Both grabbed up their assault rifles from where they’d laid them on the bed and rushed out of Andy Gangle’s disturbing bedroom. They met Linc in the rec hall.
“What did you find?”
“Some weird stuff, but not now. There’s a snowcat heading our way from the south. That’s where the Argentines have their closest research base, right?”
“Yeah,” Linda replied. “Maybe thirty miles down the coast.”
“I saw it when I was on my way back. We’ve got less than a minute.”
“Everyone, outside.”
“No, Linda. There isn’t enough cover.” Concern etched Linc’s face. “They’d see us, no problem.”
“Okay, find a place to hide, and be quiet. Let’s just hope they’re doing a little recce and not planning on setting up housekeeping. If you’re discovered, come out with guns blazing.”
“What if these are just scientists checking on the station?” Mark asked. It was a reasonable question.
“Then they would have shown up here a week ago like our government had asked. Now, go!”
The trio split up. Linda returned to Andy Gangle’s room. The ceiling was acoustical tile made of a cardboardlike material hanging from metal support tracks. As limber as a monkey, she hoisted herself onto a dresser and lifted one of the tiles with the barrel of her gun. There was a three-foot crawl space between the ceiling and the dome’s insulated roof. She set her gun onto the ceiling and boosted herself up. Her heavy clothing made it an almost impossible job, but by twisting her hips and kicking her legs she managed to lever her upper body through the opening.
She heard the front door crash open and someone calling out in Spanish. To her ears, it sounded like shouted commands rather than inquiring hails.
She slithered her legs up into the crawl space and carefully set the thin tile back to its original position. There was an insulated Flexi-tube nearby connected to a ceiling grate that was used to feed warm air into the room. Linda pulled the silvery tube off the grate and peered downward. She had a pretty good bird’s-eye view.
The adrenaline that shot through her system when she heard Linc’s shouted warning was wearing off fast, and she became aware of the cold again. She didn’t have to contend with any wind, but the crawl space was the ambient thirty-plus degrees below zero. Her face was numb, and her fingertips were starting to lose sensation despite the heavy mittens. Keeping still was the worst thing possible for her body right now, but it was exactly what she had to do.
More bursts of guttural Spanish sounded below. She closed her eyes, imagining soldiers scouting the base as she and her team had just done. What would they make of the massacre? Would they even care?
A man wearing a white arctic uniform and carrying a large pistol suddenly entered the bedroom. He wore a mask much like the one Linda had sported, so she could not see his features. Like Mark, he stared at the bloody writing on the wall.
It happened so fast, there was nothing Linda could do to stop it. A drop of clear fluid dripped from her nose and pattered against the man’s shoulder. He brushed at it without turning his head and made to leave and continue his search.
As soon as he stepped out of the room, Linda was in motion. Like a spider keeping to its web, she moved hand and foot along the tile ceiling’s support rails. They weren’t meant to take the weight of a fully grown person, and she was afraid the wires that kept them in place would snap.
There came a sudden eruption of gunfire. The tile where she’d been a moment earlier exploded in a fine powder and fell down into the bedroom. Two more shots boomed out and two more tiles disintegrated. Seeps of weak sunlight filtered through the holes the bullets had torn through the outer roof.
Linda used the sound of the blasts, and the momentary deafness sure to accompany them, to slide over a larger trunk line for the base’s ventilation system. This tube was more than big enough to hide her. The safety on her rifle was off.
She knew not to hold her breath but to let it come slow and even. With her heart racing, she needed oxygen. The roof above her snapped into sharp focus under the beam of a flashlight.
The Argentine had realized something liquid had dripped on his shoulder, but with the base so cold any fluid would be frozen solid. He had become suspicious.
Breathe, Linda, breathe. He can’t see you, and he’s too big to crawl up here.
Ten of the tensest seconds of her life went by. Ten seconds that she knew he could fire a shot into the ventilation hose for the fun of it and put a round through her head.
There came the sounds of another man entering the room—heavy footfalls and a shouted question. A terse conversation followed, and suddenly the light went away, and she could tell the men had left the room below.
She willed her body to relax and ever so gently sniffled.
That wo
uld have beat all, Linda thought. Killed because of a runny nose. This was one story she knew she’d keep to herself. She buried her face in her parka’s fur-lined hood and prepared to wait out the Argentine search party for as long as it took.
FIFTEEN
Cabrillo waited for the winch to start hauling him up, but nothing happened. Then he realized that wasn’t true, more of the line was coming down the shaft and forming an ever-enlargening loop just below where he hovered in the water. Max had hit the wrong button. Juan tried to hail him over the comm link but received no reply. Hanley had gone off alone to deal with the Argentine threat. And in his haste had trapped Juan in the Treasure Pit.