Outpost by Adam Baker Read Free Book Online Page A

things
right.'
    'What
do you think, deep down, you should do?'
    'I
took this job to get away. I keep thinking: This isn't me. I'm better than
this, you know?'
     
     
    Ghost
steered the outboard motor. They cut through chop. Punch sat in the prow of the
zodiac. He swept the shoreline with a spotlight. He lit a lunar landscape.
Jagged rocks coated in ice.
    'There.'
He pointed. A concrete jetty. Snow-dusted steps.
    Ghost
detached the outboard motor and laid it on the jetty. They hauled the boat out
of the water.
    'I'll
come back for the motor,' he said.
    They
carried the rubber boat up the steps and set it down in front of massive steel
doors set into a rock face. Ghost released a padlock and chain.
    'Go
inside,' he told them. 'I'll fetch the outboard.'
    Punch
and Rye dragged the zodiac through the doorway into a cavernous silo. Wind
noise dropped to silence. Punch took off his goggles and mask. He shone the
spotlight on the walls. They were in a wide tunnel that receded downward into
bedrock. The walls glistened with moisture. There were rails in the floor. The
wall signs were Russian.
    'What
is this place?' asked Punch. 'I thought the island was uninhabited.'
    'You've
been ashore, haven't you?'
    'Just
ashore. Never here.'
    'The
Soviet Navy used to dump old reactors on the seabed. Each time they
decommissioned a nuclear sub they simply cut off the tail section and dropped
it in the Barents Sea. There are about twenty of them down there, all rusted
and barnacled. This was going to be their new home. Salvage teams were going to
bring them up and bury them in salt for a quarter of a million years.'
    'That
explains the skull on the door.'
    'It's
the same the deeper you go. Skulls on every wall, every door, etched in cadmium
steel. Future generations will get the message. Bad shit. Keep out.'
    Rye
pulled a dust sheet from a couple of red Yamaha Viking Pro snowmobiles. She
checked them over.
    'Keep
the light on me.'
    She
opened a long wooden box on the floor and took out two Ithaca pump-action
shotguns. She racked the slides a couple of times to check the action. There were
wooden shelves propped against the wall. She opened a carton of twelve-gauge
ammunition and slotted shells into the breech. She slid the guns into leather
sleeves strapped to the bikes.
    'For
bears,' she explained. 'We keep them here. Rawlins doesn't like weapons on the
rig.'
    Ghost
staggered through the bunker doorway carrying the outboard balanced on his
shoulder. Rye helped him lower it to the floor.
    Ghost
fuelled the bikes from a jerry can. Gasoline spiked with isopropyl alcohol to
prevent freezing. He checked the oil. He gunned the engines to check they
worked. He took a radio from his backpack.
    'Shore
team to Rampart, do you copy, over?'
    'Rampart here.' Jane's voice. 'Glad you're safe. '
    'We're
at the bunker. Any word from Apex?'
    ' The
guy is still transmitting, off and on, but he sounds delirious. I can't get a precise location from him.
You'll just have to head for Darwin and see what you can do .'
    'Okay.
We'll get our stuff together and head out at sunrise.'
    'There's
another storm-front heading this way. A bad one. We can see it on radar. A
solid wall of ice coming down on us like an express train. I reckon it will
take you seven hours to reach Darwin, three or four to reach the cabin. If you
leave now you might make it before the storm hits'
    ' Shit .'
    'It's
down to you guys. Rawlins says you should forget it and come back to the rig,
but the decision is yours .'
    Ghost
turned to his companions.
    'Quick
vote. I say go.'
    'Go,'
said Punch.
    Rye
thought it over.
    'No,'
she said. 'They're close to dead. We don't actually know where they are and a
storm is moving in. I appreciate the sentiment, but it's a bad idea.'
    They
took Rye's medical kit, half her food and left her behind.
     
    The
snowmobiles had a top speed of a hundred and twenty kilometres an hour, but
Ghost throttled down to fifteen while they drove in darkness. Punch followed
his