He went without a sound, tumbling and rolling, carried away in a flowing river of fresh powder. It happened so silently that Gerald didn’t register that it had happened at all.
‘Oswald!’ Alisha called out.
Gerald reached around and pounded Sam on the shoulder with his fist. ‘Stop!’
Before the snowmobile could judder to a halt, Alisha had thrown herself off the sled. She landed up to her hips in snow and waded down the hillside towards where Ox had fallen. ‘Oswald!’ she called again. In the sudden quiet, her voice rang out like a clarion in the mountain air.
Gerald rolled off the sled and started after Alisha, struggling through the deep snow. The pain stabbed into his ribs again and he clutched at his side. He could see no sign of Ox.
Then a sharp crack split the silence.
Gerald stopped, breathing hard, and looked to the bottom of the mountain. Their two pursuers were off their snowmobiles. And each held a rifle to his shoulder.
Another crack sounded up the slope. Then another.
Instinctively, everyone ducked. But in the middle of the huge natural bowl, there was no place to hide.
Gerald heard one more crack—this time from far above them. The sound was deeper, louder and way more frightening than any bullet from a gun. Gerald spun around to face the mountaintop. And in that instant he understood.
The gunmen weren’t shooting at them.
They were shooting over them.
Trying to start an avalanche.
An avalanche that was now bearing down on Gerald and his friends as if someone had flung open the gates of hell.
Chapter 11
There was no time to run, and no shelter to run to.
What started out as a rumble, like low thunder at the top of the mountain, grew quickly to a roar. Gerald could feel the pressure building in his eardrums. The air being pushed ahead of the wave of snow almost knocked him off his feet.
The crest of the wave picked up Ruby and Felicity. It swallowed Sam and the snowmobile.
And then it hit Gerald.
He was lifted and thrown backwards, headfirst down the hill. His mouth filled with snow and ice, blocking his airways. The outside world disappeared into a grey haze as he was rolled and shaken like a rag doll in a tumble dryer.
Over and over he went, in a gymnastics routine with no end. Gerald threw his arms up, trying to swim to the surface of the surging river of snow and ice. His ribs screamed at the pummelling. And still he couldn’t breathe. It was like being caught in a rip at Bondi—the ocean toyed with him, rolling him under the surface like some giant game of tunnel ball.
Then it struck him. It was just like being caught in a rip. And the best defence in a rip is not to fight it, but to swim across it and hope to be spat out at the side. He doubled his efforts with his arms, flailing about like a windmill in a cyclone. After what seemed an age, he finally rolled to a stop.
For a moment, Gerald lay encased in the powder, eyes blinking and ears straining to hear anything. But there was total silence. His hand was pressed up against his cheek. He jabbed fingers into his mouth to clear away the snow packed inside. He sucked in air and felt his lungs respond to the sharp cold. He blinked again. All around him was a shroud of blue grey. He had no sense of where was up. It took him a moment to realise the blue light he was seeing was actually the sun through the snow. He must be lying on his back. In one of those moments when the brain spits up a long lost memory from nowhere, he remembered a ski holiday with his parents, when he was just a little kid. The ski instructor had said something about being caught in an avalanche. About how the churned-up snow sets like concrete within minutes. Gerald’s eyes shot wide. He had to act.
He clawed at the snow around his face, driving his hands as hard as he could towards the light. He’d lost a glove in the fall but he felt no cold as his bare fingers scratched their way towards the surface. And then in a glorious moment, he broke through. It was like looking out of a tunnel. He could see the sky and the tops of some fir trees. He pushed with all his might and managed to clear a hole large enough so he could sit up. He was under only about half a metre of snow but already he could feel it hardening around his legs.
Gerald rolled to his side. He ignored the pain shooting through his ribs. Bit by bit, he dragged himself free of his icy tomb.
He stood groggily and looked around. He’d been carried at least three hundred metres, halfway down the bowl, and jettisoned at the base of a stand of trees. He’d lost his goggles as well as a glove. Above him, up the hill, was a junkyard of broken snow and ice, as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to a wedding cake. Down the hill, all was white destruction. There was carved up powder everywhere.
Gerald saw the sole of a boot poking out from the snow.
It was Sam.
In all the confusion, Gerald had forgotten about his friends.
He strode towards it, ploughing a path behind him. ‘Sam!’ he called. ‘Can you hear me?’ He wrapped his hands around the boot, pulled and tumbled onto his backside with the empty boot on his chest. Sam must have lost it in the fall.
‘Sam!’
Gerald scanned the area, frantic for any sign of his friend. Then he saw a red-and-green striped foot punched up through the powder. It was only twenty metres away but it seemed an insurmountable task to get there. Gerald lifted his legs and drove himself on.
He dropped to his knees by Sam’s foot and scooped away armfuls of snow, desperately aware of the minutes ticking past. He uncovered Sam’s other foot, still in its boot, and soon had his legs free. Sam was on his stomach, his head buried deep down, as if someone had fired him into a snow bank from a cannon. Gerald leapt in beside him, digging at his sides.
Sam was not moving.
Gerald didn’t look up when Ruby joined him. Felicity was only seconds behind her. Together, they shovelled in a frenzy.
‘Is he—?’ Ruby couldn’t finish the sentence.
‘Dig.’ It was all Gerald could bring himself to say.
They cleared the snow to Sam’s armpits, then Gerald hauled himself to his feet and grabbed one of Sam’s legs. ‘Get the other one,’ he said to Ruby. ‘On three, pull.’
Felicity gripped Sam by the jacket and they heaved. Sam slid out like a newborn foal, landing on top of the others in a tangle of legs and arms.
‘Sam!’ Ruby cried. She scrambled to clear snow from her brother’s face. ‘Sam!’
He lay in her lap, his face pointing to the sky.
His eyes were closed. His skin was pale.
Ruby shook him. ‘Sam!’ she cried again. There was no response. Ruby looked to Gerald, desperation in her eyes. Gerald looked back at her, helpless.
Then Sam coughed. A plug of ice shot from his mouth and bounced off Ruby’s forehead. He sucked in huge breaths, his chest pumping the mountain air.
Sam opened his eyes. Gerald, Ruby and Felicity stared down at him. He blinked. ‘Not sure I want to do that again,’ he said.
Ruby wrapped her arms around her brother. ‘I thought you were dead,’ she whispered. ‘You big idiot.’
Gerald looked down the slope. At the very bottom, hundreds of metres away, he could see movement.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘The gunmen are still down there.’ The sky was clearing. He shielded his eyes from the glare. ‘And they’ve got Alisha and Ox!’
‘They must have surfed the avalanche all the way to the bottom,’ Ruby said.
‘Thank goodness they’re all right,’ Felicity said. ‘But what do we do now?’
Ruby glanced towards the top of the mountain. ‘That snow still looks unstable,’ she said. ‘We should get over to the trees.’
Gerald helped Sam to his feet and picked up his discarded boot from the slush. They’d taken only a few steps when a rumble rolled down the mountain.
‘It’s
another slide!’ Ruby cried. ‘Run!’
There was a helter-skelter dash through the ploughed up snow to reach the safety of the tree line. Felicity was the last one to dive behind a trunk when the first rush of tumbling snow whooshed past. They gathered in a tight group and watched as nature’s mayhem swept down the slope.
‘It’s like a river in flood,’ Gerald said. ‘Amazing.’
‘There goes the snowmobile!’ Ruby cried, as the machine rolled past, like a toy car thrown into a fairy floss machine.
At the bottom of the slope, the gunmen bundled Alisha and Ox onto the back of their snowmobiles and took off, trying to outrun the approaching snow slide. They disappeared over a rise and were gone.
Gerald, Ruby, Sam and Felicity stood in shocked silence. The river of snow flowed onwards.
Felicity was first to speak.
‘Which way do we go?’ she asked. ‘Up or down?’
‘We’ve got to go get Ox and Alisha, don’t we?’ Sam said. ‘We can’t just leave them.’
Ruby shook her head. ‘They’ll take Ox and Alisha back to the chalet. They’ll be warm and safe there.’
‘That’s where all the adults are,’ Felicity said. ‘Ox’s parents and your—’ She looked at Ruby’s expression and paused. ‘I’m sorry.’
Ruby brushed it aside with a shrug. ‘I’m sure they’re okay,’ she said softly.
Gerald put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. ‘I think Ruby’s right,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to stick to the plan. Go get help.’ Gerald had no idea whether that was the right decision. But he couldn’t see what good it would do to serve themselves up to those gunmen like a sack of Christmas presents.
‘Hey,’ he said, suddenly remembering. ‘It’s Christmas Day.’
Sam turned and started up the slope, his eyes following the tree line. ‘Terrific,’ he said. ‘Joy to the world.’
It took two hours of hard slog to reach the top of the bowl. On the way, Felicity described how the avalanche had swept her to one side, and how she pulled Ruby out of a snow bank.
Once they reached the ridgeline they found a trekking hut. There was no radio, but there were snowshoes. The hike to the watchtower took another two hours. They climbed up to the viewing platform and Gerald broke a window to get inside. The first police helicopter arrived an hour after his emergency radio call.
The commander of the SWAT team listened intently as Gerald recounted the events since midnight. Around them, police officers set up a rescue headquarters. ‘And this guy you knocked out in the caretaker’s cottage,’ the commander said, ‘was he down for the count or just a bit dazed?’
‘He was moaning, so he was still conscious,’ Gerald said. ‘But he must have been wearing something under his balaclava.’
‘Yeah,’ Sam said. ‘A hockey mask, or something like that.’
‘What makes you think that?’ the commander said.
‘Because his nose didn’t go splat when I hit it.’
The commander raised an eyebrow and looked warily at Sam. ‘I’m sending in a team of my best people with some locals from the Sierra County Search and Rescue,’ he said. ‘They know the terrain. We’ll get your parents out.’
Gerald, Ruby, Sam and Felicity stood at the watchtower window, wrapped in blankets and sipping mugs of hot soup, as the SWAT helicopter rose from the snow and disappeared over a rise.
Gerald cradled his mug in his hands, letting the warmth soak into his fingers. ‘They’ll be fine,’ he said.
‘What makes you so sure?’ Ruby said. Her eyes were fixed on the ridge where the chopper had dropped from view.
‘These SWAT guys look like they know what they’re doing,’ he said. ‘And don’t forget one important thing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘We’ve got Ox and his Assertiveness Training on our side.’
Ruby looked at him blankly. ‘Do you really think this is the time for jokes.’
‘If not now,’ Gerald said, ‘then when?’
The sun was low in the sky when Sam nudged Gerald, and nodded towards the commander. ‘Looks like something’s happening.’
The commander stood at a table with a map of the area spread across the top. He held a finger to his ear, listening to a radio call. Then his eyes swivelled to the four people wrapped in blankets.
‘The chopper is coming back,’ the commander said. ‘I need you all to come see something.’
‘What is it?’ Ruby said. She was trembling. It was not from the cold.
The commander zipped up his jacket and pulled a hat from his pocket. ‘It will be easier if you just come and see.’
Ruby gave Gerald a nervous glance, and took Sam’s hand. She didn’t let it go until the chopper delivered them to the front of the chalet.
A SWAT officer met them at the front door. ‘Nothing’s been touched,’ he told the commander. ‘It’s just as we found it.’
Gerald’s heart raced. A sudden nausea swept his stomach.
The stone chalet stood silent before them. Gerald, Ruby, Felicity and Sam followed the commander into the entry hall.
It was deserted.
Their footsteps echoed as they walked through the house. Gerald stepped on broken glass from a vase that had been knocked from a side table. In the baronial dining room, embers still glowed in the fireplaces. Breakfasts sat half-eaten on plates. But not a soul could be found.
The chalet was empty.
It was as if everyone there had been erased from existence.
Chapter 12
Gerald had been on the phone to the family lawyer for over an hour and he was about to lose control.
‘Look Mr Prisk,’ Gerald said. ‘You can’t expect us to just sit around and do nothing. They took everyone. Mum and Dad. Ox and Alisha. Even Mrs Rutherford and Mr Fry. We’ve got to do something.’
A fog had rolled over San Francisco shortly after lunch. The view from the presidential suite of the Fairmont Hotel was grey, wet and depressing. They had been back in the city for a day, flown there in a police helicopter from Mt Archer. The excitement of their escape had been replaced with a gnawing frustration that threatened to collapse in on itself.
Ruby and Sam sat on a couch opposite Gerald, staring at him. Felicity stood by a window on the far side of the lounge, her arms hugging her chest. She gazed at the murk outside.
‘Really? Good. I’m glad the airport is fogged in.’ Gerald had never spoken to Mr Prisk like this before. But he had never been this annoyed. ‘There’s no point in me going back to London. I may as well be here when the kidnappers call. I’m the one they’re looking for anyway.’
Mr Prisk’s voice squeaked through the earpiece. Gerald tightened his jaw and listened. ‘Yes, I know you’re worried about the precious Archer Corporation,’ Gerald said. ‘I’m worried about my friends. I’ll speak to you later.’
He hung up the phone and flopped back onto the couch.
‘The jet’s grounded till the fog lifts,’ Gerald said. ‘Mr Prisk wants me back in London straightaway.’
‘How can we go?’ Ruby said. Her eyes were red from crying. ‘I’m not leaving till they find Mum and Dad.’ Her voice cracked as she spoke.
Sam put an arm around her shoulder. ‘The police will find them,’ he said. ‘Won’t they, detective?’
A man in a blue suit looked up from the dining table where he was writing in his notebook.
He rested his pen on the page and considered the question for a moment. ‘We’re doing all we can. Crime scene investigators are going through every inch of the place at Mt Archer. If there are any clues, they’ll find them.’
‘But what if there aren’t any clues?’ Ruby said. ‘What if whoever did this left nothing behind?’
The detective fixed her with a steady stare. ‘Nobody is that smart, Miss Valentine.�
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Gerald snorted. ‘They managed to move about sixty people off a snowbound mountain,’ he said. ‘I’d say they’re smart enough.’
Another detective emerged from the adjoining kitchen, a steaming mug of coffee in each hand. He placed one in front of his partner. ‘We’ve got over a hundred officers working on this case,’ he said. ‘Not just locals, but statewide. And since the kidnapping involved two minors,’ he checked his notes, ‘uh, Miss Gupta and Mister Perkins, the FBI has been alerted. They’ll be carrying out investigations as well.’
Ruby shrank back into her brother’s arm. ‘I just want to see Mum and Dad.’
Gerald leaned forward and put a hand on her knee. ‘They’ll be back. Don’t worry.’
‘But we haven’t heard anything,’ Ruby said. She looked across to the detectives. ‘Is that usual?’
The two policemen glanced at each other for just long enough to indicate that whatever they were about to say may not be entirely truthful.
‘There’s nothing about this case that’s usual,’ the first detective said. ‘There has never been a kidnapping on this scale before. Sixty people or more? We’re still working to confirm the names of everyone who’s missing.’
‘But won’t there be a ransom demand, or something?’ Ruby said.
The second detective gave Ruby a reassuring look. ‘Every case is different. Sometimes a ransom demand comes straightaway. Other times, it takes longer.’
‘How long?’ Sam asked.
The detective took a sip of his coffee. ‘Longer,’ he said.
Gerald bounced to his feet and paced the floor. ‘Then what’s keeping them? It’s not like I can’t afford to pay.’
‘It may not be money they’re after,’ the first detective said. He flicked through his notes. ‘You said you heard one of them tell some of the victims to put their jewels and wallets on a table. Right?’
‘That doesn’t sound like big time thieves, does it,’ Sam said. ‘A few old watches and some diamond rings.’
‘Especially when they flew to the chalet in a helicopter,’ Gerald said. ‘They can’t be too hard up for cash.’
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