“Omega is free?” Amanda asked.

“For the moment.” He waved toward the crack. “But that fact will do us no good here. We need to get out of this station.”

“How?” Dr. Ogden asked, standing nearby.

Craig waved to the crack in the wall. “They somehow got in here. We’ll get out the same way.”

“But the grendels…?” Magdalene asked.

Craig crossed to the crate of empty vodka bottles that he had moved earlier, then eyed the entire party. “To survive, we’re going to have to work together.”

Jenny watched the flames flare up again in the crack, driving her back.

Thank God…

A moment ago, as the fires had temporarily died, she had taken a cautious step closer and peered into the heart of the recent conflagration. A foot away, the ice crack had been melted into a true passage, narrow but passable.

They were almost through.

For a moment, she had feared the others were out of fuel. She had heard anxious whispering — then the hose had reappeared, forcing her back.

Now flames again lapped greedily from the tunnel, boring through the remainder of the ice. They were going to make it. Still, Jenny held her breath. She turned to Tom and Kowalski.

The pair, along with Bane, guarded the other tunnel, watching for the approach of any of the creatures.

Tom caught her eye. “It’s still down there. I keep seeing shadows moving.”

“Bastard’s not about to give up on its meal,” Kowalski concurred.

“It should stay away as long as the fire keeps going,” Jenny said, adding a silent I hope.

“In that case,” Kowalski grumped, “I want a goddamn flamethrower for my next birthday.”

She studied the dark tunnel and tried to understand what lurked out there. She remembered Craig’s name for the beast: grendel. But what was it really? There were myths among her people about whale spirits that left the ocean and dragged off young men and women. She had thought such stories just superstitious tales. Now she wasn’t so sure.

The fury of the blaze had died down again, drawing back her attention. What are they doing over there?

Jenny waited. The fires died to flickers. She stepped forward again, ready to call out. But a dark shape appeared instead, pushing out the narrow crack. It was a figure cloaked in a soggy blanket.

The blanket was tossed back, throwing out light and revealing a tall, slender woman, dressed in a blue thermal unitard. The light came from a mining lantern held in one hand. She lifted it now.

“Amanda…Dr. Reynolds!” Tom exclaimed.

Jenny recognized the name, the head of the Omega Drift Station.

“What are you doing?” Kowalski asked. He waved an arm at the crack. Another figure pushed out of the melted passage. “I thought we were joining you.”

“Change in plans,” she said, staring around at them. “Looks like it’s safer out here than in there.”

To punctuate her statement, a blast of rifle fire echoed from the other side, ringing off metal.

The second figure shook free of the blanket. It was Craig. He helped the next person out of the crack. “Not to sound trite, but the Russians are coming.”

Another four people pushed into the cavern: three men and a woman. They wore matching terrified expressions. Bane sniffed at them, weaving among their legs.

The eldest of the new group spoke to Craig. “The Russians are shooting at the door.”

“Must be trying to keep us pinned there,” Craig said. “More soldiers are probably already on their way through the ducts.”

Kowalski pointed back to the crack. “Considering what’s out here, I’d say let’s go back in there and wave the white flag at the Russians.”

“It’s death either way,” Craig answered with a shake of his head. “And here at least we have the firepower to challenge the grendels.” He pulledan object out of his pocket. It was a glass vodka bottle, full of a dark yellow liquid and stoppered with a scrap of cloth. “We have ten of them. If your flares kept the grendels back, then these homemade Molotovs should, too.”

“What then?” Jenny asked.

“We’re going to get out of here,” Craig said. “Up that ventilation shaft.”

“And I was just getting comfy here,” Kowalski said.

Jenny shook her head at such a foolhardy plan. “But we’ll just freeze to death hiding up there. The blizzard is still blowing fiercely.”

“We’re not going to hide,” Craig said. “We’re going to make for the parked vehicles, then strike out for Omega.”

“But the Russians—”

Amanda interrupted. “Omega has been liberated by a Delta Force team. We’re going to try to reach an evacuation point.”

Jenny was stunned into silence.

Kowalski rolled his eyes. “Fuckin’ great. We escape from that goddamn place just before it’s liberated by Special Forces. We’ve got to work on our damn timing.”

Jenny found her tongue. “How do you know all this?”

Amanda pointed a thumb at Craig. “Your friend here is CIA. The controller for the Delta Force team.”

“What?” Jenny swung toward Craig.

He met her eyes as more gunfire rang out from beyond the crack. “We need to move out,” he said. “Find this ventilation shaft.”

Jenny remained frozen in place, her mind too busy trying to assimilate this new information. “What the hell is going on here?”

“I’ll explain it all later. Now’s not the time.” He touched her arm, then added more softly, “I’m truly sorry. I didn’t mean to get you pulled into all of this.”

He slipped past her, lighting the first Molotov cocktail with a Bic lighter, and headed to the tunnel. Once there, he lobbed the bottle far down the passage.

The explosion of fire was fierce, splattering along the hall. Jenny caught a glimpse of the bull beast fleeing around a bend in the tunnel and away.

“Let’s go,” Craig said, heading toward the inferno. “We don’t have much time.”

Loaded down with the pilfered gear from the armory, Matt mounted the wall ladder and climbed behind Greer. At the top of the ladder, Lieutenant Commander Bratt crouched in the chute above, illuminated by a military penlight hanging around his neck. The commander helped Greer off the ladder and into the tunnel.

As he climbed, Matt glanced down. Washburn maintained a watch on the two tunnels that entered the service cubby, rifle raised. The tall woman was taking no chances. The group had reached Level Two and was striking out for Level One.

Matt clambered up the remaining rungs pounded into the ice wall. An arm reached down and grabbed the hood of his white parka, hauling him up.

“Any sign of the civilian group up here?” Matt asked, huffing from the weight of the weapons, every pocket stuffed with grenades.

“No. But they could be anywhere. We’ll just have to count on them finding a safe hiding place.”

Matt crawled into the tunnel, following after Greer and making room for Washburn. Soon they all were snaking down the ice chute, Greer in the lead, Bratt now bringing up the rear.

None of them spoke. Their plan was simple: keep moving up, find a weak spot in the Russians’ defenses, and try to blast their way free of the station. The Polar Sentinel had deployed a SLOT buoy, a Submarine-Launched One-Way Transmitter. Bratt knew where it was hidden atop the ice. They hoped to reach it and manually enter a Mayday, then seek shelter among the ice peaks and caves on the surface. Under the cloak of the blizzard, they might be able to play cat and mouse with the Russians long enough for help to arrive.

And in the meantime, they’d be a decoy for the Russians, keeping the enemy’s attention away from the civilians still hiding in the station.

The party reached another cubbyhole, somewhere between Level One and Level Two. They entered the space more cautiously now. The Russians would be searching these upper levels, expecting them to make a break for the surface.