02 Avalanche Pass (28 page)

From where she sat, halfway down the room and to one side, she had two shots of less than thirty feet and she knew she was good enough to make them both. It would be the third man who would
get her. She turned now to check his position. He was a few yards from the senator and his friends. She glanced back at the other two guards. They were in the optimum position for her, so that’s where number three would be.

She waited as they patrolled again, changing positions, scanning the dejected, sullen faces of the hostages. Each time the pattern was the same. When two of them were within easy range for her, the third was always behind, close to the senator and his friends. She looked at the small group, assessing them. One of them might be the man she was looking for, she thought. She knew she could count on Ben Markus for help but Ben wasn’t the physical type. He was brave enough, sure. She’d seen plenty of evidence of that in the last two days. But somehow she couldn’t see him tackling an armed man and keeping him out of the argument. Besides, she had other tasks in mind for Ben.

She stood now and stretched. As soon as she moved, all three guards stopped and turned to face her. She met the gaze of the closest, shook her head slightly and made a negative hand gesture. No trouble here. She took a few paces across the room to one of the guests—an older woman who had been showing some signs of distress earlier in the evening. She dropped to her knees beside her now.

“Mrs. Patterson?” she said quietly. “How are you feeling?” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the nearest of the guards walking toward her. She ignored him.

“Oh, not so good, Miss Bowden,” the woman replied. “I have my special medication, you see, but I only had a few pills in my handbag and now they’re gone.”

Tina patted the woman’s shoulder. “I’ll see what I can do,” she reassured her. She smiled at the woman, then stood. As she did so, the guard was standing over her.

“What’re you doing?” he asked.

“I’m checking on people,” she said. “They’re still my responsibility. I’m still an employee of the hotel. You want people getting sick in here?”

She’d prepared the answer. It was natural for her, as a hotel employee, to check on the guests’ welfare. It drew a certain amount of
attention to her, but not enough, she figured, to spotlight her as a threat. Besides, she’d selected a time when neither Kormann nor Pallisani was in the room and she doubted that any of the guards would see her activities as worth mentioning to their leaders.

The guard hesitated. He had no real objection to her moving around. He just didn’t want it to become general. If they all started milling around, anything could happen. Kormann had told them to keep the hostages sitting in one place. Still, this girl was the one who served the food to them, so she was already allowed to move through the room. He shrugged.

“Okay,” he said, then, looking around the room, “but the rest of you stay put.”

She nodded and began moving from one group to the next, checking how things were, seeing if people were coping okay, occasionally making a note of individual requirements that she might raise later with the guard. All the time, she moved closer to the group of men at the far end of the room.

As she came closer, Senator Carling looked up expectantly. She nodded and smiled, greeting him briefly. But it wasn’t him she wanted to talk to. She’d picked out one of his group, a fit-looking man who was probably in his late thirties. His receding hair was cut short and she was willing to guess there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. He was medium height and he had alert gray eyes that followed her as she approached.

She dropped on one knee beside him. “Hi. I’m Tina Bowden, with the hotel.”

He nodded. He’d noticed her as she’d served the food. “Can’t say I think too much of the room service so far,” he said dryly, and she allowed the ghost of a smile to show. He held out his hand. “Nate Pell,” he said.

They shook hands. She’d singled him out because he stood out from the rest of the senator’s group. They had the slightly overweight, soft look of businessmen or technicians or, in the case of the senator, politicians. This man was harder, with an athletic look to him.

“You been in the services, Nate?” she asked, trying to look casual about it. He nodded.

“Blue suiter for fifteen years. Now I’m senior test pilot with Rockair.” That explained the fit, athletic look. A jet pilot had to stay in top physical shape, she knew. She felt a small twinge of disappointment when she heard he was ex-air force. She’d been hoping for maybe army or Marines—someone with a bit of experience in close-in combat.

“Uh huh,” she said, still maintaining the outward casual appearance. “I’m ex-Marines myself.” She glanced at him to see what his reaction might be. He inclined his head slightly, his eyes showing signs of interest.

“Figures, I guess. Thought you weren’t the run-of-the-mill reception clerk. I guess you’re really security, right?”

“Right,” she told him. “Thing is, Nate, the time could come when we have to do something about these bastards. If that’s the case, I’m going to need someone to take care of one of them. Jump him, put him down. Get his gun away from him.”

She studied him for a second or two. The gray eyes were assessing her. She could see a light of satisfaction behind them. “Just one?” he said, with a slight mocking tone. “What about the other two?”

She smiled and patted his shoulder as she’d done with half a dozen other captives as she’d moved around the room, looking as if she were merely spreading a little reassurance and good cheer.

“I figure I’m good for them,” she said simply and his answering smile never reached the gray eyes.

“Is that right? And just how do you plan to do it?”

She shook her head, a small movement only. “I’ll go into that later. At the moment, I’m just seeing if there’s anyone here I can count on to back me up.”

He studied her for several moments and she met his gaze evenly. Then, seemingly satisfied with what he saw, he nodded several times.

“Then count on me for the third man,” he said. She started to rise to her feet.

“I’ll be in touch,” she told him and this time, when he grinned, the eyes joined in.

“
Semper fi
,” he said softly.

I
t was long after dark when Jesse made his way back to the hotel. He’d decided against skiing all the way back. The chances of a single moving figure being spotted on the otherwise deserted mountain in daylight were too high and skiing in the dark had its own, obvious risks. In the end, he’d traversed back to the Eagle Chairlift and downloaded, lying flat across the chair as he’d done before. Once down, he’d concealed himself in the lift attendant’s shack until darkness fell.

He realized that he was too late to make contact with Tina Bowden again tonight. He’d try to make contact in the morning, although he knew that the breakfast preparation gave her little reason to go to the storeroom. It was odds on that he wouldn’t see her before the midday meal. He shrugged. He’d just have to try for both.

He left his skis and boots in the ski room, on the principle that a forest was the best place to hide a tree. Retrieving his Timberlands, he made his way down the concrete stairs to the parking lot. His rental car was where he had left it and he clipped the cell phone back into the cradle to let it charge for a few hours. Luckily, the cradle was permanently connected to the car’s electrical circuit and there was no need to leave the ignition on. He thought about making his way back up to Tina’s room but the thought of soft footing it up five flights of service stairs suddenly seemed too much. The car, parked deep in the shadows of the parking lot, was as good a place to spend the next few hours as anywhere else. He still had some food and a bottle of water in his backpack and the roughly fashioned poncho to wrap himself in. In the morning, he’d make his way to the kitchen before anyone had risen and hope to make contact with Tina. But for the moment, there was nothing more he could do tonight.

He settled down in the back seat of the Buick, wriggling around to make himself comfortable. Within ten minutes, he was asleep.

T
ina followed Ralph into the kitchen, the guard a few paces behind them. It was becoming a well-established routine now. The lines of lights over the workstations came flickering to life and before they had settled, Ralph was already firing up the burners on the massive range that dominated the room. Tina moved to the far end and began filling the four big coffeemakers with water and fresh coffee packs, turning on the power to each one as she had it ready. Within a minute or two, the water began to gurgle and drip down and the rich smell of fresh coffee filled the room.

The guard, as ever, called to her. “Get me a cup of that as soon as it’s ready.”

She nodded. He expected no reply. Even his request was part of the morning routine. The one thing that wasn’t was the sight of the two coffee cups turned upside down beside the sink. Her eyes had gone to them the moment she reached the coffeemakers, checking to see if there were any sign that Jesse was waiting in the storeroom.

Casually now, she started toward the storeroom door.

The guard glanced up at her. “Where you going?” he called. He was a slim man with olive skin and dark hair and eyes. She thought he looked Hispanic—just another racial type among the mix represented by the guards. Today he was obviously in a foul temper. Usually, he was fairly disinterested in her movements but unfortunately for her, he’d lost a bundle of cash playing poker the night before. He was still sore about the loss, principally because he was convinced that Alfredo, the guy who ran the poker school among the
guards, was cheating. Exactly how, he didn’t know. But then, he guessed, if he’d known how, Alfredo wouldn’t have been able to cheat him in the first place. Truth was, the guard was a lousy poker player and had no idea of the odds involved. All the others knew it and made sure nobody told him. He was a pigeon ripe for the plucking as far as they were concerned.

This morning, still chafing over the loss, and Kormann’s strict rules that forbade any drinking, even during off-duty hours, he was ready to be objectionable and to make life difficult for the two hostages who were preparing the breakfast.

“Just getting eggs,” Tina told him casually, then cursed silently as Ralph interrupted their conversation.

“No need. I’ve got plenty here.”

He indicated the ready-use fridge, where there were half-a-dozen cartons of eggs. Tina hesitated. She knew it could be dangerous if the guard sensed that she wanted to get into the storeroom. If he became suspicious, that could be the end of everything. She shrugged and turned back to her workstation.

“Fine,” she said, trying to sound casual. “Saves me a trip.”

She took one of the loaves of bread that Ralph had baked the previous night and set it in the automatic slicer. Again she cursed quietly to herself. Now it would be at least five hours before she had a chance to speak with Jesse.

The first pot of coffee was nearly full. She poured a cup for the guard, added the two spoons of sugar she knew he liked, and took it to him. He grunted as he accepted it from her. She was relieved to see that he was no longer interested in the storeroom. She went back to the coffeemakers and cleared away the used packs of grounds. There were half a dozen unopened packs on the shelf facing her and, glancing over her shoulder to make sure the guard wasn’t watching, she scooped them into the big trash bin, tossing the used packs in on top to cover them.

At least now she would have a reason to go to the storeroom at the next meal break, she thought. She weighed the value of talking to Ralph when they returned to the gym, and telling him not to contradict her like that again. Then she realized that if he got any
hint that she was planning something, there was an excellent chance that he’d give the game away—either intentionally or otherwise.

Ralph was a good chef. But he was also, she knew, an abject coward. Casually, she turned the two cups right side up. At least now Jesse would know she had seen them.

The Learjet belonged to one of Truscott Emery’s former pupils, a man who had used what he’d learned from the professor to make a considerable fortune in grain futures. Ever-conscious of the debt he considered he owed, he made his company aircraft available to Emery whenever the professor needed it. This was one of those times.

With Benjamin’s blessing, Truscott Emery had decided to visit the site of the crime and talk to Dent Colby. Deep in the professor’s mind there was a vestigial stirring of thought. Somewhere, just out of reach, was the link that he was looking for. He was still sure that this was no ordinary hostage case. The reports from Colby had only strengthened the impression when he had described the discrepancies between the kidnappers’ apparent behavior and the impressions of the deputy sheriff from Colorado.