‘And the DIA aren’t going to be happy if you and your team falter at the last hurdle and leave behind the very thing that they’ve been hoping for,’ Ethan pointed out. ‘Burying Amy under the ice and I’ll bet the DIA or the Navy will bury every one of your careers the moment you get out of here.’
‘This wasn’t part of the mission,’ Riggs snapped.
‘Amy is the mission now,’ Ethan shot back. ‘She’s Black Knight as much as that disc, which has also been exposed to anything that might lurk inside Black Knight!’
Riggs scowled and glanced at Del Toro, who shrugged.
‘I don’t like it but he’s right: we take the disc, we gotta take her too ‘cause if we don’t the mission’s a bust.’
Ethan was about to argue the point when one of the SEALs dashed in.
‘They’re preparing to attack,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Two minutes and we’re done!’
Ethan looked at Riggs, and realized that he was right. He holstered his pistol and rushed toward the rear dock entrance.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said quickly. ‘If the submarine can get in here, then the Seehund can still get out!’
Riggs stared at Ethan in amazement. ‘Sure it can, but it only takes two people!’
Ethan stopped at the door and looked back at him.
‘The Seehund is sealed, fully contained. If we send it east through the tunnels with Amy and the disc inside, she can be picked up off the coast by the Polar Star under controlled conditions and from there travel back to America.’
Riggs looked like he’d been slapped. ‘And Veer’s men out there?’
‘Don’t know about the Seehund,’ Ethan replied. ‘They’re going to be looking for a large submarine trying to get into the pens, not a small one trying to get out.’
‘And the minor issue of how the hell anybody can go in there with her right now, if she’s contaminated in any way?’
‘The biohazard suits,’ Ethan said quickly. ‘The pilot can handle the submarine if Amy is tied down well enough. With the current beneath this glacier they’ll be out of here within an hour or two, and the Seehund can remain safely submerged for that long. If we put Amy inside a suit too, then they can be removed from the sub at Polar Star without fear of contamination.’
Del Toro shook his head. ‘That’s a huge risk for whoever does the driving, Warner.’
‘But no risk for the rest of the planet,’ Ethan said. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘No,’ Riggs snapped as he pointed at Hannah. ‘You’re too good a shot to be expendable. Ford, you’re up. Get a suit on and fast!’
Hannah’s legs almost collapsed beneath her. ‘Me?’
‘You know enough of the controls from your briefing and you can get her out of here,’ Riggs insisted. ‘It’s the smartest option, ladies first and all that.’
Ethan gripped Hannah’s arm. ‘It’s the right thing and Amy trusts you.’
Hannah baulked, but then a rattle of gunfire smacked along the wall behind them as a deafening rumble shook the base and churned the water in the pens.
‘Running out of time folks!’ Saunders chortled. ‘Time to leave!’
Hannah grit her teeth as she glared at Ethan. ‘If I get out of this alive, I’ll sue you!’
Ethan grinned and tugged her toward the rear dock. ‘Come on!’
They ran together to the dock, where the Seehund was moored alongside the oxygen tent containing Die Glocke. Ethan ran down the steps and across to where two of the SEALs were hurriedly preparing to push the device back into the water.
‘Leave it there,’ Ethan insisted.
‘We can’t,’ one of the soldiers insisted. ‘It’s a part of the mission.’
‘The only useful thing inside that artifact was that disc,’ Ethan snapped back. ‘I want Veer to think he’s won while Amy and that disc get away untouched.’
Doctor Chandler had watched the exchange in silence, but now he stepped forward.
‘I will go with Amy,’ he said.
‘You can’t control the Seehund,’ Ethan dismissed his offer.
‘I may be considered a conspiracy theorist and crank but I’m not an imbecile,’ Chandler replied quietly. ‘Amy took an enormous risk to retrieve Black Knight and now she’s in need of our help. So far I’ve been a passenger on this mission, but now I can see that if I go with her, it will leave you two to support the SEAL team and perhaps succeed in holding Veer’s men at bay for long enough to save yourselves.’
Ethan looked at the old man for a long moment, and then at the SEALs.
‘It’s not rocket science to pilot this thing,’ Sully replied, ‘if he can hold a straight course then he should be able to make it out.’
Ethan turned to Chandler and sighed. ‘There are leopard seals down there that might investigate the sub, just try to follow them to air pockets that must exist along the entire route if they can make it this far beneath the glacier. It’ll keep your oxygen reserves topped up. Once we’re out of here, we’ll catch you up in the other submarine and help you track out of here.’
Chandler dragged on his biohazard suit as Ethan briefed him. The two SEALs looked at each other and then at Amy inside the tent.
‘We’d do better to just drop the device and the tent into the water and send the Seehund back to the coast,’ Sully said in a whisper.
‘She needs to live, just like the rest of us. Do either of you want the job of piloting the sub’ out of here?’ Hannah demanded.
Both of the SEAL’s stood up straight, refusing to be cowed.
‘I’d do whatever it takes to complete the mission!’ Sully snapped back.
‘Then help get Amy into that suit,’ Ethan snapped. ‘We don’t have much time.’
As if in response the chamber shuddered again and chunks of ice plummeted from the ceiling of the chamber and crashed into the frigid black water around them. The SEALs jumped into action as they opened the Seehund’s viewing dome. Chandler zipped up his suit and turned to the tent entrance.
‘Amy, can you hear me?’
Ethan looked at the young scientist, who was standing perfectly erect despite the trembling cavern and dock around them, her eyes filled with fear.
‘I can hear you,’ she mumbled, almost tearfully.
‘We’re leaving,’ Chandler said, ‘and we’ll get you back to Polar Star and out of here, okay?’
Amy nodded. ‘And the disc?’
‘It’s coming with us,’ Chandler assured her.
‘Hurry,’ Ethan urged.
Chandler unsealed the tent entrance and stepped inside, carefully sealing it behind him before he moved through into the tent proper. Amy remained silent and still as Chandler gently reached for the helmet of her suit.
‘Easy now,’ Ethan said. ‘Double check that it’s secure.’
Chandler lifted the helmet and held it over Amy’s head, the scientist several inches shorter than Chandler. Then, slowly, he lowered it into place and then sealed it.
‘Good,’ Ethan said as he glanced at the SEALs. ‘Okay, here goes nothing.’
Chandler took hold of Amy’s gloved hand and led her out of the tent, careful to seal the Black Knight in behind him.
‘Okay, let’s move,’ Ethan said as he guided them both to the Seehund.
Ethan turned to Chandler, who was standing behind him and looking furtively at the submarine.
‘It handles just fine,’ he promised the doctor. ‘Just let the current carry you along and reserve as much of the fuel as possible for electrical power. It’s three knots at least down there, enough to pull you through the tunnels and make it out at about eight to ten knots. Two hours, tops.’