Ice Station (32 page)

“Renshaw! How's that new Stinger coming?”

“Almost there ...,” Renshaw said from behind him. He was
furiously trying to jam a new tube into the gripstock.

“Hold on, Book!” Schofield said.

Schofield gunned the engine of his LCAC and the hovercraft responded
by increasing its speed. Gradually, it began to haul in the three
hovercrafts in front of it—Book's and the two British ones.

Slowly, gradually, Schofield's orange hovercraft overtook the
three hovercrafts on the left-hand side and then suddenly, swiftly, it
swept across in front of them.

Schofield looked back through his rear windshield, through the blur of
his rear turbofan and saw the three hovercrafts behind him. He then
snapped to look forward and saw Rebound's transport hovercraft
racing across the ice plain about twenty yards to his left.

“Rebound!” he said.

“Yeah!”

“Get ready to go in and grab Book!”

“What?”

“Just get ready!”

“What are you gonna do?”

“A slingshot,” Schofield said as he drew his MP-5. He turned
to Renshaw. “Mr. Renshaw ...”

“What?”

“Hold on.”

And with that, Schofield slipped the hovercraft into neutral and
yanked the steering yoke hard to the right.

Like a bizarre two-ton ballet dancer, Schofield's hovercraft did a
complete lateral 180-degree spin right in front of Book's
hovercraft and the two British hovercrafts.

In the cabin, Schofield quickly jammed the big vehicle into reverse
and engaged the turbofan again.

Now he was travelling backward!

At eighty miles per hour.

In front of Book and the two British hovercrafts!

Schofield thrust his MP-5 out through the driver's side window and
let rip with an extended burst of gunfire.

The front windshield of the left-hand British hovercraft exploded with
bullet holes. Schofield could see the men behind the windshield
convulse as they were hit by the barrage of gunfire.

The shot British hovercraft immediately peeled away from Book's
hovercraft and faded back into the distance.

Book was still in hell.

The British hovercraft to his left was gone now, but the one on his
right was ramming him with renewed intensity.

The two hovercrafts careered across the flat expanse of ice, side by
side, their engines roaring.

And then suddenly Book saw the side door of the British hovercraft
open. A thick black gun barrel protruded from it.

“Oh, shit” Book said.

A puff of smoke appeared from the end of the gun barrel— it was
an M-60 grenade launcher—and a second later the whole side door
of Book's hovercraft suddenly exploded inward.

Wind rushed into the cabin.

They'd blown open the side of his hovercraft!

At that moment, a small black object flew in through the hole in the
side of the hovercraft and clattered across the floor of the cabin.

Book saw it immediately.

It was a small black cylindrical object with blue numbers written
along its side. As it rolled across the floor of the cabin, it looked
like an ordinary grenade, but as Book knew, it was a whole lot more
than that.

It was a nitrogen charge.

The signature weapon of the SAS.

The most advanced grenade in the world. It even had a tamper mechanism
so that you couldn't pick it up and throw it back at the person
who threw it at you. Standard time delay: five seconds.

Get out of the hovercraft! Book's mind screamed.

Book dived for the left-hand side of the cabin—the side furthest
away from the British hovercraft—and reached for the door. He
slid it open fast.

Five...

Freezing Antarctic wind rushed at his face. Slicing horizontal snow
lashed his eyes. Book didn't care. Snow wouldn't kill him, and
a fall from the hovercraft might. But the nitrogen charge definitely
would.

Four... three...

Book dived out into the freezing wind and immediately jammed the
sliding door shut behind him. He lay flat against the top of the black
rubber skirt that ran around the base of the speeding hovercraft. His
face was pressed awkwardly up against the outside of the windows of
the cabin. The screaming, speeding wind assaulted his ears.

Two... one...

Book prayed to God that the reinforced Lexan glass windows of the
hovercraft could withstand the—

The nitrogen charge went off inside the hovercraft.

Smack!

A wave of ice blue liquid nitrogen slapped hard against the glass
right in front of Book's face. Book instinctively jerked his head
back.

He stared in amazement at the interior of the hovercraft's cabin.
Supercooled liquid nitrogen had splattered itself against every
exposed surface inside the cabin.

Every exposed surface.

The whole of the inside of the window in front of him was dripping
with gooey blue poxy. Book sighed with relief. The reinforced glass
had held, just.

And then suddenly ... craaaaack—!

Book pulled his head back just as the window—snap-frozen by the
liquid nitrogen and contracting rapidly—broke out into a
thousand spiderwebs.

“Book!”

Book spun and saw Rebound's hovercraft pull up alongside his own.
He could see Rebound through the windscreen, sitting in the
driver's seat.

“Get on!”

Rebound's hovercraft nudged closer to Book's. The side door of
Rebound's hovercraft slid open. The rubber skirts of the two
hovercrafts touched briefly, then parted again.

“Jump!” Rebound said, his voice loud in Book's
earpiece.

Book tried to get to his feet.

“Come on!” Rebound said urgently.

Book tried to keep his eyes focused on the black rubber skirt of
Rebound's hovercraft. Tried not to look at the white streaks of
snow racing by at eighty miles an hour beneath the two speeding
hovercrafts.

And then out of the corner of his eye, he saw it.

Saw the black hovercraft materialize in the background behind
Rebound's hovercraft.

Suddenly Book heard Rebound yell, “Get there,
Scarecrow!” and then he saw the side door of the British
hovercraft open. Saw the Milan antitank missile launcher appear inside
it.

And then Book saw the familiar puff of smoke and he saw the missile
shoot out of its launcher and fly through the air toward him, its
looping white smoke trail spiraling crazily behind it, and in that
instant, in that moment, Book knew it was too—

“Book! For God's sake, jump! Jump now! Shit!”

Book jumped.

Book flew through the air.

As he flew, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the British
hovercraft explode as it was hit by an American Stinger. But it had
got its own missile off before it had been hit. Book saw the
white-tipped missile roll through the air toward him.

And then suddenly his hands came down hard on the black rubber skirt
of Rebound's hovercraft and he forgot about the British missile as
he scratched desperately for a handhold.

Just as his feet were about to hit the speeding ground, Book got a
grip on a tie-down stud on the skirt of Rebound's hovercraft and
he looked up just in time to see the British missile slam into the
rear of his recently abandoned hovercraft and blow it to smithereens.

“Have you got him?” Schofield said into his helmet mike.

Schofield was still racing along in front of Rebound's
hovercraft—still travelling backward. He could see Rebound's
transport speeding across the ice plain behind him.

“We got him,” Rebound replied. “He's
inside.”

“Good,” Schofield said.

It was then that Schofield heard the gunfire.

His head immediately snapped left and he saw them.

It was the same British hovercraft that had blasted open the side of
Book's hovercraft. Only now it had a fearsome-looking
general-purpose machine gun—or “Gimpy” as it is
known—sticking out of its open side door. The large heavy-duty
machine gun was mounted on a tripod, and Schofield saw a three-foot
tongue of fire flare out from its barrel as it emitted a deafening
ungodly roar.

Rebound's hovercraft took the brunt of the machine gun's fury.
Sparks and bullet holes and cracks and puncture marks burst out all
over it.

A thin line of black smoke began to rise up from the rear of
Rebound's hovercraft. The hovercraft visibly began to slow.

“Scarecrow!” Rebound yelled. “We've
got a serious problem here!”

“I'm coming!” Schofield said.

“I'm hit bad and slowing down! I need to off-load some
weight so I can maintain my speed!”

Schofield was thinking fast. He was still traveling backward across
the ice plain. Rebound's hovercraft was off to his right, the
British hovercraft off to his left.

At last, Schofield said, “Mr. Renshaw ...”

“What?”

“Take the wheel.”

“What?” Renshaw said.

“It's just like driving a car, only with a little less
responsiveness,” Schofield said.

Renshaw stepped into the driver's seat, took hold of the steering
yoke.

“Now, shut your eyes,” Schofield said.

“Huh?”

“Just do it,” Schofield said as he calmly raised his MP-5
...

... and blasted the forward windshield of his own hovercraft!

Renshaw covered his eyes as shards of glass exploded out all around
him. When he opened his eyes again he had a completely clear view of
the two hovercrafts speeding along the ice plain “behind”
him.

“OK,” Schofield said, “pull us over in front of the black
one.”

Renshaw gently applied pressure to the steering yoke. The hovercraft
slid smoothly over to the left, so that it was in front of the black
British hovercraft that was blasting away at Rebound's hovercraft.

“All right,” Schofield said. “Hold it here.”

Schofield wrapped the shoulder strap of his MP-5 around his neck and
pulled the slide on his Desert Eagle automatic pistol, cocking it.

“All right, Mr. Renshaw. Hit the brakes.”

Renshaw looked up at Schofield in surprise. “What?”

And then he realized what Schofield was doing.

“Oh, no. You can't be serious—”

“Just do it,” Schofield said.

“All right....”

Renshaw shook his head, and then, after taking a deep breath, he
jammed both of his feet down as hard as he could on the brake pedal of
the hovercraft.

Schofield's hovercraft lost all of its forward momentum in an
instant and the British hovercraft behind it slammed into it at full
speed and the two hovercrafts collided nose-to-nose.

Renshaw braced himself for the impact, and when it came it jolted him
back into his seat. When he looked up, however, he couldn't
believe his eyes. He saw Schofield climbing out through the shattered
forward windshield of their hovercraft and up onto its hood.

The two hovercrafts made for an incredible sight They were now joined
at their noses, both traveling forward. The only thing was, one was
pointed forward while the other was pointing backward.

In three fluid steps the small figure of Schofield danced across the
forward hood of the leading orange hovercraft and leaped across onto
the hood of the pursuing black hovercraft.

Schofield's feet pounded against the forward hood of the British
hovercraft. Horizontal snow pelted against his back as he blasted away
at the forward windshield of the British hovercraft with his MP-5. The
windshield shattered and Schofield saw the driver go down in a
fountain of blood.

But there were still two more men inside the cabin who any second now
would be turning their guns on him.

Schofield ran forward and leaped onto the roof of the speeding
hovercraft just as a volley of bullets shot out from inside the cabin.

He slid feet-first across the roof of the British hovercraft. The
left-hand door of the hovercraft was still open, and Schofield rolled
onto his stomach and reached over the edge of the roof with his MP-5
and jammed it in through the open side door. He pulled the trigger and
fired blindly at his unseen enemy.

His MP-5 went dry, and Schofield listened and waited. If either of the
two SAS commandos had survived his barrage of gunfire, then they would
be up any second now.

No one came out of the hovercraft.

The deafening machine-gun fire from the tripod-mounted machine gun had
ceased. The only sound that Schofield heard was the whistling of the
wind as it sped past his ears.

Schofield swung himself down and in through the open side door of the
British hovercraft.

None of the SAS commandos had survived his assault. The three men all
lay on the floor of the cabin, covered in blood.

Schofield stepped over to the driver's chair.

“Mr. Renshaw, can you hear me?” he said.

Inside the orange French hovercraft, James Renshaw was gripping the
steering yoke so hard his fingers were turning white. His hovercraft
was still traveling backward at incredible speed.

“Yeah, I hear you,” Renshaw said into his oversized
helmet's microphone.

“You're gonna have to swing her around,”
Schofield's voice said. “I need you to help
Rebound. He needs to offload some of his people so he can maintain a
decent speed. I need you to take a couple of people off his
hovercraft.”

“I can't do that!” Renshaw said. “You do it.”

“Mr. Renshaw...”

“All right. All right.”

Schofield's voice said, “Now, do you want me to take you
through it?”

“No,” Renshaw said. “I can do this.”

“Then do it. I gotta go,” Schofield's voice
said quickly.

And with that, Renshaw saw Schofield's newly acquired black
British hovercraft peel off to the left and head toward Rebound's
wounded hovercraft.

“All right,” Renshaw said to himself as he gripped the
steering yoke even more firmly in his hands. “I can do this. I
saw him do it before; it can't be that hard. Slingshot....”

Renshaw slipped the hovercraft into neutral, and he felt the big
vehicle lose a little bit of speed.