Red Snow (10 page)

Buddy Hopkins was singing along with T. Rex when the vee-bid blew sky-high. “Vee-bid” stood for VBIED, and that stood for “vehicle-borne improvised explosive device,” which was just a fancy way of saying “truck bomb.” Unknown to Buddy, the device was affixed to the cargo tank behind his cab. It wasn’t a particularly powerful explosive—but then it didn’t need to be when his vehicle was a tanker full of gasoline.

Convinced that he was the only North American able to appreciate Marc Bolan’s voice, Buddy was warbling along with “Raw Ramp,” the music blaring at ear-bleed volume, when the remote trigger tripped. Buddy’s wasn’t the only vehicle wired to explode. It was simply the first to reach the bridges.

The attack on the three bridges was a work of saboteur’s art. This was the weakest point on the Sea to Sky Highway. Here, the railway and the highway came together to cross a creek. The creek bed was a manmade concrete V, hardened so the banks wouldn’t erode. One bridge accommodated trains. The other bridges, to and from, were for the steadily increasing Whistler traffic.

As the self-appointed world’s authority on boogie music, Buddy had stuffed his iPod with tunes like John Lee Hooker’s “Boogie Chillen,” Canned Heat’s “Going Up the Country,” and ZZ Top’s “Tube Snake Boogie.” It was hard to play air guitar with his hands on the wheel of the rig, so Buddy was bobbing his head to Marc’s sexy ode when the remote triggers tripped. The bomb on his truck and the mines on the bridges were electronically set to blow when he reached a certain point in the road.

Ka-boom!

The tanker truck exploded into a roiling fireball, hurling chunks of shrapnel hundreds of feet in the air. Waves of fire belched up and down the highway, frying other motorists to crisps as black as charcoal. The thunderous roar blew the sky clear of snow and filled it with an oily smoke so dark that night swallowed day. The mines under the bridges added to the havoc, buckling steel beams, melting bolts and rivets, and turning concrete to rubble. With the three spans destroyed, the creek bed became a castle moat cutting Whistler off from everything to the south.

*     *     *

The electric warrior who had mined the bridges was miles away to the north. A Germanic mercenary, he went by the code name Stopwatch.

Stopwatch came from a long line of Doppelsöldners, or “double mercenaries”—soldiers of fortune who were paid extra for battling on the frontlines. His ancestors had been Landsknechts, foot soldiers famous for using long pikes to dismount charging knights in a crunch of armor. After 1500, Maximilian I, the Holy Roman Emperor, decreed that the Landsknechts could hire themselves out for pay, and they were soon the most feared troops in Europe, fighting in every major campaign for centuries.

Of his ancestors, folks had often said, “They are as good as the gold you pay them, and last about as long as the beer.”

But Stopwatch had had no interest in the life of a modern mercenary. The world’s hellholes—jungles where the insects eat you alive, and deserts where the broiling sun bakes your brains—were not for him. He preferred the concrete jungle, where his skills as a military marauder earned him more than his ancestors could ever have dreamed of.

Stopwatch began at the top.

The family villa in Salzburg had a war room where toy soldiers fought famous battles. His father had taught him how to recreate those turning points of history, the moments when victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat.

Armchair maneuvers.

As a man, Stopwatch had put that guidance to lucrative use. He got a thrill from pulling off the perfect heist. Like a climber scaling Mount Everest just because it’s there, Stopwatch was a soldier of fortune who stole fortunes just to prove he could.

Mephisto had linked up with Stopwatch through the Internet. For their first collaboration, he’d wired him money through several shady Asian banks, and in return the soldier of fortune had stolen a priceless Rembrandt. The painting was now in the secret collection of a Russian tycoon, who planned to have it buried with him when he died.

Who says you can’t take it with you?

Not Stopwatch.

He thrived on the law of demand and supply.

His most recent mission for Mephisto had been the theft of an Egyptian mummy. In that operation, timed to the minute by a stopwatch he wore around his neck, he’d extracted the mummy from an armored car by blasting through it with a thermal lance. His mercenaries had diverted the vehicle to a red light, where it stopped over flat metal doors that opened to the cellar of a British pub. Wearing a fireproof Nomex suit, Stopwatch opened the doors and applied an acetylene torch to the undercarriage. Then, using the lance—which was similar to a Second World War flamethrower—he shot raw oxygen down a magnesium tube and ignited the hot spot beneath the driver’s seat.

Foom!

At 8,000 degrees Fahrenheit, a thermal lance will slice through a foot of steel in seconds. The driver exploded in a sizzle of steam, and Stopwatch removed the mummy like a doctor performing a Caesarean birth. That night, the loot was flown to Mephisto.

“We need to meet,” said the email that had set up this subsequent mission. That broke the rules. Anonymity was the blind protecting both men.

“Why?” wrote Stopwatch.

“The planning required is too intricate. We need to discuss tactics face to face.”

“What job is that big?”

“The Olympics.”

Stopwatch couldn’t resist the challenge, and he agreed to meet Mephisto in Venice. The mercenary came in conventional disguise. The psycho came wrapped in bandages that made him look like the Invisible Man.

“That’s extreme,” said Stopwatch.

“The bandages are real.”

“What happened?”

“I was thwarted by a Mountie named DeClercq. He ruined my plans for the mummy you provided and forced me to flee before I could eliminate those who’d seen my face. So I had to change it, resulting in
this
! The plastic surgeon botched the reconstruction.” Mephisto seethed with anger. “Mark my words: DeClercq will rue the day he was born. No one thwarts me.
No one!
”

Stopwatch respected the settling of scores. “Is this about revenge?” he asked.

“Yes. For geopolitical reasons I’m sure you can imagine but I’m sworn not to reveal, various European and Middle Eastern interests place a lot of value on sabotaging these Winter Olympics. It’s the price Canada pays for being in Afghanistan. And since DeClercq has such a pivotal role to play in providing Olympic security, ruining the games will also ruin him. He’ll piece together the clues and know it’s me, and this will be checkmate.”

“A win-win situation.”

Mephisto smirked. “All on my side.”

“Security doesn’t come tighter than the Olympics,” said Stopwatch.

“That’s why we’ll strike
before
the shield is in place. To sell an Olympic bid to a frugal public, the organizers low-balled the cost of security. You couldn’t protect an outhouse with what they budgeted. After Vancouver won the games and couldn’t back out, the actual cost was revealed. The price tag was so exorbitant that there was nothing left to protect any qualifying competitions. The only money available is being spent on the
actual
Olympics in February 2010.”

“So when do we strike?”

“In December.”

“We’ll need a team of winter warriors,” Stopwatch said.

“Is that a problem?”

The Austrian shook his head. “There’s not much call for soldiers of fortune with winter skills. I’ll find killers hungry for cash. I’ll call them Icemen.”

*     *     *

“The skater,” Mephisto had said the night before. “I need his expertise. Scarlett overheard Nick Craven talking on his phone just before she snuffed him. He was making plans to meet Jenna Bond and her daughter, Becky, at Alpha Lake at noon. I want them both killed. My face may be different, but my body and my voice are the same. I can’t chance being recognized.”

So Stopwatch now had three missions in play. The blast that echoed up the valley from the south meant that the route linking Whistler to Vancouver was blocked. The time told him that the Latvian Iceman was taking care of Bond and her kid. And meanwhile, Stopwatch himself was blocking the route linking Whistler to the north.

*     *     *

Who the hell would build a log cabin today?

Sure, Whistler was developing at the speed of light, with some celebrity chalets selling in the multimillion-dollar range. But December was the month to hibernate, not build. So why was this contractor offering a bonus to have these logs delivered now?

Some people!

Treetop—“T.T.” to his logging camp buddies—had been a high rigger before his accident. No fir had been too tall for him to scale until a chainsaw bucked and chewed into his leg. After that, he had switched to hauling loads, which didn’t earn danger pay but did put grub on the table.

Today, T.T. was dressed like the quintessential Canuck: red-checked flannel shirt and blue jeans over steel-toed boots, stubbled chin beneath a peaked Molson beer cap, and a quilted, sleeveless green jacket zipped up his chest.

“Timber!”

The Cowboy Junkies were on the radio, singing their cover version of Lou Reed’s “Sweet Jane,” as the rig trundled down the slope, approaching Whistler from the north. Because this stretch of highway ran from the ski resort to the sticks, instead of down to Vancouver, there’d been no reason to widen it for the games. Just two lanes zigzagged above the junction where the road, the railway, and the electrical towers powering Whistler met.

Through the foggy windows of the cab, T.T. could barely make out the passing Slow signs. The trees alongside the highway were like skeletons scratching bony fingers at the somber, smothering sky. As T.T. cleared the windshield with his hand, the railway bridge crossing the road ahead suddenly materialized.

Could there be a worse road in the world for truckers?

“No,” T.T. answered himself.

It was bad enough that snowstorms like this could close it down, and that Mother Nature could sever the route at will with avalanches and erosion. What was worse—at least to T.T.’s mind—was the snooty Olympics. For the duration of the games, the road would be closed to all but “permitted vehicles,” which didn’t include his. Two weeks! Do you think those Olympians gave a rat’s ass about a hard-working trucker just trying to—

What happened next wasn’t amorphous, hazy, or cold. Since light travels faster than sound, T.T. was first blinded by the dual explosions around the supports for the rail bridge. Perhaps he heard the booms, but if so, it was only for the split-second before the shards of metal crashed like spears through the windshield. The span above the road smashed down like a portcullis sealing a gate. The rig, with its driver spiked to his seat, caromed into the bridge and flipped on its side, spilling the timber onto the highway like a giant playing pick-up sticks.

*     *     *

The problem with public officials is that most don’t have criminal minds. That’s why the powers-that-be had assumed there was a backup system in case of a power failure.

Stopwatch knew better.

The dams that power British Columbia were in the north. Electricity was transmitted to the Lower Mainland by the shortest possible route, so both the primary and the backup feeds hummed down this valley side by side. To plunge Whistler into darkness, all Stopwatch had to do was cut
all
the power lines.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

From his ambush platform along the valley, the mercenary punched the button to blow the charges the Icemen had packed around the base of each hydro tower. One by one, they toppled in an explosion of sparks. Stopwatch averted his eyes as live wires snapped and lashed about like sizzling bullwhips. Those that landed across the highway formed another barrier.

Ozone fouled the air, stinking of weak chlorine.

Satisfied that he had earned the cash in his Swiss bank account, the soldier of fortune pointed his snowmobile toward Whistler, heading for the black hole spawned by the blackout.

Chief Superintendent DeClercq was questioning Niles Hawksworth, grand poobah of the El Dorado Resort, when all hell broke loose. The hotelier sat frowning behind his compulsively organized desk. Try though he might, he could express no real sorrow for the three murder victims. It was obvious that his only concern was his threatened business.

“Two skiers killed on the slopes,” he said, “is outrageous enough. But a policeman murdered in
this
hotel
just hours before ‘Going for the Gold’? It’s obscene.” As he spoke, he rolled an egg-shaped worry stone back and forth in his palm.

“It’s more than that,” said DeClercq, his voice as dry as autumn leaves.

The hotelier agreed. “The Olympic Games will put Whistler—and the El Dorado—on the map for decades to come. Bodies on the slopes hurt everyone. But a murder in
this hotel
! Jesus Christ!”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” the cop said sarcastically.

“Thank you,” said the oblivious hospitality manager. “And thank you as well for removing the body by the service elevator and taking it out the back door. Imagine it going through the lobby!” Hawksworth shuddered at the thought. “Now, how soon can we reopen the eighth floor? Every room is booked tonight because of ‘Going for the Gold.’”

“The show must go on, Mr. Hawksworth?”

With his power suit, his manicured hands, and his scalp shaved to corporate perfection, Niles Hawksworth embodied everything DeClercq disliked about the Olympic Games. If the games were really about sport and the human spirit, wouldn’t it make sense to stage them in the same place every four years, stripped of all the commercial nonsense that bleeds them of meaning? Greece could be the home of the Summer Olympics and Chamonix–Mont Blanc the Winter Games. The cash saved could be spent on humanitarian causes, and security could be state of the art.

That made sense to Robert, but not to the world’s businessmen.

Men like Hawksworth saw the Olympics as a giant moneymaking opportunity. They gambled with the public purse, squandering millions on a bidding process that only one country could win. A fortune more was spent on massive sports facilities needed for only a brief moment in time. Corporate shills milked the carnival for every dollar they could. Meanwhile, cops like Robert were expected to provide impregnable security at rock-bottom rates.

“Combing a murder scene takes as long as it takes,” said the chief. “So if you want ‘Going for the Gold’ to proceed, you’re going to have to give me all the help I need.”

The hotelier clenched his worry stone. “You’d shut us down?” he said.

“I will if I think the El Dorado remains a hunting ground.”

Suddenly, Hawksworth was all business. “How can I help?” he asked.

“This woman who called to report the murder—did you recognize her voice?”

“No, I think she’d disguised it.”

“What did she say?”

“I can tell you precisely. I put her on speakerphone so my assistant could write down her exact words.” Hawksworth consulted a series of squiggles on a shorthand pad. “‘There’s a dead cop in room 807,’” he read aloud. “‘Have Special X figure it out.’”

“So you called us?”

“Yes.”

“I want those notes.”

Hawksworth passed him the pad.

“Your assistant is?”

“Jenny.”

“I want to question her.”

“She’s with the chef, discussing the menu for tonight, but she should be back soon. I know she didn’t recognize the caller’s voice either. Do you think that woman is the killer?”

The Mountie showed Hawksworth the Post-it Note in the evidence pouch. “Does this handwriting look familiar?”

The hospitality manager shook his head. “‘Ten o’clock tonight. Be discreet,’” he read. “That sounds like a pickup in a bar.”

“Is the Gilded Man the only bar in the El Dorado?”

“You don’t think …” Hawksworth’s earlier frown was nothing compared to the glower he took on now.

“Who worked the bar yesterday?”

“Jenny will know.”

“Are the same people working today?”

“The entire staff’s doing ‘Going for the Gold.’”

“This company that booked room 807, how do I—”

Ka-boom!

That’s when the first explosion roared in from the south, rattling the windows of the hospitality office and the murder room on the eighth floor, where Joe had just solved the puzzle of the deadbolt.

“What was that?” asked Hawksworth.

*     *     *

It wasn’t long before the chief’s cellphone went mad. Calls were coming in like waves washing a beach. The first to reach Robert was Jackie Hett, who had just returned to the Special X detachment after responding to the decapitation of the skier on the chairlift.

“Chief, a tanker truck explosion has blocked both the road and the rail links to Vancouver. It took out three bridges and caused a major pileup. I called the local clinic. Doctors are responding, but all available medical help is urgently needed at the scene.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Keep me informed.”

“Roger,” said Jackie.

By the time the Mountie finished his call, the manager’s assistant, Jenny, had returned from consulting with the chef. Like her boss, she hadn’t recognized the voice of the woman reporting the murder. Nor could she identify the handwriting on the Post-it Note.

“Who tended the bar yesterday?” asked the chief.

“Karen and Stew in the afternoon,” said Jenny. “Marco and Trixie took over at night.”

“Are Karen and Stew here now?”

“No, but they will be soon. Everyone’s working the ‘Going for the Gold’ event.”

The Mountie turned to Hawksworth. “Do you have medical staff on call?”

“Why?” the hotelier asked suspiciously.

Ignoring him, Robert phoned Gill Macbeth on his cell. The pathologist had accompanied Nick Craven’s corpse from the room on the eighth floor to the nearby trauma facility. She was to be joined there by the Russian forensic scientist as soon as he had finished examining the crime scene.

“What’s going on?” she answered. “That’s more than thunder.”

“A tanker truck explosion has caused a lot of injuries. We need every doctor on scene.”

“But what about the postmortem?”

“Joe can start without you, searching Nick’s body for wounds and stripping off the paint. When you’re finished at the accident scene, you can conduct a full autopsy.” Robert looked back at Hawksworth. “Hold on, Gill. You may have passengers.” He covered the phone. “Well?” he asked. “I need medical personnel.”

“We use doctors from the nearby clinic. If they’ve already been called out, I can only suggest trying one of our guests,” said Hawksworth.

“Who would that be?”

The hospitality manager turned to his assistant. “Jenny, what’s the name of the Finn who’s trying to land a sports medicine job at the Olympics?”

“I can’t pronounce it, but he’s in room 312.”

“Call him down,” the Mountie said, returning to his cell. “Gill, it looks like I’ll have someone to ride shotgun at your—”

That’s when a succession of explosions rumbled in from the north, shaking the town of Whistler like an earthquake. Suddenly, all the lights in the El Dorado went out, plunging Hawksworth’s office into dimness.