worsening, the wind-driven snow getting thicker as the landscape dropped deeper into shadow. ‘Okay, get ready.’
The team quickly began to don their skis as Eddie took back the thermal imager and checked the guards’ locations again. According to Glas, with whom he had spoken via Penrose before leaving New York, the Group maintained its own private security force; the men protecting the hotel were professional mercenaries. Even in law-abiding Switzerland, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill an intruder, relying on the power and influence of their employers to cover it up. Moreover, Stikes was now in charge of them, and Eddie knew first-hand just how merciless the former officer and his subordinates could be.
To reach the hotel, he knew that his team would have to be just as ruthless. If they were caught, they would be killed. Their only chance of success — the only way to rescue both Nina and his father, and put an end to the Group’s plans — was to take out the mercenaries first.
He checked his weapon: a white-painted Heckler & Koch MP7 Personal Defence Weapon — an extremely compact sub-machine gun — equipped with suppressor and red-dot sight. The other men were similarly equipped, with a single exception. One man also carried a skeletal Steyr SSG 08 sniper rifle, with a thermal scope and a hefty silencer.
‘How good are you with that?’ Eddie asked its owner, a German named Amsel.
‘I have the Schutzenschnur in Gold,’ Amsel replied proudly.
‘Yeah, that’s pretty good.’ It was the German army’s marksmanship award; Glas seemed to have picked his men well. ‘Okay, you set up here, and I’ll spot.’
Amsel was comfortable enough in his skills to not even bother removing his skis as he lay at the crest of the ridge and prepared his rifle. Eddie scanned the slope with the thermal imager once more. The four men on the outer perimeter were still in position, all but one stationary in whatever shelter they could find. The fourth was traipsing across the base of the ski run, heading for the lift. The Englishman frowned. They only had one gun capable of hitting a target from this distance — if Amsel took out one guard and the other saw his comrade fall, he might raise the alarm before the German could take his second shot…
‘You’ve got to be fast,’ he said, watching intently as the glowing figure closed the gap to his companion. The two guards were only fifty metres apart, easily able to see each other even through the snow. ‘The guy walking across — get him first, then the one by the ski lift. Quick!’
Amsel nodded, adjusting his grip on the Steyr as he brought his eye to the scope and hunted for his first target. ‘Come on, come on…’ Eddie muttered. The guard was still closing on the man by the lift — who had turned to watch his approach, raising a hand in nonchalant greeting. Any closer, and it would be instantly obvious that the walker had been shot—
A deep, flat
The man suddenly staggered, what looked like a white halo flaring around his head — a spray of hot blood. Eddie immediately panned across to the ski lift. The man there was reacting with surprise, a puff of warm breath leaving his mouth as he called out to his companion. He had seen him fall, but through the blowing snow didn’t yet know why.
He would soon realise that this was more than a simple stumble, though. Eddie heard Amsel shift position as he found his next target, but kept his electronically enhanced gaze fixed on the ski lift. The man called out again, the glow of his breath brighter, more forceful.
The rifle thumped a second time. Eddie kept watching, tension rising. The guard fumbled for something on his chest.
A radio.
He raised it to his mouth—
Another halo. The guard slumped into the snow, a hot white pool slowly forming round his head.
‘Good shot,’ said Eddie. But he had no time to offer more than cursory praise, already moving his sight back across the slope to find the remaining sentries. ‘Next one’s by the little clump of trees off to the right, then the last one’s near that hut with the sign on top.’
Amsel confirmed that he had spotted them. Two more silenced shots, and the perimeter was clear. Eddie stood and put on his own skis. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘let’s piste off.’
The nine men began their rapid descent towards the hotel.
Warden brought Nina to a set of wooden doors. A sign beside them read
He pushed open the doors theatrically and stepped through. Nina followed him into what was surely the Blauspeer’s centre-piece, a huge Gothic room with a high vaulted ceiling criss-crossed by thick beams of dark timber, tall windows looking out over the valley. The view was currently obscured by snow, but Nina’s eyes were on the room’s occupants rather than the scenery outside.
Bright spotlights on the lowest beams shone down to illuminate a large circular table at the room’s centre. Around it sat fourteen people, twelve of them men, all at least middle-aged and the oldest well into his eighties.
The Group. The secretive organisation pulling the strings of governments all over the world. A meeting of nearly unimaginable power and wealth… yet unknown to almost everybody whose lives it affected.
There were two unoccupied seats. Warden went to one, gesturing at the other beside it. ‘We’d be honoured if you’d join us for dinner, Dr Wilde,’ he said. ‘Please, sit down.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, taking in the calculating gazes regarding her as she sat and put the case on the table. There were no place settings, but she saw several large cloth-draped catering trolleys near an open dumbwaiter; presumably the Group’s members had business to discuss before they ate.
She was not just involved in that business. She
Nina tried to will away the knot in her stomach as Warden took his seat and made introductions. The oldest, Rudolf Meerkrieger, German media magnate controlling newspapers and broadcasting stations in over thirty countries. Anisim Gorchakov, the oligarch with his hand on the taps of the vast Russian natural gas reserves that fed the homes and industries of Europe and beyond. Sheik Fawwaz al-Faisal, head of a Middle Eastern consortium that decided the region’s supply — and hence the price — of oil on a daily basis. The rotund Bull brothers, Frederick and William, American identical twins distinguishable only by the colours of their ties who had made their colossal joint fortune in hedge funds by speculating on commodities like fuel and food, driving up prices and cashing in on shortages. Victoria Brannigan, Australian heiress to a mining and refining empire that produced the raw materials on which the world’s manufacturers depended, and the Dutch Caspar Van der Zee, in charge of the shipping fleet that carried those materials to where they were needed and the finished products made from them back to consumers.
And the others, different but the same, the invisible hand controlling the market revealed in plain sight. The men and women whose word could appoint or topple leaders, turn famine into glut and back again, all in service of their hunger for profit — and urge to control.
‘So, I finally get to meet you all,’ said Nina once the round of greetings was concluded. ‘Well, not all. Mr Takashi couldn’t make it, obviously.’
‘No, unfortunately,’ said Warden. ‘A shame — he was the one who convinced us of the potential value of earth energy. If it can be harnessed, of course — but with your help, that will now be possible.’ He indicated the case. ‘One of the reasons we chose this hotel for our meeting is that this mountain is a natural earth energy confluence point. When you put the statues together, it should produce the same effect as it did in Tokyo, and allow you to pinpoint the location of the meteorite.’
Nina saw that not a single member of the Group showed any regret over Takashi’s death. To them, it was a mere inconvenience — nothing to become emotional about. ‘Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ she said dismissively.
