Brainrush 03 - Beyond Judgment (16 page)

The door swung open.

The sight took his breath away.

“Timmy!” Lacey said. She rushed forward and threw her arms around the scientist. He wore a climbing harness around his waist and thighs. “You’re alive!”

Timmy blushed. “I had to stay alive. Tony told me I was the only backup.”

Tony and Marshall patted the kid on the shoulder so hard he nearly fell over.

“Dude, am I glad to see you,” Marshall said.

“I was scared shitless on that cliff face,” Timmy said. “I can’t even believe you do that for fun.”

“Let’s get the hell outta here,” Tony said. He moved toward the exit.

“Hold on,” Timmy said, checking his watch. “We can’t leave for another sixty seconds.”

Tony didn’t want to wait, but the kid had just infiltrated a fortified position entirely on his own. He had to trust him. “So what the hell happened, anyway?” he asked as they counted down the seconds.

Night had fallen, the wind howled, and snow sprayed into the cavernous space. Timmy moved to the gondola control station while he explained. “I knew something was wrong when I couldn’t reach anyone at San Michelle.”

“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!

Swiss Alps

T
ONY 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 engines 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.

Swiss Alps

M
OONLIGHT 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.