* * *
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.
Why haven’t I gotten there already? he asked himself, an equal mixture of annoyance and dread. He looked at the glassy ice and well-traveled permafrost beneath his feet, unaware he was a scant hundred yards from the point where the Spector had sunk into the ice. “Where’s Sam?” he asked the cold, empty air. “Where’s Ryan?” In his disorientation and anger, he had completely forgotten about the communicator strapped to his wrist. Samantha followed relentlessly two miles behind. She was exhausted and confused as she stopped for a moment and contemplated the unthinkable: going back without him.
Where could he be? she asked herself, nearly breaking. There is nowhere to go! With all the strength she had left in her body, she screamed. “Hayden! Hayden, where are you?” Then she remembered it herself, for the first time. “Damn it,” she said, cursing herself for a fool. She put the watch close to her face, touched the edges as she’d been told to.
“Hayden!”
This time, Hayden heard the voice quite clearly, but he had no idea where it was coming from. He stopped instantly and turned back. “Samantha?” he shouted. The pressure from the sound caused excruciating pain in his head. He realized he had not fully recovered.
Samantha heard him-thin but clear, coming from the wrist communicator. He’s alive, she thought. Alive! With newfound energy, she started running back the way she had come. Just around that bend…
She had taken no more than ten steps when the timer set off the spot of gunpowder and broke the inhaler’s canister. In a fraction of a second, the gas hit the powder in the disguised protein bags, and the encampment exploded with a deafening sound that almost blew out her eardrums.
The force of the explosion that followed pushed through the tunnel like a bullet from the barrel of a shotgun. Between one step and the next, Samantha found herself airborne, her body lifted ten feet into the air and thrown against an ice wall over fifteen feet away.
The shock wave threw Hayden to the ground as well, but he was farther away-safer. He was back on his feet, unsteady as before, in mere moments.
There was nothing left of the encampment. Bodies and equipment, food and clothing, the drones in search of the scientist, even the ice itself had been turned to dust and driven deep into the ancient ice.
The scientists were dead. The camp was destroyed. And Ryan…
Samantha pulled herself to her feet, more bruised than before but still alive, still able to move. She looked back in the direction of the explosion and somehow knew where it had come from-what it meant.
Another friend was dead.
Ryan…she thought. And then she screamed out loud, “Ryan!”
THE NEST
11:32 AM
Gunshots and the sound of agony echoed in the dark hallway where Simon stood, but he barely heard it. He held his father’s frail and tortured body, thinking of nothing but this moment. He wanted it to last forever. It felt as if time itself had stopped for him; he was lost in his own world, with no regard for his own life.
The dark interior of the room was lit only by splinters of light reflecting from the dead soldier’s helmet. He felt his father stir feebly in his arms.
“I’m sorry,” Oliver said, struggling to form the words.
“Please, Father,” Simon whispered. “There is nothing you need to be sorry for.” He tightened his grip around Oliver’s narrow, shaking shoulders, filled with longing and remorse.
“No,” his father said. “There is much to be sorry for, my son. There is too much I need to explain.” Oliver’s voice was thin as paper.
“We’ve got to get out of this hell first,” Simon insisted. “I don’t care what it takes, I will take you back home, back to the surface. Then you can explain anything you want to me.”
“I can’t move, Simon.”
“Why?” Simon was confused. His father’s body was thin to the point of emaciation, but nothing was broken. There were no obvious signs of injury, just tremendous weakness.
“I’m paralyzed,” his father rasped. “Too much radioactive exposure.”
Simon’s heart sank. “Radioactivity? From what?”
Oliver paused for a moment, gathering what little breath he could find. “I’m sorry, Simon,” he said again quietly. Then he coughed shallowly and swallowed hard before he continued. “I haven’t been honest with you all my life.”
Simon pulled back, locking eyes with his father. “But-”
“You don’t have much time. You need to listen to me carefully.” His hand stirred, but he couldn’t lift it to communicate the true importance of every whispered word. “Simon,” he grated, “first you need to get to the surface; if you have gotten that far you will be rescued.” He cleared his throat and struggled for the strength, just to express himself with a few more words. “Once you are rescued you need to hurry-you need to find-”
The sound of gunshots was just outside-far too close-and it startled both men. Simon slipped into the doorway just in time to see soldiers running toward them; the sound of their footsteps echoed through the hallway, growing louder and louder.
I have no weapons, Simon thought. Then he remembered the soldier lying on the ground. He turned the man over with a quick snap and found the holster strapped to the dead man’s side.
Simon started to feel the vibration of the men running toward him. They were just outside the room. Several men, he told himself.
He gripped the gun in the soldier’s holster and pulled it free with all his strength. He had no time to detach the buckle; the strap on the holster ripped from the force and suddenly Simon was holding the gun in his shaking hand.
Three men, he realized. They were only seconds from Oliver’s cell. Have to think fast.
He slammed the door shut, barely missing the soldier’s head where it lay twisted on the floor. That’s only going to delay them by a few seconds. Where the hell is Max?
Oliver stirred, struggling to move, to regain the feeling in his limbs. He wanted to help-Simon could see that-but the effort was futile. Simon bent to push the soldier’s lifeless body closer to the cell door, leaning it like a doorstop against the aluminum in a vain attempt to delay the soldiers, if only for an instant longer.
The soldiers were right outside the door. He was trapped, trapped like a-
The ceiling, he thought in a sudden, jarring inspiration. Without a moment’s hesitation, he jumped up, high as he could, and grabbed the metal bars over his head, trying to push his body through.
The soldiers were pounding on the door, and the sound of it sent a chill through Simon. The thin walls of the cell’s modular structure trembled and bowed under their blows.
Oliver watched his son pull himself into hiding with a deep sense of desperation. I have so little time, he thought, too weak to speak. I won’t live long enough to tell him…tell him everything…
The power outage had provided the precious few seconds that Simon needed. Once shut, and with the electric motors disconnected, the door could not be opened from the outside, and as the guards shouted and cursed, he used every ounce of his strength to pull himself high up into to the lattice work, holding himself tight against the ceiling itself. He spotted pinpoints of light reflected from the soldiers’ helmets into the darkness of the grid work, over their heads and directly on the other side of the wall. He only had to move slowly, silently to the right and over the wall.