Chapter 2 - The Snow Walk
The cold hit me like a physical punch to the chest.
The moment I stepped out of the cabin, the wind stripped the thin layer of warmth from my face. My eyelashes frosted over in seconds. The snow was already knee-deep, swirling in violent, horizontal sheets that obliterated the horizon.
Dominic had taken the truck. He had taken the satellite phone. He had taken my winter parka, my thermal gloves, and my GPS unit.
He assumed I would sit in the cabin and freeze. If I tried to walk out in denim and a flannel shirt without winter gear, I would suffer severe frostbite within twenty minutes and die of central core nervous system collapse within two miles.
Which was why I didn't head down the main road.
Dominic knew the main road led south toward the highway, twenty-two miles away. He had likely calculated that even if I escaped, I would follow his tire tracks down the access road and collapse in the snow drifts long before reaching help.
Instead, I turned north-northwest, straight into the thickest part of the Blackfoot timberland.
As an instructor at the Army’s Cold Weather Leadership Course, I knew the terrain better than the local rangers. Three miles north across the ridge lay a decommissioned Forest Service fire watchtower. It was abandoned in winter, but timber crews kept an emergency cache box at its base—standard forestry protocol.
To survive the three-mile climb through a blizzard in sub-zero conditions, I needed to manage my body chemistry.
If I moved too fast, I would sweat. Sweat turns to ice inside your clothes, accelerating hypothermia by four hundred percent. If I moved too slowly, my core temperature would drop below ninety-four degrees, triggering lethargy and coma.
I maintained a strict cadence: eighty paces per minute. I kept my hands tucked deep into my armpits beneath my flannel shirt, using my body’s central core heat to keep my fingers functional. I navigated using dead reckoning—matching the prevailing northwestern wind against the inclination of the mountain ridge beneath my feet.
The woods were a nightmare of screaming pine branches and blinding whiteout. At one point, the snow gave way beneath my boots, dropping me waist-deep into a hidden ravine. The sharp edge of a buried branch tore through my jeans, slicing a four-inch gash into my calf.
Pain flared—hot and sharp.
I didn't stop. I couldn't. I packed fresh snow directly against the wound to constrict the blood vessels and stop the bleeding, then hauled myself out using a low-hanging fir branch.
"Keep moving, Lieutenant," I ordered myself aloud, my voice lost in the roaring storm. "One step. Two steps. Three steps."
Two hours and forty minutes after breaching the cabin door, the dark, spindly silhouette of the steel fire tower emerged from the white fog like a ghost ship.
I collapsed against the concrete footing, my legs shaking uncontrollably. My fingers were losing sensation—stage-two frostbite was setting in on my fingertips and nose.
I crawled to the steel supply locker bolted to the tower support leg. It was locked with a standard combination tumbler.
I didn't need a key. Forest Service emergency caches use a standardized regional default combination based on the district number: 4-1-9.
I spun the frozen metal dials with my numb knuckles.
CLICK.
The heavy steel lid lifted.
Inside sat a treasure trove of industrial survival gear:
A heavy-duty, orange thermal arctic parka rated for minus fifty degrees.
Insulated leather work gloves with fleece liners.
A pair of magnesium fire-starters and waterproof flare sticks.
A high-frequency Forest Service emergency radio with a hand-crank generator.
Dried emergency rations and a two-liter canteen of water.
I pulled the arctic parka over my shivering frame, slid my hands into the fleece gloves, and collapsed inside the dry shelter of the steel locker, pulling the lid down to shield myself from the wind.
I cranked the radio generator for sixty seconds until the green LED light flickered to life. I set the frequency to the military emergency band—Channel 16.
I pulled the microphone to my frozen lips.
"Break, break, emergency traffic. This is Lieutenant Valerie Mercer, United States Army Special Operations Command, ID line 8-8-4-Delta. I am calling from Grid Victor-Tango 4-9-2. I have survived an attempted homicidal abandonment. Requesting immediate covert extraction and activation of Protocol Blackout. Do not alert local civilian authorities. I repeat—do not alert local authorities."
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A static crackle filled the small speaker, followed by a crisp, deep voice that brought an immediate wave of heat back into my veins.
"Lieutenant Mercer, this is Colonel Marcus Vance, CID Special Investigations. We read you loud and clear. Hold your position. We’re coming to pick up a ghost."
