“The others could come back at any minute.” Fresh panic knotted her stomach at the thought. Remembering the gun made her feel slightly better, but only slightly. A shootout with an unknown number of armed murderers probably wasn’t going to end well. Quick as it occurred to her to do so, she ran over and locked the door, trying to be as quiet about it as possible. The click was barely audible, but even that small sound made her wince. It was an ancient deadbolt, clearly not often used, since Attu was usually deserted. Probably the lock wouldn’t keep anybody out for long, but at least it would prevent someone from taking them by surprise. She was still unnerved by Ivanov’s unexpected entrance.
“See if you can find me some boots that’ll fit. Size thirteen.” Cal was stuffing the rest of Ivanov’s body inside the dryer as he spoke. Ivanov’s knees were wedged against his nose in a way that wouldn’t have been possible in life.
Gina jerked her gaze away. Right now, the best thing she could do was concentrate on the things that were doable, like getting him clothes. A glance at Cal’s feet confirmed that he was still wearing his improvised shoes from that morning, along with what looked like his now-dry but salt-bloomed and unsuitable-for-the-weather suit pants and the big black parka that had confused her at first glance.
Cal said, “This guy the only one who saw you?”
“Yes.” Running her eyes along the cubbies, Gina saw that three were missing their outdoor gear: hers, Arvid’s, and Keith Hertzinger’s. Did that mean that the others—Ray? A quiver of grief ran through her as his tanned, genial face rose in her mind’s eye—were all dead? Shoving the thought from her mind, she rushed to Bob Gordon’s cubby. Bob was the biggest guy in the group, at maybe six-one and two-hundred-some-odd pounds. Hopefully he had big feet.
“So what do we do now?” She grabbed the boots, then snatched Bob’s insulated snow pants and gloves from the hooks.
“Get the hell out of here.” He was trying to jam Ivanov’s arm inside the dryer with the rest of him as she ran back toward him.
“Here.” Gina plopped the boots and other things down beside the dryer.
Ivanov’s arm now safely inside, Cal covered the corpse with a blue towel.
“Did you make that call for me?” He was doing his best to force the dryer door closed.
“I didn’t get a chance.”
He shot a look at her over his shoulder. “The satellite phone somewhere you can grab it?”
“It’s gone. They took it.” Gina snatched two of the survival backpacks from the cubbies.
He swore. “You sure?”
“Yes.” She pulled the redundant items—the tent and the ground cover—out of one of the backpacks.
Kneeing the dryer door viciously, he finally got it to latch. Looking through the dryer’s round glass window, Gina would have sworn that it held nothing more sinister than a load of laundry.
“That should keep them from finding him for a while,” Cal said with satisfaction. Hopping from foot to foot, he pulled off his makeshift shoes and grabbed the snow pants. Gina stuck the things she’d pulled from the backpack in the other dryer along with his discarded “shoes” and ran back to the kitchen. Behind her, he was slamming his feet into the boots.
Seconds later he followed her into the kitchen. He was wearing the boots and snow pants now, she saw. They appeared to fit him well enough.
“You say there are two dead in here? Where?”
Busy throwing food and water into the backpack she’d half emptied, Gina nodded and pointed.
“In there.” Her chest tightening, she did her best not to think about Mary and Jorge. “There may be more dead. Elsewhere in the building.”
He strode across the kitchen to disappear into the common room.
He came back almost at once.
“You saw . . . ?” She couldn’t help but ask when he didn’t say anything. Having finished filling the backpack, she zipped it shut while keeping her gaze on what she was doing. She didn’t want to witness whatever effect seeing the bodies might have had on him in his face. With some difficulty, since it was now considerably heavier than before, she hoisted the backpack to her shoulder, still without looking at him.
“Yeah. I got this. Let’s go.” His voice sounded tight as he took the backpack from her, slung it over a broad shoulder. Refusing to think about anything other than the need to get out of there, she hurried after him as he strode through the kitchen into the mudroom.
The fact that the gun was in his hand now told her that he thought more trouble could break out at any moment. It jacked her fear level up to the roof. It also made her feel slightly—only slightly—safer.
“I locked the door,” she said to his back.
“I saw.”
As they neared the back door, she snagged the second backpack and lugged it along by its top strap, prepared to shrug into it as soon as she got the chance. Getting out of this alive was the goal, and if they were stuck outside for any length of time Attu’s weather would kill them as surely as a bullet. Grabbing the backpacks and the extra food was her contribution to making sure they didn’t die.
Cal was already at the door, hesitating in front of the solid panel exactly as she had done earlier.
The door and the windowless mudroom walls took “see no evil, hear no evil” to a whole new place.
There was no way of knowing if someone was right outside, or where Heavy Tread or anyone else was.
Opening that door required nothing short of a leap of faith.