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Franklin squatted, pointing to the external tank. "You'll need to crawl out there and hold my arm while I
swing out. It's just outside my reach if I have to hang on to the railing."
"I've got longer arms," said Iceberg. "I can make it, I think."
"Don't start that again look at your palms. You'll have a hard enough time holding me."
Iceberg flexed his hands, which were scraped raw from the chains in the VAB, and still hurting from
pulling himself up the rungs of the access ladder. He took a deep breath. Chill . . . "You're right. Let me get
into position."
Leaving Franklin behind, he worked his way under the guardrail and inched out. He studied how the
other man would get to the boxy device. If the partially retracted vent access arm had been in place, it
would have been a simple step to reach down and pluck it off the tank's insulation.
No such luck.
Up here, Iceberg seemed to be a thousand miles high, clutching a rickety scaffold. With him holding on
to Franklin, they would have to swing out, away from the access arm over a dizzying height, like the Flying
Wallendas.
He blinked the vertigo away, still trying to drive thoughts of Nicole and her own precarious situation out
of his mind. Mr. Phillips had rattled him, but he couldn't be shaky, not now. Steady, cool, chill, frosty . . .
He shifted position and braced himself where he could carry Franklin's weight. Now or never. "Okay,
Franklin," he said without looking back. "I'm in position. Let's get this show over with." Then Marc Franklin
let out a scream of agony.
Iceberg whirled, lost his balance, and grabbed frantically for the metal rail. He watched in horror as a
muscular, tanned woman her hair as pale as Jacques's lunged forward to stab Franklin a second time in
the back with a long thin stiletto as sharp as an icepick.
Her face was set in a grim, inhuman smile. She ripped the long blade upward as if she were gutting a
fish. Franklin's blood sprayed in all directions, splattering downward in arcs of scarlet rain as she shoved the
body aside like a discarded carcass. She held the knife up, letting blood run down the slender blade, over the
hilt, and onto her hand.
"Oh shit," Iceberg said, struggling to get into a defensive position. "Ah, merde," she replied with a smile.
She must have been six feet tall and looked even taller as she strode toward him with a rolling, catlike
gait. From the other side of the guardrail, she sprang for Iceberg and slashed at his head.
He ducked, reeling backward, battling for balance on the narrow metal arm. The stiletto whipped
through the air with a thin whistle, missing his throat by a centimeter.
Iceberg gripped the bar and pulled his feet up, forgetting about his cast, about the pain, about everything
but smooth, fast motion. He used the guardrails like parallel bars at a gymnastics meet. He rocketed his legs
underneath, swinging as hard as he could as he rotated his body.
He hit the Amazon's right kneecap with a perfect, full-force impact. He heard and felt a satisfying
crunch of bone and cartilage. He hoped that he had at least damaged her more than he had damaged
himself.
Her head and upper body whipped forward, but Iceberg's momentum knocked her back. She jackknifed
to a sitting position on the access arm, but somehow she retained her grip on the thin, curved blade.
Iceberg grimaced, closing his eyes with the reverberating agony from the impact. He couldn't pass out
now. Keep moving. Frosty . . . Iceberg tumbled over the railing, hopping back to the main access arm. He
breathed deeply and tried to regain his focus.
The woman hissed so loudly it became a snarl. Her ice-blue eyes flashed at him in a fury that
overwhelmed her own pain as she struggled, using one hand to haul herself to her feet. Reeling and
overbalanced on one leg, she held her weapon loosely in an underhand grip, a professional knife-fighting
position.
Iceberg hopped backward as he watched her. She crouched and crept forward, like a cat. She stabbed
out, feinting, as if her smashed kneecap meant nothing to her. He tottered away, anticipating her move.
"Colonel Iceberg," she said coolly in a French accent. "You do not look like an iceberg now more like
a snowflake."
Taking advantage of his surprise that she knew his name, the woman nicked his cheek with the tip of
her knife, drawing a long red line of blood, part Franklin's, part his own.
He saw she was playing with him. That feint had been meant to wound, not kill. Foolishly, considering
the circumstances, she wanted to keep slashing him, make him die from a thousand cuts rather than kill him
outright.
Iceberg hopped back on one foot, anticipating her next thrust, but she stung him in the face again. He
felt his warm blood trickle down his cheek. Iceberg ignored the laceration. He'd have to concentrate, throw
her off balance, maybe take out her other knee. His commandeered rifle lay at the other end of the access
arm, far out of reach not that it would have helped him much.
He wiped the blood away with a swipe of his hand and continued backing toward the narrow end of the
access arm. "What do you want?"
"I want your life, bastard. You've met my dear brother Jacques. Did you enjoy beating him? Tying him
up? I think you gave him a nasty concussion." She lunged again, disoriented from her own smashed knee.
"I'm going to enjoy killing you."
The dead-end of the access arm was behind him somewhere, not ten feet away. The woman's eyes
brightened as she saw that she had him trapped. She tossed her knife from one hand to the other, toying
with him. "Where are your fans now, Colonel Iceberg? No one is here to save you."
At least she was talking. He held out an arm behind him, trying to feel for the guardrail. He'd have to time
things perfectly he didn't have anything to lose.
His knuckles brushed against the metal bar.
A smile grew on the woman's face. Tiny spatters of blood from her wild knife slashes dotted her
tanned cheeks. "I am going to make this painful, Colonel Iceberg "
She pounced, fully extending her upper body, taking all the weight off her injured knee.
Iceberg dropped, pushing his feet under her, bringing them up as he fell backward. He grunted as his
feet caught her stomach. She looked surprised as the wind was knocked out of her. She doubled up,
bending forward.
Iceberg kept rolling, using his angular momentum as she started to fall. He flipped her up and took
advantage of her weight as well as his own. Good old gymnastics. With a final heave with both legs, he sent
her flying over the top of him, beyond the railing. "Up and over!" he said.
Screaming, she plunged down, down, out of sight.
Heaving, ready to retch, Iceberg crawled to the side, catching sight of the woman as she hit the curved
side of the external tank and bounced. Seconds later her doll-like body caromed off the gantry structure,
dangled for a second, then splattered on the concrete pad nearly a hundred yards below.
Iceberg breathed heavily. He pulled his leg up, then yelped. Sweating, he figured he'd probably
rebroken his foot, or maybe just his ankle this time. Maybe both.
He crawled over to Marc Franklin and stretched him out. Blood still oozed from the long, gaping wound
in the other man's back. His ribs and spine had been ripped open, and he no longer breathed. His orange
jumpsuit was soaked with crimson blood. His head rolled lifelessly to the side.
Catching his breath. Iceberg crawled over and reached up to the railing. Blackness surrounded him, and
he just wanted to collapse, to forget everything. But he had to keep moving, stop thinking.
One step at a time. Cool, chill, frosty . . .
The bomb remained his biggest priority.
He heard a helicopter flying in the distance. Squinting, he identified it as an Air Force chopper, an [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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Franklin squatted, pointing to the external tank. "You'll need to crawl out there and hold my arm while I
swing out. It's just outside my reach if I have to hang on to the railing."
"I've got longer arms," said Iceberg. "I can make it, I think."
"Don't start that again look at your palms. You'll have a hard enough time holding me."
Iceberg flexed his hands, which were scraped raw from the chains in the VAB, and still hurting from
pulling himself up the rungs of the access ladder. He took a deep breath. Chill . . . "You're right. Let me get
into position."
Leaving Franklin behind, he worked his way under the guardrail and inched out. He studied how the
other man would get to the boxy device. If the partially retracted vent access arm had been in place, it
would have been a simple step to reach down and pluck it off the tank's insulation.
No such luck.
Up here, Iceberg seemed to be a thousand miles high, clutching a rickety scaffold. With him holding on
to Franklin, they would have to swing out, away from the access arm over a dizzying height, like the Flying
Wallendas.
He blinked the vertigo away, still trying to drive thoughts of Nicole and her own precarious situation out
of his mind. Mr. Phillips had rattled him, but he couldn't be shaky, not now. Steady, cool, chill, frosty . . .
He shifted position and braced himself where he could carry Franklin's weight. Now or never. "Okay,
Franklin," he said without looking back. "I'm in position. Let's get this show over with." Then Marc Franklin
let out a scream of agony.
Iceberg whirled, lost his balance, and grabbed frantically for the metal rail. He watched in horror as a
muscular, tanned woman her hair as pale as Jacques's lunged forward to stab Franklin a second time in
the back with a long thin stiletto as sharp as an icepick.
Her face was set in a grim, inhuman smile. She ripped the long blade upward as if she were gutting a
fish. Franklin's blood sprayed in all directions, splattering downward in arcs of scarlet rain as she shoved the
body aside like a discarded carcass. She held the knife up, letting blood run down the slender blade, over the
hilt, and onto her hand.
"Oh shit," Iceberg said, struggling to get into a defensive position. "Ah, merde," she replied with a smile.
She must have been six feet tall and looked even taller as she strode toward him with a rolling, catlike
gait. From the other side of the guardrail, she sprang for Iceberg and slashed at his head.
He ducked, reeling backward, battling for balance on the narrow metal arm. The stiletto whipped
through the air with a thin whistle, missing his throat by a centimeter.
Iceberg gripped the bar and pulled his feet up, forgetting about his cast, about the pain, about everything
but smooth, fast motion. He used the guardrails like parallel bars at a gymnastics meet. He rocketed his legs
underneath, swinging as hard as he could as he rotated his body.
He hit the Amazon's right kneecap with a perfect, full-force impact. He heard and felt a satisfying
crunch of bone and cartilage. He hoped that he had at least damaged her more than he had damaged
himself.
Her head and upper body whipped forward, but Iceberg's momentum knocked her back. She jackknifed
to a sitting position on the access arm, but somehow she retained her grip on the thin, curved blade.
Iceberg grimaced, closing his eyes with the reverberating agony from the impact. He couldn't pass out
now. Keep moving. Frosty . . . Iceberg tumbled over the railing, hopping back to the main access arm. He
breathed deeply and tried to regain his focus.
The woman hissed so loudly it became a snarl. Her ice-blue eyes flashed at him in a fury that
overwhelmed her own pain as she struggled, using one hand to haul herself to her feet. Reeling and
overbalanced on one leg, she held her weapon loosely in an underhand grip, a professional knife-fighting
position.
Iceberg hopped backward as he watched her. She crouched and crept forward, like a cat. She stabbed
out, feinting, as if her smashed kneecap meant nothing to her. He tottered away, anticipating her move.
"Colonel Iceberg," she said coolly in a French accent. "You do not look like an iceberg now more like
a snowflake."
Taking advantage of his surprise that she knew his name, the woman nicked his cheek with the tip of
her knife, drawing a long red line of blood, part Franklin's, part his own.
He saw she was playing with him. That feint had been meant to wound, not kill. Foolishly, considering
the circumstances, she wanted to keep slashing him, make him die from a thousand cuts rather than kill him
outright.
Iceberg hopped back on one foot, anticipating her next thrust, but she stung him in the face again. He
felt his warm blood trickle down his cheek. Iceberg ignored the laceration. He'd have to concentrate, throw
her off balance, maybe take out her other knee. His commandeered rifle lay at the other end of the access
arm, far out of reach not that it would have helped him much.
He wiped the blood away with a swipe of his hand and continued backing toward the narrow end of the
access arm. "What do you want?"
"I want your life, bastard. You've met my dear brother Jacques. Did you enjoy beating him? Tying him
up? I think you gave him a nasty concussion." She lunged again, disoriented from her own smashed knee.
"I'm going to enjoy killing you."
The dead-end of the access arm was behind him somewhere, not ten feet away. The woman's eyes
brightened as she saw that she had him trapped. She tossed her knife from one hand to the other, toying
with him. "Where are your fans now, Colonel Iceberg? No one is here to save you."
At least she was talking. He held out an arm behind him, trying to feel for the guardrail. He'd have to time
things perfectly he didn't have anything to lose.
His knuckles brushed against the metal bar.
A smile grew on the woman's face. Tiny spatters of blood from her wild knife slashes dotted her
tanned cheeks. "I am going to make this painful, Colonel Iceberg "
She pounced, fully extending her upper body, taking all the weight off her injured knee.
Iceberg dropped, pushing his feet under her, bringing them up as he fell backward. He grunted as his
feet caught her stomach. She looked surprised as the wind was knocked out of her. She doubled up,
bending forward.
Iceberg kept rolling, using his angular momentum as she started to fall. He flipped her up and took
advantage of her weight as well as his own. Good old gymnastics. With a final heave with both legs, he sent
her flying over the top of him, beyond the railing. "Up and over!" he said.
Screaming, she plunged down, down, out of sight.
Heaving, ready to retch, Iceberg crawled to the side, catching sight of the woman as she hit the curved
side of the external tank and bounced. Seconds later her doll-like body caromed off the gantry structure,
dangled for a second, then splattered on the concrete pad nearly a hundred yards below.
Iceberg breathed heavily. He pulled his leg up, then yelped. Sweating, he figured he'd probably
rebroken his foot, or maybe just his ankle this time. Maybe both.
He crawled over to Marc Franklin and stretched him out. Blood still oozed from the long, gaping wound
in the other man's back. His ribs and spine had been ripped open, and he no longer breathed. His orange
jumpsuit was soaked with crimson blood. His head rolled lifelessly to the side.
Catching his breath. Iceberg crawled over and reached up to the railing. Blackness surrounded him, and
he just wanted to collapse, to forget everything. But he had to keep moving, stop thinking.
One step at a time. Cool, chill, frosty . . .
The bomb remained his biggest priority.
He heard a helicopter flying in the distance. Squinting, he identified it as an Air Force chopper, an [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]