Ice Station (28 page)

The hole on the door got wider.

Schofield started removing the vertical planks with him, and soon the
hole was wide enough for a man to fit through.

“Stand back,” Schofield said.

Renshaw took a step back as Schofield dived, headfirst, through the
hole in the door. He rolled to his feet on the other side and
immediately ran off down the tunnel.

“Wait!” Renshaw yelled. “Where are you going!”

“E-deck!” Schofield's voice echoed back.

And then suddenly Schofield was gone and Renshaw was alone in his
room, staring at the empty square hole he had made in the door.

He peered out through it after Schofield.

“I never dived through it like that,” he said.

Schofield ran.

The walls of the curved outer tunnel streaked past him. He was
breathing hard. His heart pounded loudly inside his head. He turned
left, headed toward the central shaft.

A thousand thoughts ran through his mind as he raced through the
tunnels of B-deck.

He thought of the tattoo on the shoulder plate of the man who had shot
him. A cobra. A snake.

Snake.

The mere concept was too bizarre for Schofield to comprehend. Snake
was a highly decorated Marine. One of the longest-serving members in
the Corps, let alone Schofield's unit. Why would he throw it all
away by doing something like this? Why would he kill his own men?

And then Schofield thought about Mother.

Snake was down on E-deck with Mother.

It made sense. Snake had already killed Samurai, the weakest member of
Schofield's team. Mother—with one leg and heavily dosed up
on methadone—would be another easy target.

Schofield hit the B-deck catwalk on the fly. He ran for the
rung-ladder and slid down it fast C-deck. He slid down the next
rung-ladder—D-deek—and then the next.

He was on E-deck now. He ran across the pool deck, past the lapping
waves of the pool, and headed for the south tunnel.

He entered the south tunnel and saw the door to Mother's
storeroom.

Schofield approached the open doorway to the storeroom cautiously. He
unholstered his Maghook—he still couldn't use his pistol in
the gaseous environment of the station—and held it out in front
of him like a gun.

He approached the doorway, came to it. Then he took one last deep
breath and then...

... he turned fast into the doorway, his Maghook up and ready.

He saw the scene inside.

And his jaw dropped.

“Holy shit,” he breathed.

They were on the floor of the storeroom.

Mother and Snake.

At first, Schofield just stared at them, stared at the scene.

Mother was stretched out on the floor, with her back up against one of
the walls. She had her good leg extended across the room, pressed up
against Snake's throat, pinning him to a thick wooden shelf filled
with scuba tanks. Her boot was pressed hard against his
throat, pushing his chin upward, squeezing his face back against the
sturdy wooden shelf. She also held her Colt automatic pistol cupped in
her hands, extended in the perfect shooting position. Pointed right at
Snake's face.

The gaseous environment of the station obviously didn't bother
her.

Mother glared at Snake down the barrel of her gun. Blood dripped
freely from two deep gashes above her left eye. It dripped down off
her eyebrow, smacking down onto her left cheek like droplets of water
from a leaking tap. Mother didn't notice the blood—she just
stared right through it, into the eyes of the man who had
tried to kill her.

For his part, Snake was pinned to the wooden shelf. Every now and then
he would attempt to struggle, but Mother had all the leverage.
Whenever he tried to wriggle out of her hold, she would press down
hard on his Adam's apple with her big Size 12. Mother was choking
him with her foot.

The room around them looked like a bomb had hit it.

Wooden shelves lay twisted on the floor, splintered and shattered.
Scuba tanks rolled aimlessly across the floor. A
knife—Snake's—lay on the floor. Blood dripped off its
blade.

Slowly, Mother turned her head and looked over at Schofield, who was
still just standing in the doorway, stunned.

Her chest heaved up and down. She was still breathing hard from the
fight.

“Well, Scarecrow,” she said, taking another breath.
“You think this was easy? Are you just gonna fucking
stand there, or what?”

Pete Cameron pulled his Toyota to a stop outside
14 Newbury Street, Lake Arthur, New Mexico.

Fourteen Newbury was a pleasant-looking white weatherboard cottage.
Its front garden was immaculate—perfectly cut grass, a rock
garden, even a small pond. It looked like the home of a
retiree—the home of someone who had the time, and the
inclination, to take loving care of it.

Cameron looked at the business card again. “All right, Andrew
Wilcox, let's see what you've got to say.”

Cameron stepped up onto the porch and knocked on the screen door.

Thirty seconds later, the inner door opened and a man of about
thirty-five appeared behind the screen. He looked young and fit,
clean-shaven. He smiled pleasantly.

“Mornin',” the young man said. “How can I help
you?” He had a broad Southern drawl. When he said “I”
it sounded like “Ah”—How can ah help you?

Cameron said, “Yes, hi. I'm looking for a Mr. Andrew
Wilcox.” Cameron held up the business card. “My name is
Peter Cameron. I'm a writer for the Washington Post. Mr.
Wilcox sent me his card.”

The smile on the young man's face vanished instantly.

His eyes swept Cameron's body as if evaluating him. Then they
swept the street outside as if to see whether anyone was watching the
house.

And then suddenly the man's attention returned to Cameron.

“Mr. Cameron,” he said, opening the screen door.
“Please, come inside. I was hoping you'd come, but I
didn't expect to see you so soon. Please, please, come
inside.”

Cameron stepped through the doorway.

It didn't occur to him until he was fully inside the house that
the man's Southern accent had completely disappeared.

“Mr. Cameron, my real name is not Andrew Wilcox,” the young
man now sitting opposite him said. The drawl was gone, replaced by a
voice that was clear and precise, educated. East Coast.

Pete Cameron had his pad and pen out. “Can you tell me your real
name?” he asked gently.

The young man seemed to think about that for a moment, and as he did
so, Cameron got a better look at him. He was a tall man, handsome,
too, with blond hair and a square jaw. He had broad shoulders and he
looked physically fit. But there was something wrong about him.

It was the eyes, Cameron realized.

They were tinged with red. Heavy black sacks hung beneath both of
them. He looked like a man on the edge, a man who hadn't slept in
days.

And then, at last, the man spoke. “My real name,” he said,
“is Andrew Trent.”

“I used to be a First Lieutenant in the
Marines,” Andrew Trent explained, “in command of an
Atlantic-based Reconnaissance unit. But if you examine the official
USMC records, you'll find that I died in an accident in Peru in
March 1997.”

Trent spoke in a low, even voice, a voice tinged with bitterness.

“So, you're a dead man,” Pete Cameron said. “Nice,
very nice. OK, first question: why me? Why did you contact me?”

“I've seen your work,” Trent said. “I like it.
Mother Jones. The Post. You tell it straight. You
also don't just write down the first thing you hear. You check
things out and because of that, people believe you. I need people to
believe what I'm going to tell you.”

“If it's worth telling in the first place,” Cameron
said. “All right, then, how is it that according to the United
States Government you are officially dead?”

Trent offered Cameron a half-smile, a smile totally devoid of humor.
“If it's worth telling in the first place,” he repeated.
“Mr. Cameron, what if I were to tell you that the government of
the United States of America ordered that my whole unit be
killed?”

Cameron was silent.

"What if I were to tell you that our
government—yours and mine—planted men inside my unit for
the sole purpose of killing me and my men in the event that we found
something of immense technological value during a mission?

“What if I were to tell you that that was exactly what
happened in Peru in March 1997? What would you think then, Mr.
Cameron? If I told you all that, then do you think my story would be
worth telling?”

Trent then told Cameron about what had happened inside the ruins of
the Incan temple high in the mountains of Peru in March of 1997.

A team of university researchers who had been working inside the
temple had apparently discovered a series of frescoes chiseled into
its stone walls. Magnificent coloured frescoes that depicted scenes
from Incan history.

One of the frescoes in particular had captured their attention.

It depicted a scene not unlike the famous painting of the Incan king,
Atahuallpa, meeting the Spanish conquistadors.

On the left-hand side of the fresco stood the Incan king, in full
ceremonial dress, surrounded by his people. He was holding a golden
chalice in his outstretched hands. A gift.

On the right-hand side of the fresco stood four strange-looking men.
Unlike the olive-skinned Incans, their skin was bone white. And they
were thin, unnaturally thin—tall, emaciated. They had large
black eyes and round-domed foreheads. They also had pointed, narrow
chins and—bizarrely— no mouths.

In the carved stone picture, the leader of this delegation of tall
white “men” was holding a silver box in his outstretched
hands, reciprocating the gesture of the Incan king in front of him.

It was an exchange of gifts.

“How long did it take them to find it?” Cameron asked dryly.

“Not long,” Trent said.

As Trent explained, they found the object of their search mounted on a
pedestal not far from the fresco itself, a small stone pedestal sunken
into the wall of the temple.

It just sat there. All on its own. It was about the size of a shoe box
and the color of chrome.

It was the silver box from the fresco.

“Those scientists couldn't believe their luck,” Trent
said. “They called their university back in the States right away
and told them what they'd found. Told them that they may have
discovered a gift from an alien civilization.”

Trent shook his head. “Stupid bastards. They did it over a
telephone line. An open goddamn telephone line. Hell, anyone
could have heard them. My unit was sent in to protect mem from anyone
who did.”

Trent leaned forward in his chair.

“The problem was, it wasn't really my unit.”

Trent went on to tell Cameron about what had happened after his
unit's arrival at the temple—in particular, how several of
his own men had turned on him when the SEAL team had arrived at the
temple.

“Mr. Cameron. The order to plant men in my unit came from a
government committee called the Intelligence Convergence Group,”
Trent said. "It's a joint committee made up of members of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff and the National Reconnaissance Office. Put
simply, its primary objective is to secure for America technological
superiority over the rest of the world.

“They killed my unit, Mr. Cameron. My whole unit. And
then they hunted me. For twelve days, they scoured that temple looking
for me. American soldiers, hunting me. I stood
squeezed into a small fissure in a wall, being dripped on by stinking
seepage, for twelve days before they gave up and left.”

Cameron said, “What happened to the university researchers?”

Trent shook his head. “The SEALs took them away. They were never
heard from again.”

Cameron fell silent.

Trent went on. “Eventually, I got out of that temple and made it
back to the States. It took a while, but I got there in the end. The
first place I went was my parents' house. But when I got there I
saw two guys sitting in a van across the street, watching the house.
They had people there, waiting for me to come back.”

Trent's face went cold. “That was when I decided to find out
who'd been behind it all. It didn't take me long to find a
trail, and at the end of that trail. I found the ICG.”

Cameron found that he was staring at Trent. He blinked out of it.

“OK. Right,” he said, regaining his composure. “This
ICG, you say it's a joint committee, right? Made up of members of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the National Reconnaissance Office,
right?”

“That's correct,” Trent said.

“OK.” Cameron knew about the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but he
knew little about the National Reconnaissance Office. It was the
intelligence agency charged with procuring, launching, and operating
all of America's spy satellites. Its secrecy was legendary; it was
one of the few agencies that was allowed to operate under a
“black” budget—a budget that, because of the
sensitivity of its subject matter, did not have to be disclosed to
Senate Finance Committees. Throughout the Cold War, the U.S.
Government had consistently refused to acknowledge the NRO's
existence. It was only in 1991, in the face of mounting evidence, that
the government finally caved in and acknowledged that it did exist.

Trent said, “The ICG is a marriage of two of the most powerful
agencies in this country—the supreme commanding body of all of
our armed forces and the most secret arm of our intelligence
community.”

“And its job is—what did you say?—'to secure
technological superiority' for America?”

“Its job,” Trent said, “is to ensure that
every major breakthrough in technology—be it the
compact disc or a computer chip or stealth
technology—belongs to the United States of
America.”

Trent took a deep breath. "Mr. Cameron, I don't think I'm
explaining this very well. Let me put it another way. The ICG's
job is intelligence gathering or, as they call it in government-speak,
'intelligence convergence.'