02 Avalanche Pass

by John Flanagan

  He yawned softly. The bright sun striking through the Learjet’s windows was warm and the seat was comfortable. The combined effect was soporific in the extreme. He shook himself awake and opened another file. This one held details of the long ago raid over Colombia—Operation Powderburn. Deep down, Emery was still convinced that this held the real key to the riddle he was facing. The coincidence of the money amount was too striking, the amount itself too odd to be a mere chance.

  He spooled through the details of the operation again. There were the bare facts—the flight plan, transit times, altitudes, fuel and bomb loads. He noted wryly that the aircraft was listed only as carrying “special weapons.” In addition, there were side notes on the performance of the F-117 Nighthawk and the debrief papers from the anonymous pilot.

  There was also a related article from Newsweek, showing several pilots grouped beside one of the black, angular fighters. This had nothing to do with the actual Powderburn raid. In fact, it was dated a few years earlier and was a general news item on the effectiveness of the F-117 that his wide ranging search had thrown up. It concentrated particularly on the raids carried out over Baghdad during the first Gulf War—where the Nighthawks had come and gone seemingly at will, undetected by the city’s massive defense network.

  He studied the group photo. Three pilots were grouped around a fourth, their leader. They were all in flight suits, with helmet bags beside them. A chart was spread out on the ground before them and all of them were on one knee, studying it. These were some of the elite pilots who had been selected to fly the Nighthawk, the article said—the best the air force had, serving with the 152nd Tactical Fighter Wing based in Florida.

  He smiled wryly. He doubted that pilots like these waited till they were on the flight line to study their charts. The photo was obviously a posed one for the benefit of the media.

  But once again, as he read the caption, he felt that infuriating twinge of recognition. There was something there…

  Abruptly, he closed both files and scrolled the cursor to the list of programs loaded into the computer. There was one that was his own design and he double-clicked it. In a moment of whimsy he’d called it Common Ground, and he waited now till the program opened. It had proved invaluable on more than one occasion in the past. He had designed it to sift through several different files at the same time and find any common ground between them—any synchronicity of times, dates, names or events. Now he typed in the names of the two files he’d just been studying, plus another that the FBI research staff had provided, dealing with previous terrorist hostage situations.

  There was a muted whirr from the laptop. The screen was suspended, showing only the hourglass icon that told him the program was running. He leaned back, stretched and yawned again. Then a series of soft chimes told him that the computer had found several matches. As the results began to appear on screen, he leaned forward to read them, feeling his pulse quicken as he saw the connection that he had been sensing all this time.

  “Well I’ll be damned,” he said softly. He saved the search results to a new file and then, as a memory struck him, he began a new search, seeking the names of senior White House staff at the time of the Powderburn raid. The screen filled rapidly with photos, names and brief career details, starting with the then chief of staff and working down. Five from the top was the name he was looking for.

  “Well I’ll be double damned,” he said.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  CANYON ROAD

  WASATCH COUNTY

  1407 HOURS, MOUNTAIN TIME

  TUESDAY, DAY 4

  Dent Colby looked up at the skies over the Wasatch mountains. The wind had got up in the last hour and the clouds were dark and heavy bellied, driving in low over the mountains, rolling toward the wild country beyond Canyon Lodge. Beside him, the marine colonel tilted his close-cropped head back, staring at the clouds as well.

  “Looks like it’s going to snow,” he said and as the words were uttered, the first big, fat flakes began to drift down. The good weather that had held for the past three days seemed to be over and done as the mountains reverted to their true nature. The snow was coming faster and thicker already and the strong wind sent it swirling around them. Colby glanced down the road to where the support vehicles and the mess tent had been set up. Though they were barely fifty yards away, they were becoming increasingly difficult to see through the rapidly mounting blizzard.

  Both men were thinking the same thing and finally it was Colby who voiced it.

  “Maybe we could go in this,” he said. Maloney eyed the swirling snow critically.

  “They’d sure have trouble seeing us coming,” he replied. “Mind you, their radar might not be troubled too much.”

  That was the problem, of course. The heavy, swirling snowfall would hide the choppers from view until the last moment, and might even mask the sound of the rotors—although the wind would be behind them. But they’d show up bright and clear on the radar screens that controlled the fifty calibers on the hotel roof. And they’d also be clear targets for the heat-seeking heads on the Stingers.

  “If they know we’re coming,” the colonel continued, “chances are we’ll lose a lot of men. And they could bring the mountain down anyway.”

  Colby nodded unhappily, although he doubted the last statement. He was becoming increasingly convinced that the erratic behavior exhibited on the phone was nothing more than a ploy to convince him that the terrorists weren’t rational, that they were prepared to sacrifice themselves along with their hostages if any attempt was made to storm the lodge. His conversation with Jesse Parker, and the deputy’s description of the cold, calculated attitude of the men in charge were at odds with that picture.

  Problem was, Colby thought, he couldn’t be more than sixty percent sure—and sixty percent left too big a margin for error. If he were wrong in his assessment of the situation, a lot of innocent people would die. Still, the inactivity chafed at him, particularly now that he saw the deteriorating weather conditions providing an outside chance for some kind of action. Deep in his heart he sensed the hostages were doomed anyway. These guys had already killed fifty or sixty people. They wouldn’t hesitate to kill another thirty or forty. After all, they could only go to the gas chamber once.

  But sensing and knowing for sure were two different things and he knew he couldn’t gamble with the hostages’ lives on a mere supposition.

  All the same, he might as well explore every possibility. “Maybe we could go in low, hugging the ground and the ridge lines. Might keep us off their screens,” he said. But Maloney was shaking his head before he’d even finished the sentence.

  “I understand how you feel, Colby,” he said, “but this wind will be swirling and shearing all the way up the valley. If we get below their radar coverage, chances are we’ll stay there permanently.”

  He didn’t add that the last quarter mile would be over open ground, without any concealment from the radar. He didn’t have to. Dent Colby already knew it. The heavyset agent swore softly to himself.

  “Pisses me off,” he said. “Just sitting here on our asses while those bastards give us orders.”

  The marine laid a hand on his shoulder in a gesture of empathy. “Know how you feel. But it won’t do us any good getting our men killed, and the hostages blown away as well. Just hang in there, Colby. Our turn at bat will come.”

  Colby eyed him balefully. “Yeah? When will that be? After they’ve taken off in one of those Dash 8s on Sunday?”

  The colonel shrugged. “I don’t see that we can let them get that far,” he said.

  “I don’t see that we can stop ’em,” Colby told him.

  Along with Sheriff Lawson, they’d brainstormed the kidnappers’ demands the previous night and they were pretty sure they knew the overall scheme the terrorists had in mind. The general agreement was that the Dash 8s would all be compelled to take off together, and fly in a group so that the one containing the kidnappers and their hostages would be all the hard
er to keep track of.

  If Colby were running the escape, he’d make sure the radios and ID transponders in each of the aircraft were disabled and, at a prearranged time, organize for the aircraft to split up in six different directions. It would be simple enough to give each pilot a different heading to turn onto at a given visual signal or at a given time. Then all hell would break loose as the authorities tried to follow one aircraft out of a group of similar types. There was no way of knowing which of the six aircraft the kidnappers were going to use. They might even split their forces and the hostages and fly out in two or three of them.

  As Colby ran the possible scenarios through his mind, he had the sinking feeling that the terrorists had a damn good chance of getting clear if they ever reached Salt Lake City Airport. There were going to be just too many variables to keep track of and, of course, the pilots’ compliance would be assured by the fact that any divergence from their orders, any failure to follow instructions, would result in the death of one or more of the hostages.

  On the other hand, these men had already killed fifty people. There was no way the government could countenance letting them get away scot-free.

  “Jesus,” said the FBI agent, “what a fuck-up.”

  The sound of an engine made them both turn. A Jeep station wagon was pulling to the side of the road a few yards away from them. As they watched, a small, rather portly man, smooth cheeks ruddy in the cold air, stepped down from the passenger’s side. He looked at the two of them, the marine colonel in camo fatigues and the big African–American in jeans, Timberlands and a parka. It was obvious who the FBI agent-in-charge was. He stepped forward to Colby, his hand outstretched.

  “Agent Colby?” he said, smiling pleasantly. “My name is Truscott Emery.” He glanced around the windswept road, the thick snow already clinging to his gray-blond hair. His eyes settled upon Dent’s command trailer. “I wonder is there somewhere we could talk?”

  CANYON LODGE

  WASATCH COUNTY

  1440 HOURS, MOUNTAIN TIME

  TUESDAY, DAY 4

  The storm hit the hotel fifteen minutes after it had swept in over the control point on Canyon Road. By then, it had gathered its full momentum and there was no initial scattering of snowflakes. It hit with the full driving force of the wind behind it, in a white wall of flying snow.

  On the roof, the watch commander quickly radioed a report to Kormann, describing the conditions to him. Kormann wasted no time heading for the rooftop elevator and a few minutes later he stepped out into the whirling, freezing cold. The watch commander greeted him and together they hurried to the small, canvas-walled enclosure that contained the radar receivers. The operator looked up as they entered.

  “How is it?” Kormann asked. The technician shrugged. The sets were good and he’d tuned them himself. The blizzard was causing a little disturbance to the screen, but nothing he couldn’t tune out.

  “No problem,” he said laconically. He was a Korean-American and he’d spent the first fifteen years of his life working in his father’s electronics business. This was child’s play to him.

  “They could try to make a dash in here using this storm as cover,” Kormann warned him. The technician allowed himself a small smile.

  “They’ll be in big trouble if they do,” he said. “They put a chopper in the air, I’ll see it clear as day. Look here.”

  He indicated the screen in front of him and Kormann bent to look into the display, hooded to keep side light from reflecting on the screen. As the dish outside rotated through a one hundred and eighty degree sweep, he could see the effect of the snowstorm. It showed up as a low-level interference on the screen, like white specks of dust, with thicker flurries providing a slightly heavier imagery. Then the tech tapped the screen as the beam swept over something solid and a bright green blip showed up, distinct and unmistakable.

  “See that? It’s one of the pylons for the cable car. Shows up clear as a bell, even through all that crap out there.”

  Kormann felt a slight lessening of tension. He’d assumed as much and they’d discussed the effect of a blizzard like this when they’d planned the operation. But seeing it proved beyond doubt was a whole lot better than assuming. He slapped the Korean-American on the shoulder.

  “Good work,” he said. “Keep a close watch.” He turned to the watch commander who was crowded into the canvas and timber-framed hutch with them. “You even think they’ve put anything in the air, open fire as soon as you’ve got a lock. Don’t wait for my say-so.”

  The watch commander nodded his understanding. “I’m bringing the visual lookouts in for a while,” he said. “There’s nothing much they can see in all of this and the radar will tell us if anything major is happening.”

  Kormann thought about it, then nodded agreement. There was no point in keeping the men out in the open unnecessarily in this weather.

  “Bring them into the pool area,” he said. The roof had a heated indoor pool set behind full-length glass windows. “But keep the gun crews out there. Change them every fifteen minutes.” That would give the men an hour and a half inside the shelter of the pool area for every fifteen minutes they spent out in the wind and snow. That was plenty. The commander nodded again.

  “You got it.”

  Kormann turned back to the Korean again. “You let me know if there’s any problem, okay?” The technician shrugged. He was beginning to think that Kormann was obsessive about this but what the hell, he was being well paid.

  “Won’t be no problems. Long as we keep the snow from building up on the dishes, and we’ve got guys with hot air blowers to look after that.”

  Kormann stepped out into the wind again and glanced around the roof. Satisfied that things were under control, he headed for the elevator again, hunched over against the keening wind.

  “I’ll get back downstairs and ring that damned federal agent again,” he said. “If they’re even thinking of trying something, I want to have him on the phone, talking to me.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  CANYON ROAD

  WASATCH COUNTY

  1513 HOURS, MOUNTAIN TIME

  TUESDAY, DAY 4

  Colby looked around at the former professor as the connection to the Canyon Lodge was broken. The phone conversation with the man he now referred to as Roger had followed the usual pattern—accusation, threats, seeming paranoia and, in between, very little in the way of real communication. He had also noted that the original pattern of calls coming from both Roger and his companion had changed lately. Roger was now the main contact.

  “So what do you think?” he asked, and Emery shrugged.

  “Sounds like normal behavior for this sort of situation,” he said. “He’s keyed up, excited, unwilling to trust you or anything you say. Hell, you’ve done this before, what do you think?”

  Colby shifted uncomfortably. They’d barely reached the command trailer when the phone had begun its muted chirping and he’d been tied up in a conversation with Roger ever since. Truscott Emery had listened silently throughout the exchange.

  “It’s how I’d expect a terrorist to behave. That’s what troubles me. It’s all so pat. There’s something about it just doesn’t ring true. I’m getting one picture when I talk to Roger, and it simply doesn’t gel with what Parker has told us.”

  He stood and moved to the coffeemaker on a bench along one wall, pouring himself a cup. He glanced at Emery, eyebrows raised, and the other man shook his head.

  “So,” Dent said finally, “what brings you out here?”

  Emery shrugged in his turn. “I wanted to get the feeling for this on-site. I’ve been kind of fired by the president from his advisory council,” he added. He wanted Colby clear on that point. The FBI agent smiled briefly.

  “From what I’ve heard, that could be in your favor,” he said.

  “But Linus Benjamin has kept me on in an advisory capacity. We both thought I might be of some value out here.” He hesitated and Colby nodded. Emery was relieved to see the p
ositive response. There had always been the possibility that Colby might see him as intruding on his authority. He continued: “Point is, there’s been something worrying me since this started. Like you, I feel something just doesn’t ring true. Did Linus mention anything to you?”

  “Not specifically. I knew he’d asked you to stay involved after the president blew his top. He didn’t say what you were up to in any specific terms.”

  The trailer shuddered as the wind gusted up to a new level. Colby stooped to look out through the window. The clouds were still scudding low overhead, the snow still flying. It was difficult to tell now how much of the snow was falling and how much was just blowing. Either way, it formed a thick white curtain.

  “Let me tell you what I was working on then,” said Emery. “I was looking into an operation called Powderburn that happened just over ten years ago.”

  It took Emery five minutes to give Colby a quick outline of Operation Powderburn. The FBI agent listened with a frown on his heavy features. The whole thing seemed so long ago and far away, it couldn’t possibly have any bearing on events here in Utah. When he finished, Dent shook his head slowly.

  “It’s thin,” he said. “Very thin. You’re saying this Estevez guy is behind this because we blew up his drug cache over ten years ago? Jesus, you’re hanging the whole case on the odd amount of the ransom.”

  Emery shook his head. “No. That was just part of the message. That was to make us look more carefully. There’s another link that I hadn’t seen until I was on the flight out here. Look at the article about the F-117. Particularly the photograph.”

  Dent did so, scanning quickly through the details.

  “Now,” said Emery, “look at the hostages’ names.”

  And there it was, buried in the middle of the list—one of Senator Carling’s party, listed as an aerospace executive working for Rockair Aviation, with a degree in aeronautical engineering. But what wasn’t so obvious was that he was more than a company executive with a nine-to-five desk job. He was Rockair’s senior test pilot, and he’d had fifteen years in the air force. He was the leader of the group of pilots in the photo—the ones described as the best the air force had.