For a split second, she couldn’t move.
But when that door opened, whoever was there would see her, clear as day. Maybe it was someone she could trust, but if it wasn’t…
Forget the last sticker. With one hand, she slammed the cover shut, gave herself up to that lizard brain, and ran like hell.
Something cracked in the distance, everything shook, and the arch went dark.
* * *
Gone. Every one of his drills. Into thin air.
And nobody at base was answering. Not the station manager, not Jameson, not the communications office…nobody. Which made zero sense. Somebody should pick up. Coop had tried putting a call through to McMurdo, but the sky had chosen that moment to cloud over and he couldn’t get a goddamn signal. He needed to tell somebody what was going on, so they could stop whoever was responsible before they left the continent.
But who the hell was behind this?
None of the researchers, because it wouldn’t make sense when they shared scientific data freely between them. Just recently, in fact, he’d pulled probably the most interesting core samples of his career and shared them with pretty much every researcher here.
Operations staff was even less likely to be interested in what he was doing out here. The mechanics would have the know-how to pull the drills apart, but with their sixteen-hour, six-day-a-week schedules, they lacked opportunity to do so. The same went for kitchen staff, fuelies, and sanitation folks.
Was it pure, angry sabotage?
He squinted hard out the windshield, willing the machine to go over twelve miles per hour.
The new guys had done it. Had to be. He should’ve listened to his gut about them. Not that it would’ve changed a thing.
An image of that blood came to him again. Jesus, he hoped Cortez was all right. If only he’d busted through his door last night.
If only he’d been paying more attention, he would’ve noticed trouble before it fell all around him. Somebody’d asked him about his drills recently. Who was that? Alex? No. No, it had been one of the new guys. Ben something. He’d claimed to have an interest in engineering, said someone had mentioned Coop’s drills. Damn it. Was he the guy behind this? Or that whole group?
Those assholes had never fit in here from the moment they’d arrived. Cleaners and mechanics, ostensibly, along with the new operations manager. But he’d seen the way their eyes took in a room. Cautious. Hypervigilant. And more than a little arrogant.
In hindsight, that arrogance was particularly telling. Not to mention worrisome.
He was grinding his teeth now, fighting the urge to get out and run. No matter how slow this machine felt, he couldn’t outrun—
Something cracked beyond the engine’s low rumble, and seconds later a gray smudge appeared on the horizon.
What the hell?
He yanked off his sunglasses, rubbed his eyes, and squinted in the direction of the Burke-Ruhe Research Station, where a plume of black smoke reached up into the white antarctic sky.
Chapter 8
Angel had never stared into such complete darkness, never strained to hear a sound in such absolute silence. Was that an explosion? Was it the power plant?
Please, God, what’s happening?
“Got company!” Sampson’s yell broke through the silence, stern and matter-of-fact. Through the pounding in her ears, Angel couldn’t tell which direction his voice had come from.
She slid around until she found a spot behind another shelving unit filled with big cardboard boxes. Toilet paper, she remembered. Great weapon to have at a time like this. For a split second, the idea of mummifying Sampson almost made her laugh.
Light sliced open the dark, solid as a knife through butter, blinding her, while footsteps converged from both ends of the arch.
They were coming for her.
Go!
It was some sixth sense that led her to the wall, instead of straight down the arch, and pure instinct that sent her to the low wooden door leading to the ice tunnels. Jameson had shown her around once. He loved it down here, had even hand-carved a few of the passages himself, but to her, they’d felt like a frigid tomb. Didn’t matter. She needed a place to hide.
The steps pounded closer, someone breaking off to search the tool room, someone else another storage area. There was no time.
With shaking hands, she slid back the lock and pulled. It wouldn’t budge. Another pull, with both hands this time, and still no give. The door, her only escape, was frozen shut.
No, no, no.
A wild look over her shoulder showed them approaching, one flashlight carving through the darkness within a few feet of her. She’d seen the emotionless way they’d killed Alex. Ten more steps and she was as good as dead.
No time to be quiet.
She tightened her hands on the door and heaved.
It flew open, smashing her nose in the process. It took every bit of control she had not to cry out. Quickly, blindly, she stepped in, pulled the door closed behind her, and waited. No, no waiting. She had to lock it, somehow, to keep them from following her in.
Oh God, was there even a lock on the inside?
Breath coming in hot and hard, she scrabbled at her pockets until she came up with her Maglite. Wait. If they hadn’t already heard her, then it was best not to alert them to her presence. But they’d figure out eventually that she was here. They’d think to search the tunnel, right? And the place was so unfamiliar, she needed a quick look. It was worth the risk.
She turned it on, blinked twice, then immediately slammed her eyes shut. They burned from the light and the cold, but mostly—oh, please no—they burned from what she’d just seen. In the split second after closing her eyes, she turned off the light again.
The image was seared into her corneas like a brand into skin. A body. A person, stretched out, frozen on the ice. Even now, on the backs of her lids, she couldn’t unsee the bright red Jackson Pollock-esque splashes and stains.
Jamie Cortez. Dead.
That man. That sweet, funny—
Stop. Think about it later. The important thing now was that there was no lock, no way to keep them out.
Something thumped just outside the door and her body went absolutely still. Only her eyes moved, along with her madly beating pulse—racing, racing, racing—until she pressed one gloved hand to the ice wall and forced herself forward. Each crunching step led her farther into the massive ice maze, like walking into a tomb. She counted out her own steps, heavy as death knells. One, two, three…
The door swung open behind her.
She lurched forward and around the first bend just as the light grazed her shoulder.
“Who is that? That you, Angel?” It was Sampson, his voice smooth and Southern, the charm as real as his bright-white smile. His light laugh made her curl in on herself. Or maybe that was the unbearable weight of his attention, after everything she’d witnessed.