“Fucking thing’s flooded,” he grunted to himself. He opened the throttle wide and tugged again. This time, the motor stuttered, died, picked up again, stuttered twice, then suddenly roared as the excess fuel burnt off and a new rush of power went through to the combustion chamber. A haze of two-stroke exhaust stained the air behind them. Among the aspens like this, there was virtually no breeze and the smoke seemed to hang over them like a pall, gradually moving in one undissipated mass down the mountain.
He clunked into drive and gunned the engine, tail-sliding the snowmobile around the bend that he’d just missed, using the power to let the tail arc like a pendulum through the turn, then meeting it and countering the slide with opposite steering and another burst of power.
Unprepared for the violent maneuver, Abby lost her grip on the grab handle this time. She was restrained only by the handcuff clipped to the handle and she felt the chrome steel bite painfully into the soft skin of her wrist. She hung there for a few seconds, then gradually regained her grip. Blood ran briefly on her wrist, then froze in the cold air.
As before, Mikkelitz continued to ignore her.
She could sense the general direction he was taking now and realized that he must be heading for the top of Storm Peak. She wondered vaguely what was there that was so important to him. There was nothing there but the weather station building by the boundary to the ski area—a single-story timber building that was, for the most part, unoccupied, and was used for storing weather study equipment.
Then she remembered what he’d said earlier. He had a few things to collect up on the mountain, he’d said. There was nowhere else that he might have left things. They must be heading to the weather station.
The question was, what had he stored there. And why?
And what did he mean to do with her once they got there?
She tried not to think about that. She tried to think about Jesse again. She wished to God that Jesse knew what was happening, then realized dully that there was no possible way he could.
SIXTY-TWO
There was more traffic on Lincoln than Jesse would have expected midweek. He glanced down at the panel beneath the headlight binnacle and saw a toggle switch labeled “lights and siren.” He flipped it up and the siren cut in instantly, a high-pitched whoop whoop whoop that cleared the road in front of him like magic. The sidelights on the Harley flashed on and off at the same time, leaving other drivers in no doubt as to where the urgent sound was coming from.
He grunted in satisfaction as the cars before him peeled off to one side, leaving the center of the road free. He dragged the throttle open and the deep grunt of the Harley rose in pitch a little. The big bike surged forward and he slitted his eyes against the freezing wind, wishing he’d taken the time to put on sunglasses or goggles.
The speedometer hit seventy and he kept it pegged there as he pounded up the hill to the ski area. Coming closer, the road narrowed and curved and there was more traffic and pedestrians. He kept the siren whooping, but had to slow down considerably over the next few hundred yards.
In the parking lot, he flipped the toggle switch down again and killed the siren. He braked to almost walking pace, steered to the edge of the parking lot and gunned the Harley slightly to take it onto the walkway. The front suspension telescoped slightly and he stood in the saddle as he rode up the step.
The small number of skiers heading for the ticket office parted before him and he rode the big bike all the way up to the ski patrol office. He hit the kill button and the throbbing of the engine ceased mid-beat. Then, remembering his thoughts about vehicle security, he took the keys from the ignition and ran into the ski patrol office.
Bud Alton, the duty controller, looked up in surprise as the tall deputy came running in. He grinned as he recognized him.
“Hey, Jess, how’s it going, man?” he began.
Jesse cut him short with a raised hand.
“Bud, is the patrol Ski-Doo still up at Thunderhead?”
The patroller nodded, mildly surprised that Jesse would even ask. There was always a patrol Ski-Doo at Thunderhead.
“Sure is, Jess. We haven’t changed things any since you left,” he replied. Jesse shook his head impatiently.
“I mean, is it there now?” he demanded. “I need it right away. Have any of the boys taken it on patrol or is it available?” Alton pursed his lips a little at the abrupt tone in Jesse’s voice, and the note of demand.
“Well, wouldn’t know for sure, Jess,” he said coolly. “I guess I’d have to check.”
He reached for the phone on his desk, stopped as Jesse said, “Do it.”
“Now look here, Jess,” Alton began angrily. “There’s no—”
“Goddamn it, Bud! This is urgent! Now, for Christ’s sake, pick up that phone and find the hell out!”
Finally it occurred to the patrol commander that Jesse was here in his official capacity. He stopped arguing, picked up the phone and hit the nine button. He heard the ringing tone sound twice at the other end before a female voice answered.
“Ski patrol, Thunderhead Station.”
“Noelle,” he said, recognizing the voice. “Is anyone out on the Ski-Doo at the moment?”
“Hell no, Bud,” came the answer. “We’re all in the patrol room at the moment. It’s cold out there, you know?” she answered cheerfully. Alton thought sourly that she could afford to be cheerful. She didn’t have an angry deputy breathing down her neck. He looked up at Jesse, covered the mouthpiece with his hand.
“Ski-Doo’s there all right, Jesse,” he said.
“Good,” the deputy told him. “Tell them to keep it there. I need it right away. In fact, tell them to get it warmed up and ready for me.” He started toward the door leading to the gondola building as Alton passed on his instructions to the Thunderhead Station. Then he stopped, halfway out the door.
“Bud,” he asked, “there been reports of any unusual activity on the mountain today?”
The commander frowned at that. “Exactly what do you mean, Jess?” he asked. Jesse made an impatient gesture. He didn’t really know what he meant. He was just asking on the off-chance.
“I don’t know … anything … a man and a woman fighting … anyone causing trouble. Anything at all,” he concluded. Bud Alton scratched his chin thoughtfully. Jesse had really made him pissed, barging in here and throwing his weight around. Now he realized that something was afoot and his curiosity was piqued.
“Can’t say I can think of anything. Other than the guy hoorahing on the snowmobile,” he added. Jesse took a pace back into the room.
“Snowmobile? What happened?” he asked.
Alton shrugged. “Weren’t nothing much. Some guy—and a girl as well, as I remember—cut across a few skiers coming down Heavenly Daze. Nearly rode one guy into the trees. They complained at the bottom but there wasn’t much we could do about it.”
It wasn’t much to go on. But it could be them. “When did it happen?” he asked. Alton cocked his head to one side.
“Couldn’t be more than ten minutes ago. The guy only just reported it at the ticket office.”
“Thanks,” Jesse said. He was about to leave again when he noticed a pair of 7x30 binoculars on the file cabinet. He grabbed them.
“I’ll leave these at the top for you,” he told Alton, then just remembered to add, “Thanks,” before the door closed behind him.
“Jesse?” Alton had begun, “What’s going on?” But the door had already slammed shut behind the rapidly moving deputy. The commander threw his hands up in an exaggerated shrug.
“Well, it’s been my pleasure, Deputy Parker,” he said, his voice thick with sarcasm. The pity of it was, he thought, Jesse wasn’t there to hear it.
Jesse half ran to the gondola loading station. There were maybe fifty people lined up there, shuffling forward in a controlled line, loading in groups of eight. He vaulted the steel fence and pushed his way to the front. One of the lift attendants saw him and started forward. A few of the s
kiers muttered angrily.
He grabbed the deputy’s star out of his shirt pocket and held it up for the attendants to see.
“Sheriff’s office,” he called, his voice echoing in the big concrete and steel-lined room. “Official business. Let me through here, please.”
There was a cabin moving up to the load point, and a group of eight waiting to board. Jesse, still holding up the star like a talisman, shoved past them and dived into the empty car.
“Sorry folks,” he called, “take the next car please.”
He could see their angry faces receding as the car slid smoothly away, then gathered speed as it came off the detached cable and onto the high-speed section. The mountain slid by below him. He brought the 7x30s up to his eyes, fiddled with the focus for a few seconds to adjust them, then began sweeping the mountain below him.
They’d been traveling across Heavenly Daze, Alton had said.
Ten minutes ago. They could be anywhere on the mountain by now.
The comm unit in his jacket pocket gave an urgent buzz. He grabbed it out, thumbed the speak button.
“This is Jesse,” he said.
“Jess, this is Lee.” Her voice was thin and metallic through the tiny speaker. “One of Felix’s men just found the taxi. It was up on Ski Trail Lane, in one of the condos. Side door was open and the keys were still in it.”
He heard the carrier wave as she released her talk button to let him speak.
“I copy that, Lee, thanks,” he replied.
“Jess … one other thing …” Even with the lack of definition in the tiny two-inch speaker, he could hear the hesitation in her voice. Then she continued in a rush, “Abby’s suitcase, Jess. It was on the roof rack.”
He took a deep breath. Then spoke again. One word only.
“Copy.”
“And it may mean nothing, but there were tracks of a snowmobile heading up toward the mountain.”
Involuntarily, he glanced to his right, in the direction of Ski Trail Lane. A snowmobile coming from that quarter would end up crossing the lower reaches of Heavenly Daze.
“Sounds like them, Lee,” he said, working to keep his voice even.
There was a long pause. No sound but the faint hiss of the carrier wave. Then, finally, “Stay in touch, Jess.”
“You know it,” he said, and shoved the comm unit back into his jacket.
He trained the glasses out to the left now. Murphy was obviously heading up and across the mountain. To where? And for what? He swept the narrow viewing field of the binoculars across the mountain. But there were just too many trees, too many dips, too many hills and gullies. They could be anywhere on the mountain and the chances of him seeing them were lower than zero.
And then, miraculously, he did see them.
Just for a second. Far out to the left, almost at the top of the first section of the mountain, a snowmobile flashed into view in a gap between the trees. It was the movement that drew his eyes and he swept the glasses up instantly, trapping the little vehicle in the magnified view. And for less than a second, he saw the unmistakable flash of Abby’s blond hair. Then the snowmobile was gone from sight again and he pounded his fist against the side of the cabin in a fever of impatience.
“Come on, for Christ’s sake,” he muttered, willing the gondola to move faster. Suddenly, it seemed to be barely crawling. He frowned to himself. He would have thought they’d be farther up the mountain by now—if that’s where they were heading. Unless something had delayed them.
He shrugged, guessing that he might never know. But at least now he had an idea of their general direction. And the speed of the gondola, plus the fact that it traveled in a straight line, whereas a snowmobile heading uphill would have to zigzag along the access trails, would just about bring him level with them by the time he disembarked. The gondola clattered over the last pylon before the top station, then the cabin was swinging smoothly into the unloading bay, rocking and swaying when it came off the drive cable and slowed.
The doors were only half-open when he forced his way through and hit the concrete, running. He heard someone shout at him, presumably one of the lift attendants, and a hand went to clutch at his shoulder. He brushed it away and shouted back something unintelligible. The words “urgent” and “sheriff’s office” were in there somewhere and they seemed to do the trick.
Then he was out in the cold air and running for the patrol hut.
SIXTY-THREE
Lee paced restlessly. Her office wasn’t very big, so she didn’t have far to go. Just four paces up and four paces back, but she did it anyway. Felix Obermeyer sprawled in the swivel chair behind her desk, watching her with idle curiosity. Felix thought of himself as a patient man. Unexcitable and clear thinking.
Others, more accurately, regarded him as dull and lacking in imagination.
Lee was consumed with uncertainty. The taxi had been found some fifteen minutes ago and she’d passed the message on to Jesse as soon as she’d heard it. It looked as if he’d been right in his guess that Mikkelitz would head for the mountain.
Then again, he could have gone in any direction after ditching the taxi. Maybe he was second-guessing them-leaving the Dodge van where it could be easily found. Where it would seem to point toward the mountain. Maybe he’d had another car stashed in the condo garage and even now was on US 97, heading for Denver and laughing fit to bust.
Her instincts were screaming at her to get up to the mountain with Jesse. But instinct wasn’t enough. She knew she had to wait here, where she could monitor reports from the State Police, the Highway Patrol and Felix’s men, spread out in almost a dozen different directions and locations.
If Jesse was right and he caught up with Mikkelitz, he’d let her know and she could break speed records getting up there.
The thought had barely crossed her mind when she had an idea. She cursed herself for not having thought of it sooner. She stopped pacing, reached across the desk and grabbed the phone. She jammed her finger on the zero button and waited while Denise answered from the switchboard.
“Yes, Sheriff?”
“Denise. Get hold of Ray Newton, out at Hayden, will you?”
Denise hesitated. The name wasn’t familiar to her.
“Who’s that again, Sheriff?” she asked uncertainly.
“Ray Newton. He runs a helicopter charter service.” She thought briefly, trying to remember the company name. Then it came to her. “Snowshoe Charter,” she told the switch girl, visualizing the Bell Jet Ranger with the stylized snowshoe rabbit on the fairing just under the engine. “Look it up,” she added unnecessarily. She hung up before Denise could reply.
Felix was looking at her inquiringly.
“I’ll get Ray to bring his Jet Ranger down here. Then if anything breaks, we can cover it in a hurry,” she told him.
He nodded, acknowledging the value of the idea. “Good thinking,” he said.
“Yeah. Should have done it sooner,” she replied. She wasn’t pleased with the way she’d handled things this morning. But at least now she felt better to be actually doing something.
The phone shrilled and she grabbed it. It was Ray.
“Good day to you, Sheriff. What can I do you for?”
She skipped the pleasantries and came straight to the point. “Ray, I want you to get that Jet Ranger of yours fired up and bring it down here to town. Put her down on the sports field, the other side of the river, all right?”
“My chopper, Sheriff?” he said, a little slow on the uptake.
“Yes, damn it,” Lee answered a little more crisply than he might have deserved. “We’ve got a major manhunt going on down here and we’re going to need you and your chopper.”
“Well … I’ve got a charter in an hour’s time—” the pilot began.
“Cancel it,” she ordered. “I need you on standby right here.”
“In the town itself, Sheriff?” he queried and she sighed with exasperation.
“Yes, Ray. In the town. Not much use to me ha
ving you on standby out there, is it? Not if I need you here in a hurry.”
“Yeah, well I understand that, Sheriff. But you know, town ordinances say I can’t land my chopper in the town limits. Remember, we had those complaints about noise pollution two, three years back?”
“Ray, listen to me,” Lee said quietly. “Fuck the town ordinances and fuck the noise pollution. And fuck you if I don’t see that goddamn chopper on the sports field in the next ten minutes.”
There was a moment’s silence on the other end of the phone. Before the pilot could speak, Lee added, “I’m warning you, Ray. Get that chopper down here or I’ll arrest you as an accessory to murder. And Ray,” she said, “you know I’ll do it.”
“Well, okay, Sheriff, but you’d better square this with the mayor and the town council,” he said in an aggrieved tone.
“I’ll take care of them, Ray,” she promised. “You just get that chopper down here fast.”
“Well, all right. Long as you say it’s important, I guess I’m on my way.”
“Good, Ray. You just set her down there and stay right by her. Keep the engine running or whatever you do with those things. If I need you, I’m going to need you in a hurry.”
“Okay, Sheriff.”
She sensed he was going to say something more but she’d finished with the conversation. She set the phone back in the cradle and met Felix’s gaze. The town police chief was looking a little amused.
“That Ray, it’s as well he can fly one of those whirlybirds, ’cause he ain’t too quick on the uptake at much else, is he?” he said.
Lee shook her head in mock weariness and rolled her eyes. “Jesus,” she said. “Noise pollution?”
“Getting harder to be a cop every day, Lee,” Felix told her sympathetically.
Jesse raced the Yamaha diagonally up the ski trail, sliding and bouncing as he headed for an access trail halfway up. The ski patrol vehicle handled the slope easily. It was a three-seater, built to take a driver and two pillions, and with an engine sized up accordingly. With just one person on board, it had more than enough power to head up the slopes. He figured that with Mikkelitz and Abby riding two-up on the other snowmobile, he’d make faster time up the hill-and he could take a more direct route to the top.