Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [158]
‘This is Nero,’ Schofield heard Nero’s voice whisper over the headset. ‘Subject is looking at the bridge controls over here. He looks pretty nervous about it.’
Make your enemy look at one hand . . .
Barnaby’s voice: ‘The bridge. He doesn’t want us to open the bridge. Mr Nero. Retract the bridge.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Schofield then saw Nero walk slowly toward the alcove and reach for the button that retracted the bridge. He made a point of watching Nero all the way – for this to work he needed the British to think that he was worried about them retracting the bridge . . .
‘Watson,’ Barnaby’s voice said.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘When the bridge opens, kill him. Take him out with a head shot.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Houghton. Take the girl.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Schofield felt his knees begin to shake. This was going to be close. Very, very close.
. . . while you’re doing something with the other . . .
‘Are you ready?’ Schofield said to Kirsty.
‘Uh-huh.’
In the alcove, Nero hit the large rectangular button marked ‘BRIDGE’.
There came a loud mechanical clanking sound from somewhere within the walls of the alcove and then suddenly the bridge underneath Schofield’s feet jolted as it came apart at the centre and began to retract.
As soon as the bridge began to retract, two of the SAS soldiers fired at Schofield and Kirsty, but they had already dropped out of sight and the bullets whizzed over their heads.
Schofield and Kirsty let themselves fall down into the shaft.
They fell fast.
Down and down, until they splashed into the pool at the bottom of the station.
It had happened so fast that the SAS men up on C-deck didn’t know what was going on.
It didn’t matter.
For it was then that the two nitrogen charges that Schofield had tied to the ends of the retractable portions of the bridge suddenly and explosively went off.
It was the way that Schofield had tied the nitrogen charges to the bridge with his shoelaces that did it.
He had tied them down in such a way that each nitrogen charge lay on either side of the join between the two platforms that extended out to form the bridge.
What Schofield had also done, however, was tie the pins of each nitrogen charge to the opposite platform, so that when the bridge parted, the retraction of the two platforms would pull both pins from their grenades. What he had needed, however, was for the SAS to retract the bridge.
And right up until they exploded, the SAS soldiers never saw the nitrogen charges. They had been too busy looking at Schofield, first, as he held the (unarmed) Tritonal charge above his head, and secondly, as he and Kirsty fell down into the pool.
Make your enemy look at one hand while you’re doing something with the other.
As he hit the freezing water, Schofield almost smiled. Trevor Barnaby had taught him that.
The two nitrogen charges on the bridge went off.
Supercooled liquid nitrogen blasted out in every direction on C-deck, splattering every SAS commando on the surrounding catwalk.
The results were horrifying.
Nitrogen charges are like no other grenade – for the simple fact that they do not have to penetrate the skin of their victims in order to kill them.
The theory behind their effectiveness is based on the special qualities of water – water is the only naturally occurring substance on earth that expands when it is cooled. When a human body is hit by a burst of supercooled liquid nitrogen, that body becomes very cold, very fast. Blood cells freeze instantly and, being made up of approximately 70% water, they begin to expand rapidly. The result: total body haemorrhage.
And when every single blood cell in a human body explodes it makes for a horrifying sight.
The SAS men on C-deck had their faces exposed – and that was where the liquid nitrogen hit them. So it was in their faces that the supercooled liquid nitrogen took its most devastating effect. The blood vessels under their facial skin – veins, arteries, capillaries – instantly began to rupture and then suddenly, spontaneously, they began to explode.
Black lesions instantly appeared all over their