Red Snow (18 page)

El Dorado!

How did that Edgar Allan Poe poem go? Mephisto asked himself.

And, as his strength

Failed him at length,

He met a pilgrim shadow—

“Shadow,” said he,

“Where can it be—

This land of Eldorado?”

“Over the Mountains

Of the Moon,

Down the Valley of the Shadow,

Ride, boldly ride,”

The shade replied,—

“If you seek for Eldorado!”

Was that not the prophecy that brought him to this moment? Had his strength not failed him a few years ago, when he’d realized that he was born out of time, doomed to live his life in a claustrophobic nightmare of overpopulation? All the money he had made from selling stolen artifacts and priceless masterpieces on the black market could not buy him a time machine to escape from that.

But then, he’d lucked across the pilgrim shadow of Vladimir Grof, and he came to see that his destiny was to thrive in the interregnum between the fall of Soviet Russia and the rise of Vladimir Putin. Only in that chaos could he have bought the three aerosol cans of the supervirus.

Geneticists calculated that recent outbreaks of Ebola Zaire had wiped out 95 percent of the gorillas and 77 percent of the chimpanzees populating the rainforests.

That’s about a quarter of the great apes.

Man’s closest relatives.

The mutant virus hidden in the cans sold to Mephisto was in position to virtually annihilate the world’s human population. Only seven hundred million survivors! Would that not be El Dorado? Think of all the gold to be mined after the dying wretches bled out.

Ka-ching!

True, the smallpox vaccine was being stockpiled in countries paranoid about terrorist attacks, but there’d be no time to distribute it against a far-flung pandemic like this. So all Mephisto and Scarlett had to do was avoid contact with bodily fluids while the hottest virus known to science burned through the population. With Scarlett immune, he’d have her to fuck while the bleeders depopulated.

Biological weapons were nothing new. In 184 B.C., in what was the first known bio-attack, Hannibal hurled pots of “serpents of every kind” onto enemy ships. During the siege of Kaffa in 1346, the Tartars used catapults to lob plague-infested cadavers over the city walls. That spread the Black Death across Europe, killing twenty-five million people over the next five years.

Hernando Cortez and his small force of conquistadors used smallpox to overcome the Aztecs in 1521. During the French and Indian War, in what’s now New York, the British gave smallpox-infected blankets to hostile Indians holding Fort Carleton. Once the epidemic had reduced the tribe, the Redcoats attacked, took the stronghold, and renamed it Fort Ticonderoga.

In the spring of 1918, with the world embroiled in war, a flu virus jumped species from pigs to humans. Spread around the globe by soldiers returning from the First World War, the flu claimed between fifty and a hundred million lives in just over two years.

But that was insignificant compared to the horror Mephisto would unleash.

Pop the cans.

Fsssss
…

He’d go down in history as the
über
-conquistador.

Standing at the window, gazing out at the snowfall, Mephisto saw a monster staring back at him. He was sickened by what the plastic surgeon had done to the features he’d inherited from his father.

As soon as Stopwatch phoned with the news that Katt and Becky were dead, the megalomaniac would unleash his mutant virus on the world.

For cops, cellphones were the greatest invention since DNA fingerprinting. More and more people were carrying their lives in their hands. Calls came in, calls went out, digital phonebooks stored the numbers of every acquaintance, text messages zipped back and forth, and photos were snapped.

How convenient. Especially for the police.

Today, your every action gets stored on your phone’s memory chip. The Mounties have gadgets that can suck that record out, downloading your whole life for cyber sleuths to examine. No need for the classic bloodhound tracking a physical trail. Cell wanderings leave a
virtual
trail instead.

“Which one’s Mephisto?” the chief asked.

“Damned if I know,” replied Zinc, scrolling through the phonebook in Jessica’s cell.

“Can we narrow the search?”

“Uh-huh. Assuming Mandy and Corrina are still trolling the bar.”

The X men had met up in the lobby of the El Dorado Resort, with Zinc coming down from the room in which Jessica’s body lay and Robert hoofing it in from the backyard where Joe’s corpse had been found. The snowflakes on the chief’s hat had yet to melt.

“What’s the plan?” Zinc asked.

“First, listen to this.”

The chief played the message the Russian scientist had left on his cell.

“‘Die’? ‘Frame’? ‘Gate’? What does all that mean?” asked Zinc.

“‘Gate’ told me where to find Joe, so ignore that. But the other two words were crucial enough for Joe to choke them out with his last breath.”

“Is someone going to die? Will someone else be framed?”

“How would Joe know that?”

“Beats me,” Zinc said with a shrug.

“‘Die’ must refer to Nick. Joe was in the morgue trying to figure out how he died. Could ‘frame’ refer to the cause of death?”

“Makes no sense to me.”

“Me neither,” said the chief. “Perhaps it’s Joe’s accent. Could we be hearing it wrong?”

“Look, the woman who killed Nick is dead. We know the weapon was a hypodermic syringe. Does it matter anymore what Joe was trying to tell us?”

“I read enough Ellery Queen stories in my youth,” said DeClercq, “to know that a dying message
must
be deciphered. Joe was killed trying to reach me.”

*     *     *

When the snowstorm passed and the sun shone down, Whistler would be a winter wonderland, glistening below the soaring summits. From the Peak 2 Peak Gondola, strung across the azure sky like a necklace, riders would gaze down at this snow-smothered highway and across to the glittering fairways of the Whistler golf course. But right now, the mother of all snowstorms had Dane Winter in a stranglehold. At the moment, the sergeant could see fuck-all.

Wait.

Was that it?

Was that the road that led past the golf course to Gill’s chalet?

Dane turned, fishtailed, and left the highway.

“Rachel?”

“Here,” the radio answered.

“Any sign of Rick?”

“Not a peep. Something’s going down.”

“Jackie?”

“I’m out of play. What a mess! This route’s blocked from pileups in both directions, and I can’t find a mobile car on the village side.”

“Keep trying.”

“I will. But don’t hold your breath.”

“Rachel?”

No answer.

“Rachel?” Dane repeated.

When the Mountie guarding the girls didn’t answer either the radio or her cell, the sergeant called the chief.

*     *     *

Being unable to reach Rick Scarlett was a cause for concern. Being unable to reach Rachel Kidd increased the tension. But when Robert’s call to Katt went unanswered,
that
hit the panic button.

As long as he was physically able, Zinc would answer the call of the wild. It meant he would rise no higher in the ranks of the RCMP, but then, administration work didn’t thrill him. Most cops nowadays were mired in the gutters of urban streets, but the Mounties were still the guardians of a northwest frontier. That’s what had drawn Zinc to the red serge. The Horsemen’s uniform had spurs on the boots.

He swung into action.

“Follow me,” he said, dispensing with rank.

He and Robert had to push their way through the crowd in the Gilded Man. From what they heard as they passed, Joe wasn’t the only one who’d fallen prey to a bear trap. Others had also been crushed in strong metal jaws.

Jittery barflies were afraid to go outside.

Mandy and Corrina were seated at the same table as before and had hooked a pair of Olympic hopefuls: trim, buff Swiss skiers.

“Ladies, we need your help,” Zinc said, interrupting. “Gentlemen, save their seats.”

“Who’s he?” Corrina asked, nodding at Robert.

“Chief Superintendent DeClercq,” replied Zinc, leaving the senior officer to wrangle the sex kittens while he pressed on to the bar.

“What happened?” Karen asked, mixing a cocktail. “You get stood up?”

“In a way,” said Zinc.

“Hopefully that leaves room for me?”

“I haven’t forgotten. But right now, I need two favors: use of a backroom, and that microphone turned on.”

“You’re going to sing?” Karen exclaimed.

“No, make an announcement.”

“Just flick the switch.”

A bandstand was wedged in one corner of the pub, beside the bar. Zinc took the stage and amplified his voice. “Testing one, two, three,” he said, to quell the hubbub. “Will the owner of the snowmobile parked outside please come forward and identify himself to me.”

A worried man with a drinker’s nose approached. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Show me your snowmobile, sir.”

“Can’t you tell me here?”

“I need to establish it’s yours.”

“Shit, it’s locked in the back of my truck. Did someone try to steal it?”

“Let’s go see,” said Zinc.

As they passed the chief en route to the parking lot door, the inspector gave him the cell he’d seized from Jessica’s carryall.

“My gamble paid off,” Zinc whispered. “I’m heading to Gill’s chalet. Karen, the barkeep, will find you an interview room.”

Outside, the man with the mottled nose led the Mountie across the lot to his truck.

“Hey, my snowmobile’s still there,” he said with relief. “I was worried it had been stolen.”

“Not stolen,” replied the inspector, flashing his regimental badge. “Commandeered.”

The Icemen closed in around the chalet like a noose cinching tight around the neck of a condemned man. Though each hailed from a different European nation—Sweden, Finland, Norway, Austria, and Russia—all had been trained in winter warfare. And Stopwatch had spared no expense to equip them with black market hardware. The Swede and the Finn had crept on snowshoes around to the back door. The Norwegian crouched by the window on the side away from the frozen creek. The Austrian and the Siberian peered in through the windows flanking the front door. Both doors had tiny limpet mines near their locks.

The chalet was completely dark, but that didn’t matter. Stopwatch had armed all five killers with night-vision goggles. The men peeping into the chalet from their crossfire positions could clearly see Rachel in her hallway redoubt.

Blinded by the stygian darkness, she couldn’t see them.

“Ready?” Ice Ax whispered into the headset mike hidden in his hood.

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

“Four.”

Each man counted himself off to report his readiness.

The goggles strapped across the eye slits of the white balaclavas were like the inch-thick lenses of jewelers’ loupes. They jutted from the blank faces, transforming the cold-blooded mercenaries into bug-eyed monsters besieging a lonely ski chalet in a horror movie.

“Go,” Ice Ax ordered.

*     *     *

“Are you scared?” Becky whispered in the darkness.

“No,” said Katt.

“Why not?”

“We’ve got the best dog there is protecting us.”

“Him?” said Becky.

“Uh-huh.”

“Napoleon’s too friendly.”

“Don’t let him fool you. This dog’s a killer. He’ll tear apart anyone who tries to hurt us.”

“How do you know?”

“Because the Mounties trained him. And because I know he loves me, and he’ll obey my command.”

Crouched beneath a cracked dormer window, the girls sat facing the door to the hall. Napoleon was on the floor in front of Becky, careful not to block Katt’s view. The teen had a clear trajectory and was ready to nail the first person through the door with her improvised arrow.

“What’s your last name?”

“Bond.”

“That’s why Napoleon will protect you, too. Guess what Mounties call their dog-training program.”

“Bonding?” Becky said.

“BOND,” Katt replied. “B-O-N-D.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s an acronym. B stands for Believe in the dog. You
believe
in Napoleon, don’t you, Becky?”

“If you do.”

“O is for Observe the dog. You’ve
seen
how much Napoleon likes you, right?”

“He licked my hand.”

“Well, there you go. Give him a pat on the head.”

Becky reached out in the darkness and ruffled Napoleon’s fur.

“N is for Nurture—that means educate—the dog. The Mounted Police have a dog school at Innisfail, Alberta. Only purebred German shepherds get in. The Mounties train them from when they’re pups to protect their handlers, to protect themselves, and to attack on command. You’ve heard of King of the Royal Mounted, haven’t you?”

“No,” said Becky.

“Sergeant Preston of the Yukon’s dog? He’s only the most famous police dog in the history of the world.”

“Oh,” said the girl.

Actually, Katt was fudging things a little bit. Instead of being dogmatic—ha, ha—she was being creative. King
was
the name of Sergeant Preston’s fictitious hound, but
King of the Royal Mounted
was a 1930s comic strip and a series of films, with fictitious Corporal King played by Alan “Rocky” Lane, later the voice of TV’s talking horse, Mr. Ed.

“The truth,” said Katt, “is that Napoleon got better marks in everything at dog school than King did.”

“Wow!” said Becky, impressed.

“Shhhh,”
Katt shushed. “Remember to whisper.”

“What does D stand for?”

“D is for Depend on each other. Have you still got your hand on Napoleon’s head?”

“Yes,” said Becky, stroking the crown of the German shepherd’s brindled face.

“You know what Senator George Graham Vest of Missouri said about dogs, don’t you?”

“No.”

“‘If fortune drives the master forth an outcast in the world,’” quoted the teen, “‘friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him, to guard against danger, to fight against his enemies.’ Ain’t it so, Napoleon?”

“He nodded,” Becky whispered.

“He’s telling you not to be afraid,” said Katt, smiling to herself for having trained her dog to nod at the command “ain’t.” “He’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt you, just like he killed a guy named Corkscrew when he tried to hurt my—”

And that’s when it happened.

*     *     *

Rachel had the Winchester aimed at the front door when the limpet mine blew in the back, spraying splinters down the hall. As she blindly spun in that direction to meet the threat, her cellphone buzzed with Dane’s call and the front entrance exploded. Like a pendulum, she swung back and forth, caught by an attack that could come from either direction, or both at once.

In the noise created by the blasts, she missed the crunch of glass as Ice Ax smashed his climbing hammer through the double-glazed window beside the front door. The mercenaries were armed with silencer-equipped pistols, but there was no need for those now. The explosions had already made a racket, and the overall plan was to scare as many people as possible into gathering at the El Dorado Resort.

Eschewing the pistol, Ice Ax stuck the snout of his Uzi through the jagged hole in the window, aimed it at Rachel, and let it rip. To ensure he didn’t hit one of the other Icemen, he kept the gun pointed toward the far corner of the chalet, between the back door and the window at the side. Through his night-vision goggles, Ice Ax saw the Mountie jerking like a puppet on a palsied hand.

Torn and tattered by the bullets, Rachel dropped the Winchester.

“Take her!” the mercenary snapped into his mike.

Having shucked their snowshoes, the four killers at the front and back stormed in through the blown-open doors as the Norwegian trudged around from the side to watch the driveway. The first Iceman to reach Rachel, sprawled motionless on the floor of her redoubt, let her have an Uzi burst to the face to guarantee she’d be no problem.

“Let’s get the heads,” Ice Ax said, “and get out of here.”

The soldiers of fortune split up to search the chalet. Two roamed around the lower level, while the Austrian and Ice Ax clomped up the stairs to find and butcher the kids.