by Jack Du Brul
He snapped on the overhead lights, long banks of fluorescents that provided plenty of light but generated little heat that could damage frozen samples. Under tarps at the far end of the room, two recognizable shapes were laid out on adjacent worktables.
Out of the wind, Mercer and Anika pulled back their hoods and shook snow off themselves. She ignored his gesture to sweep snow off her back in a rush to reach the bodies. The first tarp she drew back covered the pilot’s corpse, and after just a second she replaced the shroud. She already knew what had killed him.
She said nothing as she uncovered Igor, looking first at his ghastly white face before beginning to examine him with single-minded intensity. It was as if Mercer wasn’t there. Starting with his booted feet and moving upward across his still-clothed body, she ran her hands over every part of him. Mercer had no idea what she hoped to accomplish since the body was as stiff as the table beneath it. Because Igor’s mouth was open, she pulled a penlight from her knapsack and explored his teeth and gums, grunting when she saw something of interest.
“What is it?” Mercer asked.
“Russian dentists. These are the worst fillings I’ve ever seen. Igor had to have been in constant pain.”
She removed her thick outer mittens and replaced them with a pair of surgical gloves, probing his mouth with her finger. From deep in his throat she withdrew out a bit of frozen saliva mixed with snow. She studied it for a second before dropping it on the table. Without a proper lab to examine the material, it did her little good to keep it. Next she bent close to look at the deep scrapes on his nose and forehead, grunting again, but this time Mercer kept his silence.
He was fascinated by her. With her eyes narrowed and her brows pulled down in concentration, she looked like a child worrying at a particularly tough school problem. But she was an adult, examining a corpse, and he was captivated by the dichotomy of her appearance and profession. He imagined that she’d been underestimated many times in her life and pitied the people who did it.
Finished with Igor’s face, she ran her hands over his skull, pressing various points with her fingertips. “Can you give me a hand?” she asked without looking up.
“What do you need?” Mercer moved to her side.
“I want to roll him over.”
They did, and because Igor Bulgarin was so heavy and broad, it was like flipping a king-size mattress.
When Mercer retreated again, she combed aside the frozen knots of blood and hair at the base of his skull, tracing the wound with a finger. She scowled and reached into her bag for a magnifying glass. There was a palpable tension in her as she scrutinized the wound under the glass, her face so close to Igor’s head that her breath snaked through his hair like steam. After two minutes, Anika straightened and looked around the room intently.
“What did you find?” Mercer closed the gap between them, infected by whatever had so unsettled her.
She said nothing, moving by him to grab a crowbar left on another of the worktables. She looked at the piece of steel for a moment, feeling its weight, not caring that the metal was freezing her hand. Unsatisfied, she dropped it unceremoniously, and rummaged under the table, where more tools had been left in plastic crates. She came up with a twenty-inch-long handle from a portable screw jack. It was only then she remembered Mercer was in the room with her. She looked at him clinically, as if weighing a decision, and nodded when he passed some sort of unspoken test. She couldn’t hide the fear lingering in her eyes, but she spoke in a calm tone.
“Igor was murdered,” she stated. “He was then dragged from where it happened and left in a place where someone could stage an avalanche to cover the killing.”
On some intuitive level Mercer wasn’t surprised. Somehow it made sense to him. Though he’d not voiced them, not even to himself, he’d had misgivings about the entertaining Russian. But his professional skepticism wouldn’t allow him to accept her statement without proof. “How do you know?”
She hefted the jack handle, carrying it to the body. “This is a little thinner than the murder weapon — shorter and lighter too, I would guess — but it’ll give you an idea what happened.” She placed the handle into the long wound at the base of Igor’s skull. “As you can see it fits almost perfectly in the gash, a straight impact line that runs from side to side beneath the occipital bulge. This wound wasn’t the result of ice hitting him. It’s too symmetrical. He was killed by a very strong person swinging such a tool like a baseball bat. The blow would have crushed a portion of the cerebellum and the medulla spinalis, killing him instantly.”
Mercer peered at the injury. Quelling his uneasiness, he lifted the handle, and then placed it back in the wound as Anika had done. He had to admit that it was indeed a pretty damn good match.
“If you notice, the scrapes on his face all go in the same direction. Add the fact that he rigored with his hands over his head, and it’s logical to conclude that someone dragged him by his hands, facedown, over a rough surface like a wooden floor. The snow I found jammed down his throat is consistent with this hypothesis.”
Mercer remembered thinking how strange it was that Igor’s arms had been over his head when they found the body. At the time he’d assumed the cuts on Igor’s face had been from falling ice hitting him. But now? She presented a plausible scenario. As he looked at Anika, his eyes asked his next questions.
“I don’t know why he was killed, Mr. Mercer. Or who did it.”
“It’s Dr. Mercer, actually, but everyone just calls me Mercer,” he said automatically.
Who would have done this? A strong person, she had said. That description fit nearly everyone at the camp. If the timing had been different, he would have considered the stowaway who’d left the tracks around the helicopter, but the crash occurred well after Igor’s death. He was left with the unpleasant option that apart from everything else going wrong, there was a killer in their midst. Now he knew where Anika’s fear had come from. He shared it.
“You’re getting your wish,” he said after a moment.
“Wish?”
“You wanted to examine the corpse we found in Camp Decade. That’s the only thing of even remote interest in the facility. If Igor was killed for a reason, I bet that body’s it.”
“You said the base wasn’t safe.”
“You just told me that someone caused the avalanche to cover Igor’s murder. If you’re right, the ceiling in Camp Decade’s still structurally sound.”
“What if I am wrong?” Suddenly it seemed the thought of going into the underground base wasn’t quite as appealing to her.
“You should trust your instincts,” Mercer said. “Considering what you’ve just discovered, I’d say they’re right on.”
Leading Anika once again, he made his way across the base, this time walking into the wind. The flying ice felt like glass shards when it hit his face below his tinted goggles, and no amount of tugging could tighten the hood enough to eliminate all the gaps. It was like being attacked by a swarm of wasps. They reached the long trench carved over the entrance of Camp Decade, and once they were below ground level, the punishing wind would release its hold. They could walk upright again and hold a conversation.
“Before you left the Njoerd, did you learn how long this wind’s supposed to last?” Mercer climbed into the Sno-Cat to fire the engine and power the winch.
“All day today and they think there’s only a couple-hour gap tomorrow before an even stronger storm front hits.”
“Erik the Red was one hell of a salesman,” Mercer joked. Anika looked at him quizzically. “When the old Viking was banished from Iceland in 982 A.D., he sailed west and landed here. He wintered someplace on the east coast. When he returned home, he told people about the beautiful island he had discovered, calling it Greenland to describe its lushness. That probably wasn’t the first marketing lie ever told, but it certainly was one of the most effective. He convinced twenty-five ships’ worth of settlers to follow him back.”
He jumped down from
the ’Cat and reached across the twenty-foot void to grab the dangling bucket they used to get to the bottom of the shaft. Anika stepped in without a moment’s consideration with Mercer right behind her.
“Not afraid of heights?” he asked as the bucket started its slow descent.
“I climb mountains for relaxation. I could probably climb down this tube faster than this contraption of yours.”
Mercer didn’t doubt her. At the bottom, he checked the chains he and Ira had used to secure the doors after removing Igor’s body. It didn’t appear they had been tampered with, so he jammed home the lock’s key and twisted. Once inside, he handed one of the flashlights left there to Anika and kept another for himself. Cutting through the darkness, their powerful beams were like lances.
The feeling that ghosts were watching him was stronger this time. Memories of Igor Bulgarin flooded Mercer’s mind. He led her toward the officers’ quarters, where Jack Delaney’s body had lain undisturbed for five decades. When they had pulled Igor out, Mercer and Ira had cleared a lot of the snow that had once clogged the passage, but still they had to clamber over heaps of ice. Even in her snowsuit, Anika moved with fluid efficiency, not slipping or misplacing a hand or foot as she climbed. Mercer was having a harder time. He was used to tight spaces like this, made his living in them, but he wasn’t as deft at judging the slick surfaces.
Once they cleared the final obstacle, they trained their lights at the floor. Anika got on her knees for a better look and spotted what she’d expected. The claret streaks on the floor were blood. Igor Bulgarin’s blood. The faint marks continued down the dark passage.
“You were right,” Mercer said, not knowing how he felt about that.
“So were you. Igor was checking the body.”
They reached the officers’ annex in a moment and passed down the hallway until they came to room number ten. Jack Delaney looked as he had when Mercer first found him. His face was gaunt to the point of starvation, drained of all color except around his mouth, which was a lighter shade, almost gray. His hands were clutched at his chest, skeletal fingers interlaced as if he’d been praying at the final moment of his death. It took no imagination to think of the bitterness he must have felt after surviving for so long only to discover Camp Decade had already been abandoned. The loneliness of his death was in the vacant stare of his long-dead eyes.
“Does he look like he’s been disturbed?” Anika’s question snapped Mercer from his grim reflections.
“No.” He checked the floor and found more blood, a few drops scattered near one wall. He could tell by the pattern and their tearlike appearance that they had sprayed from the wound. “Igor died in this room. Either attacked by someone preventing him from examining the body or murdered to cover up someone else’s investigation.”
“But before he could do anything to the body?” Anika persisted.
“Yes, neither person appears to have touched the corpse. Thinking about the timing, Igor would have gotten down here at about 4:30 in the morning. His killer could have been a few minutes behind, seen him in here, bludgeoned him, and immediately started hiding the evidence. Since people get up about six, that only gave the murderer an hour and a half, barely enough time to stage the avalanche and get back to his dorm before anyone noticed.”
“We’re lucky.” Anika set her knapsack on the desk next to the bed. As with Igor Bulgarin, she began her examination at Delaney’s feet and slowly worked her way up. Mercer stood at her shoulder, following her hands with his flashlight so she could see what she was doing. When she reached his mouth and studied his teeth, she called him closer. “Look at this.”
Delaney had only a few teeth remaining in his mouth, black stumps so cracked it was doubtful the airman could have used them to chew. His gums looked like raw meat. For a few seconds Anika tried to find traces of dentistry, but there was nothing left. “He’s very thin.”
“Considering what he’d been through, I’m not surprised.”
Anika said nothing and took a tape measure from her bag. Delaney was just five feet six inches tall in his boots. Awfully short, Mercer thought, but since he didn’t know what kind of height restrictions the military maintained for its pilots, he didn’t say anything. Next, Anika pulled up Delaney’s sleeves.
“You shouldn’t move him until the Air Force arrives,” Mercer admonished but not very sternly. He was just as curious as she was.
He checked his watch. They’d been here for ten minutes. He would give her five more before leaving. He was conscious of the body’s mild radioactivity. He realized that could have explained the tooth loss and the fact that under his woolen hat, Delaney was completely bald — another symptom of acute radiation poisoning.
“What do you think?” Anika pointed to a rectangular scar on his left forearm.
“Looks like a burn.”
“More like a brand mark,” she countered. “But there’s nothing to it except scar tissue, no symbols or words.”
When she tugged his sleeves down again, a piece of paper that had been clutched in Delaney’s hands came loose, a small corner showing from under one long finger.
“What’s that?” Mercer asked.
“Good eyes. I would have missed it.” She used a pair of surgical forceps to slide out the folded piece of paper, careful not to dislodge the original position of Delaney’s hands.
The smoke hit them as she handed it to Mercer. It came in a solid black wave sweeping through the underground base, dense and impenetrable. In moments the beams from their Maglites were nothing more than feeble spots of light unable to cut more than a foot into the roiling haze.
“What the…?” Anika started coughing before she could finish the question.
Mercer pushed her to the floor, where the air was marginally cleaner. Anika’s eyes were red rimmed and weeping. Her lungs convulsed for a few more seconds until she could purge the worst of the smoke.
“What happened?” she gasped, fighting not to throw up.
“Fire. I don’t know. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“How?”
Mercer crawled to the door. Even through the pall of smoke he could see the dancing glow of a fire at the exit of the officers’ quarters. The fire appeared to grow in ferocity in the few seconds he stared transfixed. On the other side of the advancing wall of flames was the only way out of Camp Decade.
Anika joined him at the door. “We’re trapped!”
Mercer didn’t need to voice his agreement.
Everything was happening too fast for panic to be a problem. His mind was sharp and ready to figure a way out, but as he watched the growing flames, inspiration remained beyond his grasp.
You’re trapped underground by fire. There’s one way out and it’s blocked. The flames have plenty of fuel considering this whole place is made of wood and it won’t starve for oxygen before you’re cooked. Like a natural chimney, smoke would be billowing up the access shaft at the same time the fire sucked down more air to keep itself going.
“Mercer!”
You’ve been here before, he reminded himself. At different times and at different places. How did you get out?
He knew the answer to that was an unlikely solution. The underground fires he’d faced before had been in coal mines where teams of trained experts battled the inferno to save him.
You know how to get out of this. You’ve done it before. How?
It came to him. “Air shaft,” he shouted over the noise of Camp Decade being consumed from within.
“It’s in the middle of the fire.” Anika choked. “We won’t make it.”
“Not the main shaft we came down. With this much smoke, we’ll never find it. We have to go all the way through the fire to reach the garage on the other side.”
“How?”
“Run like hell.”
“Why not try to find the exit doors?”
“Anika, there’s nothing down here that could have started this fire. It was intentionally set by whoever killed Igor to stop us fr
om proving his murder.” A paroxysm of coughing racked her when she gasped. “We can’t risk stopping in the middle of the blaze to search for the doors because they are most likely blocked. We have to reach the far side. There will be air shafts in the garage used to vent engine exhaust when the military stored Sno-Cats there. It’s our only chance.”
Mercer shuffled to the bed holding Delaney’s body and unceremoniously shoved the corpse aside to strip away the blankets he’d been lying on. The encroaching fire had melted a tremendous amount of ice and snow, so water rippled down the hallway and past the bedroom door. Mercer dumped the blankets in the stream, soaking them through. The water was near freezing and burned his exposed hands like acid. “Take off your snowsuit,” he ordered.
“Are you nuts?”
He turned to face her. “Yes. Take off your snowsuit.”
As she did what he asked, Mercer took off his own parka, sloshing it in the torrent of meltwater. Before he put it back on, he dropped onto his back, gasping when he came in contact with the icy river. Even as he splashed more water on his legs, he could feel crusts of ice forming and breaking with each movement.
“We’ll freeze to death.”
He splashed handfuls of water on his face and hair. “I’d rather freeze than burn.” He took Anika’s red suit and soaked it, motioning her to douse herself in the water as he worked.
Her lips were blue by the time she was done, her jaws chattering uncontrollably. Mercer imagined he looked as bad. If they made it through the fire, they would have only a few minutes before hypothermia overcame them. He handed her the one-piece and worked his arms back into his dripping parka. The garment weighed at least ten pounds more than it had. He could only hope it retained enough water to insulate him.
The fire roared only fifteen yards away by the time they were dressed again, their delay caused by numb fingers that refused to work properly. Assuming that it spread evenly, they would need to run through a sixty-yard gauntlet before reaching open air again.
