Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [177]
The tunnel lurched suddenly and Sarah Hensleigh was thrown off balance. Renshaw seized the opportunity and dived forward, tackling her. The two of them hit the ice wall hard, but Hensleigh threw Renshaw clear of her.
Schofield was still holding Gant. He put Gant down and made to stand up but Sarah Hensleigh whirled around and pointed her gun right at his face.
‘I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I kind of liked you,’ she said.
Despite the cacophony of sound all around them, the sound of the gun going off inside the small ice tunnel was deafening.
Schofield saw Sarah Hensleigh’s chest explode with blood.
Then he saw her eyes bulge and her knees buckle as she dropped to the floor, dead.
Schofield’s Desert Eagle was still smoking when Gant put it back in Schofield’s thigh holster. Schofield had never had a chance to draw it, but Gant, down by his knees, had.
Kirsty just stared at the scene with her mouth open. Schofield rushed over to her.
‘Jesus, are you okay,’ he said. ‘Your mother . . .’
‘She wasn’t my mother,’ Kirsty said quietly.
‘Would it be all right if we talked about this later?’ Schofield asked. ‘In about twenty-two minutes this place is gonna be water vapour.’
Kirsty nodded.
‘Mr Renshaw,’ Schofield said, looking at the shuddering walls all around him. ‘What’s happening?’
Renshaw said, ‘I don’t know –’
At that moment, the whole tunnel lurched suddenly and dropped about ten inches.
‘It feels like the ice shelf has been dislodged from the mainland,’ Renshaw said. ‘It’s becoming an iceberg.’
‘An iceberg . . .’ Schofield said, his mind turning. All of a sudden, his head snapped up and he looked at Renshaw. ‘Are those elephant seals still out in that cave?’
Renshaw looked out through the fissure.
‘No,’ Renshaw said. ‘They’re gone.’
Schofield crossed the tunnel and picked up Gant in his arms, carried her toward the fissure. ‘I thought that might happen,’ he said. ‘I killed the bull. They’re probably out looking for him, now.’
‘How are we going to get out of here?’ Renshaw said.
Schofield hoisted Gant up into the fissure and pushed her through. Then he turned to face Renshaw, his eyes gleaming.
‘We’re gonna fly out of here.’
The big black fighter stood magnificently in the middle of the underground cavern – its sharply pointed nose tilted downwards and its sleek black wings swept low. Large chunks of ice rained down from the cavern’s high ceiling and exploded against its fuselage.
Schofield and the others raced across the shaking floor of the cavern and took shelter underneath the belly of the big black plane.
As Schofield held her in his arms, Gant showed him the keypad and the entry code screen.
The entry code screen glowed green.
24157817 – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
ENTER AUTHORIZED ENTRY CODE
‘Did anybody figure out the code?’ Schofield said.
‘Hensleigh was working on it, but I don’t think she ever figured it out.’
‘So we don’t know the code,’ Schofield said.
‘No, we don’t,’ Gant said.
‘Great.’
At that moment, Kirsty stepped up alongside Schofield and peered at the screen.
‘Hey,’ she said, ‘Fibonacci number.’
‘What?’ Schofield and Gant said at the same time.
Kirsty shrugged self-consciously. ‘24157817. It’s a Fibonacci number.’
‘What’s a Fibonacci number?’ Schofield said.
‘Fibonacci numbers are a kind of number sequence,’ Kirsty said. ‘It’s a sequence where each number is the sum of the two numbers before it.’ She saw the amazed looks around her. ‘My dad showed it to me. Does anybody have a pen and a piece of paper?’
Gant had the diary she had found earlier in her pocket. Renshaw had a pen. At first it dribbled with ink-coloured water, but then it worked. Kirsty began to scribble some numbers in the diary.
Kirsty said, ‘The sequence goes like this: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 and so on. You just add the first two numbers to get the third. Then you add the second and the third to get the fourth. If you just give me a minute . . .’ Kirsty said as she began to scribble frantically.
Schofield looked at his watch.
10:40 p.m.
Twenty minutes to go.
As Kirsty scribbled in