The quicker she got down there and let everyone know she was safe, the quicker everyone could get back to work and life could proceed as usual.
Trudging along the steep, rocky path, Gina thought longingly of food, warmth, and a shower, all of which were, she estimated, less than fifteen minutes away. All she had to do was make it the rest of the way down the mountain. With an elevation of twenty-three hundred feet, Frazier Mountain was one of maybe half a dozen low mountains that formed a semicircle around the former Coast Guard station. There were no trees to speak of on Attu, and the mountains curved behind the flat meadow just off the cove where the LORAN station lay. On a clear day she would have been able to see it below her, but there weren’t many clear days on Attu and today was no exception. Fog lay over everything in a thick, gauzy blanket. But she knew where the buildings were, and she looked toward them. Solid concrete painted white, with thick walls and reinforced, black-framed windows, they were grouped closely together. The main building was two stories tall, and she could just see its rusting metal roof through the fog. The island’s only runway, which was, in fact, its only paved surface, ran alongside the buildings. It ended some distance from them at a corrugated metal hangar with a red and white sign bearing the tongue-in-cheek message WELCOME TO ATTU INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.
Peering down through the fog, Gina was able to see that lights were on in the main building, which told her that somebody was home: electricity was precious, the product of a single large generator that had to be sparingly fed fuel from the cylindrical, aboveground storage tanks that were topped off maybe once a year by a visiting freighter. Energy conservation was taken seriously on Attu, and lights were turned off when not in use. She looked toward the bay and the dock where the Zodiacs were kept tied up, but was able to see nothing through the fog.
The satellite phone was kept in the main building, which also housed the dormitory-style rooms where they all slept, women in one and men in the other. The kitchen was in there, too, along with a large common area where they ate and hung out. Just thinking about the kitchen made her stomach growl. She hadn’t eaten that morning: knowing that there would be food waiting for her at camp, and not anticipating such an arduous trek, she’d left the remaining two protein bars for Cal. She’d already made up her mind about the best, most unobtrusive way to make his telephone call: if anyone was around when she picked up the phone, she would simply tell them she had a private call to make and then go outside and key in the numbers he’d given her. Then she would call her mother as cover.
Hiding in plain sight, as it were.
The more she thought about it, the more not reporting the deaths or the plane crash bothered her. She hadn’t entirely made up her mind yet, but she was considering doing so once she was safely back in California. Cal would be off the island by then, too, and if he had kept his word he would have already reported the crash and the deaths, so she would be doing the right thing without endangering anybody.
Unbidden, the thought of how he’d kissed her, and how she’d kissed him back, made her cheeks heat. And her body heat. He had made her want him, and it had been a long time since she’d felt anything like that. The knowledge was disturbing, and, cross at herself, she pushed it out of her head.
The fog was heavy enough so that once she reached ground level she could only locate the main building, and that was because of its glowing windows. As she approached, light spilling through the glass panes made weird yellowish patches in the gray fog. Her boots crunched through the ice, the sound almost covered by the rush of the waves rolling into the bay behind her. The rumble of the generator grew louder as she neared the side door that opened into the mud–cum–laundry room, where they generally left their outdoor clothes.