Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [174]
Schofield had to do something. He reached into his pocket, searched for whatever lay in there.
He pulled out a British nitrogen charge, looked at it for a second.
Oh, what the hell, he thought.
Schofield quickly pulled the pin on the nitrogen charge and jammed the live grenade into the open jaws of the big elephant seal.
Then he pushed himself off the big animal’s fangs and the seal shot past him in the water. It quickly realised that it had lost him, and when it did, the big seal began to turn around.
It was then that the nitrogen charge went off.
The bull seal’s head exploded. Then it imploded. And then the most shocking thing of all happened.
A wave of ice shot out from the dead seal’s body.
At first Schofield didn’t know what it was, and then suddenly he realised. It was the liquid nitrogen from the charge, expanding through the water, freezing the water as it went!
The wall of ice shot through the water towards Schofield, constantly expanding, like a living, breathing ice formation growing through the water.
Schofield watched it with wide eyes. If it enveloped him, he would be dead in an instant.
Get out of here!
And then suddenly, Schofield felt something nudge against his shoulder and he turned.
It was Wendy!
Schofield grabbed her harness and Wendy immediately sped off.
The wall of ice behind them gave chase, expanding through the water at phenomenal speed, building upon itself at an exponential rate.
Wendy swam hard, pulling Schofield with her. But he was heavier than Kirsty and she swam more slowly than she had before.
The ice wall closed in on them.
Another elephant seal swung in behind them, spying an easy meal, but the ice wall caught the big seal, enveloped it within its expanding mass and swallowed it whole, froze it within its icy belly.
Wendy swam toward the surface, deftly avoiding any elephant seals that tried to cut across her path.
She saw the surface, hauled Schofield toward it.
Behind them, the wall of ice had lost its momentum. The nitrogen from the charge had ceased expanding. The ice wall fell away behind them.
Wendy shot out from the water, with Schofield holding onto her harness. They both hit the icy floor of the cavern with a clumsy thud and Schofield found himself lying on his belly. He rolled over onto his back –
– only to see another elephant seal leap out of the water and come rushing down toward him!
Schofield rolled. The elephant seal slammed down onto the ground right next to him. Schofield leapt to his feet, spun around, looked for the others.
‘Lieutenant! Over here! Over here!’ Sarah Hensleigh’s voice yelled.
Schofield snapped around and saw Sarah Hensleigh waving from inside a small horizontal hole in the wall about fifty yards away.
Renshaw, Kirsty – and Wendy, too – were already running toward the horizontal fissure. Schofield took off after them. As he ran across the cavern, he saw Kirsty roll in through the horizontal hole, then he saw Wendy go in after her, then Renshaw.
Suddenly a wash of static cut across Schofield’s consciousness and a voice yelled loudly in his ear.
‘– you out there? Scarecrow, are you out there? Please respond!’ It was Romeo.
‘What is it, Romeo?’
‘Jesus! Where have you been? I’ve been trying to get you for the last ten minutes.
‘I’ve been busy. What is it?’
‘Get out of the station. Get out of the station now.’
‘I can’t do that now, Romeo,’ Schofield said as he ran.
‘Scarecrow, you don’t understand. Air Force just called us. A group of F-22s just shot down a British fighter about 250 nautical miles out, but the bogey got a shot off before it was hit.’ Romeo paused. ‘Scarecrow, it’s heading right for Wilkes Ice Station. Satellite scans of radiation emissions from the missile indicate that it is nuclear.’
Schofield felt a chill run down his spine as he ran. He came to the fissure in the wall and dropped to the ground, baseball-style, and slid through the horizontal fissure.
‘How long?’ he asked when he landed inside the small tunnel. He ignored the others standing around him.
‘243 miles at 400 miles