Lin raised a hand to her helmet, changed channels, and began speaking.
Peyton also switched back to channel one.
“… just got through,” the technician said.
“Good.” Lin’s voice was emotionless.
“Should we proceed to the next office?”
“Negative. Seal the office you just opened per SOPs and prepare for departure. We’re done here for now.”
The SEAL stepped out of the office and disappeared back down the passageway.
Lin turned her helmet, stared at Peyton, and held up four gloved fingers. Peyton switched channels again.
“Can we proceed?”
Peyton studied her mother’s slightly lined face. “What does it do? Your Looking Glass. The Rabbit Hole.”
“It’s very hard to describe—”
“Will it hurt anyone?”
Lin looked pained at the question. “No. It’s not like that.”
“What is it like?”
“It will change our theory of everything.”
Like most children, Peyton had grown up taking her mother’s word as fact. Usually, Lin Shaw’s pronouncements were the final word on matters. Peyton hadn’t been a rebellious teenager; she was the quiet one, her nose always in a book or playing alone. She wasn’t used to conflict. That’s one of the things that drew her to epidemiology. Viruses and bacteria hurt people, but they were microscopic. The fight wasn’t large and in your face, but it mattered. A lot.
Yet here and now, she felt that she had to press her mother. She needed to know that what they were doing mattered—and that it would do what her mother promised. “Will it stop Yuri and the Citium?”
“If I’m right, it will neutralize him.”
“And will it help me find Desmond?”
“No. But I will. I promise you that, Peyton. I know what he means to you. I know what it’s like to lose the love of your life to circumstances you can’t control.”
The reference to Peyton’s father brought a pang of sadness. Her mother didn’t waver though.
“You and I will finish this. Together.”
In the submersible, Peyton watched the depth reading count down to zero. The specially built vessel had no windows, but a flat panel computer screen showed the view from six cameras: one mounted above, one below, and one on each of its four sides. The thick sheet of ice approached, then passed by. The vessel shook as it crested the water line.
Peyton unlatched her helmet the moment her boots hit the deck. A thick white cloud spread out, a mixture of cigarette smoke and the Russian sailors’ hot breath in the Arctic air. The voices of the sailors and research team were a chaotic cacophony, seemingly with no source. Floodlights shone down from the deck above, like four moons beyond the cloud cover on an alien world. Through the din, Peyton could make out some of the arguments—researchers discussing whether they should leave. Something was very wrong.
Lin walked over to the US Navy sailor who was operating the controls that tethered the submersible to the Arktika. “What’s the problem, Chief?”
“Internet’s down, ma’am.”
“A problem on our end?”
“Negative, ma’am.”
“Elaborate.”
The man turned from the controls. “Sat link went down fifteen minutes ago.”
“Ours or theirs?” Lin jerked her head toward the Russians.
“Both.”
Lin’s eyes darted back and forth, as if speed-reading.
“The links are good, there’s just no response on the other end. JTF-GNO. Rubicon. They’re dark—”
Lin spun and shouted across the deck.
“Vasiliev!”
The burly Russian officer emerged from the cloud, anger on his face.
“Sound the alarm!” Lin yelled.
He stared, confused.
“Do it! Now, Vasiliev! We’re under attack.”
His expression softened as if he were putting the pieces together. He unclipped the handheld radio from his belt and brought it to his face, but he never got a word out.
The deck shuddered as the bomb went off. The floodlights went out, and dim yellow emergency lights flickered on, only to wink out when a second explosion rocked the ship. This one lasted longer, like thunder rolling through the massive structure.
The deck seemed to churn with bodies as everyone sprang into motion. The sailors raced toward their muster stations. Their shouting echoed off the metal decks. Peyton thought she heard muffled rifle reports, thumping, rhythmic in the darkness. A gust of air blew the white cloud of cigarette smoke and steam away, like dust blowing in the wind, and with the misty curtain gone, Peyton realized that everyone had stopped moving. They were staring at the helicopter on the deck above. Its rotors were spinning up. The sailors screamed obscenities, knowing their best chance of escape was slipping away.
Lin’s voice sounded, barely audible in the shouts: “Get back!”
The helo exploded in flames and shrapnel. The blast blew Peyton off her feet. Two men landed on top of her. Their weight and the impact with the deck would have crushed her if not for the thick suit. Her ears rang, and blood trickled down her face. She realized it wasn’t her own blood, but was dripping from above—from one of the sailors who’d landed on top of her. She looked up, and saw a piece of metal lodged in his face.
She reached up and pushed against the man on the top. He shifted and slid off. She arched her back, trying to move the other man, but he was too heavy. She rocked back and forth on her elbows, and finally managed to turn and crawl out from under him.
She checked his pulse. Nothing. He was dead.
The deck was a horror scene. Bodies lay in stacks at awkward angles, like a box of matches that had been emptied haphazardly. A fire crackled in the helicopter’s charred wreckage, sending plumes of black smoke down to the lower deck. A few sailors had started to move, like zombies rising from a mass grave, their movements lit only by the green and purple streaks of the Aurora Borealis.
Their mouths moved, but Peyton couldn’t hear the words—all was silence. No—a dull ringing. Peyton shook her head and crawled to the closest sailor. Dead.
But the next one was alive.
She called to a man nearby, who had just gotten to his feet. But she couldn’t hear her own voice, and if he could hear her, he ignored her. He ran to a lifeboat and began untying it.
Peyton tried to focus. The research team. Below decks. In the dark. She had to warn them, help them get out. And save the data.
What else?
Her mother.
Lin Shaw lay ten feet away. Not moving.
Peyton stumbled across the deck, wincing as her feet dug into the bodies. Only a few squirmed at her touch.
She took her mother’s face in her hands, then slid two fingers down to her carotid artery and pressed, waited, dreading…
She felt a pulse.
Lin’s eyes stayed closed, but her breathing was slowly accelerating. She was coming to. But Peyton couldn’t wait. Her mom was okay, and that was good enough for now.
Peyton spun and searched the deck for her helmet. It was still near the submersible where she had taken it off. She pulled it on and activated the lights.
She moved to the closest hatch, still taking careful steps. Inside, she found a ladder and descended.
The passageways were dark, lit only by her helmet lights. They reminded her of the Beagle, except without the ice crystals and dust motes flying by. She wondered if a watery grave on the ocean floor would be the Arktika’s fate. Or were the attackers only trying to retrieve the data and artifacts?
Gradually, her hearing returned. Voices and footsteps echoed all around her. She had to stop in the passageways several times to allow Russian sailors to pass. Soon the corridors were swarming with people. Peyton felt like a pinball in a machine, tossed about with no control.
She was almost to the cargo hold when a hand gripped her shoulder, pulled her back, and pinned her to the wall.
Another
set of helmet lights shone into her eyes.
Her mother’s.
Her visor was up, and she was panting, desperately trying to catch her breath. Peyton raised her own helmet visor so she could hear her mother’s voice.
“We have to…” Lin leaned forward and put her hands on her knees. “Get off the ship.”
“Mom, the researchers, the data—”
“No time, Peyton. They’ll sink her.”
“Who?”
“Yuri.”
“He’s here?”
Lin shook her head. She was finally getting her breath back. “His men. I know it.”
Two beams of light rounded the corner, then stopped moving. A man’s voice called into the passageway. “Dr. Shaw.”
Both women turned.
A small smile crossed the man’s lips. “Doctors Shaw, I should say.”
The men were dressed in US Navy working uniforms. Peyton recognized the desert digital pattern—it was restricted to SEALs and other sailors assigned to Naval Special Warfare units. The two men also wore headlamps, body armor, and cold weather gear. Automatic rifles hung from their shoulders.
“Lieutenant Stockton, ma’am,” the first man said. He nodded to his companion. “Chief Petty Officer Bromitt and I have orders to get you off this ship.”
Lin eyed the man carefully, but didn’t respond. Peyton sensed her hesitation.
“Afraid we don’t have much time, Dr. Shaw. If you and your daughter will follow us…”
To Peyton’s surprise, Lin fell in behind the petty officer. Not knowing what else to do, Peyton followed.
With each step, the passageways started to fill. Russian sailors rushed by with flashlights. Members of the biology team strained to see by the light of their cell phones. Archaeologists in white suits lumbered through the cramped corridors, some holding up LED bars and penlights.
Lin’s voice was barely audible over the pounding footfalls. “Where are we going, Lieutenant?”
“Emergency evac, ma’am. Can’t say.”
“Whose orders?”
“CENTCOM direct, ma’am. Standing emergency orders for the deployment. You two are high value.”
At a ladder, Bromitt began climbing. Lin and Peyton followed, and Stockton brought up the rear. They didn’t stop until they reached the main deck. They stepped out of a hatch near the middle of the ship, on the opposite side from the submersible launch area. Around the deck, Russian sailors were untying lifeboats and placing their fallen comrades inside. An officer with a bullhorn was directing them in Russian.
Stockton gestured toward a rope that hung from the outer rail. “Up and over, ladies.”
Peyton peered over the rail. In a pocket carved out of the ice, roughly fifty feet below, sat a submersible slightly larger than the one tethered to the Arktika’s launch bay.
“Where are you operating from, Lieutenant?”
“Another icebreaker, ma’am. Close by. Now we really need to move.”
The ship jolted, like something had broken free below. A bulkhead maybe?
Peyton watched the water line. It was creeping up the hull. The massive icebreaker was sinking into the Arctic.
Stockton stepped closer to Lin. “I really must insist, Doctor.”
Lin motioned to the rope. “Fine. Have the chief descend first to test the line.”
Stockton shook his head. “Ladies first.”
“No, Lieutenant. The chief goes. When he’s halfway, I’ll go, Peyton will follow, and you will bring up the rear, just as we exited.” She stared at him a moment. “Or you can throw me off.”
Stockton smiled and nodded to the chief, who cartwheeled his legs over the rail, gripped the rope, and began rappelling down.
As Lin stepped over to the rail, she slipped her hand inside her suit pocket. Then she jerked toward the lieutenant with incredible speed. Her blow struck his lower abdomen, right under his body armor. Rapid electrical pops went off—the clack-clack-clack of a stun gun. Stockton convulsed and collapsed to the deck, his face hitting hard as he screamed out.
Lin drew a combat knife from the sheath on Stockton’s calf and slammed it into the rope. It didn’t slice through, but a vibration went through the line, making a sound like a violin holding a note.
Bromitt was thirty feet down. He instantly started climbing back up.
Peyton turned to run, but the drone of the knife being drawn across the rope continued. Her mother had flipped the weapon around and was sawing the rope with the serrated edge.
“Mom!”
Lin didn’t look up.
Bromitt was climbing fast, breathing hard, putting hand over hand. He was twenty feet away.
Strands of rope frayed. It would never break in time.
Overhead, signal flares went up—the Russian crew desperately calling for help.
Bromitt began running side to side, like a human pendulum swinging back and forth, trying to gain enough speed to reach the rail. He got closer with each run. He would grasp it on the next go.
“Mom!”
Lin shot Peyton a quick glance, spun the knife again, and hacked hard at the rope. It finally snapped, sending Bromitt plummeting to the ice below. He landed right where the massive twelve-foot thick sheet met the water, his bones cracking on contact. He cried out, flailed, then reached back and tried to gain purchase on the sloped ice. He was sliding down, toward the water.
Thirty feet away, the hatch on the submersible burst open. A man’s head popped out, and he spotted Bromitt. He watched with an expression of horror as his comrade slipped into the freezing water, barely able to move his broken bones, his last words only grunts and gurgles as the Arctic water flowed into his mouth.
The soldier in the submersible turned his gaze upward, hatred in his eyes. He drew his sidearm and fired. His first shot hit the rail beneath Lin, missing by only an inch.
She reeled back and yelled, “Intruders!”
Sailors from the aft deck poured onto the narrow gangway. They fired on the submersible, their bullets ricocheting off the hull as the man ducked down.
Stockton groaned, reached out a trembling hand, and grabbed the metal cord railing. His partially paralyzed limbs shook as he pulled himself toward the edge.
Lin lunged for him, but not fast enough; he slipped over the lip of the deck, face-first, sliding down the hull as if it were a giant water slide. He screamed as he hit the icy water.
Another figure popped up from the submersible, spraying automatic gunfire at the gangway. More Russians poured onto the deck and began firing. The submersible was in the crossfire now, with shots coming from both the foredeck and aft deck.
Lin grabbed Peyton and pulled her toward the ship’s hatch. “Run.”
“Mom.”
“Move, Peyton. Or we’re dead.”
Lin slammed the door shut behind them and turned the wheel to lock it. The two women snaked through the passageway, their way lit only by their helmet lamps.
They emerged onto the aft deck, which was still littered with bodies and debris from the helicopter’s explosion. A throng of people had crowded around the launch platform—biologists in arctic weather gear and archaeologists still in their white clean suits, shouting and waving their hands. Peyton realized then what her mother apparently had already realized: there were only two ways off the sinking ship—the lifeboats and the submersible. The lifeboats could be offloaded to the ice, but the survivors would be left to brave the elements in tents and cold weather gear. If help didn’t arrive soon, that would be a death sentence. She wasn’t sure the submersible was much better, but clearly her mother had opted for it.
Lin made a wedge with her hands and charged into the crowd.
At the launch controls, six SEALs were holding the mob back at gunpoint. But they waved Peyton and Lin forward, made an opening for them, and closed ranks the moment they passed. Nigel Greene stood behind them, clutching a messenger bag to his chest, his pudgy stomach protruding below.
“Lieutenant,” Lin said to a t
all SEAL with two silver bars on his lapel.
“Ma’am,” he replied, not looking back. “Thought you might favor the submersible.”
“Assignments?” she said flatly.
“Adams and Rodriguez will accompany you, ma’am. They know the Beagle the best. We’ll cover your exit.”
Why do they need to know it the best, Peyton thought. And then she answered her own question: in case the wrecked sub was boarded by the men in the other submersible. In case they were pursued—and had to fight in the Beagle.
“You and your men will be remembered for you act of bravery here today, Lieutenant,” Lin said. “You have my word.” She turned to Nigel. “Dr. Greene, if you please.”
The biologist shuffled quickly to the submersible. As he boarded, the crowd surged forward, screaming at the sight of what might be their only chance of survival slipping away. The SEALs fired into the air, quieting the mob and forcing everyone back.
Peyton stared at the faces in the crowd, the looks of hopelessness and fear. They were expressions she knew well—had seen countless times during outbreaks around the world, in huts and ramshackle tenements and field hospitals. But this was different. As an epidemiologist, she had done everything she could to help the dying. She had even risked her life. Pandemics pit humanity against the forces of nature—every person was in it together, fighting to survive—and that was a fight she could get behind. But this… this was choosing her life over theirs, sentencing them to death. Her against them. It felt wrong to her.
She stopped. Watched the others board.
“Peyton.” Her mother’s voice was like a whip, but her eyes betrayed no emotion. “We have to go, Peyton. People are counting on you.” She stepped closer. “To survive.”
In her mind’s eye, Peyton saw Desmond’s face. Her brother, Andrew. Her sister, Madison.
As if in a trance, she moved to the submersible, felt herself climb down the ladder. Heard her mother descending after her, then the two Navy SEALs. The hatch closing. The submersible sinking.
A single thought echoed in her mind. We left them there to die.
Her mother seemed to understand. She leaned forward and looked Peyton in the eyes. “Listen to me. We didn’t create this situation.” She motioned to the surface. “They did. Yuri did. They put us in this position. They sank the ship and killed those people. And that is only the beginning. You’ve seen what they’re capable of. We have to survive, if for only one reason: to stop them. If we allow our emotions to cloud our judgment, if we make the wrong call, if they capture or kill us, a lot more people are going to suffer.”