White Fire

64

Half a mile away, on the lower, eastern slope of the cirque, a metal door opened at the entrance to a mine tunnel. Moments later a figure came staggering out, dragging one leg, leaning on a stick and coughing violently. The figure paused in the mine opening, swayed, leaned against a bracing timber, then doubled over with another coughing fit. Slowly, the figure slid down, unable to support itself, and ended up in the snow, propped against the vertical timber.

It was her. Just as he’d expected. He knew she had to come out sometime — and what a perfect target she made. She wasn’t going anywhere, and he had all the time in the world to set up his shot.

The sniper, crouched in the doorway of an old mining shack, unshouldered his Winchester 94, worked the lever to insert a round into the chamber, then braced the weapon against his shoulder, sighting through the scope. While it was dark, there was still just enough ambient light in the sky to place the crosshairs on her dark, slumped form. The girl looked like she was in pretty bad shape already: hair singed, face and clothes black with smoke. He believed at least one of his earlier shots had hit home. As he’d pursued her through the tunnels, he had seen copious drops of blood. He wasn’t sure where she’d been hit, but a .30–30 expanding round was no joke, wherever it connected.

The sniper did not understand why she was up here, why the snowcat had raced by on its way up the mountain, or why the pump building had burned. He didn’t need to know. Whatever crazy shit she was involved in was none of his business. Montebello had given him an assignment and paid him well to do it — extremely well, in fact. His instructions had been simple: scare the girl named Corrie Swanson out of town. If she didn’t leave, kill her. The architect hadn’t told him anything more, and he didn’t want to know anything more.

The shot through the car window hadn’t done it. Decapitating the mutt hadn’t done it — although he recalled the scene with a certain fondness. He was proud of the tableau he’d arranged, the note in the dead dog’s mouth — and he was disappointed and surprised it hadn’t scared her off. She had proven to be one feisty bitch. But she didn’t look so feisty now, slumped against the timber, half dead.

The moment had come. He’d been following her almost continuously now for thirty-six hours, waiting for an opportunity. As an expert hunter, he knew the value of patience. He had not had a good shot either in town or at the hotel. But when she had gone to The Heights, stolen a snowmobile, and taken it up the mountain on whatever insane errand she was on, the opportunity was placed in his hands, like a gift. He had borrowed another snowmobile and followed her. True, she had proven unusually resourceful — that business with the rattlesnakes back in the tunnel had seriously put him out. But he had found another way out of the mine and — when he discovered her snowmobile was still there — decided to stick around: He positioned himself a little way down the mountain, in the darkness of a mining shack, a blind that commanded an excellent view of most of the old adits and tunnel entrances up on the cirque. If she was still inside the mountain, he’d reasoned, she would eventually come out one of those. Or, perhaps, from the Christmas Mine, where she’d left her snowmobile. In any case, she’d have to pass by him on the way down.

And now, here she was. And in a good location, away from the activity around and above, where the pump building had burned and where the snowcat was parked. Someone had fired shots, which, it seemed, had in turn triggered an avalanche. From his hiding place, through the magnification of the scope, he watched the frantic digging and the discovery of the body. Something crazy-big was going down — drugs, he figured. But it had nothing to do with him, and the sooner he killed the target and got his ass out of there, the better.

Easing out his breath, finger on the trigger, he aimed at the slumped girl. The crosshairs steadied, his finger tightened. Finally, the time had come. He’d take her out, climb on his snowmobile parked behind the shack, and go collect his pay. One shot, one kill…

Suddenly the rifle was knocked brutally from behind, and it went off, discharging the round into the snow.

“What the—?” The sniper grasped the rifle, tried to rise, and as he did so felt something cold and hard pressed against his temple. The muzzle of a pistol.

“So much as blink, motherfucker, and I’ll make a snow angel with your brains.”

A woman’s voice — full of authority and seriousness.

A hand reached out, seized his rifle by the barrel. “Let go.”

He let go the rifle and she flung it out into the deep snow.

“All your other weapons — toss them into the snow. Now.”

He hesitated. He still had a handgun and knife, and if he forced her to search him there might be an opportunity…

The blow against the side of his head was so hard it knocked him to the ground. He lay dazed on the wooden floor for a moment, wondering why the heck he was lying here and who this woman was standing over him. Then it all started to come back as she bent over him, searched him roughly, removed the knife and pistol, and threw them far out into the snow as well.

“Who…who the fuck are you?” he asked.

The answer came with another stunning blow to his face from the butt of her gun, leaving the inside of his lips torn and bloody and his mouth full of broken fragments of teeth.

“My name,” she said crisply, “is Captain Stacy Bowdree, USAF, and I am the very worst thing that’s happened to you in your entire shitty life.”