ICE STATION CONTINUED

Part 11

"No sign of anything yet, Scarecrow." Mother sighed into the radio. She looked out across the ocean. "How can you stand being in the Navy? I mean, the landscape does nothing for me." She glanced over at Lowe, who was hunched over the bow.

"I loved the sea. Used to live on the coast, so I'm used to the landscape." Lowe turned towards her. "What about you?"

She furrowed her brow. "What about me?"

"Why this lifestyle? Why the marines?"

Mother sighed and shrugged. "Suited me, I guess. Besides, Scarecrow's a great leader. He makes the lifestyle a bit easier. He wouldn't lead us into something he knew we couldn't handle."

Lowe nodded then hunched over the bow again, looking down into the water.

Mother, we've entered the lab.

"Copy that, Scarecrow." She replied, wishing she was down there with them, in the thick of the action, but knowing it was probably safer for her on the surface.

The lab was dark; some areas smashed by large blocks of ceiling that broke off somehow. Only four out of the six areas were accessible because two doorways had been blocked by debris too large or heavy to move.

Gant and Curry were assigned to the room where the scientists took their seismic readings, or what they had dubbed the "Reading Room".

Gant covered up one of the two bodies lying on the floor.

"I wonder what killed them." She thought aloud.

"Earthquake?" Curry mused. He held up what looked like a sheet of paper with squiggly lines on it. Gant walked over to him and took the paper.

Curry pointed at one spot on the paper where there was a wide squiggle before the paper went blank. "Look here. This shows a very high seismic level. Whatever hit them, be it an earthquake or… whatever, it knocked out their equipment right after it hit."

Gant looked at him, impressed. "How do you know all this?"

"My father was an earthquake fanatic. You know, one of those people who saves the articles from newspapers and goes to take pictures of the disaster sights. He showed me one of these graphs and taught me how to read them." He turned to pick up another graph.

"That's really cool." Gant smiled. "So where's your dad now?"

Curry coughed slightly. "He got caught up in his work… literally. He died a few years ago in a quake in San Francisco."

"Oh, I'm-"

He turned sharply towards her. "It's okay. It's not your fault… not anyone's fault really. I've accepted his death as something natural, something that was impossible to avoid." He sighed. "Anyway, I've gotten over it. Can't dwell on things in the past, you know?"

Gant smiled softly. "Yeah… I know exactly what you mean."

"Why is that?" He asked, curious about her past.

"I just mean I agree with that logic. If you can't change what happened then, what's the point of analyzing it to death?" She shook her head to clear it, then looked back down at the cluttered research station.

"Should we take these to Scarecrow?" She asked after a few minutes.

"I dunno, I'm new at this. What do you think?"

Gant chuckled. "I think if we're going to be partners and teammates for awhile, then I think I should teach you a few things. And yes, I think we should take these to Scarecrow, but not now. Let's look around a bit more, maybe we'll find evidence of foul play." She grinned at him, dramatizing the last two words.

There was a long pause before Curry spoke.

"Can I ask you something?"

Gant looked up from a seismograph that had smashed on the floor. "It depends on what the subject is."

"Scarecrow."

She turned away from him slightly, trying to fight a blush. "Uh-huh."

Curry took a deep breath. "I mean, this is something that will kill me if I don't find out."

"What do you want to know?" She winced, embarrassed that another one of her teammates had found out about her feelings for the Lieutenant.

"Why is his call sign 'Scarecrow'?"

Gant swung around to look Curry in the eyes and raised her eyebrows questionably. Curry noticed and narrowed his eyes.

"You know don't you?"

Gant bit her lip, then sighed. "I'm not sure I should tell you."

"Why?"

She leaned against the desk behind her. "Because other than Scarecrow himself, I'm probably the only one on the team who knows the answer to your question."

Curry glanced from side to side before furrowing his brow and looking at Gant.

"Why is that? Did he tell you himself?"

She shook her head. "No, no. He's too self-conscious. One of our old team members told me the whole story. It's not pretty and I don't think Scarecrow really wants anyone to know." She glanced around the room before announcing. "Doesn't look like there's much else here that's important. We'll take the graphs to the kitchen." She straightened up and walked to where Curry was standing before reaching around him to grab the papers. "Are you curious about anyone else's call sign? Rebound's? Mine?"

"I know where yours came from, I'm pretty sure." Curry said softly before heading out of the room.

"You know, that could probably be considered sexual harassment!" Gant replied, loud enough for him to hear. She heard him laughing as he walked away. "Is he going to be let down…" She chuckled as she followed him to the kitchen. She almost tripped over Schofield as she walked through the doorway. "Another body, sir?"

He straightened up and nodded grimly. "We've found three in here and Ruger just informed me of the two you found in the seismic readings room… that's five. There should be one more body around here somewhere. Rebound or Hare come in…" Schofield waited for a reply from either marine.

Scarecrow, this is Hare. I think you should look at this.

Schofield swiftly stepped past Gant and towards the scientists bunk area. Gant followed him, waving the graphs in her hand.

"Sir, Scarecrow!" She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw what was inside the scientists living quarters.

A man was hanging from a steel beam in the ceiling by what looked like a tie. He was dead.

"Suicide? Gant finally managed.

Hare shrugged. "Looks like it. We found this at his feet." He handed a worn blue book over to Schofield. "It's a journal. Maybe if we read through it, we'll find something."

Rebound, meanwhile, had somehow gotten up to the steel beam and was cutting the tie. "Watch out everybody. This guy's a comin' down!" He cut the last thread and the body fell to the floor with a thump. Hare quickly covered it up with a blanket from one of the beds before hauling it into the kitchen with the other bodies.

Schofield was flipping through the journal, reading entries that were written in small, cramped, barely legible handwriting. He narrowed his eyes, trying to make the writing seem clearer. It didn't help.

He finally gave up. "Fuck this. Can anyone else read this?" He asked aloud.

Rebound, Gant and Curry walked over to him.

"Let me see. My mother had really horrible handwriting." Curry said, taking the book from Schofield. He opened it up to a random page and read aloud.

"February 16th - High seismic readings for the past week. We're not sure what's causing it. Roger thinks it's probably an erupted underwater volcano, but none of us have known one to last a week. We had a little Valentine's Day celebration a few days ago and some of us got a little drunk. When the quake hit, we've gotten pretty used to them by now, Abe fell over and hit his head pretty badly. Speaking of Valentine's, I'm getting pretty sick of Sam and Leslie. Sam, who's heading this whole research project, has no fucking idea that Leslie's got it bad for him. Meanwhile, Leslie, who doesn't know he's got it bad for her too, doesn't want to say anything because she's afraid someone higher up will find out and that'll be the end of her scientific career. It's-"

"Alright, I think we're heard enough." Schofield interrupted. The entry hit a little too close to home with him, considering his complex relationship with Gant. "Skip to a later entry."

Curry flipped through the pages, scanning some of them or merely looking at the dates before moving on.

"I'll read the last entry." He flipped to the back of the book and began reading.

"June 12th - Something hit the lab. Everyone's dead but me and the land access is caved in. Caroline and Abe were in the front lab with the seismographs when it blew up. They probably died instantly. Sam and Leslie were in the kitchen, most likely talking or kissing. The ceiling fell in on them. I'm just happy that they admitted their feelings to each other before they died. Roger was in the radio room, screaming something about the Japanese, when the second explosion came. He was thrown into the kitchen and died when the refrigerator fell on top of him. I was in the bunk area, too afraid to move. Luckily it's more inland than the other rooms. The quakes ceased for a while, then started up only an hour ago. I'm trapped here. I'm going to die."

Curry looked up from the journal before closing it. "That's the end, sir." He said as he handed the book back to Schofield.

Schofield nodded slowly. "Damn, I wish that radio hadn't been busted."

Rebound and Gant turned towards him simultaneously. It was Rebound who spoke first.

"What do you mean, sir?"

"I checked out the radio communications room. Everything is destroyed." He said softly, trying to piece everything together. High seismic readings, earthquakes, explosions, the Japanese? It all fit together somehow. Something about the dates of the two entries was mildly suspicious, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

"So what do we do now?" Gant's voice cut into his thoughts.

He turned and looked at her. "See if we can find anything useful in here. Hare, Princeton, once you're finished in there, come to the bunk area." He said into his headset. He turned towards the other three. "Let's search the bunks, see if we can find anything."

Gant and Curry moved to one side while Schofield and Rebound took the other side.

"What exactly are we looking for, sir?" Rebound asked as he pulled a large trunk from underneath a bed.

"I don't know. Anything that may be a clue or… something! Anything! Nothing in that journal connects. There has to be something." Schofield found a duffel bag beside a bunk and practically ripped it open.

After a few minutes, Rebound closed the trunk and shrugged. "Nothing in here. What about you, Fox?" He called out.

Gant poked her head up from behind a bed. "Nothing yet." She said with a small hitch in her voice.

Schofield's head shot up mid-rummage.

"What's the problem?"

"Nothing, sir. Everything's fine, I just found some photographs, that's all." She held them up.

Schofield stood and walked over to her, taking the photos from her hand. He caught a glimpse of Curry, who was visible from the waist down, before he looked at the pictures. They were photos of the scientists, he guessed, at some send-off party. They looked excited and nervous. In one picture, it appeared that they were pretending there was an earthquake… all had smiles on their faces. Schofield put them down and rubbed his eyes with his hand.

"I know they're nothing, sir, but I wasn't sure whether you wanted to see them."

She moved to take the pictures from him, but he stopped her.

"It's alright. We'll take these back to Washington with us. Their families will probably want them." Schofield gulped loudly before turning back towards the door to the bunk area, where Hare and Princeton had just appeared. "Hare, Princeton, grab a bed and start searching for anything that might help us figure out what the hell happened down here."