Brainrush 03 - Beyond Judgment

by Bard, Richard

  “Oh, no,” Lacey said.

  Timmy studied the placard beside the controls while he spoke. “I tried both protocols we set up. I couldn’t get through on either of them.”

  Tony said, “If anything’s happened to those kids—”

  Timmy cut him off. He’d apparently already compartmentalized the emotional “what ifs” of the situation. His mind was a thousand miles beyond them. “When the van’s perimeter alarms went off,” he said, “I knew we’d been found out. I had just enough time to gather a couple things and hightail it out of there before the patrol showed up.” His hands slid from one control to another.

  “They took Jake,” Marshall said.

  “I know. I saw the helicopter take off. But I think I know where they’re going.”

  “Where?” Marshall asked. They all waited intently for Timmy’s reply.

  “Geneva. The conference. Victor has a residence there. That’s where they’ll hold him until Victor’s ready to stick him in that damn chair.”

  “We’ve got to stop him,” Lacey said.

  Tony said, “Damn straight.”

  “I know,” Timmy said. “But first things first.” He turned to face Marshall. He blew out a long breath before continuing. “Marshall, there’s something I need you to do.”

  “O…kay,” Marshall said, drawing the word out.

  Timmy pointed sequentially to two buttons and a throw switch on the control panel. “As soon as you hear the signal, I need you to press this button. That’s going to send a warning signal to the gondola station down below.”

  “Huh?”

  “Then wait five seconds and press this one. That’ll start up the motor.”

  Marshall cocked his head and looked at Timmy as if he were crazy.

  “Then lift this safety guard and throw the switch. That’ll send the gondola on its way.”

  Marshall hesitated as he absorbed the intent behind the instructions. The interchange from that point forward was faster than the disclaimers at the end of a pharmaceutical commercial.

  “Will I have time to jump on?”

  “Yes, but you don’t want to do that.”

  “I don’t?”

  “No. You want to run like hell to the garage.”

  “I do?”

  “Uh-huh. That’s where we’re going to be.”

  “But the bad guys will think we went down the mountain?”

  “Exactly.”

  “What’s the signal?”

  “A revving snowmobile.”

  “When do we start?”

  “Right now.” Timmy woke his smartphone. The active application presented a glowing red button in the center of the screen. The countdown beneath it was at six seconds.

  “I lured them to the front gate with an explosion,” he said.

  Three…two…one.

  He pressed the button. There was a series of muffled explosions. “I figured a few more blasts in the surrounding tree line ought to keep their eyes front for a few more minutes. Let’s go!”

  He took off running.

  Lacey kissed Marshall. “I love you,” she said. Then she and Tony sprinted after Timmy.

  Tony glanced back at his pal. Marshall’s hand hovered over the first button. The toes of one foot tapped the pavement faster than a woodpecker on a pine tree.

  “Go!” Marshall said behind clenched jaws.

  Tony nodded and ran after the others.

  Stay alive, Jake. We’re coming!

  Chapter 29

  Swiss Alps

  TONY SPRINTED INTO the shed and pushed the palm button beside the outer door. The motor hummed and the door rolled upward. A blast of frigid air charged through the widening gap. Timmy and Lacey donned thick snow jackets, helmets, and ski gloves. Tony did the same. He grabbed the largest helmet he could find. It was snug. He stuffed gloves in his coat pocket and looped a ready-made emergency backpack over his shoulders.

  Lacey moved with calculated efficiency. She grabbed a spare coat, helmet, and gloves, straddled the lead snowmobile, and cranked the engine. It started immediately. She redlined it three times in succession. The high-pitched whine echoed through the space. Her head swiveled to watch the rear door.

  Timmy’s helmet dwarfed his slight frame. He held out two mini bricks of C-4. “These are the last two,” he said, offering them to Tony.

  Tony palmed the plastic explosives. Each brick was the size of a butter cube.

  “You’ll need these, too.” Timmy handed him two wireless blasting caps.

  “Uh-huh,” Tony said absently. He pocketed the caps. His eyes scanned the surrounding structure with the expertise of a seasoned demolition expert. “Taking out the studs will do the trick,” he said, more to himself than to Timmy. He started toward the front corner of the shed.

  A hail of gunfire halted Tony midstride. Marshall dove into the room and slammed the door behind him. “They’re coming!” he yelled.

  Tony pocketed the explosives and straddled another snowmobile. He turned the key. The engine responded. Timmy clambered up behind him.

  “Marsh!” Lacey’s scream was drawn out. Tony looked back. Marshall was still by the door. The guards would be on him any second. Tony didn’t have a weapon to cover his retreat.

  What the hell was his friend doing?

  Marshall’s back was to them, but Tony could see his fingers making entries on the ten-digit keypad beside the steel door. His head shook back and forth as he discarded one option after another. Finally, he glanced desperately about, grabbed a wrench from a nearby toolbox, and smashed the keypad.

  The plastic shattered, the circuitry sparked, and a thin trail of smoke rose from the remains.

  Marshall spun on his heel and ran toward them. “Fail-safe,” he said as he jumped on the back of Lacey’s sled. “Locks engage automatically when the keypad’s tampered with.”

  “Shut up and put on your helmet,” Lacey said.

  “How much time did you buy us?” Tony asked.

  “No clue.”

  Automatic fire jackhammered the door. The steel held.

  Lacey gunned the engine and took off.

  Tony followed.

  They were only twenty meters into the blustering night when Lacey’s snowmobile jerked to a stop. Tony pulled up beside her.

  “I can’t see a thing!” she shouted over the wind, lowering her face shield. Visibility was horrible. Wind-driven snow slanted across their headlight beams.

  Timmy shifted behind Tony as he unzipped the side pocket of his backpack. “Use this,” he said, handing Marshall his smartphone. The 3-D real-time image revealed the path down the mountain. “The GPS will keep you on track, but it won’t show trees or other obstacles. So go slow. I’d do it myself, but I can’t see around Tony.”

  Tony only half listened. His focus was on a copse of trees to his left. “I’ll be right back,” he said, jumping off the sled. Sinking up to his knees in the snow, he frog-stepped to the base of the trees and plunged his hands into the drift.

  Pay dirt!

  He pulled an assault rifle and a pistol out of the powder. He brushed them off and high-stepped back to the sled. The pistol went into his pocket. He handed the HK G36 assault rifle to Timmy. “Hold this,” he said. After a moment he added, “Don’t drop it.”

  “Way to go!” Marshall said.

  They were Pit Bull’s weapons, Tony thought. Or his sidekick’s. Either way, it felt good to be armed again.

  “Move out,” Tony ordered.

  They kept their speed up as much as they dared, weaving their way down the mountain, wary of the deceptive terrain, constantly checking over their shoulders. Pit Bull and his buddies should be on their tail by now.

  Eventually, the thickening tree line forced them closer to the cliff. Tony reckoned the edge was less than ten feet to his right. The drop was 1,400 meters. They slowed to a crawl.

  Ten minutes later, the wind died and the snow stopped falling. The moon shone through a gap in the clouds. They pulled to a stop. The e
ngines idled.

  “I don’t like the looks of that,” Lacey said, pointing ahead.

  A string of crossed poles blocked their path. Their metallic yellow paint reflected off the beams from the snowmobiles’ headlights. The X where the poles crossed was only a few inches aboveground. The top half of a stout warning sign stood in front of it.

  “Anybody read German?’

  “A little,” Timmy said. “It basically says go around.”

  He didn’t need to unbury the rest of the sign to figure out why, Tony thought.

  Avalanche area.

  Chapter 30

  Swiss Alps

  MOONLIGHT ILLUMINATED THE massive bowl beyond the stakes. It was two hundred meters wide and stretched double that distance up the mountain. There was a sharp overhang above it that shadowed the top third of the bowl from the moonlight. No trees grew within its borders.

  Marshall held up the smartphone. “The trail leads straight across,” he said. “According to this, there’s a ranger station on the other side.”

  “Kill the engines,” Tony said. “Turn off your headlights.” He and Lacey both switched off.

  He slid open his helmet visor and dug through the emergency pack. There was a thick coil of rope, duct tape, flashlight, med kit, radio, and below that, binoculars. He used them and spotted the cabin immediately. “It’s on a promontory on the opposite side. About thirty meters back from the bowl. There’s a rocky clearing ahead of it, and…”

  Tony refocused the lens. There was a second structure. It was an open-air platform supported by a thick column of concrete. Its base was about ten feet off the ground. A metal staircase provided access. The object on top of it captured his attention. It was wound in canvas, but the silhouette was unmistakable. “It’s a cannon.”

  “A cannon?” Timmy repeated.

  “Sure,” Marshall said. “They use them for avalanche control.”

  “The ranger station looks empty,” Tony said. A plan formed in his mind. He kept it to himself. “It looks like there’s a fire road on the other side. Once we’re there, we can full-throttle it to the bottom.”

  Right after I take care of the assholes behind us.

  Lacey startled. She swiveled her head behind them. “Do you hear it?”

  It was like the faint buzz of angry hornets. Flickers of light—at least eight pairs meant eight snowmobiles, eight men, maybe sixteen if they had doubled up—appeared over the ridge they had crested ten minutes ago. Tony didn’t need the binoculars to confirm who was coming. He and Lacey cranked over their engines at the same time.

  “We’re going for it,” Tony shouted over the sputtering rumble of the motors. “Stick to the low side of the bowl. No sudden turns. Keep it straight and steady, but get enough speed to make it up the other side.” He flipped down his visor, steered around the protruding stakes, and dipped the nose down the slope. Lacey and Marshall’s sled followed in their tracks.

  It was like waterskiing on Lake Placid. No bumps. No waves.

  Smooth.

  Tony opened the throttle, and Timmy’s grip tightened around his waist. By the time they were at the bottom of the swale, the speedometer was at fifty mph. As they climbed up the other side, Tony held full throttle to keep their speed up. His mind was already working through the details of the ambush.

  They were twenty meters from the crest when the ground sloped abruptly upward. What had appeared from a distance to be a single smooth slope was actually broken in two by a sweeping upheaval of snow-covered granite. It was Mother Nature’s version of a ski jump.

  By the time Tony realized his mistake, the snowmobile was already airborne.

  The nose was pointed at the moon. Its upward momentum stopped in midair, and Tony felt his stomach in his throat. Then gravity took over. The engine whined, Timmy yelped, and the sled fell backward.

  There was a mighty whiplash when the machine hit the snow. The back of Tony’s helmet cracked against Timmy’s.

  Then the world stood still.

  The sled’s rear end had impaled itself in the snow at a forty-five-degree angle. The front skis were suspended aboveground. The engine had died. Timmy clung to his waist tighter than a pallet strap on full torque. But there was no need. The kid’s back was against the snow. Tony’s full weight was on top of him.

  “Are you all right?” Lacey shouted from the crest fifteen feet above them. They’d avoided the obstacle. She was bathed in the beams of Tony’s headlamps. She rose on the footrests of her sled to get a better look. Marshall stood nearby. He was in front of a row of crossed warning poles. Snow-covered pines towered behind them.

  Tony waved. He raised his visor and turned his head as far as the big helmet would allow. “Hey, kid,” he said. “You okay?”

  “I—I think so. Nothing feels broken.”

  Marshall shouted. “I’m coming down!”

  “No. Wait!” Tony shouted. Something didn’t feel right.

  Marshall hesitated.

  The sled shifted. Then it sank backward another three or four inches.

  “Get off me!” Timmy cried. He threw his arms out to arrest the slide. Two-thirds of his helmet was under the snow. He wriggled beneath Tony’s bulk. Tony grabbed the handlebars and shifted his weight upward.

  The sled dropped another few inches. It was like quicksand.

  Timmy panicked. His arms and legs flailed.

  “Don’t move!” Tony ordered with drill-sergeant authority.

  The command broke through Timmy’s fear. He stilled his limbs. The sled stopped shifting. But Tony heard a crackling sound beneath them—like the wadding of a piece of cellophane. He felt Timmy’s chest heave in short, rapid breaths. The kid’s helmet was completely submerged. If not for the visor, he’d be sucking snow.

  Timmy’s voice was muffled. “Jesus Chr—”

  “Don’t talk,” Tony said. “Conserve your wind. I’ve got a plan.”

  He saw Marshall take a tentative step forward. His foot sank to his knee, and a short wave of snow cascaded toward the sled. He backed up and shook his head.

  “No way I can make it down there,” he shouted. Tony noticed that Lacey’s attention was up the mountain. Their pursuers were getting closer. Time was running out.

  “Timmy,” Tony said, “I need you to slide the rope out of my backpack. No quick movements.”

  Tony still gripped the handlebars. He stiffened his arm muscles and eased his weight upward to create a pocket of air between them. Timmy shifted beneath him. There was a tug on Tony’s shoulder straps. The sled shifted a fraction and Timmy stilled. But when the machine steadied, he resumed his task.

  The calmness in Tony’s voice didn’t reflect his churning gut. “Secure one end to your harness,” he said. Timmy’s movements were slow and steady as he performed the task. Half a minute later, the fifty-foot coil of rope sprouted into view.

  “Way to go, kid,” Tony said. “We’re halfway there. Prepare yourself, ’cuz I gotta let go of the bars. You ready?”

  A tap on the shoulder told Tony he was. He lowered his weight back onto him. The kid’s body shivered.

  “You ready up there?” Tony shouted.

  Marshall stood as close to the edge as possible. He rubbed his gloved hands together like a receiver before the opening kickoff. “You get it here. I won’t miss.”

  Tony avoided any jerky movements as he slowly unwound a six-foot length of slack. He tied a slipknot and gently looped the rope down over his head and around his chest.

  The sled inched downward despite his precautions.

  He readied the coil of rope and gauged the distance up the slope. “We’re gonna drop like a tank when I toss this,” he said. “So secure it quick.”

  “I’m on it,” Marshall said. Lacey stood ready beside him.

  Tony cocked his arm, gritted his teeth, and hurled the rope up the hill.

  The snowmobile sank three feet.

  Tony’s world went pitch black. Snow covered his face and mouth. He sensed the sled continuing t
o slip farther into the depths. He punched a fist upward. It didn’t break the surface. Timmy struggled beneath him. Thirty seconds passed. Then forty. His lungs cried for release. There was a loud crack, and he felt the ground suddenly give way beneath them. A curtain of snow cascaded around them. The rope snapped rigid, and suddenly he and Timmy were swinging in midair. They hit the mountain wall, watching in shock as their snowmobile tumbled into an abyss below them. Its headlamps illuminated the walls of the natural fissure. It struck an outcrop and spun end over end until it crashed into the ground in a fiery explosion.

  “Get with it, you guys,” Marshall shouted from above. “I’ve secured the rope. But we can’t haul you out together. Move to that shelf and we’ll go one at a time.”

  Timmy was suspended four feet below Tony. The assault rifle was still slung across his shoulders. “You still with me?” Tony asked.

  “Hanging in there.”

  This kid’s growing on me, Tony thought.

  The five-by-ten-foot shelf was within easy reach. They climbed up. Tony disconnected from the rope so that Marshall and Lacey could haul Timmy up. When they threw the rope back down, Tony saw that the bottom third of it had knotted loops at eighteen-inch intervals. Good thinkin’, Marsh, Tony thought, as he stepped onto the first rung of the makeshift ladder—there was no way the three of them could’ve hauled his dead weight out of there. On the way up, Tony studied the geological gash that had almost become his tomb. It was as if God had cleaved into the mountain with an ax and then covered the blemish with a land bridge. But erosion had carved a ten-foot-wide hole in the bridge. A protective guardrail encircled it. Ice and snow had hidden it until Tony’s ski-jump stunt shook it loose. The crossed poles had apparently warned of the danger—as had the half-buried warning sign they’d ignored earlier.

  As soon as Tony got to his feet next to the others, he heard the faint buzz of snowmobiles. Discarding his helmet, he stared up the mountain. The flicker of headlights in the distant trees told him that their pursuers were only three or four minutes away.