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
“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.”
