She acknowledged the petty officer. “Have you seen Dr. Ogden?”
“Yes, ma’am. He mentioned you’d be coming. He asked us to keep everyone out of the Crawl Space until you arrived.” The guard pointed down to the other end of the hall.
A door lay at that end, too, but it didn’t lead into the lab on this floor. It was an exit, a doorway into the heart of the ice island. Beyond lay a maze of natural caverns and man-made tunnels, cored from the ice itself, which the researchers of the station had nicknamed the Crawl Space.
This region had all the glaciologists and geologists walking around with drunken smiles. They had been boring out samples, taking temperatures, and performing other more arcane tests. She couldn’t blame them for their excitement. How many times did one get to explore the interior of an iceberg? She had heard that they’d found a cache of inclusions, a geologist’s term for boulders and other bits of terrestrial debris. As a result of the find, the entire geology team had relocated here from Omega.
Why the clash with the biologists, though? There was only one way to find out.
“Thank you,” she said to the guard.
As she crossed down the hall, she was happy to leave the sealed floor behind her. She’d had a hard time making eye contact with the guards. The guilt of her knowledge weighed on her, dulled her appreciation of the other discoveries here.
Among the researchers, speculations and rumors as to what lay on Level Four were rampant: alien spaceships, nuclear technology, biological warfare experiments, even whispers closer to the truth.
Other bodies found.
The actual truth was far more horrific than any of the wildest speculations.
As she reached the end of the hall, the double set of doors swung open ahead of her. A figure in a heavy yellow parka shambled through. Amanda felt the cold exhalation flowing through the open door, a breath from the heart of the ice island.
The figure shook back his hood and revealed his frosted features. Dr. Henry Ogden, the fifty-year-old Harvard biologist, looked surprised to find her there. “Dr. Reynolds!”
“Henry.” She nodded to him.
“Dear God.” He pulled a glove off with his teeth and checked his watch. He then ran a hand over his bald pate. Besides his eyebrows, the only hair on the man’s head was a thin brown mustache and a tiny soul patch under his lower lip. He absentmindedly tugged at this little tuft of hair. “I’m sorry. I hoped to meet you upstairs.”
“What’s this all about?”
He glanced back to the door. “I…I found something…something amazing. You should—” As he turned away, she could no longer read his lips.
“Dr. Ogden?”
He turned back, his eyebrows raised quizzically.
She touched her lips with her fingers.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” He now spoke in an unnaturally slow manner, as if speaking to someone with a mental defect. Amanda bit back her anger.
“You need to see this for yourself,” he continued. “That’s why I had you come.” He stared a moment at the Navy guards down the hall. “I couldn’t count on them keeping the rock hounds away for very long. The specimens…” His voice trailed off, distracted. He shook his head. “Let’s get you a parka, and I’ll take you.”
“I’ll stay warm enough in this,” she said impatiently, running a hand over her thermal suit. “Show me what you found.”
The biologist’s eyes were still on the guards, his brows crinkled. Amanda wagered he was speculating like all the others. His gaze eventually swung back to her. “What I found…I think it’s the reason the station was built here.”
It took a moment for his words to register. “What? What do you mean?”
“Come see.” He turned and headed back through the double doors.
Amanda followed, but she peered back to the guarded doorway. It’s the reason the station was built here.
She prayed the biologist was wrong.
3:40 P.M.
OVER BROOKS RANGE
Staring out the windshield of the Twin Otter, Matt tried to focus on the beauty of one of the great natural wonders of the world. This section of the Gates of the Arctic National Park was the goal of thousands of hikers, climbers, and adventurers each year.
Ahead rose the Arrigetch Peaks. The name—Arrigetch—came from the Nunamiut, meaning “upstretched fingers of the hand.” An apt description. The entire region was jammed with pinnacles and sheer spires of granite. It was a land of thousand-foot vertical walls, precarious overhangs, and glacial amphitheaters. Such terrain was a natural playground for climbers, while hikers enjoyed its verdant alpine meadows and ice-blue tarns.
But flying through Arrigetch was plain madness. And it wasn’t just the rocks. The winds were a hazard, too. The air currents flowed from the glacial heights like a swollen river through cataracts, carving the winds into a raging mix of sudden gusts, shears, and crosswinds.
“Get ready!” Jenny warned.
The plane climbed toward the jumbled landscape. To either side, mountains towered, their slopes bright with snow and ice floes. Between them rose Arrigetch. There appeared no way to pass through the area.
Matt craned around. Their pursuers had almost caught up with them again. The Cessna buzzed about a quarter mile back. Would they dare follow into this maze?
Below, a stream drained from the broken heights above. A sparse taiga-spruce forest finally succumbed to the altitude and faded away. They were now above the continent’s tree line.
Matt turned to Jenny, ready to try one last time to dissuade her from what she was about to attempt. But he saw the determined glint in her eye, the way her brows pinched together. There would be no talking her out of it.
Her father spoke from behind them. John had finished cinching Bane’s dog collar to one of the seat harnesses. “Ready back here.”
Beside the elder Inuit, Craig sat straight-backed in his seat. The reporter’s eyes were locked ahead. He had paled since coming in sight of Arrigetch. On the ground, the view was humbling, but from the air, it was sheer terror.
The Otter raced over the last of the rocky slopes, impossibly high and impassable.
“Here we go,” Jenny said.
“And here they come,” Matt echoed.
The chatter of gunfire cut through the whine of their motors. Loose shale on the slope danced with the impact of the slugs. But the line of fire was well to the side. The other plane was still too far off for an accurate shot. It was a desperate act before they lost their quarry to Arrigetch.