Chapter 87 - The Flight Through the White Pass
The storm was our ally.
The wind had erased our footprints within minutes of our exit from the drainage pipe, but the heavy iron hatch had left fresh gouges in the frozen crust of the snowpack. That was where the four trackers were heading.
Ethan and I moved like shadows through the whiteout, utilizing the natural depressions of the limestone crags. The trackers had dismounted from their snowmobiles, their rifles held at the low-ready, their heads down against the stinging sleet.
They were professionals, moving in a tight diamond formation, but they were arrogant. They assumed anyone who had survived the cataclysmic collapse of the Bernina vault would be broken, crawling, and unarmed.
They were wrong.
Ethan fired first from behind a shoulder of rock. The suppressed crack of his rifle was swallowed instantly by the roar of the gale. The lead point man dropped instantly into the snow, his weapon discharging harmlessly into the drift.
Before the remaining three could scatter, I stepped from behind the shelter of a frozen pine, aligning the iron sights of my pistol with the chest of the rear guard. Two rapid pulls of the trigger. Double tap. He collapsed without a cry, his blood turning the pure white powder a startling, steaming crimson.
The remaining two mercenaries attempted to wheel toward the snowmobiles, scrambling to unholster high-caliber sidearms, but Ethan was already moving. He closed the distance with terrifying speed, eliminating the third man with a clean, surgical shot through the visor of his snow helmet, while I took the fourth man down as he reached for the radio transceiver on his tactical vest.
Silence reclaimed the pass, save for the howling wind and the idling hum of two intact four-stroke snowmobile engines.
"Check their gear," I ordered, breathing hard, the adrenaline roaring in my ears.
Ethan knelt over the team leader, stripping his tactical vest and pulling a military-grade satellite radio and an encrypted handheld GPS from his inner pocket.
"They have a support transport waiting at the base of the pass," Ethan said, reading the digital coordinates flashing on the rugged screen. "A medical extraction chopper disguised as Swiss Alpine Rescue, ten miles south in the valley."
"They came prepared to fly high-value targets out if the Architect demanded it," I realized, looking back toward the hidden bunker. "We’re taking that chopper."
We didn't waste another second. We dragged the bodies into the deep crevasse where the runoff plunged into the abyss, leaving no trace behind in the blizzard.
Within ten minutes, we had loaded David into the enclosed cargo sled of the largest snowmobile, Leo and Maya tucked securely between us in the cockpit, wrapped in the downed mercenaries’ windproof fleece jackets.
I hit the throttle.
May you like
The snowmobile surged forward, its tracks biting into the frozen crust of the mountain pass. We crested the ridge, descending through the blinding veil of white, leaving the burning tomb of the Bernina bunker behind us, heading straight toward the only path that could carry my family to safety across the Alps.
***
