“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.
He pulled his hood around his face, covering his eyes with his goggles and making sure that Anika was similarly protected. “Be careful when we reach the middle of the fire. I don’t know if all that snow has melted completely, so there could still be piles of it.”
“What happens if the fire’s bigger than you think?”
Mercer’s gallows humor didn’t fail him. “Then all those people who’ve told me to go to hell will get their wish. Are you ready?”
“No.”
Mercer gave her a reassuring smile and draped a few wet blankets over her. “We’ll make it.”
“Okay, AK, let’s do it,” Anika said softly and watched Mercer launch himself down the hallway like a javelin. She waited for a heartbeat and went after him.
Mercer kept his eyes open for as long as he dared. When the heat hit him full blast, he pulled his own blanket over his head, hunched his shoulders, and ran as fast as he’d ever run in his life. Behind his closed lids and through the now-steaming blankets, light still danced against his vision, ragged swirls of flame that licked upward from the floor. Over the raging inferno, he could hear the blankets sizzling as the water boiled away. Ten yards into the blaze the heat intensified. He hadn’t considered that parts of the roof would be collapsing at any moment, creating obstacles that could trap them in the middle of the fire.
Twenty yards and he knew he was approaching the avalanche that had buried Igor Bulgarin. His boots sloshed through a thick slurry of snow and water that pulled at each step. It was like wading through liquid mud. Yet he started to drag his feet, pushing aside the slush to clear a path for Anika. Somewhere behind him he heard a rumbling crash. A portion of ceiling had succumbed to the flames and given way. If Anika was on the other side of the blockage, he would never be able to reach her. He continued to run. The blanket felt like it was starting to smolder.
Mercer’s foot hit a snow pile at full stride, pitching him forward. Had he not been prepared for it, he would have sprawled headlong. As his center of balance shifted, he tucked his shoulder, still clutching the blanket around him. He hit hard, shoulder rolled, and heaved himself back to his feet. His momentum was too much, and he was about to go down again when a steadying hand grabbed his arm.
Miraculously, Anika had been running even faster than he had. She saw what happened and was ready to keep him on his feet. Mercer chanced opening his eyes. It was like standing at the very bottom of hell. Flames encircled them, racing up the paneled walls to meet at the roof in shimmering sheets. The heat seared his breath. He managed to regain his orientation before a veil of smoke closed off his vision, saving him from seeing that they had covered barely a third of the distance.
Side by side, they ran onward, spurred by the primal fear of fire. The water saturating Mercer’s clothes began steaming. He could sense Anika Klein at his shoulder, running hard.
In the few seconds they’d been in the conflagration, Mercer had become accustomed to its consuming roar, so when the sound receded behind him he knew they had cleared the fire. He didn’t dare stop, but he let the blanket fall from his shoulders and opened his eyes. He saw nothing but blackness. Smoke.
“Anika, get down,” he shouted, diving like an All Star for home plate.
She followed his slide and at the floor they found fresher air. Although her blanket was smoldering, her snowsuit seemed untouched. Together they crawled onward, finally reaching a set of heavy doors at the end of the corridor. Once through, they slammed them closed.
Even without light they could tell by the way their coughs echoed that the garage they stumbled into was huge. The air, mercifully, hadn’t yet been fouled by smoke.
“Are you all right?” Anika wheezed when she regained her breath. She snapped on her light.
Mercer nodded, his head down, tarry smoke coming from his mouth with each cough. “I have a friend,” he panted. “He smokes two packs a day. I bet he would have gone through that and had a nicotine craving afterward.”
Getting to his feet, Mercer began to undress, retrieving his flashlight before discarding the parka. Next went his sweaters and shirts. “You know we have to,” he said when Anika hadn’t started doing the same. “It can’t be below freezing in here because the snow covering the base acts like insulation. We can stand that for a while as long as we minimize heat loss. Wet clothes will draw heat away from us many times faster than the air.”
“I know.” Anika started to strip. “I was just wondering about the bullet scar on your shoulder.”
“Oh, that. Ancient history.” The furrow cut into the top of Mercer’s shoulder was from an assassin’s bullet years earlier. “Thanks for what you did back there. If I had gone down, I wouldn’t have gotten back up.”
“We’re even.” A trace of a smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “Do you think we’ll be okay until they get the fire out?”
“Not unless we let them know we’re here. Remember, we didn’t tell anyone we were headed for Camp Decade.”
Wearing nothing but boxer shorts, with his breath condensing around his head, Mercer tried to organize his thoughts, fighting not to let the cold sap his energy. He couldn’t help but feel vulnerable and he imagined Anika felt even more so in her cotton panties and sports bra. She didn’t appear to be self-conscious about her lack of attire.
“First things first.” Mercer hadn’t spent much time in this section of the base, but he recalled that there were a few lockers located next to a small washroom.
Snapping open the doors, he found what he wanted. Because so much equipment had been left behind in the 1950s there were still some mechanics’ overalls in a couple of the lockers. He grabbed four of them and tossed two to Anika.
“You knew about this?” she asked, gratefully pulling on the stained garments.
“Other than the reactor that powered the facility, the Sno-Cats, and the men’s personal gear, everything was abandoned here. I wasn’t sure we’d find these but I knew there’d be something we could use.”
A minute later he found some boots. He started to feel like they had a chance. He handed Anika a cigarette lighter.
“Don’t tell me you smoke.” She scowled with disgust.
“Never, but I carry a few when I’m on an expedition like this. Boy Scout training. Can you make us a fire?”