02 Avalanche Pass (33 page)

Briefly, Benjamin wondered what he would do if he were in Gorton’s position. It was all very well for him to be critical of the president for his unwillingness to act or take tough decisions. But could he, Linus Benjamin, take the decision to order an armed assault in
a case like this? Uncomfortably, he realized he didn’t know. He thought maybe. But maybe wasn’t definitely.

“Mr. President,” Tildeman spoke again, “at least there’s the matter of the leader—this Kavel guy. Our people are confident that from the description and the behavior patterns, it really is him.”

The president met his gaze for a second, then gave a short bark of laughter. “The description, Mr. Director? The description, as I read it, is mainly a lack of description: average height, average build, average hair color, average features. The only positive feature is that he has blue eyes. For Christ’s sake, how many average looking people are there in this world who have blue eyes?”

He dropped into the replica of the JFK rocker that his predecessor had installed in the room. Even his furniture was inherited, he thought bitterly. He rubbed both hands over his face and realized, with a horrible flash of self-honesty, that this job, the requirements of this job, were beyond him. He had hit his peak as vice president, the appointment being a just reward for long, faithful but uninspired service to the party and the congress. He could not make a decision like this. He could not risk the lives of the hostages on such a web of circumstantial, coincidental evidence. He thought back to the courtroom days again and realized that if he were trying a capital case with the death penalty involved on circumstantial evidence like this, he wouldn’t give himself one chance in four of getting a jury to convict. And in this case, he was looking at fifty capital cases and fifty death penalties if he got it wrong.

As that realization hit him, he felt a certain relief. At least now he could come to a decision. He looked up at the circle of advisers.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I cannot give the order to attack.”

He was surprised to sense a certain empathy in most of the reactions around the room, even more surprised when Haddenrich spoke.

“Mr. President, for what it’s worth, I don’t believe any of us here would do any differently. If we get this wrong, we’ll have fifty dead bodies buried under a mountain.”

“We’ve already got that,” General Barrett reminded her and she turned to him with a flash of anger in her eyes.

“Then we’d better be damned sure of ourselves before we let it
happen again,” she snapped. It was Benjamin who held up a hand to stop them before the exchange went any further.

“Okay, people. The important thing is we know what we’re not going to do. Where do we go from here?”

At least now, he thought, they could get on with planning an alternative strategy, based on the kidnappers’ demands for the ransom and their escape aircraft. He turned to the president again.

“We’ve currently found three agents who are checked out in the Dash 8. We have another three who are pilots, undergoing familiarization on the type now. We figure that each of the planes can have an agent on board as copilot and our technicians are working on installing homing units on the five Dash 8s.”

“I thought they said they’d sweep the planes electronically?” Pohlsen put in. It was unusual for him to contribute to these meetings.

“They can only detect an active homing device,” Benjamin pointed out. “And we doubt they’ll continue sweeping once they’re in the air. This way, our guys on board can activate the homers when they think it’s safe to do so.”

“When they know it’s safe to do so,” the president corrected him, and he nodded in acquiescence.

The president looked around the faces once more; he read the message in their eyes. The best they could do wasn’t a hell of a lot. And they all knew it.

T
he snowstorm that hit Snow Eagles Resort had been short but less intense for its lack of duration. It had also been almost totally local—five miles down the canyon where the road was blocked, the weather was clear.

Jesse was in Tina’s room when the first wall of white swept in, blotting out the terminal buildings at the foot of the high-speed quad chair. As the snow and pellets of ice spattered against the window, he realized that this was an opportunity to make contact with Colby once more. Hurriedly, he left the room and made his way down the service stairs to the ski room, grabbing his skis, gloves and poles from the rack and heading out the rear entrance of the hotel.

He was vaguely surprised that Kormann and his men had done nothing to secure this exit so far. Then he realized that, as far as they were concerned, everyone who had been in the hotel when they arrived was already accounted for.

The white curtain was still driving across the open space when he exited the hotel and clamped his feet into the bindings on his skis. As before, he had the makeshift white poncho draped over his shoulders and, had there been anyone watching him as he skied away from the shelter of the building, they would have lost sight of him before he’d gone five yards.

This time, he skied straight into the chairlift entrance and out between two chairs. There was barely a pause before he was on his way up the mountain again. He sat upright in the chair, ready to
roll sideways in case the short storm cleared. It didn’t happen till he was well and truly away from the hotel and out of sight. The wind gradually eased and with it, the snow. He brushed off the thick coating of dry powder that had collected on him and rode the last quarter of the chairlift in a milky, weak sunshine. As the chair took him behind the ridge line, the remaining wind died away to nothing.

He wasn’t totally sure why he had suddenly decided to make his way to the top of the mountain again. Maybe it was simply to make contact with someone else on the outside—another human being. The tension of being alone among enemies was beginning to tell on him. He guessed that maybe those agents who were dropped behind enemy lines during World War II felt much the same way.

There was a practical side to his actions as well. If anything was going to happen on Friday, this might well be the last chance he would have to speak to Colby. The necessity of moving to the lift terminal during the hours of darkness, and the uncertainty of his ability to make contact with Tina, made the whole business incredibly ponderous and time-consuming. This way, he could speak to Colby today, and if there were any messages to pass on to Tina, he might even make contact later this evening. Or, at worst, when she came to the kitchen to prepare breakfast the following day. Anything that sped up the process would be a benefit.

On the other hand, if Colby had nothing new to tell him or ask him, then there was no harm done. He wasn’t exactly loaded down with things to do. As an experienced cop, he was used to the enforced boredom of stakeouts. A large amount of a working cop’s time was spent sitting and waiting. But never before had he done so in such potentially dangerous surroundings and as a result, he found himself wanting to speak to Colby—to hear a voice from a more normal and a safer world.

On the flat at the top of the mountain, the wind had built up again and he moved into the shelter of the lift building as he took the cell phone from his jacket’s inner pocket. Once again, he went straight through to Colby’s phone without delay. It was reassuring
to hear Dent’s deep voice and picture the heavyset, capable man at the other end of the connection. Maybe, Jesse thought, he was getting a little stir-crazy.

After the first few words of greeting, however, the reassurance ebbed away as the FBI agent detailed Truscott Emery’s theory.

“Jesus,” said Jesse softly when the other man had finished. “Do you believe this?”

There was a long pause and Jesse could sense the uncertainty at the other end. Finally, Dent replied: “I think it could be on the money. I’ve felt right from the start that there was some hidden agenda here. But you’ve seen the situation up there firsthand. How do you read it?”

Now it was Jesse’s turn to hesitate. He had to admit that the professor’s theory sounded logical. It sounded possible. Hell, when you got right down to it, it was more than either of those. It was the most likely reason behind the entire operation. These men were not fanatics. They had proven themselves to be cold-blooded and disciplined.

But, like Dent Colby, Linus Benjamin and the president himself, Jesse balked at the jump between probability and fact. The penalties for guessing wrong were too huge, too unconscionable.

“I just don’t know, Colby,” he replied. “It seems to match all the facts up here, particularly if this Kormann guy is who you say he is. But if we’re wrong…”

He let the sentence hang. Colby picked it up. His voice was heavy with a sense of defeat. “If we’re wrong, they could bring the mountain down on those fifty hostages.”

“And if this professor guy is right, he’s going to do that anyway, come Friday night.” Jesse put in. Again there was silence on the line and he knew Dent Colby had already considered that possibility, over and over again.

“So, whose call is it?” Jesse asked. “Do you make the decision, Dent?”

“It’s already out of my hands,” Colby told him. “It’s gone all the way to the top and the president has refused to authorize an assault.
The thinking is we should go along with the ransom arrangements and hope for the best.”

“He’s probably right,” Jesse said thoughtfully. He could sense Colby shaking his head in frustration as he replied.

“Probably. It’s the safest way to go, that’s for sure. But Jesus, if he’s wrong…”

There was the muffled sound of another voice in the background. Jesse recognized it as the Harvard professor. He’d been listening in to the conversation.

“Just a moment, Jesse…” Colby said to the phone.

He obviously covered the receiver then, as he spoke to the other man. Then, after perhaps a minute, he resumed the conversation.

“Jess?”

“I hear you.”

“Emery has a thought here. If this guy Kavel, or Kormann or whatever you want to call him, is planning to blow the mountain Friday night, he’s going to have to do it from up where you are now. He can hardly bring an avalanche down on himself, right?”

“Right,” Jesse said thoughtfully, wondering where this was going.

“Plus we’re assuming he’s got a chopper coming in over the back country to pick him up, and the cable car station is the most logical place for a landing site.”

Jesse looked around the surrounding peaks. There were other cleared areas, but he had to admit that the cable car top station was the spot he’d pick if he wanted a chopper to get in and out in a hurry.

“So far, I’m with you,” he said.

“Okay. So here’s the thing. How long does that cable car take to reach the summit? I’m figuring maybe ten minutes?”

“At least that,” Jesse agreed.

“Okay. Let’s assume we’re here on standby on Friday, ready to go, locked and loaded in the choppers, with the engines running. We can be in there in five minutes, catch Kormann on the way up. We figure any avalanche is going to take down the cable car pylons, so Kormann will have to wait till he’s out of the car before he blows the mountain.”

“He can still be up here and bringing it down while you’re trying to secure the hotel, Dent. It’s too tight,” Jesse protested.

“Maybe. But Maloney has two choppers here for flak suppression: Apaches armed with Maverick missiles. We send one of them in the lead to take out the cable car with Kormann in it. He’ll never know what hit him.”

Jesse thought it over for a few seconds. It might work. But it was going to leave the hotel assault exposed to the defensive fire from the roof. By diverting one of the Apaches to the cable car, Dent was halving his chances of taking out the triple-A crews. When he said as much, Dent’s reply was matter of fact.

“Chance we’ll have to take,” he said grimly. And Jesse knew he meant “we.” Dent Colby would be in the first chopper to touch down on the hotel roof, he knew.

“What we need from you is two things, Jesse,” Dent continued. “We need some kind of signal if it looks like Kormann is making his move. We’ve got a camera trained on the hotel. Is there any way you could signal us? A flare, maybe? Anything?”

Jesse thought. There must be flares somewhere in the resort. Maybe Tina would know where he might find them. Then he’d have to get to a vantage point to… he stopped, as realization hit him.

“No need, Dent. If the balloon goes up, I can phone from the hotel. The switch is automatic, so I can dial out from any of the rooms. By then it won’t matter if they realize I’m here.”

“Okay. That’s good. Now the other thing is Kormann’s men. They won’t know he’s pulling out on them and if we hit the hotel, their first action is going to be to try to secure the hostages. If they can do that, we’re checkmated. Is there anyway you and this Bowden girl can hold them off till the cavalry gets there?”

“I think she’s got something like that in mind,” Jesse told him. “She figures there’s a way of blocking the doors to the gym for a short time. How long are you going to need?”

“Half an hour, tops,” Colby told him. Jesse took a deep breath before he committed himself. He could be making the biggest mistake of his life, he thought.

“Okay. We’ll figure a way. Oddly enough, you know,” he added, “this guy Pell you’re talking about is one of the people she’s got helping her.”

“I guess that’s only fitting,” Colby said with grim humor. “If he’d been more careful where he dropped his bombs, we wouldn’t be in this damn fix.”

“Let’s just hope we’re wrong about this,” Jesse said. “Let’s hope Friday comes and goes and I don’t have any reason to call you.”

“I’ll keep hoping, Jesse,” Dent told him. “But I’ll have those choppers running and ready to go, just the same.”

“I’ll try to get back to you before then,” Jesse told him. “See if Tina has any hint that something might be about to go down. In the meantime, I’ll warn her she’d better start getting organized. Time I wasn’t here, I guess,” he added, glancing at the rapidly lowering sun. The chairs wouldn’t be running much longer and if he missed the last one he’d have an uncomfortable ski down in the half light.