Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [53]
Schofield was about to open his eyes when suddenly, there came a new noise from his right. It sounded like someone doing up a zipper really, really fast.
Schofield spun right and opened his eyes and his green world streaked laterally. His eyes searched the empty shaft, but he saw nothing.
‘Ah, shit!’ Cruz said. ‘Sir! One of them just went over the railing!’
The zipping sound that Schofield had just heard suddenly made sense. It had been the sound of someone rappelling down the central shaft on a rope.
Schofield froze for a split second.
Such a move wasn’t a defensive move at all.
It was a co-ordinated move, a planned move, an attacking move.
The French weren’t actually on the run.
They were carrying out a plan of their own.
Make your enemy look at one hand while you’re doing something with the other . . .
Like a chess player caught in check a second before he intends to play his own killing move, Schofield felt his mind start to spin.
What were they up to?
What was their plan?
In the end he didn’t have time to think about it, because no sooner had he heard Santa Cruz’s message than a volley of arrows thudded into the ice wall all around him. Schofield ducked and spun and saw Gant dive to the floor behind him and then he spun back round and before he knew what was happening, a figure slid down the rung-ladder in front of him and Schofield found himself standing face-to-face with the Frenchman he knew as Jacques Latissier.
Rebound was crouched over Mother in the storeroom on E-deck.
Mother had tough veins, and, to make it even more difficult, Rebound was wearing his night-vision goggles as he tried to get the needle into her arm. He’d missed the vein on his first four attempts, and he had only now just managed to get the IV line flowing into Mother’s arm.
The IV done, Rebound stood up and was about to leave Mother when, strangely, he heard the sound of soft footsteps hurrying down the tunnel outside the darkened storeroom.
Rebound froze.
Listened.
The sound of the footsteps faded as they hurried off down the southern tunnel outside.
Rebound stepped forward and grabbed the doorknob, and slowly, quietly, turned it. The door opened and Rebound peered out into the tunnel through his night-vision goggles.
He looked left and saw the pool. Small waves lapped against the sides of the deck.
He looked right, and saw a long, straight tunnel stretching away from him into darkness. He recognised it immediately as the elongated southern tunnel of E-deck that led to the station’s drilling room.
Since it was the lowest level in the ice station, E-deck housed the station’s drilling room – the room from which the scientists drilled down into the ice to obtain their ice cores. So as to maximise the depths to which the scientists could drill, the drilling room had been constructed as far into the ice shelf as possible – to the south of the station, where the ice was deepest. The room was connected to the main station complex by a long, narrow tunnel that stretched for at least forty metres.
Rebound heard the soft footsteps disappear down the long tunnel to his right.
After a short moment of pause, he raised his Maghook and ventured out into the tunnel after them.
Schofield fired his Maghook at Latissier.
The Frenchman ducked fast and the grappling hook thundered over the top of him and flew through the rung-ladder behind him. The hook looped itself over one of the rungs and knotted itself tight against the ladder.
Schofield threw his Maghook down and raised his crossbow at the same time as Latissier levelled his own at Schofield.
The two men fired at the same time.
The arrows whistled through the air, crossing each other in mid-flight.
Latissier’s arrow slammed into Schofield’s armoured shoulderplate. Schofield’s arrow lodged in Latissier’s hand as the big Frenchman covered his face with his forearm. He roared with pain as he frantically began to reload his crossbow with his good hand.
Schofield quickly looked down at his own crossbow.
The French