‘Good. I’ll be right back.’ Chase stood, looking for any sign of his fiancee.
He stumbled round the wreck, eyes hunting desperately for anything that wasn’t white or brown or green. ‘Nina!’ He turned, and kept turning, the mountainous landscape around him becoming a blur—
Not blood, but the subtler shade of her hair poking above a snowdrift a few yards away.
He ran to it, snow crumping under his feet. Nina was sprawled on the cold ground, thrown out of the SUV as it flipped over. She lay face down, not moving.
Chase reached her and dropped to his knees, feeling for signs of life - or death. It was impossible to pick out a heartbeat through her thick jacket, and he couldn’t even tell if she was breathing. His hands moved to her neck, brushing her ponytail aside as he pressed his fingertips under her chin. She was still warm to the touch, but he didn’t feel a pulse.
His own heart racing, he tried a different spot.
He waited, holding his breath.
Another, and another. Steady. Gasping in relief, Chase carefully supported her head and turned her on to her back. Her face was cut in several places, red lines running down her cheek and chin.
He quickly unzipped her jacket. The sword hilt weighed down one side as he opened it, but he ignored the hunk of metal as he hunted for signs of other injuries. No blood, no spikes of broken bones as he ran his hands over her chest—
‘There’s . . . a time and a place for that, Eddie,’ she whispered.
Chase realised both his hands were on her breasts. Her eyes flickered open, and she managed a weak smile.
‘Hah!’ gasped Chase, the exhalation somewhere between relief and annoyance. ‘Very fucking funny!’ He withdrew his hands. ‘Are you hurt anywhere?’
‘I’m hurt
An arm waved from the open tailgate in reply. Mitchell wormed his way between the seats of the overturned SUV into the cargo space. ‘I’m fine,’ he called. ‘The sword! Have you still got the sword?’
Nina pawed at her open jacket. ‘Shit, it was right—’
‘It’s here,’ Chase told her, holding it up. ‘We’ve got it, don’t worry.’
Mitchell crawled from the Suburban. He looked at the nearby cliff edge, and the swathe of snow the truck had scraped from it. ‘Jesus! That was close.’
‘We’re not done yet,’ said Chase, as he looked back up the mountainside and saw reflected sunlight flash from one of the Russians’ SUVs as it rounded the first hairpin. ‘Got to keep moving.’
Nina eyed the snowmobile. ‘You’re not thinking . . .’
‘ ’Fraid I am, love.’ Chase pointed down the valley: the sheer cliff gradually shallowed, becoming a steep but traversable slope down to the valley floor - and the road leading through it. ‘We can get down that way, and we’ll do it a lot faster than those Russian twats. Did you call the police?’
‘I lost the phone,’ Nina admitted.
Chase looked back at the path of their wild ride down the mountain. ‘Suppose I can let you off, considering.’ Unzipping a pocket, he took out his own phone and gave it to her. ‘Call the cops. As long as we can stay ahead of those arseholes until they arrive, we’ll be okay.’
Mitchell joined them as Chase lifted Nina to her feet. ‘Three people on a snowmobile? We should split up. You two go on ahead - I’ll take the sword into those trees over here and call the embassy, get them to send a chopper.’
‘Do a lot of alpine survival training in the navy, did you?’ Chase asked. Mitchell looked irked.
‘We should stick together,’ Nina insisted as she dialled the Austrian emergency number. On getting through, she explained the situation as best she could in fractured German while Chase checked the snowmobile for damage. ‘Okay, the cops are on the way,’ she said, finishing the call. ‘They don’t know how long it’ll take to get here, though.’
Chase climbed aboard the snowmobile. ‘Call Mitzi, the number’s in the memory. If she picks us up we can drive back and meet ’em halfway. Okay, let’s go.’ He revved the engine. Nina clambered on behind him, Mitchell sandwiching her. ‘Hold tight!’
He set off in a spray of snow, pointing the snowmobile’s nose uphill at an angle for maximum traction on the treacherous surface. Nina glanced nervously up the mountainside. The Russian SUVs were still descending, but Chase was right: the snowmobile would reach the road below long before they could negotiate the winding route.
Mitzi answered the phone. ‘Hello?’
‘Mitzi, it’s Nina! Sorry, this is an emergency - we’re coming back from the castle and we need you to pick us up.’
The young Swiss woman’s voice filled with concern. ‘Are you okay? What’s happening? Is Eddie okay?’
‘Mitzi, sorry, there’s no time to explain right now - please, just meet us on the main road as quick as you can!’
‘I’ll be there in five minutes, less!’
‘Okay, thanks. See you soon.’ Nina rang off. ‘She’s on her way,’ she told Chase.
‘Great! Told you she was a top lass, didn’t I?’
It took them only a few minutes to reach the valley floor through the thickening stands of snow-laden evergreens. Nina looked uphill again as they crossed the road to the castle. The Russians were well behind.
‘There’s Mitzi!’ Chase cried. Ahead on the main road was her red SUV, flashing its headlights as it approached. He skidded to a stop beside the churned line of snow thrown up by the ploughs. ‘Everybody off !’
The Cayenne halted a short distance away. Mitzi jumped out. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Tell you on the way,’ said Chase as Mitchell and Nina hopped off the snowmobile. ‘The police are coming. We need to meet ’em, fast!’
Mitzi saw the cuts on Nina’s face. ‘You’re hurt!’
‘I’ll live,’ she replied as Mitchell opened the rear door for her.
Chase jumped over the snow bank and ran to the SUV’s passenger side. ‘Come on, Mitzi, let’s go!’
‘Okay, okay!’ She turned to climb back into the Porsche.
Nina was about to slide across the seat to let Mitchell in when she realised he wasn’t following her, instead looking back up the mountain. She followed his gaze. One of the Russian SUVs had stopped, a figure with hair of unnatural red standing beside it.
A flash of pure green light . . .
There was a flat, wet thump. Something drummed against the Cayenne’s windscreen like thick rain.
But it wasn’t water.
Mitzi fell against her open door, slamming it shut as she dropped to the ground. On the other side of the Porsche, Chase was frozen, staring in shock at the empty space where a second before there had been a beautiful young woman, then an explosive cloud of grey and red—
The crack of Dominika’s sniper rifle reached them, trailing behind the supersonic bullet.
Nina screamed and scrambled out of the back seat in terror and revulsion at the spray of blood and brain and bone and hair across the windscreen. She stumbled away from the Porsche, collapsing to her knees and spewing acid vomit into the snow.
Chase broke free of his paralysis, training and experience automatically kicking in as he dropped behind the cover of the Cayenne to avoid the next shot.
It didn’t come. Instead, the distant flame-haired figure leapt back into her SUV, which roared down the road after its twin.
The Russians were still coming after them. Chase knew he should take the wheel of the Cayenne and get Nina and Mitchell to safety, but instead he ran round the Porsche to Mitzi. Mitchell was crouching as if to lift her up—
‘
