Protocol 7 (52 page)

They both took a few steps back, reacting to the situation.

Max knew what his next move would be. He looked up at the hanging ceiling embedded in the ice. It carried an intricate web of cables and equipment mounted below and above the ceiling, a dark open grid.

Both men were in sync. Max immediately pressed his rifle into the side of his suit and jumped upward. He grabbed the steel ceiling and pulled himself into the grid like a spider trying to escape. Simon followed, but before he had pulled his entire body through the network of cables, he felt something detach from his suit. He craned his neck and looked down, just in time to see his rifle fall to the floor with a deafening clatter.

Fuck, he cursed silently, clenching his jaw in anger. We’re discovered. It’s over.

For one long moment, both of them looked down through the ceiling grid at the rifle lying directly in the middle of the hallway, clearly visible on the perforated floor. And they both heard a new and impatient voice from further down the hallway.

“What’s going on back there?” one of the men in Blackburn’s team called out.

They heard footsteps; he was coming in their direction. Max knew they needed to move fast. The tight shaft of the ceiling was barely wide enough for one man to crawl through, much less two. And Simon noticed Max’s hand gesture once again, signaling them to split up, to separate.

Simon wasted no time. He crawled through the adjacent hallway ceiling and in less than twenty seconds, three feet below him, he noticed the soldier’s body pass in the opposite direction.

Max had already disappeared deeper into the main hallway ceiling, now trying carefully and quietly to open one of the airshafts. Simon had passed three feet into the side hallway that led to the open door when he heard the voice again.

“What the fuck is this?”

He noticed it, he thought. The man had spotted the rifle.

But I have to keep going.

It was almost as if he felt no fear, no anxiety. He didn’t care. He knew he was less than thirty yards from the door they had spotted.

“What’s up?” said one of the men in the room, shouting back at the man in the hallway.

“You’ve got to take a look at this,” the other voice said.

Seconds later, Simon stiffened as another man passed below him. For a brief moment, he wondered where Max was—if he could see what was happening. But then, just then, the amplified authoritative sound of the man speaking in the room resonated through the hallway and buzzed directly into his ears through his helmet.

“You’ve been more stubborn than anyone we’ve had down here since the beginning of the operation,” the man said. The voice cut through him like a knife.

“Lucky for you, your fucking ‘society’ knows more about what’s going on down here than I do. Otherwise you would have been utterly useless to us a long time ago.”

Holding his body absolutely still, using all his strength, Simon did nothing but listen—more intently, with more concentration than he ever had in his life. He wanted to push himself twenty more yards into the tight shaft, but he didn’t move. He froze. He waited. He listened.

“Look at this!” the man said. “Look at this gun above your head!”

Simon’s body went cold. He had to move. Adrenaline and fear of what would happen next moved his body forward as Blackburn continued.

“Don’t you see it, you pompous son of a bitch? Don’t you know I have no remorse for you, no compassion, not even concern? My men are coming up the shaft with third degree burns and toxic poisoning, as if they were working in a fucking nuclear power plant. Why should I care about you? Now look into the gun! Look! I won’t repeat myself.”

Simon was moving forward—slowly, slowly. Less than two feet, he told himself. Less than two feet before I can see inside. His body trembled from the vicious anger that threatened to take control of him. It was a rage he never thought he possessed. And still, he listened as he inched forward.

“These are your last moments Oliver,” Blackburn said. “This is your last chance. I can leave you to rot in your own hell, or I can put you out of your own fucking misery with a single bullet. Look at me! You have less than ten seconds. Tell me how to turn off these godforsaken devices. Tell me who I need to find, tell me who gave this knowledge to your pathetic society.”

Simon listened both horrified and confused. Twelve more inches.

“Who put them here?” Blackburn said. “What are they for you, you son of a bitch?”

Simon crawled the last few inches. His head turned toward the room, and he saw the ominous figure of the tall man holding a rifle against the head of a person lying in a hospital bed. He watched as the tall man pressed the rifle into the burned flesh of the sick old man’s head, and the old man closed his eyes, ready to accept the bullet that would enter his skull and take his life.

Simon’s world collapsed. His heart sank as if they had put a hundred knives into his chest. Blackburn’s large image moved to the left, pressing the pistol so hard into Oliver’s head that it made a fleshy crater.

At that very instant Simon saw his father. He saw Oliver’s face through the ceiling grates, and he recognized the expression on his face.

He’s thinking of me, Simon thought. He was sure of it: he’s thinking of me.

Simon’s body froze instantly. He felt completely hollow, as if life itself had been stolen from him.

For a split second, emotion swelled and took over every inch of his body. Simon could not move; he didn’t understand why. He desperately wanted to have a weapon, any weapon. He knew if he jumped down now, unarmed, the tall man would kill them both. Nothing would be accomplished.

He froze once more as Blackburn’s voice spoke again.

“Ten seconds before I pull the fucking trigger!” Blackburn said. “Ten seconds and your hell is over.”

He counted like a vicious killer with no regard for human life. “Nine…eight…seven…six…five…”

* * *

Two miles to the north, the Spector stood frozen. Lucas and the other men tried to find their balance in the tilted vessel as it sat in the pitch black, silent and dark, in shutdown mode.

“Let’s go,” Lucas said as he appeared on the bridge, trying to balance his body. “Grab whatever you can; we leave now. I am walking out of this fucking hell on foot if I have to. I won’t sink down farther into the ice.”

“But…” Rolfe interjected.

“But what?” said Lucas “I’m not turning this thing on and sinking again!”

The faces of the men looked ghostly in the light that emanated from Lucas’ helmet. “Let’s go,” he said, repeating himself. There was fear and apprehension in the eyes of the scientists.

“Pack light,” Rolfe said. “Just rations, no weapons. Take whatever you can that can sustain us for a few days,” he said to the other man.

They started scrambling in the dark and gathering as much as they could in the emergency light of the vessel. Lucas went straight for the hatch; he found the manual crank mechanism and worked relentlessly to pry the door open.

They were minutes away from the Gorge and kilometers from their freedom.

The hatch cracked open. The cold outside air blew in instantly, but the chill was different than the tunnels they were used to. There was a draft in the Gorge because of its sheer size and the air that entered was from the top of the ice shelf.

Within moments, the hatch was halfway open into the blackness beyond.

The Spector had spun slightly as it had fallen. The hatch door now faced the thirty-degree pitch in the same direction as the icy Gorge below.

“Give me those,” Lucas said, violently grabbing a few ration packs and quickly throwing them over his shoulder. He was determined to jump. The black void below him represented freedom. Whatever it will take, he thought. The Gorge is just below.

The others huddled close behind him, ready to make the five-foot jump and the slide down toward what they thought would be the Gorge. One of the scientists stood directly behind Rolfe, carrying more than he could, including Nastasia’s med pack. He moved closer behind Rolfe and asked, “Lucas, are you sure the Gorge is just below us?”

Lucas turned back immediately looking past Rolfe through the dark interior of the vessel. “Yes, I’m—what the hell is that?” he asked, noticing the black med pack in the scientist’s hand.

“I don’t know,” the scientist said, shrugging. “They left it behind. I thought maybe instruments? Comm gear? Maybe even money. Figured it might come in handy.”

Lucas almost spat at him. “Give me that,” he demanded. In one swift motion, he lunged at the man and grabbed the bag.

The timer inside the case continued. 1:16…1:15…1:14…

Two seconds later, he was back at the opening. Without another word, he jumped out.

Rolfe was the next man to follow after only a single moment of hesitation. The last scientist followed close behind.

Less than six feet below him, Lucas hit the icy floor. The slippery impact immediately terrified him. He started to slide uncontrollably, even as Rolfe thumped down less than six feet behind.

The ice felt like glass. Lucas couldn’t gain control as he desperately forced himself to gain friction, but it was impossible. He was sliding faster and faster and faster.

His body spun violently. He was now on his stomach; his head was facing downward. Trying desperately to hold his head above the ice, he watched the frozen ground race by, inches from his eyes.

His helmet banged against the glowing ice as he shook violently from the vibration. The light from his helmet caught glimpses of the glass-like shards that scraped his body. “Please god,” he begged. “I don’t want to die like this.” He was still holding on to the bag, though he had no idea why—reflex more than greed at this point.

0:18 seconds…

The world around Lucas sped by at an impossible pace, and the slope increased without warning.

The others twisted and scraped against the ice, losing control of their belongings as the incline grew even steeper. Thirty-eight degrees…forty-two degrees…fifty-eight degrees and still increasing.

I’m dying, Lucas thought. This is dying. One second later he lost contact with the ice and realized it instantly: he was falling. He was in horrifying free-fall, plunging into the blackness below.

He still held onto the bag as his body went into shock. Then he was plummeting to the bottom of the fissure toward the blackness almost five thousand feet below.

Four seconds…

Two seconds…

One…

The black bag exploded.

Lucas’ body and the men that fell with him were pulverized in an instant—so quickly that they didn’t feel a thing.

The gigantic fissure lit up as if it were illuminated by a single massive flame. The explosion expanded outward in all directions.

In less than a second, it moved the Spector a few inches, almost two thousand feet above.

Down below, the generators that sat at the base of Central Command instantly shut down from the static shock. A third of the entire Vector5 network blacked out.

All in a single flash of light.

* * *

Blackburn’s finger was on the trigger. He was still counting down.

“Three,” he said, careful to hold the tip of the rifle barrel directly against Oliver’s skull. “Two…”

Click. Everything shut down. Blackburn was suddenly, inexplicably, standing in the dark.

“What the fuck…?”

Zero time, Simon thought. It’s my only chance.

“Hold tight,” Blackburn said to the man standing at the door—less than three feet directly below Simon. Blackburn sped down the hall cursing.

Simon gauged the distance between himself and his opponent like a fighter in combat. He quickly pressed his body forward by another eight inches, and his legs dropped as he held onto the hanging ceiling.

The man below him looked up for just a brief second—just before Simon’s legs wrapped around his neck. Simon locked his legs around the soldier’s head and twisted his torso hard, instantly separating the man’s skull from his spine. Then he fell on top of the soldier he had just killed.

The floor of the cell was only slightly illuminated by the lights on the soldier’s mask, but it was enough. Simon stood up in the dark room and turned toward the shadow of the man that lay in the bed less than three feet away from him.

Oliver had no strength to fight for his vision.

Simon’s heart started pounding uncontrollably. He heard commotion outside, but it didn’t matter—his whole world was right in front of him.

He moved closer until he was standing above his father’s head, even as Oliver struggled to identify the shadowy figure that hovered over him. Then Simon grabbed his father’s right arm and removed his mask with his left hand, inches away from Oliver’s eyes.

His father quivered in pain as he squinted, trying to identify Simon. I must be dying, Oliver thought as he saw that wonderful, familiar face just inches away. He closed his eyes, trying to imagine that the strong grip on his shoulder was actually Simon’s—his son’s. His son.

Simon searched for the words, lost in a world of emotion. “Father, it’s me,” he said softly.

Just the sound of that unmistakable voice changed the old, broken man. Oliver felt as if he had been injected with a calming serum—a high dose of morphine that instantly took his pain away.

He forced his eyelids open. “It’s impossible,” he whispered. “It can’t be. I’m hallucinating.”

“Dad it’s me. I’m here. It’s me.” Simon told him. Then he felt his father’s body tremble.

“Simon?” he asked, shaking. “Is that you?”

The words cut through Simon as he remembered the voice of his father calling out his name a thousand times as a child. They locked eyes for a brief moment. Oliver wept as his only son held his frail body.

* * *

Nastasia had brought two explosive devices with her to Antarctica. She had assembled one on the Spector and left it there; she assembled and left the other in the scientist’s encampment. And they both had been set to explode at the same, special moment.

But Hayden was over a mile from either one when he pulled himself to a halt, confused and frustrated.