“I doubt it. Remember, they brought four Sno-Cats here as well as the Land Cruiser. There’s no need for that many vehicles if they know the vent’s exact location. They need to search for it, and thanks to the map I found at Camp Decade, we know right where to look.”
“You’d make a good detective.” It was Anika. She’d been awake, listening, but hadn’t stirred.
“Are you okay?” Concern lowered Mercer’s voice to a whisper.
“Yes. I’m sorry about that.” She included Mercer and Erwin in her apology. “I just… I don’t know. It was all too much for a second.”
“You had every right,” Erwin said. “I am more sorry than I can ever tell you.”
Ira scraped some snow off the wall and bundled it in a handkerchief for Anika. She gratefully pressed it to her swollen eye. “Who hit me?”
“Hilda, Germany’s finest combat chef. If her Wiener schnitzel doesn’t get you, her right cross will.”
Switching to German, Anika addressed the stout woman with a smile. “Remind me never to insult your cooking and get you really angry.”
“It’s nearly midnight,” Mercer announced. “If we leave at first light we’ll only need to spend one night on the ice to reach the cave. I for one am exhausted. I’m usually in bed by ten on days I’m in a plane crash.”
When Mercer had been returning from the C-97 crash scene, the survivors had slept far from one another. With him back now, they huddled close, drawn into a cohesive group by his strength. This didn’t go unnoticed by him. And he was glad for it, because as much as they looked to him for leadership, he needed them for the encouragement to keep going. They had been through a lot together and he knew the worse was yet to come. He also noticed, as he settled into his sleeping bag, that Anika was at his side, her delicate face turned to him.
“Anika,” he whispered and her eyes fluttered open. “Can you do me a favor? I’m pretty sure Hilda has a crush on me. Do you think you could be my bodyguard?”
She suppressed a laugh. “My hero.” Then her expression turned serious, a worried frown pulling at her mouth. “I’m thankful for what you said earlier about me being able to lead us to the cave, but I don’t think I can do it.”
Mercer could see how much this admission cost her. It was in her eyes. The defiance she normally showed the world had evaporated. “Why?”
She was wrenched by such doubt that she questioned the very thing she had always believed defined her. “When I go mountain climbing or hiking in some rain forest, I think I’m being daring,” she said, “but I’m really just pretending. None of it’s real. It’s make-believe. With a rescue chopper only a radio call away, I’m never in any actual danger unless I do something stupid. This is different. Lives depend on us reaching the cavern. I can’t take that kind of responsibility. I’ve been kidding myself to think I’m brave, Mercer. I’m a fake, a fraud.”
He snaked a hand out of his bag to stroke her short hair. “Anika, we’ve barely met and yet I can tell you that you’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever known. You’ve already proven that you are cool under fire. Literally. You can think on your feet and” — he touched the red mark on his cheek where she’d raked him — “you have unbelievable determination. To me, that’s the definition of courage. Only a fool goes in search of danger. A brave person avoids it when he can but faces it when he has to. Your hobby is dangerous to be certain, but that’s not what makes you brave. You’re brave because you know the difference between fantasy and reality. And when reality hits you, you strike back.
“I won’t patronize you by tossing around platitudes like ‘I’m sure you’ll do fine’ because I don’t know. However, I believe you can do it. For me that’s enough.”
She simply said, “Thank you,” because there was no phrase that fully expressed her gratitude.
“You’re welcome,” Mercer said because any other reply would have betrayed how much he wanted to kiss her. Anika fell asleep with a trace of a smile on her lips and he wondered if she already knew.
ON THE ICE
The following morning, Mercer found Marty Bishop standing over the graves the team had dug while he was investigating the Air Force Stratofreighter. The others were preparing for the trek, packing everything from sleeping bags and extra Arctic clothes to a cooking stove, propane cylinders, and as much food as they could carry. There had been a few arguments over items individuals felt they had to bring — Marty’s videotapes for his father, Erwin Puhl’s thick journal, even Hilda’s personal recipe book. Mercer won them all. They stripped themselves to the absolute essentials, and even then they were dangerously overloaded. Only Magnus, the Icelandic pilot with the broken arm, would walk unencumbered. Mercer made up for him by carrying the heaviest pack at sixty pounds.
“I didn’t really know her,” Marty said when he felt Mercer’s presence. Ingrid’s tombstone was a piece of metal with her name scratched on one side.
“Doesn’t matter. For a few days she was part of your life. That’s more than enough time to feel grief.”
“We were just having some fun, you know. It would have ended as soon as we got to Iceland.” He wiped his cheeks with a glove. “I would have walked away. Now I can’t.”
“No, you can’t,” Mercer agreed. “She’s going to be with you for a long time. Nothing is as casual as we’d like to think. Especially people.”
“I’ve never spent much time thinking about consequences.”
“I have a feeling you’ll be thinking of nothing else for a while.” Mercer put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll give you a couple more minutes. Then we have to go.”
“Thanks.”
While the fog had lifted, the tracks Mercer had left on his trip to the C-97 had been nearly obliterated by Greenland’s constant wind. For this, he was grateful. It meant that by tomorrow there’d be no trace of their trek, no trail Rath could follow. They reached the Stratofreighter before noon and spent a couple of hours burying what pieces of wreckage were exposed. No one wanted Rath to make the same discovery Mercer had about Major Jack Delaney.
Because he knew the route to the plane, Mercer led, but when they started the long march to the air shaft, each member of the team took a turn at point. Trailblazing in the deep snow was exhausting work that only he and Ira could maintain for more than an hour at a time. Anika spent the day behind the leader, keeping track of their course with a handheld compass taken from the DC-3’s emergency kit. When not at the head of the column, Mercer walked with Marty as he helped Magnus. Anika had found a balance of painkillers to keep the aviator alert yet comfortable for the march. He was young and strong and could maintain their pace despite being unbalanced by his slinged arm.
Protected in the latest foul-weather gear, they had no problem handling the cold. It was exhaustion that slowly ground them down. Because of her size, he’d expected Hilda to have the greatest difficulty, but it was Erwin who needed the most encouragement. By five, the group had covered only a third of the distance, and their pace was a quarter of what it had been when they’d commenced. Mercer’s plan to spend only one night in the open wasn’t going to happen.
Rather than push them beyond their level of endurance, he decided to find cover for the night. Mercer was at point when he made the decision and he veered toward the jagged mountains on their right, hoping to find protection from the strengthening wind. It would have been too much to hope for a cave, but a natural windbreak would have been sorely welcome.
It took another hour of marching to stumble across a V-shaped outcropping of rock that would shield them from the gusts. Gathering storm clouds created a false twilight. Taking a lesson from sled dogs, they began to burrow individual holes in the snow on the rock’s leeward side.
“Not like that,” Anika cautioned when the work began. “We need to double up to share body heat. We won’t survive the night if we don’t.”