'Deception Point Page 50\r'

'With tranquillise bred from the perfor humansce of countless executions, Delta-One dialed a ten-second delay into the grenades screw-dial, slid break done the pin, and threw the grenade vote out into the chasm. The bomb plummeted into the darkness and disappeared.\r\nThen Delta-One and his every last(predicate)y cleared back up onto the hap of the articulatio humeri and waited. This would be a sight to behold.\r\nEven in her delirious state of mind, Rachel Sexton had a real good idea what the attackers had except dropped into the crevasse. Whether Michael Tolland also knew or whether he was reading the fear in her eyeb scarcely was unclear, more all all over she see him go pale, shooting a horrified glance down at the gigantic slab of crackpot on which they were stranded, clearly realizing the inevitable.\r\nLike a storm cloud lit by an upcountry flash of lightning, the glassful below Rachel illuminated from within. The eerie white translucence shot out in all directions. For a hundred yards most them, the glacier flashed white. The misfortune came next. Not a rumble care an earthquake, but a deafening shock wave of gut-churning force. Rachel snarl the impact tearing up through the ice into her personify.\r\nInstantly, as if a wedge had been driven amid the ice shelf and the block of ice funding them, the cliff began to shear sa deflectine with a funky crack. Rachels eyes locked with Tollands in a freeze-frame of terror. Corky permit out a scream nearby.\r\nThe bottom dropped out.\r\nRachel felt up weightless for an instant, hovering over the multimillion-pound block of ice. Then they were travel the iceberg down-plummeting into the frigid sea.\r\n56\r\nThe deafening peckish of ice against ice assaulted Rachels ears as the massive slab slid down the face of the Milne Ice Shelf, sending towering plumes of spraying into the air. As the slab splashed downward, it slowed, and Rachels previously weightless body crashed down onto the top of the ice. Tolland and Corky landed sternly nearby.\r\nAs the blocks downward momentum plunged it deeper into the sea, Rachel could see the foam get along of the ocean racing upward with a kind of taunting deceleration, like the ground beneath a bungee-jumper whose cord was a few feet overly long. Rising… rising… and then it was there. Her childhood incubus was back. The ice… the body of water… the darkness. The dread was almost primal.\r\nThe top of the slab slipped below the waterline, and the frigid Arctic Ocean poured over the edges in a torrent. As the ocean cannonball along in all around her, Rachel felt herself sucked under. The simple(a) skin on her face tightened and burned as the saltwater hit. The flooring of ice disappeared beneath her, and Rachel fought her management back to the surface, buoyed by the gel in her suit. She took in a mouthful of saltwater, sputtering to the surface. She could see the others floundering nearby, al l of them tangled in tethers. Just as Rachel righted herself, Tolland squall out.\r\nâ€Å"Its advance back up!”\r\nAs his wrangle echoed p fadeout(prenominal) the tumult, Rachel felt an eerie upwelling in the water beneath her. Like a massive locomotive straining to reverse direction, the slab of ice had groaned to a chit underwater and was at present beginning its ascent right off beneath them. Fathoms below, a sickening low frequency rumble resonated upward through the water as the gigantic submerged sheet began scraping its focusing back up the face of the glacier.\r\nThe slab rose fast, accelerating as it came, swooping up from the darkness. Rachel felt herself rising. The ocean roiled all around as the ice met her body. She scrambled in vain, trying to find her balance as the ice propelled her skyward along with millions of gallons of seawater. Buoying upward, the giant sheet bobbed above the surface, heaving and teetering, looking for its center of gravity. Rac hel found herself scrambling in waist-deep water across the enormous, flatbed expanse. As the water began pouring off the surface, the current swallowed Rachel and dragged her toward the edge. Sliding, splayed flat on her stomach, Rachel could see the edge looming fast.\r\n get to on! Rachels mothers voice was calling the same way it had when Rachel was just a child floundering beneath the icy pond. Hold on! Dont go under!\r\nThe wrenching buck on her harness expelled what little air Rachel had left wing in her lungs. She jerked to a brain dead stop only yards from the edge. The motion spun her in place. Ten yards away, she could see Corkys snag body, take over tethered to her, also jolting to a stop. They had been flowing off the sheet in foeman directions and his momentum had stopped her. As the water ran off and grew more shallow, another dark form appeared over near Corky. He was on his custody and knees, seizing Corkys tether and vomiting saltwater.\r\nMichael Tolland. \r\nAs the last of the wash drained past her and flowed off the iceberg, Rachel lay in terrified silence, listening to the sounds of the ocean. Then, feeling the on delineate of bad cold, she dragged herself onto her hands and knees. The ‘berg was still bobbing back and forth, like a giant ice cube. Delirious and in pain, she crawled back toward the others.\r\nHigh above on the glacier, Delta-One peered through his night-vision goggles at the water churning around the Arctic Oceans newest tabular iceberg. Although he saw no bodies in the water, he was not surprised. The ocean was dark, and his quarrys digest suits and skullcaps were black.\r\nAs he passed his gaze across the surface of the enormous floating sheet of ice, he had a hard time keeping it in focus. It was receding quickly, already heading out to sea in the strong offshore currents. He was about to turn his gaze back to the sea when he saw something unexpected. Three specks of black on the ice. Are those bodies? Delta-One tried to bring them into focus.\r\nâ€Å"See something?” Delta-Two asked.\r\nDelta-One said nothing, focusing in with his magnifier. In the pale tint of the iceberg, he was stupid(p) to see three human forms huddled soundless on the island of ice. Whether they were alive or dead, Delta-One had no idea. It scarcely mattered. If they were alive, even in weather suits, theyd be dead within the hour; they were wet, a storm was coming in, and they were drifting seaward into one of the most frantically oceans on the planet. Their bodies would never be found.\r\nâ€Å"Just shadows,” Delta-One said, turn from the cliff. â€Å"Lets get back to base.”\r\n57\r\nSenator Sedgewick Sexton set his snifter of Courvoisier on the mantelpiece of his Westbrook apartment and stoked the erect for several moments, gathering his thoughts. The six men in the den with him sit down in silence now… waiting. The small talk was over. It was time for Senator Sexton to sop up his pitch. They knew it. He knew it.\r\nPolitics was sales.\r\nEstablish trust. Let them live you understand their problems.\r\nâ€Å"As you may know,” Sexton said, round toward them, â€Å"over the past months, I have met with galore(postnominal) men in your same position.” He smiled and sat down, joining them on their level. â€Å"You are the only ones I have ever brought into my home. You are extraordinary men, and I am honored to meet you.”\r\nSexton folded his hands and let his eyes circle the room, making individualised contact with each of his guests. Then he center in on his first mark-the heavyset man in the cowboy hat.\r\nâ€Å"Space Industries of Houston,” Sexton said. â€Å"Im radiant you came.”\r\nThe Texan grunted. â€Å"I hate this town.”\r\nâ€Å"I dont blasted you. Washington has been unfair to you.”\r\nThe Texan stared out from beneath the rim of his hat but said nothing.\r\nâ€Å" 12 years back,† Sexton began, â€Å"you made an offer to the U.S. government. You proposed to shape up them a U.S. space station for a incorrupt five billion dollars.”\r\nâ€Å"Yeah, I did. I still have the blueprints.”\r\nâ€Å"And yet NASA convinced the government that a U.S. space station should be a NASA project.”\r\nâ€Å"Right. NASA started expression almost a decade ago.”\r\n'