02 Avalanche Pass (39 page)

“I suggest we launch these birds and hold at a point just short of the ridge, where their radar can’t see us. Then if Parker makes a call, we’re that much closer to the action.”

Colby looked at the man gratefully. At least it was something positive he could do. He nodded agreement.

“Okay, let’s go.” He turned back to the technician. “If you hear anything from Parker, patch him through to me immediately.”

“Yessir.”

“And put someone watching that remote camera monitor. If anything moves up there, I want to know.”

They ran for the choppers, Maloney and Dent angling off in different directions to the two lead Blackhawks. Dent glanced back and saw that Lawson and Lee Torrens were also running, and that the sheriff’s department’s Bell 206’s single rotor was beginning to rotate slowly as well. The small chopper, sleek and pristine in its blue and white paint job, looked incongruous compared to the ugly, drab camo-painted military machines but the two sheriffs didn’t plan to be left out of the final phase, Dent knew.

The loadmaster was holding out a hand to help him aboard as he reached the second Blackhawk in the line. Maloney was already aboard the lead ship and, with a hastily donned headset, was giving directions to the six pilots. Move up to the ridge line and hold there for further orders. Do not cross the ridge. Do not expose your aircraft to the watching radar up the valley.

Do not pass Go. Do not collect nine point seven million dollars, thought Colby, donning his own headset in time to hear the final words of Maloney’s orders.

At least the falling snow would mask the clouds of windblown snow that their rotors would kick up. Typhoon George had sent the weather front across the northwest right on time—just as Kormann had been hoping.

He dropped into the pipe-framed webbing seat that was bolted to the bulkhead behind the two pilots. There was a small communication hatch between the troop compartment and the cockpit, just a few inches away from him. He felt the floor of the Blackhawk tremble and heave slightly and then they were airborne, taking their part in the slow procession to the holding point.

He glanced around at the faces in the troop compartment. Grim. Ready. Tense. This was what they trained for but no amount of training could really simulate the real thing when it came. Glancing at the selection of automatic weapons they carried—standard issue M16s for some, B-40 grenade launchers for others and H&K submachine guns to round out the picture—he felt somewhat undergunned.
His Smith and Wesson Masterpiece .38 was in a shoulder holster under his flak jacket and it seemed slightly inadequate among all the firepower he could see around him.

“Let’s hold it here,” Maloney’s voice crackled in his headset. The lead Apache had reached the furthest point. To go any further would be to risk discovery. He felt the floor tilt as the Blackhawk reared back slightly to hover, heard the sound of the rotors change to a heavy whack-whack-whack as they angled to catch the air more forcefully and hold the big chopper motionless. Craning to look out through the windscreen, Colby could see the two Apaches ahead, and Maloney’s Blackhawk out to the side and slightly ahead of the chopper he was in. The other three choppers were all hanging motionless in the air. Thirty feet below them, the massive rotor washes were kicking up mini-snowstorms.

“Set ’em down, pilots, but keep them turning,” Maloney said after a few seconds. Gingerly, the helicopters settled to the rough ground, bumping gently as they touched down and the wheels took the weight. The engine sound and rotor noise promptly dropped as the pilot cut his throttle back. Just fifty yards ahead, Colby could see the ridge that marked the final obstacle between them and the hotel. If the call came, they could be up off the ground and powering over that ridge in a matter of minutes.

Straight into the teeth of the radar controlled triple-A and the Stingers.

The Korean radar specialist emerged from the canvas hutch where he spent the greater part of each day. His head was cocked toward the north, and he sniffed the air experimentally.

“Do you hear that?” he asked.

Mosby turned to him curiously. “Hear what?” he asked. He’d heard nothing but he knew the Korean had keen ears. More important, he had instincts for trouble and Mosby knew they could be invaluable in situations like this. The men posted around the roof fingered their weapons. They were edgy, he knew, and they’d been that way ever since they’d spotted the unknown man breaking cover from the hotel and skiing across the clear ground below. Mosby still felt a stab of annoyance at the fact that they’d all missed hitting the lone skier.

“I thought I heard choppers,” the Korean said, peering thoughtfully toward the ridge, three miles away. Mosby was instantly fully alert.

“You see anything on your screen?”

The Korean shook his head and made a sign for Mosby to remain quiet while he listened further. He cursed under his breath after a few seconds.

“It’s gone now.”

“If it was there,” Mosby replied. He’d heard no sound of choppers. He’d heard nothing but the wind moaning around the top of the building. Up here, eight stories from the ground, the wind was a constant companion. He thrust his hands into his parka pocket. The Korean hesitated, uncertain whether to get back to his screen.

“Keep your eye on the ridge,” he said finally, and turned back into the radar shack to check the screen once more. Mosby moved to the edge of the rampart that surrounded the roof. He had an uneasy feeling about the way things were going. When a situation started to unravel in one direction, it often let go all over, and that’s what seemed to be happening here. He’d heard no more from Kormann about the prisoners in the gym—except that he’d been ordered to turn over one of the precious Stingers to try to blast them out of their barricade. It was a mistake, he felt. Their supplies of the Stingers were strictly limited and he’d counted on needing them all if push came to shove. Then there was the unknown intruder whom Pallisani had gone after. Where the hell had he come from? And if one man had managed to penetrate their surveillance, who was to say that there weren’t another dozen somewhere about?

Every one of the mercenaries recruited by Kormann for this operation knew that their security depended on a gigantic bluff. The authorities had to believe that they were terrorists, ready to destroy themselves alongside the hostages for the sake of their beliefs. As long as they maintained that scenario, the army couldn’t come storming in here on a rescue mission. But the hostage card could only be played once or twice. Sure they could kill one or two of them to keep the authorities at bay, but sooner or later that would become a problem of diminishing returns. The government could not afford to stand by while hostages were slaughtered one at a time. They would have to act. The secret in these situations, Mosby believed, was similar to chess. You had to maintain the momentum. You had to make the moves and force your opponent to react to you—and not make the move he might have chosen for himself. For the past six days, they had managed to do that. Now, it seemed, the momentum might be moving away from them. They were reacting and that was raising large danger signals in his mind.

He shivered, not entirely from the cold, and raised his binoculars to scan the far ridge once more.

“Kormann! Wait up!”

Kormann had paused to collect the remote-control triggering device. Now he was jogging toward the cable car terminal when he heard his name called. He turned and saw Harrison, the man who had been patrolling the first floor, hurrying to catch him.

Harrison was a big man, fit and well muscled. Kormann had looked for big men when he had been recruiting. He wanted the captives well and truly cowed and having men who towered over them was one way of achieving it. He waited till the other man
caught up to him, noting that the Ingram was slung across his back, out of immediate reach. He felt his own fingers close around the butt of the Beretta in his jacket pocket, felt for the grooved safety with his thumb and slowly released it.

“What’s the panic?” Harrison asked. Kormann gestured with his left hand toward the hotel behind them.

“The prisoners,” Kormann said briefly. “They took out Clark, Washburn and Gibson and they’ve barricaded themselves in the gym.”

Harrison’s eyes widened with surprise. “Jesus,” he said softly. “So what are we going to do?”

“Alston and the others are going to blast them out with a Stinger,” Kormann told him, cursing the delay but realizing he had to get rid of the other man before he could move to the cable car. “Maybe you better get up there and give them a hand.”

Harrison nodded several times as he thought about it. He started to turn away, then another thought struck him and he stopped, turning back to Kormann.

“Where are you going?” he asked. And that was the problem. There was no logical reason why he should be here, outside the hotel, heading in the direction of the cable car, when there was an emergency situation at the gym.

And unfortunately, Harrison was the sort of guy who would argue the point if he gave him a half-baked reason.

Unfortunately for Harrison.

Kormann nodded, pointing with his chin toward the wide ski slopes at the bottom of the homeward run, behind the other man.

“I’m going to take care of those guys,” he said. And as Harrison’s head turned to look in the direction he’d indicated, he drew the Beretta from his pocket and fired one shot.

Harrison lurched away from him as the slug hit him in the back, turning slowly as he sank to his knees, clawing vainly for the sudden, burning pain behind him that he couldn’t reach. His eyes were puzzled.

“Kormann?” he said hesitantly. “What are—”

He died before he could finish the question. Kormann looked down at the body in the snow.

“Why didn’t you just shut up and do as I said?” he asked the dead man. Then he turned and headed for the cable car again. Unlike the chairlift system, the cable car engine didn’t kick in automatically each morning. He checked his watch. Time was slipping away and he was going to have to sort out the controls, start up the main motor, let the system warm up and get the car underway. It would all take time and that was getting to be in short supply.

T
he hostages, under the direction of Senator Carling, had dragged bedding and exercise equipment into place to barricade an oblique corner of the room. Now most of them huddled behind the makeshift shelter, while Tina, Nate Pell and several others stood guard at the barrier by the door, waiting to see what the guards’ next move was going to be.

Ralph, the chef, had remained in his original position, crouched among the weight benches and heavy bags, with the muzzle of a Beretta protruding through the narrow gap between the doors. Tina eyed him with some surprise. The chef’s previous attitude toward his captors had been anything but belligerent. Maybe, she thought, he was making up for it now. He was still disgusted with himself that none of the shots he’d fired had gone close to hitting Kormann and, despite her repeated suggestions that he move back from the doorway, he had remained there, possibly hoping for another shot at the leader of the mercenaries.

Occasionally they saw a quick glimpse of a head thrusting around the edge of the anteroom doorway, moving out and in so quickly that there was no time to get a shot off. Once, in frustration, Ralph had sent a further fusillade of bullets hammering off the concrete walls, just in case anyone out there was planning on looking around the doorway again. With a view to their limited ammunition supply, Tina had ordered him curtly to stop wasting bullets. Reluctantly, he agreed.

The uncertainty of the situation gnawed at them. Tina had seen no point in keeping Jesse’s presence a secret from her fellow captives any longer. After all, she had shot the two guards in the hope that Jesse would hear the shots and call Dent Colby. After she had filled them in on the background details, Markus, Pell, Carling and Aldiss had all agreed that the terrorist scenario being played out for the benefit of the FBI was phony. Nothing that they had seen over the previous six days jelled with the impression that their captors were politically motivated. There was a general consensus of opinion that this group were highly unlikely to set off the explosive charges in the mountain if the resulting avalanche was going to bury themselves along with the hostages.

From their position by the gymnasium doors, the occupants could see the entire anteroom, with the doorway to the gym administration office to the right, and the outer door that led to the corridor. The door was open so they could see ten to twelve yards of the corridor, until there was a right-angle turn to the left. It was around that corner that they saw occasional glimpses of the guards as they kept an eye on things.

“We’ve got a stalemate,” Tina told the others. “They can’t approach down that corridor without giving us a clear shot at them.”

“So we’re safe enough,” the Senator said, “as long as they don’t have any way of blowing us out of here. They can’t get in as long as we hold this position here.”

“Mind you,” Carl Aldiss put in, “it cuts both ways. There’s no way we can get out while they’re out there.”

“The difference is,” Tina told them, “they don’t have reinforcements on the way. All we have to do is sit tight until the FBI get here.”

“If they’re coming.” That was Nate Pell, pointing out the one possibility they all wanted to ignore.

Jesse wriggled his butt forward on the chairlift seat as the chair came into the unload area. As soon as it disconnected from the main cable, he was up and on his feet, poling strongly and skating to get speed up as he moved away from the chairlift line. He glanced back once over his shoulder to see if he could spot the four men who were pursuing him but the line of bobbing, dancing chairs obscured them.