With their masks back in place, the three of them trooped along the staked trail to the arch-roofed building. The door still flapped in the wind, a metronomic rattle that was the base’s only sign of life. The power was out, and the garage was so heavily shadowed that the back wall was lost in the gloom. Their flashlights cast brilliant beams that cut the murk like lasers. The two snowcats looked like a hybrid cross between tanks and passenger vans. The tops of the studded Caterpillar tracks came up to Linda’s thigh. Bright orange paint covered the bodywork so they could be easily spotted out in the snowfields behind the station.

“Over here.” Linc led them to a workbench along the side of the garage.

Amid the usual clutter—tools, oil cans, and frozen rags—was a trunk measuring three feet in length. Linc opened the lid.

It took Linda a moment to understand what she was seeing. There was another body in the trunk, but, unlike the others, it had clearly been dead and exposed to the elements for some time. It was more mummy than corpse, and much of the face had been eaten away by scavengers before the body became too frozen to eat. Its clothing was unfamiliar. It wasn’t dressed in contemporary arctic gear but rather a padded jacket of brown wool and pants too thin for the environment. The hat perched atop frozen black hair looked odd. It had two peaks and a short brim.

“I’d say this guy’s been down here for a hundred years or more,” Mark said as he examined the body.

Linda said, “Maybe a whaler who got lost over the side of his ship?”

“Could be.” Mark looked at Linc. “Did you go through his pockets?”

“Not me, man. I took one look and closed the lid. But our missing man sure did.”

Linda had forgotten they hadn’t accounted for all fourteen members of Wilson/George. “You found Andy Gangle?”

“Is that the dude’s name? He’s at the back of the garage. And he is messed up.”

Andy had taken his own life in the end, driven to suicide by the same madness that made him kill his companions. He had sat down, with his back against a rack of spare tools, and pulled so hard on his lower jaw that he’d nearly broken it loose. He’d died, either from exposure or blood loss, with his fist stuffed into his mouth as if he were trying to get at whatever affected his brain.

Something glinted brightly in his other hand. Mark pried it from the stiff fingers. It was a piece of gold, misshapen now, but at one point it had to have been ornamental. There was a hammer on the floor next to Gangle’s body. When Mark shone his light on it, he could see where bits of gold had transferred to the head.