02 Avalanche Pass

by John Flanagan

  Nobody answered. Then Janet Haddenrich spoke. “I guess we better make sure Maloney and his guys are ready to go on a moment’s notice,” she said.

  Benjamin’s expression was pained. “We’ll stand to lose a lot of men if we send them in. And we could lose all the hostages,” he reminded her.

  She sighed. He wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t know. “We may lose them anyway, Linus,” she said.

  TOP STATION

  FLYING EAGLE CABLE CAR

  SNOW EAGLES RESORT

  WASATCH COUNTY

  1026 HOURS, MOUNTAIN TIME

  MONDAY, DAY 3

  The cable car came to a halt at the top station, rocking back and forth on the pendulum of its massive single support arm as it slowed, then stopped, after its ten-minute haul up the face of the mountain. The automatic trip set the sliding door open and the single occupant stepped out.

  Slim build, maybe five eleven, black hair going slightly gray at the temples. Regular, average features, the sort of guy who would be virtually impossible to pick out of a line-up. Utterly unremarkable, Jesse thought as he watched from the small loft window above the coffee shop at the rear of the terminal. The man was wearing a parka and sunglasses. He reached into the parka now and produced a cell phone. He looked around, saw the same bench Jesse had been sitting on a few minutes earlier and moved to it, punching numbers into the phone as he went.

  It was fortunate that there’d been no fresh snow in the past three days, Jesse thought. His tracks were just one set among many around the cable car terminal. He edged a little closer to the window, which he’d carefully worked ajar while he waited for the car to arrive.

  “This is Kormann,” he heard the man say. Obviously, someone had answered at the other end. He paused briefly, obviously listening, then said one word:

  “Friday.” Another pause, then: “You got that? As long as George stays on schedule, Friday is the day… good.”

  He snapped the phone shut, breaking the connection, then turned back to the cable car once again. A few seconds later, Jesse heard the clunk of gears connecting and the rising whine of the massive electric motor as the tram moved out from the loading dock and began its swaying journey back to the valley floor.

  Jesse frowned. It seemed like a hell of a long way to come simply to tell somebody Friday.

  THIRTY-ONE

  CANYON ROAD

  WASATCH COUNTY

  1513 HOURS, MOUNTAIN TIME

  MONDAY, DAY 3

  The main problem with hostage situations, thought Dent Colby, was boredom. You spent so much time sitting around waiting for the other side to do something, say something, demand something. And then you reacted to it. Or not.

  But in between, the hours of waiting, of inaction, the feeling of impotence, got you wishing that something—anything—would happen. Then, all too often, when it did, you wished it hadn’t.

  He was stretched out on the cot in his trailer trying to catch a nap. It was a futile attempt. The facts of the case whirled around inside his head, refusing to fit into a neat pattern and refusing to let his mind relax, along with his closed eyes.

  Fifty people killed. Another forty to fifty held prisoner—under the threat of a terrible, suffocating death if the charges in the mountain were fired. Kidnappers who seemed panicky and irrational when they spoke to him, yet were totally in control according to their captives. Professional. Calm. Businesslike, Parker had said. It made no sense at all. Nor did the demand that the Irish terrorists be released.

  He thought about the geography of the situation. Somehow, the kidnappers planned to get out when this was all over. Maybe they’d demand a helicopter and take hostages with them. That was the most likely way, the safest way, for them. There was no other way out of Snow Eagles Canyon. The road literally ended there. Behind and on three sides, there were thousands of square miles of wild, mountain country. The fourth side was the road back to Salt Lake City—up until the time when it had been blocked by the avalanche, the only ground route in and out.

  Dent and Colonel Maloney had already discussed the possibility of trying an end run: sending choppers in low over the wild back country, following the valleys and canyons on the far side of the canyon, popping up over the final ridge a bare mile from the target. But even that short run would expose them to the deadly accurate triple-A from the hotel roof. Besides, thought Dent, if he were the leader of the kidnappers, he’d have some kind of surveillance set up on those back ridges—maybe a remote-controlled camera like the one Colby himself was using to keep a visual on the hotel.

  The Colorado deputy’s presence on the mountain was an enormous stroke of luck, of course. And, judging by the way things were shaping up, Dent was going to need every stroke of luck he could find.

  The telephone on his desk burred quietly. He glanced up at the telltale screen above it to see the number displayed, then rolled quickly off the bed as he saw the number for Canyon Lodge.

  “This is Agent Colby,” he said.

  “What are you trying to pull here, Colby? What are you trying?” It was the second of the two men who usually made contact, the one who was normally the least excitable. Now, however, there was an edge of hysteria or anger in his voice. Dent’s immediate reaction was to assume that they’d captured Jesse. His pulse raced as he hesitated, not sure what to say.

  “Trying?” he said finally. “We’re not trying anything here.”

  “Oh, is that right? Is that right? Well maybe you think we’ve gone blind in here or something. Would that be right? You think we’ve gone blind?”

  “I’m sorry,” Dent said slowly. “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “The airplane, Agent Colby. The airplane that flew over here not five minutes ago. You think just because it’s high we’re not going to see it? Those things leave con trails, man! Did you think of that?”

  “Just a moment.” Colby stepped to the trailer door, taking the cordless with him and switching off the loudspeakers. He glanced outside, looking high above them and, sure enough, there was the feathered remains of a jet’s contrails, up at maybe thirty thousand feet, gradually dispersing in the stratospheric winds.

  “You think we don’t know you Federals have got cameras that can look down on us from that sort of height? We’re not stupid, Agent Colby. So don’t go thinking we are!”

  “Wait, please,” said Dent. “That aircraft has nothing to do with us. It’s a normal commercial flight.”

  “Don’t you try playing me for a fool, Colby. Don’t try it.”

  Dent’s eyes narrowed as he made his way back to the desk and sat down. The behavior, the repetitive patterns in the speech, the almost high-pitched excitement, would normally have him suspecting that the caller was on some kind of drug high. Maybe cocaine or some other stimulant. But that didn’t sit with what Jesse had told him. Now that he listened more carefully, he began to suspect that it was a put-on, an act. All for his benefit.

  “I guarantee you,” he said slowly, “that plane had nothing to do with us. You have my word on it.”

  “Your word? Ha! Your word is worth nothing to me! Nothing!”

  “That’s not true. We’ve done what you asked. The money is being collected but you demanded notes in random numbering patterns and in twenties, fifties and hundreds. It’s nearly together. And we’re doing all we can about the Irish prisoners. Watch tonight’s news and you’ll see.” He closed his eyes briefly, hoping that Benjamin had been able to organize the phoney news story.

  “Well your word had better be good, Agent Colby, because here’s how we want this thing organized.”

  Dent sat up straight all of a sudden. This was something new. He glanced at the indicator on his control panel to make sure that the conversation was being recorded, and pulled a pad and pencil toward him.

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  The man at the other end sensed the heightened interest in his voice.

  “That got your attention, didn’t it? Okay, here’s the pitch. Su
nday morning at ten a.m. you send one Chinook helicopter up the valley. You know the Chinook?”

  “I know it,” Colby said. The Chinook was a big, twin-rotor troop carrier. From memory, Colby guessed you’d fit around forty people in one of them.

  “Okay. The money is to be on board, in the sort of notes we’ve told you. Any variation, any suspicion that you’ve marked those notes, and one of the hostages gets it. We want a crew of two on the chopper. No more. We see one extra person when that chopper puts down and we start killing hostages. You got that very clear in your mind?”

  Colby guessed he was expecting a reaction. “Got it,” he replied.

  “We’ll go out of here with our men and ten of the hostages. I want a flight plan cleared to Salt Lake City Airport and I want a Dash 8 ready there, fully fueled, ready to go. If everything’s fine, and I see no Federals around, no snipers, no SWAT teams, we’ll give you back five of the hostages.”

  Colby frowned. A Dash 8 was a small twin-turbo prop that was used by most of the feeder lines servicing the ski resorts in the area. It’d carry maybe twenty-five people but wouldn’t have the range to get the kidnappers anywhere out of the country—except maybe the Canadian border.

  He quickly made a note to find out the range of a Dash 8. Beside it, he jotted the words “rough airfield.” A good pilot wouldn’t need a sealed runway to put a Dash 8 down.

  “You still with me, Colby?” the voice said sarcastically.

  “Yeah. Sure. Sorry. I’m making notes, making sure I got this right.”

  “Sure you are. Why not just check the tape afterward?”

  “I’ll do that too.”

  “I bet. Now one thing, we’ve got scanning gear and I’ll be going over that Dash 8. If I find any trace of a bug, any kind of electronic tracer on board, you’re going to say good-bye to one of the hostages. Got that clear?”

  “There’ll be no bugs,” Colby assured him. He figured the terrorists were planning to go out at low level, below the radar, and lose themselves somewhere in the mountains. He frowned. It wouldn’t be too hard, he thought, to have a high-flying air force surveillance plane—an AWACs, for example—keep track of them.

  “I’d better tell you that we’ve got an RWR device as well,” the kidnapper told him, almost as if he’d read Colby’s thoughts. RWRs—or Radar Warning Receivers, were carried by military aircraft to alert them in the event that they were under radar surveillance. This was getting tougher by the minute, he realized.

  “What about the last five hostages?” he put in now, knowing what the answer would be.

  “We’ll keep hold of them until I’m sure there’s nobody following us. No radar surveillance. No bugs. Once I know we’re in the clear, so are they. Oh, and one other thing…”

  “Yes?” said Colby, sensing from the casual tone of voice that this was going to be the real crux of the whole matter.

  “That Dash 8, make it one of the United Express fleet. And make sure there are five other identical birds in the hangar, fueled and ready to go.”

  There was click as he hung up, then Colby was listening to the high-pitched tone of a broken connection.

  THE OVAL OFFICE

  WASHINGTON D.C.

  1530 HOURS, EASTERN TIME

  MONDAY, DAY 3

  “Fifty people?” President Gorton repeated. His face was gray, the blood drained away with the shock of what Benjamin had just told him.

  “At least fifty, Mr. President. Maybe more,” Benjamin confirmed. The president stood and walked around to the massive French doors, looking out to the Rose Garden.

  “Fifty people. Wiped out like that.” All the usual bluster and false confidence was gone. “My God, Benjamin, what are we going to do? What are we going to tell the families of the hostages? How can I tell them that one of fifty could be their brother, or husband, or daughter?”

  Benjamin looked up quickly. For the first time since this affair had begun, the president wasn’t trying to assign blame or take credit. He was genuinely affected by the shocking news. He was actually asking for help and advice. In the past, Benjamin knew, there had been more than one unworthy occupant of this office. But often, the man grew with the job. Maybe there was a chance that this was going to happen here.

  “We can’t say anything to them, sir,” he replied firmly. “If word gets back to the kidnappers that we know about this, they’ll know we’ve got a man on the ground up there.”

  Gorton nodded wearily. “Of course. I hadn’t thought of that. What about him?” he added. “Can we depend on him? How reliable is he?”

  “He’s a cop, sir. A deputy sheriff. Colby thinks he can trust him and that’s good enough for me. At least now we’re not working in the dark and we’ve got a chance to learn a little more about these kidnappers.”

  “Yes. Yes. That’s one thing on the positive side. So, you’ve spoken to the others?”

  “Yes, sir. Less than an hour ago. Our consensus is to keep talking to the kidnappers, keep trying to look as if we’re cooperating, and find out as much as we can about them. In the meantime, we want to bring Colonel Maloney’s team to full alert status.”

  Gorton thought about it. “Yes. I agree,” he said finally. “Do we have any word on the senator?” he added.

  Benjamin hesitated a fraction of a second. “They know his identity, sir. We can only assume that he’ll be one of the last five hostages they release.”

  The president frowned. “But they haven’t mentioned his name so far?” he asked, and Benjamin shook his head.

  “Not a word, sir. I can’t figure it. They must know what a trump card they’re holding there.”

  The two men looked at each other, each seeing the puzzlement in the other’s eyes. Then the president gave a hint of a shrug.

  “Okay. Let me know as soon as you hear anything.” He turned to his chief of staff. “I want to be informed on that score as soon as we hear anything, Terence. Clear?”

  “Yessir, Mr. President,” Pohlsen said. Gorton looked up at his FBI director.

  “Benjamin, we haven’t agreed on a lot of things in the past. But this is too big now to let personal feelings intrude. You have my full support in this matter and I want you to know that. Do whatever you can.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “And keep me informed.”

  “Yes, sir. Mr. President…” Benjamin hesitated and President Gorton looked back at him.

  “Yes, Director Benjamin?”

  “I… uh… want you to know sir that I have engaged Professor Emery as an adviser on this. I think his ideas have merit and I thought I should tell you so.”

  Gorton nodded several times. “Sure. Damned man is a pain in the ass. Personally I can’t stand him. But if you think he might be able to contribute something, go ahead and use him. We can’t afford not to use every resource we’ve got now.”

  “Thank you, Mr. President. I’d better…” Benjamin gestured toward the door and Gorton nodded agreement.

  “Go ahead. And as I said, keep us informed.”

  He turned away again toward the view of the Rose Garden, as if seeking some kind of solace there. He was shaking his head slowly. It might have been in sadness or it might have been in disbelief, thought Benjamin. Or maybe it was a combination of the two.

  THIRTY-TWO

  THE GYMNASIUM

  CANYON LODGE

  WASATCH COUNTY

  1945 HOURS, MOUNTAIN TIME

  MONDAY, DAY 3

  Tina Bowden leaned against the outer wall of the building, sitting on the hard carpet, while she assessed the group around her. If push came to shove, she was going to need help and she wanted to get some idea where she might find it.

  Exactly what she might achieve, she wasn’t sure yet. But the fact that she had the gun stashed in the rice container at least gave her some chance of taking action if it became necessary. She studied the guards in the room. There were three of them and by now she had established that they worked a four-hour shift. She’d figured
three different shifts so far—nine men. She guessed the remaining terrorists were assigned to the weapons that were sited on the roof. The guards in the gym patrolled the room, their hands always on the stubby machine guns they carried, slung over their shoulders.

  For their part, the prisoners had fallen into a strange malaise resulting from a mixture of conflicting emotions. Boredom was the most obvious and immediate. There was nothing to do, nothing to see other than the snow-covered wall outside the picture windows—and the web of detonating cord that covered the windows, set to shatter the tough glass a few seconds before the main charges brought the mountain down on them. It was a constant and all-too-visible reminder of the danger that hung over them, every minute of the day and night.

  There was no reading material, no television or radio. Kormann had banned any form of distraction. And there was no physical activity allowed—ironic when you considered that they were being held in a fully equipped gym. But lying just beneath the boredom was the gut-gnawing tension of fear and uncertainty—and the frustration of being totally helpless. They knew that the men who held them captive were killers. Knew they would kill without the slightest hesitation. The young ski instructor, shot so casually outside the hotel, was one example. And the fate of the bus passengers themselves was another. Ben Markus had said nothing about what he had witnessed, but Kormann made sure the remaining hostages knew what had happened. And Ben’s tight-lipped silence when he had been questioned by the others was answer enough.

  This was why, she reasoned, Kormann allowed them no form of diversion. He wanted the tension to prey on their minds, wanted their guts churning with uncertainty, wanted their nerves fraying. And that was definitely happening. Already there had been several altercations among the prisoners, one of them leading to actual violence. Ben Markus had stepped in quickly each time, calming things down. He’d done a great job so far, but he was looking drawn and strained. He believed that the responsibility for all their lives rested on his shoulders and it was a heavy weight. By unspoken agreement, Tina had made no particular contact with him, other than what might be expected between a junior employee and the hotel manager. It wouldn’t do for her to draw too much attention, to single her out as one of the leaders of the hostage group. Senator Carling, on the other hand, had provided Ben with some valued backup and had done a lot to keep the prisoners’ morale from sagging into the depths. But his ability to do so was severely limited. Kormann was quick to rein him in if he thought the senator was raising the hostages’ spirits too far.