The Silent Sea (with Jack DuBrul) by Clive Cussler

Author:Clive Cussler [Cussler, Clive]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thriller
ISBN: 9781101185971
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons; Penguin Group
Published: 2010-03-12T08:41:09+00:00

THE ROAR OF A BIG diesel engine outside signaled that the Argentines had fired up their snowcat and were leaving Wilson/ George Station. Fifteen minutes had passed since Linda had taken refuge in the ceiling crawl space. Now that she felt confident they had gone, she broke out a chemical heat pad and applied it to her face. She’d managed to keep her toes and fingers from going numb by curling them repetitively in her boots and gloves. However, the apples of her cheeks and her nose were moments away from frost-bite. The pain when sensation started rushing back was excruciating but welcome because it meant there had been no permanent damage.

And since she’d heard no more gunfire, she knew the rest of her team had remained safely hidden.

Linda climbed stiffly from her perch and remained silent until she made her way to the station’s main door to verify the snowcat was gone. Linc and Mark appeared by the time she returned to the rec room.

“I heard shooting,” Linc said, concern corrugating his broad forehead. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “It was a close call, but yeah. Where’d you guys hide?”

“I just laid down next to one of the bodies,” Mark said. “The guy checking the room didn’t give me a second look.”

“I was in the back of a closet under a pile of clothes. I think they were pretty spooked by what they saw. Their search was cursory.”

“I know how they feel,” Linda agreed, trying not to think about the grisly tableau around her. “Linc, you said you found something in the vehicle shed?”

“Yeah, but you’ll need to see it for yourself.”

With their masks back in place, the three of them trooped along the staked trail to the arch-roofed building. The door still flapped in the wind, a metronomic rattle that was the base’s only sign of life. The power was out, and the garage was so heavily shadowed that the back wall was lost in the gloom. Their flashlights cast brilliant beams that cut the murk like lasers. The two snowcats looked like a hybrid cross between tanks and passenger vans. The tops of the studded Caterpillar tracks came up to Linda’s thigh. Bright orange paint covered the bodywork so they could be easily spotted out in the snowfields behind the station.

“Over here.” Linc led them to a workbench along the side of the garage.

Amid the usual clutter—tools, oil cans, and frozen rags—was a trunk measuring three feet in length. Linc opened the lid.

It took Linda a moment to understand what she was seeing. There was another body in the trunk, but, unlike the others, it had clearly been dead and exposed to the elements for some time. It was more mummy than corpse, and much of the face had been eaten away by scavengers before the body became too frozen to eat. Its clothing was unfamiliar. It wasn’t dressed in contemporary arctic gear but rather a padded jacket of brown wool and pants too thin for the environment. The hat perched atop frozen black hair looked odd.

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