“Unoccupied Russian station? You must…are, uh, mistaken… Ahem. Sir.” He cleared his throat and tightened his sweaty hand on the receiver. Why, oh why, did he have to answer the damned thing?
“Bullshit. I called Volkov Station. You answered the Volkov line.”
“Well, um, Chief…Officer.” He pushed out a tight, too-high laugh. “I’m afraid you’ve gotten your swords crossed and called Burke-Ruhe.” Clive breathed through the long pause at the other end.
“Ah. My mistake then.” The man appeared to calm. “Who am I speaking to?”
The question came out so lightly, so innocuously, that Clive didn’t think twice before giving his name.
“Dr. Tenny. You’re a researcher, aren’t you? Who do you work with again? It wouldn’t be Chronos Corporation, would it?”
The hairs on Clive’s body rose and he immediately regretted giving himself away.
“What the hell does the U.S. Navy want with—”
“Not the navy.Me.Iwant you to listen up, Mr. Tenny.” Clive bit back the automaticDoctorthat came to lips. “Listen closely, because this is the only warning you’ll get.” The voice was deeper now, all friendliness gone. “I don’t know what business you and your people have down there, but I know you’re up to something and I know exactly where the phone you’re using is located.” The voice changed again, grew more gravelly, quieter, as if the man on the other end would come through the phone and tear his throat out if he could. “If anything happens to my brother,Dr. Ford Cooper, there’s no place in this world where you’ll be safe from me. I will hunt you down and tear you apart, limb from limb.”
Frantic, Clive ended the call, stood, and backed up to the door, then put his face in his shaking hands, closer to crying than he’d been since losing tenure all those years ago. This was bad. Very, very bad.
The second his hands dropped limply to his sides, his gaze landed on the holding cells, where more than a dozen subjects stood or sat, probably plotting their escape as they angrily awaited their fates. Impossibly, one of them—a hard little gray-haired woman with a square jaw—stared right at him through the two-way mirror, the hatred in her eyes potent enough to make him stumble back.
He had to get out…get away. He needed air.
The damned door wouldn’t open. Had Sampson messed with it somehow? No. No, he’d input the code wrong. Slower, he tried again, finally wrenching it open and practically falling into the hall, where he leaned against the wall, working hard to slow his frantic pulse.
It took a while—three minutes, maybe, to come up with the solution. When he did, it seemed obvious.
He went to open the lab door and paused when he caught sight of his shaking hands. A drink would be welcome. Or two.
And it wouldn’t hurt to be armed for this. Those idiots had surely left a gun behind.
He set off down the hall, eager now that he’d made his decision to set things in motion.
Chapter 42
Shit. Coop stared down into the gaping crevasse. If the entire field was this deep, they were screwed.
The engines grew deafening as he helped Angel limp along the yawning crack, to the end, then to the next crevasse and the next, praying that part of this field would be miraculously shallow.
Finally, he breathed a sigh of relief when the ice opened up to reveal openings that were closer together, narrower. Here, the cracks crisscrossed, the pressure turning the pieces between them into geometrically pleasing chunks, as beautiful as quartz crystals.
And infinitely dangerous.
“Right here.” He glanced back at the sastrugi just as one of the men appeared at the top. Shit. That was definitely a gun in his hand.
As fast as he could, he dumped the sled into the first shallow crevasse, waited to make sure it held, and followed it down, then turned back, arms outstretched.
“Great,” Angel muttered. “Just freaking great.” She dropped, clearly in pain, though the only outward sign was her tight hold on his arm.
He gave her a quick squeeze in return and took stock.
“Are these caves?” She didn’t sound happy about it. No surprise there.
“Yeah. This is good.” He started to move and then paused. “Just don’t lean on the walls.”
She peered around the light blue labyrinth and mumbled something that he couldn’t hear.
Somewhere up there, the last couple of engines shut off. Impossible to tell how many there were in all. Five? Seven?
