by Lauren Child
‘Could you take over for a tick, I just have to make a stop at the restroom.’
‘Where’s your co-pilot?’ asked Hitch.
‘She’s just checking something in back.’
They were flying over the snow-capped mountains of the northern peaks when something altogether unexpected occurred.
A hand reached around Hitch’s throat, and before he could consider his next move, a voice which did not belong to the hand said, ‘Stay right where you are sweetie.’
The voice belonged to a woman, an Australian. She stepped forward so she was standing next to him and he felt the sensation of something cold and metal on his temple. It suggested she had a gun.
‘Apologies sweetie, this flight is being diverted. I hope you won’t decide to make a fuss about it or Mr Matthews will have to eject you from the plane.’ She made a show of glancing out of the window. ‘And I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, without a parachute, it’s a long way down.’
HITCH: ‘Is Mr Matthews here planning on strangling me? And if not then could I trouble you to ask him if he might loosen his grip? It’s interfering with my ability to keep breathing.’
THE AUSTRALIAN: ‘Of course. But try to refrain from doing anything stupid.’
HITCH: ‘What would add up to stupid?’
THE AUSTRALIAN: ‘Any sudden movements; that wouldn’t be smart sweetie.’
HITCH: ‘I’ll try to keep my nervous twitch under control.’
THE AUSTRALIAN: ‘I’m impressed by your common sense.’
HITCH: ‘I’m impressed by your gun.’
THE AUSTRALIAN: ‘Good. It sounds like we’re going to get along just fine.’
HITCH: ‘So how can I help you?’
THE AUSTRALIAN: ‘Just keep flying the plane.’
HITCH: ‘So what’s all this about?’
THE AUSTRALIAN: ‘I want the girl.’
HITCH: ‘Why, what good is the girl to you?’
THE AUSTRALIAN: ‘That’s my business.’
HITCH: ‘No, I’m afraid that’s my business. You see, I’m here to make sure nothing happens to her and forgive me, but I don’t think you have an exemplary track record when it comes to keeping people alive.’
THE AUSTRALIAN: ‘Oh, I think you’ve misunderstood my motives, I’m not about to do her harm, far from it. My associate wants her alive and kicking.’
HITCH: ‘Your associate, would that be the man who models himself on Count Dracula?’
THE AUSTRALIAN: ‘I wasn’t aware you’d met.’
HITCH: ‘We haven’t formally. Who’s he working for these days?’
THE AUSTRALIAN: ‘Someone who goes by the name of Casey Morgan. Are you familiar?’
HITCH: ‘I’ve not had the pleasure, at least I don’t think I have, but I’m getting the impression that old Casey keeps a low profile. I had hoped to have the chance to look him in the eyes before handing him over to the FBI.’
THE AUSTRALIAN: ‘A voice down a telephone wire is the closest you’ll get.’
HITCH: ‘What a pity, you just can’t beat seeing the whites of a person’s eyes.’
THE AUSTRALIAN: ‘I’ll leave you in the capable hands of Mr Matthews while I fetch your precious Ruby.’
Ruby was unaware of this high-stakes conversation, busy as she was fixing herself a cream cheese bagel while attempting to tune the radio to something approaching music. Mr Matthews had his eyes firmly trained on Hitch and Hitch was intent on flying the plane – the weather was getting unsettled and the mountains closer. No one at all was aware of the figure, clad, ninja-style, in a black body suit and mask emerging from one of the equipment crates. By the time they did, the shadowy form had karate-chopped Matthews and left him unconscious. Hitch ducked three well-aimed kicks and the plane began to dive.
‘Lorelei! Is that you?’ snarled the Australian.
Ruby, still in the cabin kitchen, stumbled, her face making contact with something hard. She staggered out, nose bleeding.
The ninja and the Australian were furiously throwing things at each other, whatever they could grab and fling.
‘Back off Lorelei, the girl’s useless to me dead!’ shouted the Australian.
‘Ruby, get your parachute on and get out of here!’ shouted Hitch from the cockpit.
‘What about you?’ yelled Ruby, her nose now pouring blood.
‘Grab a parachute!’ he yelled. ‘I got this under control.’
Doof!
‘That’s not what it looks like from where I’m bleeding,’ shouted Ruby, but she did as she was told.
‘You have to get out of here kid. Switch on your locator,’ he bellowed, ‘that way I’ll find you.’ He ducked a second unidentified object.
Ruby looked at him. You’re gonna be dead, is what she was thinking.
‘Trust me kid.’
Doof! Another blow as a flight box made contact with his shoulder, followed by a kick to his leg.
‘No!’ shouted Ruby.
‘Jump! Redfort, that’s an order!’
Ruby wrenched open the plane door.
But too late. For there was the ninja blocking her way.
‘Don’t mind me bubblegum girl – you go ahead and jump,’ said Lorelei von Leyden. Yanking off her ski mask, she smiled. ‘Jump? What am I saying? Fall is what I mean.’ She tore the parachute pack from Ruby’s back. ‘Oh, take this instead,’ she laughed, throwing her the first aid case. ‘A good girl scout always travels with her survival kit – I’ll bet there’s a band-aid in there for when you go splat!’ Lorelei was laughing so hard now she appeared quite demented. ‘Oh, don’t forget your little snurferboard – you can use it to mark your grave. So long bubblegum girl.’
Lorelei grabbed one of the hand grips on the ceiling, swung her body forward and kicked Ruby into the air. Her laugh followed Ruby as she tumbled into the sky, the snurferboard twirling behind her.
Ruby counted as she fell: 1,000, 2,000, 3,000.
What to do if you find yourself falling through the air at 53 miles per second without a parachute?
Answer: close your eyes and hope for a miracle.
Ruby did neither of these things, nor did she panic.
For what Lorelei von Leyden didn’t know was that Ruby had a plan B.
She tore off the snow parka and watched as it was snatched up by the wind and whirled away. The golden suit twinkled glitterball-like as she plummeted. Around her shoulders was the white fur parachute cape. There was no backup – if the cord snapped or the chute tangled then it would be goodbye Ruby. She looked beneath her at the snow-capped mountain moving fast towards her, and yanked the parachute release.
She felt the amazing jolt as her body stopped hurtling towards the ground and instead began to float, a little gold canopy above her which she was able to steer until her toes touched the mountaintop. Her landing was good. Wasting no time, she detached the chute. The plane had already disappeared from view, but when she looked to the sky she saw one small figure zig-zagging to earth. One survivor … friend or foe? What were the odds that this skydiver was Hitch? One in four? No, the odds were not as good as that. Three maniacs trying to kill one agent. He had a chance but it was small.
First retrieve your pack and the snurferboard. She had kept an eye on them, had watched them spinning to earth, and she found both easily. She wasted no time wedging her feet into position and tightening the board straps. Snow had begun to fall, large sticky pieces making it hard to keep an eye on the parachutist.
She flipped up the viewing lens on the wrist binoculars attached to the cuff of her suit and scanned the horizon until her eyes locked on the figure in black. Whoever it was seemed to be orientating, looking for someone. Her?
Hitch, is that you? She checked the locator for his signal, but there was none.
She aimed the search-and-find locator directly at the figure, but nothing came back, no signal. No blink of a light. Was the responder not functioning or was the skydiver not Hitch?
The figure was motionless for a
moment, and then it seemed to sight her, and then slowly, very slowly began to move towards her.
Spectrum devices are 99.999 per cent reliable, isn’t that what Hal had said?
Go with instinct.
Not Hitch, she thought.
Get out of here fast.
She took off at speed, heading down the mountain, taking the fastest route.
RULE 43: IF YOU’VE GOT THE ADVANTAGE – MAKE SURE YOU KEEP IT.
Lose whoever was tailing her.
If Hitch was still on the plane then …
Would he make it back alive?
She didn’t need to wait long for her answer.
The explosion boomed across the mountains, the sky lit up red with the flames of a huge fireball.
The plane and whoever it still carried – all gone.
She stood for a minute staring up at the sky, mesmerised, until she suddenly became aware of a rumbling sound and turned to see a huge slab of snow break away from the mountain and begin to cascade towards her. Her fear of this likely human killer was completely subsumed by her fear of nature’s killer. She needed to move diagonally out of the avalanche’s path, and get herself across to the pines if she was to have any chance of survival; so long as she didn’t smash directly into a tree, of course.
Go!
She was ahead of it, she was fast, she was making it out of there, she was going to beat it, out-run it … but then a second rumble, a second slab of snow began to slide and there was nowhere to go.
Swim Ruby, swim.
She worked her arms as fast as she could, breathing snow and losing direction; she was caught, tumbling, falling like a piece of debris. She pulled her hands in to make an air pocket around her face, no point raising her arm, no point trying to be seen, no one to see her.
The world went entirely white and then just as suddenly, entirely black.
Chapter 43.
WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE CAUGHT IN AN AVALANCHE
1. Let go of your heavy equipment. You want your body to be as lightweight as possible, so let go of your backpack and other heavy equipment you may be carrying. This raises the chances that you’ll be able to stay toward the surface of the snow. It goes without saying that you should not let go of survival equipment, such as a transceiver and probe or snow shovel; you’ll need these if you get buried.
I have no survival equipment, thought Ruby. She had let go of the first aid case.
People searching for you later may be able to find you if they see some pieces of equipment on the surface of the snow, so you could let go of a glove or something else that’s light to increase the chances they’ll find you.
Who thought up these rules? If she had had the chance to pull a glove from her hand then maybe she would have, but as it was she was mainly concentrating on not breaking her neck. Plus it had to be considered that the person most likely to find her was the person who had least interest in keeping her alive.
2. Start swimming. This is essential to helping you stay near the surface of the snow. The human body is much denser than snow, so you’ll tend to sink as you get carried downhill. Try to stay afloat by kicking your feet and thrashing your arms in a swimming motion.
a) Swim on your back. This way your face is turned toward the surface, giving you a better chance of getting oxygen more quickly if you get buried.
b) Swim uphill. Swimming up will get you closer to the surface of the snow.
This she did attempt. Whether it would make a jot of difference to her final resting place, she had no idea, but rules is rules and when one is in dire circumstances you might as well grab for them.
3. Conserve air and energy. Try to move once the snow settles, but don’t jeopardise your air pocket.
Make an air pocket, make an air pocket, get air, you need air.
If you’re very near the surface, you may be able to dig your way out, but otherwise you aren’t going anywhere.
You aren’t going anywhere.
Don’t waste precious breath by struggling against the snow. Remain calm and wait to be rescued. If you hear people nearby, try to call them, but don’t keep it up if they don’t seem to hear you. You can probably hear them better than they can hear you, and shouting just wastes your limited air supply.
Try to remain calm and wait to be rescued.
Try to remain calm and wait to be rescued.
Try to remain calm
Try to remain
Try to
Try
Chapter 44.
Buried alive
AS THE SNOW PACKED TIGHTLY AROUND HER, so the dawning realisation that following the rules didn’t make the slightest bit of difference when it came to facts.
And just because one raised one’s arms above one’s head as the snow cascaded down, or threw off heavy equipment, swam one’s arms, yelled and screamed, that didn’t change the fact that she was buried alive under about a ton of snow – maybe it was eight tonnes, who was there to weigh it? Who was there to care? Hitch was almost certainly dead, Bradley Baker was about one hundred miles away, no doubt chatting to Mrs Digby and eating fresh-out-of-the-oven gingerbread. Everyone else was having a good time playing in the snow, except for maybe Clancy, who wherever he was, was too far away to even have a hunch that anything might be wrong.
And another thing – what was the point of the sub-zero survival training when she wasn’t even going to get the chance to try survival? How many people had rescued themselves from avalanches – a handful? She was going to die.
These were all the thoughts Ruby would have been thinking, had her head not been buzzing with white noise, the sound of panic, white cold panic.
I’m buried alive, I’m going to die,
I’m buried alive,
I’m going to die,
I’m buried alive
I’m going to die …
I’m going to die.
Perhaps she passed out for a few seconds, because something changed and her breathing slowed and she could see the faces of her mom and dad: they were smiling, really smiling. And then a voice, Mrs Digby’s voice in her head, crystal clear: ‘You don’t want to be scared of this, child, this is nothing. This you can deal with.’ It was almost a memory, the way the voice talked to her. ‘I’m here and I’ll dig you out, sure as eggs is eggs, I’ll hatch you out of there. No one buries my little Ruby alive.’
I must be delirious. But just the vision of her parents, the thought of Mrs Digby, the remembered sound of her voice was enough to calm her and when she was calm she was able to think.
She slowed her heart right down, focused her mind on surviving.
RULE 20: NINETY PER CENT OF SURVIVAL IS ABOUT BELIEVING YOU WILL SURVIVE.
So no one’s coming to rescue me.
Think.
So I have to rescue myself.
What do I have with me that might help me get out of here?
Think.
She felt for her wrist – and then hope welled up within.
She hadn’t lost it, it was still there: the Bradley Baker Escape Watch.
You have the watch, you have a chance.
Now it was a matter of figuring out which of its functions might best serve her predicament.
How long have I got? she wondered.
She had created an air pocket around her face and she figured that she had maybe fifteen minutes. Pressing the winder so the dial now glowed, she tapped the rescue button. Two words flashed up on the screen:
STATE PREDICAMENT.
She clicked through the numerous options until she reached:
SNOW BURIAL
She clicked YES.
The watch began calculating the depth.
APPROX SIX FEET, it read.
‘Perfect,’ muttered Ruby, ‘I’m in a snow grave.’
CALCULATING AIR SUPPLY – 22 MINUTES.
ORIENTATING > VERTICAL.
SUGGESTED TOOL > THE SNOW DRIVER.
‘OK.’ She took a breath.
GO.
The folded blad
es opened inches from her eyes, and formed a perfect propeller. With an efficient and comforting whirr, the Snow Driver began to tunnel above her, forcing a path upward through the dense and heavy snow. Within two minutes she became aware of air and light. She heaved herself from the Ruby-sized hole, spluttering and spitting snow. She was alive and hardly able to believe it.
Chapter 45.
Cold comfort
RUBY ALLOWED HERSELF A MOMENT, lying there on the cold surface. The soft, fat, sticky flakes were coming down fast and it was pretty much impossible to determine where the sky began and the earth ended. It was like looking into nothing.
She supposed that whoever had been tailing her had either been caught in the same avalanche and was now buried and dead, or had witnessed Ruby’s burial, presumed she was dead, and returned back to their cave of evil or wherever it was these villains hung out. Either way, the human factor was no longer a problem. It was nature that might finish her.
She needed to get off the mountain as quick as she could. She was free but she would soon be frozen if she didn’t find some shelter. She used the wrist binoculars, setting them to blizzard conditions. They allowed her to see through the blur of snow and make sense of the landscape. Head for the trees.
It was tough going but she made it, and once there, she set about fixing herself some makeshift snowshoes. She made a mental note to thank Sam Colt for the hours of misery he had put her through teaching her these ‘dumb tasks’. Boy, was she ever wrong.
The snowshoes worked pretty well and she trekked as far as she could, heading through the fir trees to the west. The forest already provided her with a certain degree of cover, but she needed to make camp, gather wood, build a fire.
She was lucky. She found a partially fallen tree which created a perfect angle to clad in fronds of fir and there was plenty of fuel for a fire.
For now, all her energy and reserves were devoted to this one task. And what’s more, Colt was right, it was good to be alive: enjoy the here and now.