The Armageddon Protocol

THIRTY-TWO

Baupin was like a pro, and quickly raced after the fleeing man, but Harry was no expert on the slopes and was surprised by the effort required to maintain speed and keep up with the Frenchman.

And that wasn’t his only problem. Seconds into the chase the assassin spun around and raised his hunting rifle into the aim as he continued to race downhill backwards. Firing at his pursuers, Baupin dodged the round with ease, crouching and tipping and flying off to the west for a few seconds. A great arc of snow and shaved ice flew up in an impressive spray behind him as he stood back up and pulled the SIG from his belt to return fire.

His bullet missed, and the assassin fired back, this time aiming at Harry.

The Englishman pushed down on the top ski and felt his weight quickly come off the downhill ski and he turned rapidly to his right. This was called the ‘clutch-accelerator’ technique, because of the similarity it had with changing gears in a manual car, and as the bullet blew past his old trajectory and ripped into the snow, he was more grateful than ever that he’d learned to ski all those years ago.

The assassin spun back around and faced forward again. He shouldered the hunting rifle and crouched down for more speed before turning hard and racing at a sharp angle across the slope to the west. He was leading them into a series of lethal ice gorges connected by narrow ski runs.

With his skis now flat on the surface of the ice, Baupin slid down the slopes a few more yards before pushing the edges of the skis into the ice. He instantly stopped the slide and began to traverse straight across the slope and into the ice-maze in pursuit of the killer.

Harry followed suit as he zoomed down the slope and began to slide into the same steep turn. He made the same turn as Baupin, now less than a hundred yards ahead, and he leaned over and rolled onto the edges of his skis before flattening them out ready for the next turn.

Racing through the maze with towering walls of ice either side of him, the assassin glanced over his shoulder and made a turn into a sharp bend in another attempt to lose the two men on his tail.

Harry leaned to the right and took the same corner at speed, flicking up an arc of shredded snow and ice as his skis carved their way into the face of the glacier. In his chest, his heart pounded, and he felt his mouth go dry as the thrill of the chase overtook him. It had been too long, and now the fear of not being up to it coursed through every vein in his body.

Now he saw why the man at the station had supplied them with carve skis, which were narrower in the middle than the nose and tail. This meant that when the ski turned onto the edge there was a gap between the deck and the slope. As the skier pushed down hard on the center of the ski and closed the gap, the entire ski flexed into a shallow arc and created the carve turn.

Baupin was at home with the carve skis and easily avoided skidding and the resistance this created when trying to turn at speed, but Harry was more than rusty, and his first turn was weak. As he rolled his knees and ankles into the slope the skis turned naturally but didn’t apply enough pressure and he began to skid.

Baupin looked over his shoulder and laughed, and that was all Harry needed to motivate himself and make sure he didn’t screw up the next turn in front of the Frenchman.

Ahead Baupin was racing down the slope once again, and continuing his series of zig-zag turns to avoid the assassins’ bullets. He pulled off another perfect carve turn, cutting into the glacier and sending up a fine spray of shaved ice in an arc behind him.

Not to be outdone, Harry concentrated on the turn, and starting on one set of the skis’ edges, he rolled his skis flat before the other set of edges engaged and before he knew it he had executed a perfect carve turn at high speed, creating the same wild spray of snow and ice flying out behind in his wake.

“He’s extending his lead!” Baupin yelled. He pulled the gun from his belt once again and fired a single shot. It cracked in the air, dry and sharp, but the round missed and ploughed into the ice in the assassin’s wake. “Merde!”

“And it gets worse,” Harry called out over his shoulder. “Look behind us.”

Baupin turned his head and looked back. “What am I looking at?”

Two men were racing across the slope and entering the ice gorges. “Those two guys in black. They don’t look like powder hounds to me.”

Baupin turned his mouth down as he considered the status of the men. “Maybe.”

Ahead, Michel’s killer crouched down as he leaped over a shallow crevasse. “Something tells me they’re with that guy.”

“I think you’re right — they’re armed.”

The first bullet traced past Harry’s head and vanished in the bright, blue sky ahead of them. Harry ducked and weaved, zooming down the glacier, gripping a pole in each hand as he turned hard to the right and carved two neat grooves into the ice. Looking over his shoulder he saw the men were still on their tail, and then they fired again.

Another bullet, this time closer. He felt it blow past his ear and then watched as it smacked into the gorge wall beside him, shattering the blue ice and lodging deep inside it.

He looked ahead at Baupin and tracked his movements, copying what he did exactly. Skiing at over one hundred miles per hour inside a crevasse maze was not something he had any experience of but the Frenchman had told him he’d skied on these mountains since he was a child. Now, Baupin was turning to his right and skiing up along the side of the gorge wall, almost tipping forty-five degrees.

Harry copied the move and a second later he saw a large crevasse in the gorge floor and realized why Baupin had manoeuvred away from it. He copied the move just as a round of bullets drilled into the ice to his left.

Ahead, the fleeing assassin was extending his lead, but Baupin tucked a ski pole under his arm and pulled Perec’s pistol from his belt for the third time. He fired a couple of shots while maintaining his speed and accuracy inside the gorge, but both bullets went low, thudding into the powder behind the killer.

The sound of the shots had alerted the assassin, who now began an elaborate zig-zagging and skiing up the side of the gorge to avoid being shot as he made his way further down the glacier.

Baupin’s only response was cool and measured, tracking the fleeing man’s erratic path in the sights of his weapon while continuing his pursuit of him down the slope. Harry was impressed when the Frenchman fired a third shot and this time brought the man down. The round ploughed into his back and he went down like a lead weight, tumbling over awkwardly in the snow, leaving a trail of scarlet-red blood scraped along the surface of the snow and ice in his wake.

“Great job,” Harry said.

“Let’s get off the glacier,” Baupin called out. “We’re sitting ducks out here.”

They each turned the noses of their skis inwards and pushed into a wide snow plough to take a lethal turn ahead of them, skidding hard to the right and ripping onto another narrow path which wound its way away out of the gorge and down a steep tree-lined slope. Harry’s heart was racing as the trunks of the pines flashed past him on either side. His reactions were fast, but they had to be faster than ever in here or he would end up smashing into a gnarled tree trunk at high speed.

Baupin was still in front, and Harry watched him duck at lighting speed to avoid a thick branch that was blocking their path at head-height. “Down!” he yelled.

Harry had a second to react, and crouched down on his haunches with no time to spare as he raced beneath the branch and shot through the other side. The freezing air burned into his lungs as he stood back up on the skis.

He looked behind him only to see the first man duck down in the same way, and then the other followed suit. They were both through and still on his tail, and by the way they had handled the branch obstructing the path it looked like they had spent considerably longer on the slopes than he had.

“What’s the fastest way down?”

“Follow me…”

Harry watched as Baupin made a sharp right turn and screeched across the ice toward what looked like another massive gorge in the side of the glacier. A moment later he saw something he could hardly believe — they were now racing toward a gaping black hole at the end of the ski run.

“What the hell?”

“A glacier tunnel!” Baupin called back.

They flew into the dark ice-blue void with the hope that their pursuers would give up but they both raced in after them, guns raised.

“Looks like this is our last chance,” Harry said. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“If you can keep up with me, you will find out.”

The young woman tied her hair back and sighed as she loaded the reblochon cheese casserole onto the serving trolley and wheeled it carefully out of the kitchens. Also on board was a bottle of Moët & Chandon Champagne in an ice bucket and two chilled Champagne flutes.

Not to mention a special surprise for the guests in Room 37.

She pushed the trolley into the elevator and after an awkward greeting with an elderly lady who was holding a dyed-pink Bichon Frise in her arms, she hit the button for the third floor and slowly the elevator began its journey upwards.

The bell pinged and she pushed the trolley out into the corridor. She didn’t have to look which way to go — she knew exactly where her destination was, and exactly what to do when she got there. She had done this more times than she cared to remember.

At least it was quiet, she considered. It was so much more stressful when there were people hanging around and blundering in and out of their rooms, dropping their keys and losing their way to the elevators.

She tapped on the door and waited for a reply.

“But we never ordered any of this,” the man said. His French was good, but he spoke with a Swiss-German accent. A few moments after his protests, a stunningly beautiful woman walked into view, casually holding a miniature bottle of gin in her hand. She had dark brown hair and she spoke with an American accent. She said, “What the hell’s going on, Nikky?”

“Apparently one of us ordered this cheese casserole.”

“Well, don’t look at me, Kiki,” she said. “If I ate that I’d put on about two hundred pounds.”

“Perhaps I made a mistake,” the young woman said. “Perhaps you ordered this instead?” As she spoke, she whipped out a matte black automatic pistol and aimed it in the center of the Swiss man’s face. “Hands up.”

“Holy Crap,” Zoey said.