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?”
While she got to work, he wandered around the garage. He noted that in one corner of the room sat a large fuel cylinder for the military’s Sno-Cats. He rapped it with a hammer left on a workbench. The dull thud indicated it was at least half full. A long coil of rubber hose with a standard nozzle hung from a bracket welded to the tank’s support cradle. At the far end of the workshop was a series of wide doors that had once led to snow ramps to the surface. Next he played his light on the trussed ceiling fifteen feet over his head, discovering several large air vents. They were more than big enough for what he had in mind. All he needed now was a ladder and a long pole, like the center post for an army tent. He found both items in a utility closet.
The smell of burning wood was becoming distracting. It would take a while to reach a dangerous level but it was a constant reminder that on the other side of the fireproof doors was an out-of-control blaze.
Anika huddled next to the fire she’d built from packing crates, cupping her hands as if receiving a gift from the flames. “Strange to think this would feel good after the run through the hallway,” she joked.
“We’re not done yet. It’s time to put an old adage to work.” She shot him a questioning glance. “Fight fire with fire.”
After he explained what he had in mind, she had only one question. “How do you know the diesel will still burn?”
“Fuels don’t lose their combustibility over time, just their efficiency. Once we drain the sediment and water from the bottom of the tank, we’d be able to fill our own vehicles with it and suffer just bad mileage and burned piston rings.” That was an exaggeration, he knew, but it was close enough.
“Let’s do it.” Anika got to her feet, convinced because Mercer seemed so certain. He’d said earlier that he trusted her. For now, she had no choice but to reciprocate.
Mercer set his ladder near the largest of the air shafts, climbing up to remove the circular grate protecting it. The vertical tube was more than large enough to accommodate him and Anika. Flashing his light upward, he could see the vent had been battered and dented by glacial movement, but it was still clear for a good fifteen feet before becoming clogged with ice. He estimated that there would be ten additional feet of snow above it before he could see daylight.
Anika spent her time unfurling the fuel hose, using some rope she’d found to secure the end of the flexible pipe to the tip of the ten-foot tent pole. Her knots were tight and professional. While Mercer checked the spigot attached to the tank, she used his pocketknife to cut the gas nozzle from the hose. The rubber was brittle but remarkably resilient, demanding all her strength.
With the tank resting four feet above the polished concrete floor, Mercer knew it was gravity driven rather than relying on a mechanical pump to fill the vehicles that were once stored here. Without the restricting nozzle, an arcing jet of diesel would spew from the hose once he opened the tap.
“Are you ready for a test?” Mercer asked Anika, who was fifteen yards away, silhouetted by her flashlight.
“Okay.” She pointed the open end of the tube away from her, not knowing how powerful the stream would be.
“Here we go.” Mercer needed both hands and the considerable power of his shoulders to crack the initial seal on the spigot. Once the wheel began to turn, it spun freely.
“Jesus!” Anika screamed in surprise, prompting Mercer to close the tap quickly.
He raced to her side. “Well?”
She raised the focus of her flashlight, following the shimmering wet streak staining the floor. The trail led for fifty feet before it vanished beyond the light’s range. “Powerful enough for what you had in mind?”
“Overkill.” Mercer laughed, delighted that his idea might just work.
He sobered quickly when a thick wave of smoke reached them. The temperature in the garage was starting to climb. The doors segregating the garage from the rest of the base weren’t nearly as fireproof as Mercer had hoped.
“Get on the ladder,” Anika said, already in motion. “I’ll operate the valve.”
Mercer moved the ladder away so he could hold the hose under the air vent while staying away from the fuel
