a loud click with its tongue, the click travelled through the water, bounced off any object in the water, and returned to the whale – revealing to it the object’s location. Sonar units on man-made submarines operated on the same principle.
Schofield was desperately searching the cloudy red haze around him – searching for the whales – when suddenly one of them exploded out of the haze and rushed toward him.
Schofield screamed underwater, but the whale slid past him, brushing roughly against the side of his body.
It was then that Schofield remembered what Renshaw had told him earlier about the killer whales’ hunting behaviour.
They brush past you to establish ownership.
Then they eat you.
Schofield did a vertical sit-up, broke the surface. He heard the SAS commandos on E-deck cheer. He ignored them, gulped in air, went under again.
He didn’t have much time. The killer whale that had just staked its claim on him would be coming back any second now.
Loud clicks echoed through the red water around him.
And then suddenly, a thought struck Schofield.
Sonar . . .
Shit, Schofield thought, patting his pockets, do I still have it?
He did.
Schofield pulled Kirsty Hensleigh’s plastic asthma puffer from his pocket. He pressed the releasing button and a short line of fat bubbles rushed out from the puffer.
Okay, need a weight.
Need something to weigh it down . . .
Schofield saw them instantly.
Quickly, he pulled his stainless steel dogtags from around his neck and looped their neckchain around the puffer’s releasing button so that it held it down.
A continuous stream of fat bubbles began to rush out from the puffer.
Schofield felt the body of water around him rock and sway. Somewhere out in the red murk of the pool, that killer whale was coming back for him.
Schofield quickly released the small asthma puffer, now weighed down by his steel dogtags.
The puffer sank instantly, leaving a trail of fat bubbles shooting up through the water behind it. After a second, the puffer sank into the murky red haze and Schofield lost sight of it.
A moment later, the killer whale roared out of the haze, coming right at Schofield, its jaws bared wide.
Schofield just stared