The Lions Of Lucerne

5

Miner gave rapid orders to Anton Schebel when he arrived with the toboggan. “Crack the blanket and help me lean him forward to get this sweater the rest of the way off.”

Schebel did as he was told. In quick succession, he pounded the pockets of hot packs lining the toboggan’s body bag with the butt of his semiautomatic. Before he had finished with the hot packs, Dryer rejoined Miner and was taking over.

“Useff?” inquired Miner as they removed the president’s sweater, careful not disturb the IV.

“He left early. Cocktails with Allah. Everything is on schedule,” said Dryer as they worked the president’s turtleneck off.

“Good. Get the bag over here and lay it next to him.”

Dryer laid the body bag out lengthwise next to the president.

“Everything else off now. Pants, socks, boots, ring, watch, even the underwear.” Miner wasn’t leaving anything to chance. He knew the president wore at least one homing device and that it was cleverly hidden. The fact that he might be surgically implanted with another one was unlikely, but Miner had brought the special body bag along just in case. If the president was surgically implanted with any additional homing devices, the signal would never breach Miner’s clever Kevlar-like design. The bag had been constructed so that as they zipped it shut, the IV could be hung on a special rail at the rear of the toboggan and the tube would still be feeding through the bag into the president’s arm.

Dryer and Schebel placed him in the warmed bag and loaded him into the toboggan. With the lining of hot pockets, at least he wouldn’t freeze. Miner’s plan certainly didn’t entail dressing the president in new clothes. At least not yet.

When the bag was belted to the toboggan, Miner spoke into his lip mike. “Two minutes.”

Gerhard Miner, Klaus Dryer, Anton Schebel, and the other team members clicked into their hybrid cross-country, downhill telemark skis. The incredibly strong men quickly began powering their precious cargo into the trees.

“Ninety seconds.”

Dryer led the way, wearing special night-vision-style goggles. Eight days before, he had marked some of these same trees with a special paint that upon contact with air, oxidized and became invisible to the human eye. The goggles now allowed Dryer to pick up the paint’s unique chemical signature and follow the escape route he had marked through the maze of trees.

Finally, the flat ground grew steeper and they picked up more speed. Klaus knew they would be out of the woods in only a few more seconds.

Miner had taught his men that the plan depended on absolutely perfect timing. If the toboggan flipped over, or one of them stumbled, all would be lost. There was no margin for error.

“Thirty seconds.”

The team, now out of the trees, rapidly cut a diagonal path across the dangerously steep mountain face.

Gravity and the toboggan’s smooth round bottom began causing it to slide downhill, instead of across the face. Schebel, an experienced sled-dog driver, put his weight on the up-mountain side of the toboggan to help it stay on course.

Snow and ice screamed from the back of the rig as it dug into the mountain and fought against the unnatural course it was being forced to take. If Schebel lost it now, both he and the president would be hurled into the valley.

The toboggan continued to edge out of Schebel’s control. He leaned harder into the yoke and tried to right the toboggan’s course. He cursed Dryer for not computing the grade of the mountain better and Miner for not outfitting the toboggan with a sharp set of runners like a bobsled.

Schebel was the biggest and strongest of the group, and that’s why he had been chosen to pull the toboggan. It looked as if he wasn’t strong enough, though. Everything they had trained for and risked was going to be lost.

Schebel tried again to put all of his weight on his uphill ski. The result was disastrous. The toboggan careened wildly out of control so that it faced straight down the mountain. It began to pull Schebel backward. He cursed again, sure he was going to be killed. Schebel and the president slid rapidly down the mountain instead of across it.

In a last-ditch attempt to get control of the sled, Schebel threw all of his considerable bulk onto his opposite ski. For what felt like an eternity, nothing happened. The toboggan pitched hard, as if it was going to flip over and carry Schebel with it. Then, a miracle occurred.

As the toboggan was close to capsizing, its upper seam caught in the frozen snow and acted like the edge of a ski, putting it and Schebel back on course. He was downhill from the rest of the team, but he saw Dryer change direction and make his way down toward an outcropping of rock. As long as the toboggan cooperated and stayed on this new course, Schebel would be okay.

While Miner resumed the final seconds of his countdown, Dryer saw two enormous boulders looming in front of them. The boulders, which looked impassable from this distance, marked the head of a small, incredibly steep and dangerous chute.

Compared to this one, Death Chute was child’s play, but for six of the world’s top mercenaries who had spent their entire lives challenging the world’s most unforgiving mountains, it would not pose a problem.

When Dryer was within meters of the small passageway, Miner reached for something strapped to his chest. It was a small black transmitter with a strip of red electrical tape wrapped around its rubber antenna. When Miner had a hold of it, he depressed its only button.

A sound like the crack of a rifle, followed by the roar of a thunderhead, reverberated from far above them as they began their arduous descent.