Which was precisely where he was headed.

Peters stopped to enter his name and the time into the logbook Wolff had placed in the chamber. Then he walked through the staging area, opened the main doors, and stepped outside. At the first biting blast of wind, the last clinging vestiges of drowsiness were brutally ripped away. Any hopes he’d entertained of getting back to sleep after his one-hour shift had been in vain. He’d heard about the bad weather that had come in, pinned them down, kept planes from either landing or taking off. Hearing about it was one thing-experiencing it firsthand was something else. He staggered back against the outer doors, lowered his head, leaned into the blast. Sharp cold needles stung his cheeks and he retreated farther into the fur lining of his hood. Through the tumbling sheets of ice and snow he could make out the faint silhouettes of the outlying structures. He took a tentative step forward, then another. It was so dim it seemed more like night than day. Gaffer’s rigging and scaffolding swayed like giant Tinkertoy constructions, creaking with protest under the fierce gusts.

Searches in shifts: one hour on, eleven hours off. Six searchers inside, six outside-the latter number reduced to three in the stormy weather. Even so, it was hard to believe there were two other poor saps out here with him, searching uselessly in this shit. This was beyond crazy. What were Wolff and Conti smoking, anyway?

Face away from the wind, he plodded forward a dozen steps to a storage shed, its door rattling fretfully in its frame. He paused a moment, then tacked left to the outbuilding that served as temporary prop fabrication. He peered in through the window: empty, of course. Was it really just two days before that he’d lounged in there, chewing on a piece of chipotle-flavored beef jerky and scoffing at the army types and lame-assed scientists who were stuck in this godforsaken place? Now those same soldiers and scientists were inside, warm and dry-and he was out here freezing.

With a curse he moved forward again, counting the steps-ten, twenty, thirty-until he reached the ice-road trucker’s cab. He huddled behind one of the huge tires, partially sheltered from the wind and snow. He’d been outside less than five minutes and he felt numb already.

Once again he wondered about the two others who were supposed to be out here, searching. He upbraided himself for not checking the logbook when he’d signed in. A little company might make the time pass quicker. He opened his mouth to shout for them, then-feeling the wind immediately snatch the breath from his lungs-thought better of it. Why waste energy when nobody could hear him, anyway?

He shuffled forward again until the heavy chain-link of the perimeter fence abruptly materialized out of the gray soup. He stopped, extending one hand to brush the fence. He’d been warned not to stray far from the base in this weather, and with polar bears roaming the tundra he planned to heed that advice, big-time. He walked another few steps to the corrugated metal walls of the deserted security station, then stepped past it. He’d make one circuit of the base, keeping an arm’s length from the fence. That’s as much as anyone could expect. Then he’d go hide in some outbuilding for the remainder of his hour, try to warm up.

Rounding the security station, he stepped out of the perimeter apron and onto the permafrost. The wind seemed to redouble its fury. He trudged ahead more quickly now, one step, another, and then another…He staggered forward like a blind man, one hand trailing along the fence, his eyes all but closed against the ice pellets. The shriek of the wind filled his head, making his ears ring strangely. Already it seemed like he’d been out here forever. Jesus, this was awful. Blaine was right: he’d file a grievance not only with the union but with the channel as well. He’d do it as soon as he could get online; he wouldn’t even wait until they were back in New York. It didn’t matter if he was just a production assistant: his job description didn’t include anything like this, and all Wolff’s talk of “emergency measures” was nothing but a crock of…

He paused. His hand fell away from the fence, and he looked around, temporarily heedless of the brutal cold and stinging wind.

Why had he stopped? He’d seen nothing. And yet suddenly his senses were on full alert, his heart hammering in his chest. Living well east of Tompkins Square Park had honed his instinct for self-preservation-but he wasn’t in New York City, he was in the middle of frigging nowhere.

He shook his head, moved forward-then stopped again. What was that noise that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, that made the inside of his head feel like it was stuffed with bees? And what was that shape, dark and indistinct, in the tumbling hail of snow ahead of him?

“Who’s there?” he called out, the wind snatching away the words as quickly as he uttered them.

He blinked, peered more closely-and then with a piercing shriek of terror tumbled backward, turned, and, half falling, half staggering, fled in the direction of the security station. Screaming and gibbering in sudden mindless fear, Peters made it two more steps before a devastating blow from behind knocked him to his knees, wheezing, eyes bulging-and then a violent, unimaginable pain abruptly blossomed between his shoulder blades. Yawning darkness claimed him for its own.

21

The physics and life-sciences lab was a converted sheet-metal shop on B Level. It wasn’t really much of a lab, Marshall thought as he stood just inside the doorway, surveying the laptops, microscopes, and other equipment strewn across half a dozen worktables: basically, it was just enough for the most essential day-to-day analysis and observation until they could get their data and samples back to Massachusetts.

In the rear of the lab, Faraday and Chen were huddled over something, backs to him, their heads almost touching. Marshall threaded his way between the tables toward them. As he approached he saw what they were studying so intently: a rack containing a dozen or so small test tubes.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” he said.

The two straightened up and turned toward him with the swift, guilty motions of children caught doing something forbidden. Marshall frowned.

“What are you up to?” he asked.

Faraday and Chen exchanged glances.

“Analyzing something,” Faraday said after a moment.

“So I see.” Marshall glanced down at the test tubes. They were filled with different colored liquids: red, blue, pale yellow. “Seems to have captured your full attention.”

Faraday said nothing. Chen shrugged.

“What is it?” Marshall asked bluntly.

In the pause that followed, he looked around the nearby tables, more carefully this time. Faraday’s eight-by-tens of the inside of the vault were scattered across one; they were now covered with circles and arrowed notations in grease pencil. On another table, a plastic bin full of what appeared to be wood chips sat beside a stereo-microscope.

Faraday cleared his throat. “We’re examining the ice.”

Marshall glanced back at him. “What ice?”

“The ice that the cat-the creature-was encased in.”

“How? That ice melted away long ago. And the resulting water would be contaminated, useless as a scientific sample.”

“I know. That’s why I retrieved the samples from the source.”

“The source?” Marshall frowned. “You mean-from the ice cave?”

Faraday pushed his glasses up his nose, nodded.

“You went back to the cave-in this storm? That’s crazy.”

“No, I went last night. After our meeting in the RASP room.”

Marshall folded his arms across his chest. “That’s still crazy. In the middle of the night? That cave’s dangerous enough at the best of times.”