Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [73]
As he watched the others suit up, Schofield thought about what had happened.
Whoever the killer was, he had expected that Samurai’s death would probably be attributed to his wounds. It was a good assumption. Schofield figured that had he been told that Samurai hadn’t made it, he would have immediately assumed that Samurai’s body had simply given up the fight for life and died from its wounds. That was why the killer had suffocated Samurai. Suffocation left no blood, no tell-tale marks or wounds. If there were no other wounds on the body, the story that Samurai had simply lost the battle with his bullet wounds gained credence.
What the killer had not known, however, was that asphyxiation did, in fact, leave a telltale sign – lactic acid in the trachea.
Schofield had no doubt that had he not had a doctor present at the station, the lactic acid would have gone unnoticed and Samurai’s death would have been attributed to his bullet wounds. But there had been a doctor at the station. Luc Champion. And he had spotted the acid.
The implications were as chilling as they were endless.
Were there French soldiers still at large somewhere inside the station? Someone the Marines had missed. A lone soldier, maybe, who had decided to pick off the Marines one by one, starting with the weakest of their number, Samurai.
Schofield quickly dismissed the thought. The station, its surrounds, and even the remaining French hovercraft outside had been swept thoroughly. There were no more enemy soldiers either inside or outside Wilkes Ice Station.
That created a problem.
Because it meant that whoever had killed Samurai was someone Schofield thought he could trust.
It couldn’t have been the French scientists, Champion and Rae. Since the end of the battle with the French, they had been handcuffed to the pole on E-deck.
It could have been one of the scientists from Wilkes – while Schofield was outside with Montana and Hensleigh, they were all in their common room on B-deck, unguarded by any of the Marines. But why? Why on earth would one of the scientists want to kill a wounded Marine? They had nothing to gain from killing Samurai. The Marines were here to help them.
There still remained one other alternative.
One of the Marines had killed Samurai.
The mere possibility that that might have happened sent a chill down Schofield’s spine. The fact that he had even considered it chilled him even more. But he considered it nonetheless, because aside from the residents of Wilkes, a Marine was the only other person in the station who’d had the opportunity to kill Samurai.
Schofield, Sarah and Montana had been outside when it had happened, so Schofield was at least sure about them.
As for the other Marines, however, there were difficulties.
They had all been, more or less, working alone at different places in the station when the murder had occurred. Any one of them could have done it without being detected.
Schofield checked them off one by one.
Snake. He had been on C-deck, in the alcove, working on the destroyed winch controls that raised and lowered the station’s diving bell. He had been alone.
Santa Cruz. He had been searching the station for French erasing devices. That search had turned up nothing but the VLF transmitter that now sat silently at Schofield’s feet. He had also been alone.
Rebound. Schofield thought about the young private. Rebound was the prime suspect. Schofield knew it, Rebound himself knew it. He was the one who had said to Schofield that Samurai was stable enough for him to go down to E-deck and fetch Champion. He was also the only one who had been with Samurai since the battle had ended. For all Schofield knew Samurai had been dead for over an hour, killed by Rebound long ago.
But why? It was this question that Schofield just couldn’t figure out. Rebound was young, twenty-one. He was fresh and green and eager. He followed orders immediately, and he wasn’t old enough to be jaded or cynical. The kid loved being a Marine, and he was as genuine a kid as Schofield had ever met. Schofield had thought that he had a good