by Matt Rogers
23
The wind tearing up the side of the mountain washed over him like a glacial storm.
At the same time, his stomach fell to his feet.
With his teeth clenched and his heart pounding, King felt the snowmobile’s front skis slam onto the trail. It signalled the start of what would no doubt be a terrifying descent.
He wrestled with the handlebars, fighting for control. They vibrated uncontrollably in his grip, turning his fingers numb from exertion. He spotted the first bend ahead. It was a sharp U-turn that arced away from a sheer cliff-face.
One wrong move would spell a few hundred feet of free fall — followed by a gruesome death.
He applied the brakes at the last moment and felt the snowmobile slow under him. At the same time he twisted the handlebars with all his effort. His forearms burned from the intensity.
He shut the pain out.
With a stomach-lurching skid, the snowmobile swung round the bend at thirty miles an hour. A fountain of snow shot off the edge of the cliff, kicked up by the skis and the rear tracks.
For a horrifying instant, he lost control of the vehicle. He turned the handlebars again in an attempt to correct himself and the snowmobile swayed hard on the trail.
He glimpsed a look over the edge of the path. His muscles tightened and his heart leapt.
Then he fought the snowmobile back under control and continued tearing down the side of the mountain.
He heard the enemy vehicles following suit. With chaos and confusion swirling around him he had no time to catch a glimpse of the pursuing party, but the noise of whining engines tackling the steep trail drifted down from above.
King fought an internal battle, trying to get his instincts under control. Part of him wanted nothing more than to slow down and avoid a grisly fate. Yet if this was to work, he needed to put space between himself and the mercenaries.
So he shook the nerves away and yanked the right handlebar back, picking up even more speed as the throttle engaged.
The next two bends proved easier to tackle. King became accustomed to the relentless shaking and rattling of the seat under him. These sections of the trail were less steep, with wider corners with which to manoeuvre around. He handled them confidently, slicing the snowmobile around the turns.
Then it happened.
Something punched him in the back, so hard and vicious in its impact that he thought he might be thrown from the snowmobile. Pain seared his ribcage, which absorbed the brunt of the shockwave.
It took him a moment to realise he had been hit.
The round had been successfully stopped by the bulletproof Spectra vest under his jacket — otherwise he would have been in a whole new world of hurt. The shot would have killed him if it had struck bare skin. He would have bled out from the exit wound in his stomach.
Nevertheless, a bulletproof vest had limited capabilities. It didn’t protect him from the breath being smashed out of his lungs, or the momentum that threw him forward in his seat. He crunched against the handlebars, recoiling away from the impact. His right hand slipped, dropping off one of the handlebars and knocking the throttle in the process.
The snowmobile accelerated violently.
King spotted the twist in the trail ahead. Nothing separated him from a sheer drop down a vertical rock face.
His stomach tightened into a knot.
His heart leapt into his throat.
He scrambled for the brake lever and tugged it, grinding the rear tracks against the snow under the vehicle. The back end of the snowmobile slid out, unable to handle the rapid change of direction in such a short space of time.
King saw the drop looming on the right-hand side. The skis were in the process of turning, but they wouldn’t make it in time. Traction had been entirely lost. He would skid sideways off the edge of the trail if he did nothing.
In one motion he swung his right leg over the seat and leapt off the snowmobile, still gripping the handlebars as tight as his gloved hands would allow. His feet touched solid ground at the same time, planting into the snow and landing on the rock beneath.
He estimated that the snowmobile weighed five hundred pounds.
He could deadlift that amount of weight with ease.
He wondered if he could swing it around.
You’ll find out, a voice said.
The snowmobile’s right-hand ski and rear track lurched into open space, shooting off the cliff. King wrenched the handlebars in his direction with a primal heave, letting out a roar of exertion in the process.
The veins in his forearms and shoulders bulged.
The kind of strength that came from a life-or-death situation kicked in.
With a strain he had never felt before, he turned the front end of the snowmobile around and thrust it back on course, using its own momentum to help guide it in a rudimentary semi-circle.
As he corrected its trajectory, he felt the weight of the vehicle throw him off-balance. His feet slipped on the rock and he fell forwards, hands still wrapped around the handlebars.
With a final, desperate push off his back heel, he jumped.
The snowmobile carried him almost horizontally in the air, yanking him off the ground. He sprawled across the seat, hitting it stomach-first. The impact barely registered in his mind. Every ounce of his being was fighting for survival.
Suddenly — all at once — he got the situation under control.
He planted both boots in the footrests and slammed his rear against the leather seat. He corrected the path of the snowmobile and took off down a lengthy stretch of unwinding terrain. His sternum throbbed from the bullet’s impact in the centre of his back, but apart from that he was unscathed.
Bruised.
Battered.
But functioning.
The distant crack of gunfire made his heart skip a beat. They were still firing on him. He hunched low over the handlebars and pushed the snowmobile faster, intent on entering the forest like a speeding bullet.
The foliage of the towering alpine trees would provide effective cover.
Then it would become a close-quarters skirmish.
Just what he wanted.
He covered the last stretch of the mountain trail at close to fifty miles per hour, utilising a combination of the downward momentum and the capacity of the 1,000cc engine under the hood.
The forest rose up to meet him. The sole headlight on the front of King’s snowmobile cut a sharp beam of light into the depths of the woods. He glimpsed the shadows falling away. A path became illuminated between a cluster of trees. Behind him, the four pursuing vehicles whined as they began to close the gap.
With a twist of the throttle, King rocketed the snowmobile off the base of the mountain and into the forest.
24
Sarah Grasso clutched the semi-automatic pistol with shaking fingers.
She crouched behind one of the couches — boxed in by Carmen and Jessica on either side — listening to the engines outside fade slowly into silence. The distant whining dropped lower and lower down the mountain with each passing second.
The party of thugs had taken King’s bait.
They were pursuing him.
‘Do you think it’ll work?’ Jessica muttered.
‘Of course it fucking won’t,’ Carmen said. ‘He’s insane.’
Sarah looked at the dead man sprawled across the carpet a few feet away. ‘He seems to know what he’s doing.’
‘We can’t just stay here,’ Carmen said. ‘They’re going to kill him eventually. Then they’ll come back up here and see we’re not in the shed. They’ll kill us too.’
‘We have guns now,’ Sarah said.
‘We have two pistols. And none of us have fired a weapon in our lives. You want to take your chances in a shootout with trained killers?’
‘I guess not.’
‘So we need to do something.’
‘I agree,’ Jessica said in a voice barely above a whisper.
Sarah shrugged. ‘Yeah. You
’re right. But what do we do?’
‘Run.’
‘We’ll freeze to death out there. We don’t have any idea how far we are from help. It could be dozens of miles for all we know.’
Carmen got to her feet and crossed to a coat rack by the door. She snatched one of the expensive jackets off its hangar. ‘We’ll help ourselves to all their gear. We can check the garage for vehicles.’
‘I’m not sur…’ Sarah began.
Carmen glared at her. ‘You’re putting too much faith in that guy. His luck will run out eventually. We’re doing our own thing, okay?’
Silence.
‘Well,’ Carmen said. ‘At least I am. You two can stay here if you want. It’s a death sentence.’
‘No,’ Sarah said. ‘We’ll come. You’re right about not staying here. Nothing good can come of it unless Jason manages to kill them all.’
She rose and followed Jessica across the room. They fished through the coat rack until they found garments that fit. Sarah didn’t take her hand off the gun in her hands for a second. She felt vulnerable amidst the corpses in the room — like they were sitting on a ticking time bomb.
She had never seen a dead body before.
Léo. Is he dead?
The thought flashed through her mind, and she scolded herself on not thinking of the others sooner. She had been so preoccupied on her own survival that she’d neglected considering what fate the rest of their group had suffered.
There was nothing she could do to help them. Her best chance at ensuring they remained unscathed would involve alerting the authorities and letting them do their thing.
Something sinister was afoot. She was sure of it.
The three of them heard the noise simultaneously.
Sarah snapped her head up in unison with Carmen and Jessica. Her eyes went wide as she discerned exactly what it was.
It was unmistakeable. The drone of a snowmobile’s engine. Growing closer and closer.
Coming from the same trail that King had just descended.
The fight-or-flight mechanism kicked in, flooding her veins with adrenalin. Tremors ran through her fingers. The gun in her hands shook uncontrollably. Sweat from her palms turned the grip slippery.
‘Is it King?’ Jessica said.
‘Back against the wall,’ Sarah demanded. ‘Carmen — your gun?’
‘Got it.’
‘Be ready.’
‘He said he’d warn us if it was him,’ Jessica whispered. ‘It’s only been five minutes since he left.’
They retreated to the far side of the communal area, putting a maze of furniture between themselves and the front door. Sarah heard the snowmobile pull up outside the front of the lodge. The driver killed the engine and the mechanical noise faded into oblivion, replaced by the elements.
Nothing happened for a prolonged period of time.
There were no sounds. No footsteps on the deck outside. No cocking of weapons.
Like the driver was observing the scene.
Considering how to proceed.
‘It’s not King, is it?’ Jessica whispered, her face a pale sheet.
‘Quiet,’ Sarah muttered.
She raised the pistol in a double-handed grip and pointed the barrel at the flimsy door.
Sudden movement. All at once. She heard booming footsteps on the deck that reverberated through the silence. Then a loud crash as someone thundered a boot into the door, snapping it off its weak hinges. The door crashed to the carpeted floor inside the lodge and a broad-shouldered figure stepped through into the room.
It wasn’t King.
It was the man she had glimpsed hours previously in her semi-conscious state. She had peered out of the armoured vehicle at the hardened face, complete with a jagged scar running the length of one cheek. A face devoid of emotion or empathy.
Now she stared at the same face — still just as expressionless, just as cold.
‘Hello,’ the man said softly. His voice was deeper than Sarah expected, so low and monotone that it felt artificial. His frame was enormous, filling the doorway completely. He was even larger than King.
‘Don’t move,’ Sarah demanded, but her voice faltered. She kept the gun raised. She didn’t even know what model it was.
Or if it would fire…
The man in the doorway lifted a finger and pointed at the weapon. ‘Your hands are shaking. You’d better hit me on the first try.’
‘Shut up!’ Carmen roared, attempting to intimidate, her own pistol trained on the man. ‘Let us leave.’
‘I came to check on my men,’ the man said. ‘It seems they are not here.’
‘Just us,’ Sarah said.
‘Where are they?’
‘They’re gone.’
‘Where?’
‘We have a friend.’
The man raised an eyebrow sarcastically. ‘A friend?’
‘Yes. He came for us. A soldier.’
He feigned mock surprise. ‘A soldier? How frightening.’
Sarah said nothing.
‘And where is he now?’
She didn’t respond. The tension turned palpable in the air. It seemed the man was waiting for one of them to make a move. He stood frozen in the doorway, hands by his sides, watching them like a predator observing its prey.
‘He’s not here,’ he said. ‘That’s a shame.’
It sent a chill down Sarah’s spine. Finally, the terror became too great. She had spent thirty seconds battling with her mind. One part of her told her to pull the trigger. Another raised all kinds of doubts.
What if you miss?
What if he doesn’t die from the first shot?
They reached a crescendo, and then another voice drowned out all the others.
Now.
She pulled the trigger. Her legs tensed, ready to explode off her feet as soon as the shot was fired. She planned it out in her mind — first watch the man fall, then sprint straight past him. Out into the night. There, they could make their way off the mountain and look for help.
None of that happened.
The gun in her hands didn’t make a sound.
Fear rolled over her in waves.
Panic set in.
The man in the doorway noticed her unease. Slowly, a wry smile spread over his face.
‘That was a mistake,’ he said. His eyes flickered over to Carmen. ‘Would you like to try?’
She pulled her own trigger.
Same result.
The man scoffed and reached behind his back, withdrawing a sleek, matte black handgun from the holster at his waist. He brought it around to hover by his side.
‘This is a MP-443 Grach,’ he said. ‘The same handgun you two are holding. I equip all my men with them. We have a limitless supply from the Russian Armed Forces. There is a manual safety catch on both sides of the weapon. It’s a pity you didn’t know that.’
He raised the weapon.
25
King reached his old snowmobile less than a minute after entering the forest.
He slowed just long enough to snatch the duffel off the handlebars. Nothing else was necessary. Then he gave the throttle of his new ride a brief twist. The engine screamed and he shot off the mark, heading away from the dormant vehicle.
Hopefully it would confuse his assailants. They might think he had abandoned his ride and chosen to flee on foot.
Whatever slows them down…
He powered through dense and claustrophobic terrain, surrounded on all sides by sheer darkness. At one point the ground crested and fell in a small mound. The handlebars rattled underneath him. One of his legs slipped out of its footrest. He corrected the vehicle’s path and continued on.
The sounds of his pursuers echoed through the trees behind him. He heard intermittent bursts of noise — the revving of an engine, a sharp command in Russian, the brief flash of a headlight.
So far, they hadn’t caught up.
He shifted in his seat, adjusting the duffel slung over one shoulder and the M4A
1 hanging off the other. Losing either would spell disaster.
He remembered the view of the peninsula he had glimpsed from the outpost. The forest ended somewhere up ahead, dropping away into a sweeping valley. That was where he planned to make his stand.
His headlight revealed the drop first.
It sent a shiver down King’s spine. The artificial light gleamed off the snow-covered ground between the tree trunks ahead, just as it had done for the last half-mile.
Then the snow vanished. A dark, seemingly endless void stretched out from where the ground fell away.
King coasted his snowmobile to a halt at the very precipice of the cliff.
He killed the engine. Silence enveloped his surroundings, amplifying the noise of the four pursuing vehicles. He fumbled for the headlight switch, flicking it off in the blink of an eye. The night wrapped around him.
He sensed the edge of the cliff behind him, even though it wasn’t visible in the lowlight. There was a certain feeling that came with standing on the lip of a great chasm in the land. A sense of vertigo. A sense of awe. The wind howled through the forest ahead, sweeping off the cliff.
One wrong step, a voice told him.
He ignored it and leapt off the snowmobile, landing in the snow. It took half a minute for his eyes to grow used to the night. He dropped the duffel bag on the empty seat and stalked away from the idle vehicle, heading for the nearest trees.
If all went to plan, the skirmish would unfold so fast that the four hostiles wouldn’t get a chance to fire a shot.
He saw them coming. A few hundred feet into the woods, white light poured from a cluster of sources. As he crouched beside a towering deciduous tree and peered into the gloom, he noticed two of the snowmobiles branch off, heading to the left.
The other two made straight for him.
They hadn’t seen him. Not a chance. He had kept himself hidden in the darkness.
He gripped the carbine rifle in both hands and waited for them to ride straight past him.
It happened too fast for him to process fully — yet he was ready for that. A decade of combat had taught him to act out of instinct.