Ice Hunt

“He’s right,” Je

Matt rolled his eyes. He’d give his right arm for one optimist in the damn group. He waved for the radio. “Pass it here.”

Je

Before the man could speak, a loud thud sounded by the door. All eyes turned back to the entrance. One of the guards was on the floor. A dagger hilt protruded from his left eye socket. The other fell back, someone on top of him. An attempt to shout an alarm was cut from the soldier’s throat by a wicked long knife. Blood shot across the floor.

As the soldier gurgled, grabbing at his own bloody throat, his attacker shoved up. He was a true gorilla of a man.

Je

The man wiped the blood from his meaty hands on his jacket. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

“How…I thought…the rocket attack?”

He worked rapidly, searching the guard. “I was blown into a snowbank. I burrowed down deep when I saw the situation out there. Then I found another ventilation shaft. Way the fuck out there.”

“How?”

Kowalski jabbed a thumb toward the door. “With a little help from my friends.”

Another man entered the room, a bandage around his head and a rifle in his hands. He covered the door.

“Tom!” Je

But the fellow was not alone. At the man’s knee, a shaggy form loped into the room, tongue lolling, eyes bright.

“My God!” Matt said, dropping to the floor. “Bane.” His voice caught in his throat. The dog leaped on the cell door, pushing his nose through the bars, trying to squeeze through, whining, squirming.

“We found him in the ice peaks.” Kowalski spoke rapidly as he keyed open the cell doors “Or rather, he found us. The Russians left Tom as dead meat in the snow, but he was only knocked out. I dragged him off.”

“You survived,” Je

Kowalski straightened with a handful of keys. “No thanks to you guys…ru

As Matt’s cell was unlocked, he pushed open the door and worked fast. Time was against them. He removed the dagger from the corpse and sliced the admiral’s hands free, then searched the guards for further weapons, taking everything he could find. He passed weapons around as the other cells were opened. “We’d better haul ass.”

“This way,” Tom said, rushing the line of prisoners out and around to the curving exterior hallway. The group hurried to the same service duct through which Matt and the others had fled hours ago.

As they were ducking away, a commotion sounded from across the level. Yelling. Matt straightened, listening as he waved the biology group into the tu

Matt dove through the vent, following Bane and Je

Kowalski led them into the service shafts. “We’ve been rats in the walls ever since the attack started. Tom knows this station like the back of his hand. We were waiting for a chance to break you free.”

“Where’s this ventilation shaft?” Washburn asked as the group piled into one of the service huts. She still held Maki in her arms. The boy was silent, eyes wide.

“About half a mile,” Tom said. “But we’re safer down here.”

Matt turned to the admiral. “What’s the blast range of the Polaris bomb?”

Kowalski swung toward them, eyes wide. “Bomb? What bomb?”

Petkov ignored the man. “The danger is not so much the blast as the shock wave. It’ll shatter the entire island and the ice for miles around. There’s no escape.”

“What fucking bomb?” Kowalski yelled.

Je

He shook his head as if trying to deny the truth. “Fucking fantastic, that’s the last time I rescue you guys.”

“How much time do we have left?” Tom asked.

Matt checked his watch. “Fifteen minutes. Not nearly enough time to get clear.”

“Then what are we going to do?”

Matt removed one of the confiscated weapons. One of the black pineapples. “I may have an idea.”

“Buddy, that grenade’s not strong enough to blast a hole to the surface,” Kowalski said.

“We’re not going up.”

“Then where?”

Matt answered, then led them off in a mad dash as time was ru

Kowalski pounded after him. “No fucking way.”

Craig stared at the empty row of cells, the pair of dead guards. Everything was unraveling. He spun on the pair of soldiers at his side. “Find them!”

Another soldier rushed through the door. “Sir, it looks like they fled into the service shafts.”

Craig clenched a fist. “Of course they did,” he mumbled. But what were they trying to do? Where could they go? His mind spun. “Send two men in there. The Russian admiral must not—”

A muffled blast cut him off. The floor under his feet rattled.

The guards stiffened.

Craig stared down between his toes. “Shit!”

A floor below, Matt tested the docking bay’s hatch. The others were lined up along the wall on Level Five. A moment ago, he had opened the hatch and tossed in a pair of the incendiary grenades, one collected from each of the two dead guards.

Matt touched the metal door with his bare fingers. It had gone from ice cold to burning hot. The blast of the V-class incendiaries continued to impress him. But were they strong enough to do the job here?

There was only one way to find out.

As the blast echoed away, Matt swung open the door. It led to the docking lake for the Russian transport sub, an old I series. A moment ago, the room had been half filled with ice, completely encasing the docked co

Matt stared into the room. The pair of grenades had transformed the frozen tomb into a fiery hell. Water bubbled on the surface. Pools of flame dotted the new lake formed around the sub. The smell of phosphor and steam rolled out.

As Matt studied the chamber, his eyes and face burned. It was still too hot to enter.

“Next time,” Kowalski groused, shielding his face, “let’s try just one grenade.

Despite the residual heat, at least the mound of ice covering the co

Now if only they could get to it.

Matt checked his watch. Thirteen minutes. With his face sweating, he turned to the others. They didn’t have time to spare. “Everyone inside!”

Washburn splashed into the room first, followed by the biology group. The water was knee-deep. Tom went with them. “Get that hatch open!” Matt called to the Navy pair.

Kowalski and Matt covered the door, keeping their weapons fixed toward the stairs. Despite the thick insulation of the docking bay, everyone had to have heard the grenade explosion.

Matt motioned Je

Je

Je